Even by today’s standards, when the biggest bands in the world routinely share billing at festivals like Bonaroo and Coachella, the original Woodstock lineup was impressive. Granting the three-day roster “all killer, no filler” status, though, would be going too far. After all, Sha Na Na did perform just prior to Jimi Hendrix on Day Three. Still, any bill boasting the likes of Santana, the Who, Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, Joe Cocker, Jefferson Airplane, and Sly & the Family Stone.

For many artists, the single performance at Woodstock launched a tenure that saw them rise to even loftier heights over the ensuing decades. For others, Woodstock represented a career high that would never be duplicated. A few bands recall the festival as a less-than-memorable gig, another one-nighter during a summer’s worth of one-nighters.



Time and the power of myth have conspired to grant the festival the weight of a historical watershed. This is not necessarily a wholly bad thing. The music and the musicians themselves, however, have on occasion been overwhelmed by the historical aspects of Woodstock. Here we trace the trajectories of a few of the festival’s most significant performers.



Woodstock, despite the aspects of social, political and philosophical revolution that underpinned the whole affair, was a rock concert first and foremost. These performers helped to make it such a memorable one.



Artists who broke out based on their Woodstock performance:



Santana, Johnny Winter



Of the many artists for whom Woodstock became a bridge to broader fame, none benefited more from the gig on Yasgur’s farm than the young Carlos Santana and the band that bore his surname.



The band had been signed to Columbia Records and recorded its debut effort earlier during the summer of ’69, but by the time Santana got to Woodstock, no one outside of its native San Francisco had really heard of it. Fillmore West proprietor and concert promoter Bill Graham was involved in booking talent for the Woodstock festival, and at his insistence, the fledgling Santana was added to the bill.



In the time since, Carlos Santana has repeatedly insisted that he took mescaline, a hallucinogen, about an hour before the band took the stage. By the time the group was a few songs into its set, the 20-year-old Santana was ripped; footage of the band’s iconic performance featured in the “Woodstock” film shows him gritting his teeth, completely lost in the music, and clinging to his guitar for dear life, while vivid hallucinations spun behind his clenched eyelids.



Despite the variety of elements coursing through the band members’ bloodstreams that Saturday afternoon, Santana simply slayed the audience, its blend of blues, jazz, R&B and Latin sounds delighting the still-alert and receptive afternoon crowd. Within a month of the Woodstock performance, the band’s debut album would become a huge hit. Forty years later, Carlos Santana is as influential as ever.



It’s likely that, had Texas blues guitarist Johnny Winter’s performance been included in the “Woodstock” film and album, he too might’ve been catapulted toward the level of success enjoyed by Santana in its post-Woodstock form. As it turned out, disagreements between Winter’s management and the filmmakers resulted in Winter’s omission from the movie.



Still, Woodstock helped make Winter a star, and pushed his debut album toward the top of the charts.



Artists who didn’t live long enough to capitalize on their Woodstock performance:



Jimi Hendrix



Janis Joplin, above



Both Hendrix and Joplin offered riveting performances at Woodstock, and both certainly received a shot-in-the-arm, career-wise, from the experience. Sadly, neither would live long enough to truly bask in the glory due them. Hendrix would be dead within little more than a year of his Woodstock showing. Joplin died a mere four weeks after Hendrix.



Artists who thought Woodstock was a lousy gig:



The Grateful Dead



The Who



The Dead pretty much stunk at Woodstock, and were not included in the initial versions of the accompanying album and film. Though a lousy Dead show is still a good one by many standards, what should have been a shining hour for the band that most ably represented the ideals of the musical and philosophical subculture turned out to be a decidedly uninspired set.



The Who, on the other hand, turned their disgust over what guitarist Pete Towshend saw as the whole sordid, mud-drenched, self-congratulatory affair into a raw, visceral musical rage. The band may have been miserable, but it left blood on the stage. So much for peace and love.



Artists who never topped their Woodstock performance:



Ten Years After

Country Joe & the Fish



Led by guitarist Alvin Lee, Ten Years After tore it up during its day-three set, its hyper-fueled blues-rock hybrid standing in sharp contrast to much of the more laid-back, reflective music surrounding it. Equipment troubles plagued the set, but a 12-minute-plus, epic, set-closing take on “I’m Going Home” made Lee a guitar hero all but overnight.



A month later, when the band released its “Ssssh” album, Ten Years After had a U. S. smash on its hands. Sadly, Lee and Co. would never reach such heady airspace again. The band peaked at Woodstock, during the frenzied onslaught of “I’m Going Home.”



Similarly, the folk-based protest songs of Country Joe & the Fish seem in retrospect to be tailor-made for the Woodstock milieu, and didn’t carry much force outside of it. The band-led crowd sing-along at the heart of “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die Rag”—“One-two-three-what are we fightin’ for?” etc—became synonymous with Woodstock itself. This was Country Joe & Co.’s finest hour.



Artist who boycotted Woodstock:



Bob Dylan



Woodstock was initially conceived as a means of luring the then-reclusive Bob Dylan out of hiding. The Bard had been lying way low in Woodstock, N. Y., and was highly annoyed by the prospect of a huge festival in the small, quiet town where he’d hoped to hide from the world for as long as he felt like it. Eventually, the festival was relocated, but Dylan remained irked, and refused to participate.



Artist who probably should’ve boycotted Woodstock:



Sha Na Na



The ’50s revival act performed just prior to Jimi Hendrix, in matching gold lam outfits. And received the princely sum of $300 for its efforts.



Artists who stole the show:



Joe Cocker



Jimi Hendrix



Cocker and his amazing band played what many consider to be the defining set of the entire festival. Particularly memorable were the singer’s spasmodic body movements and Ray Charles-on-a-bender vocalisms during a version of the Beatles’ “With A Little Help From My Friends,” which closed the set.



Hendrix was no slouch either. His torrid instrumental take on “The Star-Spangled Banner” offered searing commentary on Vietnam-era America, and prefigured the fear and loathing that would dominate much of the cultural and political landscape of the ’70s.