http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c37_a16219/News/National.html
by Curt Schleier
Special To The Jewish Week
07/01/2009
Artie Kornfeld's memories of that iconic August weekend 40 years ago
are, like the mud-soaked farm in Bethel, N.Y., a little murky. But he
remembers going out each night with crews to put up fences for a
modicum of crowd control only to have Abbie Hoffman and Merry
Prankster Paul Krassner follow shortly thereafter to take them down.
He remembers a lunatic holding a gun to his head demanding money, and
being saved by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's manager, who knocked
the guy down and grabbed the gun.
And before going down to Yasgur's farm, he remembers crisscrossing
the country visiting radio stations, talking up the event and
eventually generating over $1 million in advance ticket sales
(at $7 for one day; $21 for a three-day pass).
The remembrance of things past came back to Kornfeld, 66, recently at
the posh W Hotel in Times Square. Warner Brothers was hosting a party
to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Woodstock and, not
coincidentally, the release of new DVDs of the Academy Award-winning
documentary. Members of Santana, the Grateful Dead, Credence
Clearwater Revival and Sha Na Na were in attendance. But the star of
the day was Kornfeld, the man widely considered "The Father of
Woodstock," who is credited with helping to save the Yasgur farm site
from development.
Throughout the luncheon various participants hailed Kornfeld's role
in pulling off the Woodstock festival. Dressed in a brown T-shirt and
jeans, Kornfeld, with his flowing gray hair, still has the air of an
easy-going hippie, though the years have stooped his 6-foot-2-inch frame.
Kornfeld has been a performer, a composer, a producer and a recording
executive. Over the last 50 years he's worked with artists ranging
from Sheryl Crow and Bruce Springsteen to ZZ Top and Joe Cocker. But
introduce yourself as a reporter for The Jewish Week, and his
response is as shocking as Jimi Hendrix's version of "The
Star-Spangled Banner" at Woodstock:
"I'm Avraham ben Yisroel Kornfeld. I'm a Kohain born on the stroke of
the day of Rosh HaShanah."
Hear his story and that response is not surprising because he says
Jewish values have guided his career, and his faith, however vaguely
defined, may have saved his life from drug addiction. But you don't
find that out until later, in private conversation, after the
Woodstock story is told.
While history and aging memories have blurred the exact origins of
the festival a couple of versions made the rounds at the luncheon
it is generally agreed that Kornfeld, Michael Lang, the late John
Roberts and Joel Rosenman were there at the creation.
Also, there's little argument that there would not have been a
Woodstock if it weren't for Kornfeld. There were the cross-country
trips visiting radio stations. It was Kornfeld who got Fred
Weintraub, who later ran the legendary Village club The Bitter End,
involved. Weintraub was then a newly appointed executive with Warner.
Through 30 hours of often tense negotiation the two hammered out a
hand-written contract that exchanged a cash advance for the recording
and film rights. And it was Kornfeld who hired Michael Wadleigh, who
directed the film.
Despite it all, Kornfeld says he hasn't gotten rich off the Woodstock
name and all the work he did. "It wasn't about the money," he says.
(The New York Times reported that he along with Lang sold their
shares in Woodstock Ventures for $65,000). "I'm a cop's kid from
Brooklyn. [Woodstock] was just something that had to be said. It
toppled Nixon and helped end the war."
The political nature of the Woodstock event came up time and again at
the Warner Brothers luncheon. The consensus was that there were
pockets of a counterculture throughout the country, but without an
Internet and social networking sites, no one knew how large the
movement was until Woodstock, when over one million young people
from around the country flocked to Max Yasgur's dairy farm in upstate
Bethel, near Woodstock.
Ask for more anecdotes from the 1969 festival and Kornfeld wants to
move on but not necessarily to a 40th anniversary Woodstock that's
being hyped. "It's 99 percent not happening," he said about talk that
two of his former partners, Michael Lang and Joel Rosenman are
planning some sort of commemorative concert (Prospect Park in
Brooklyn has been mentioned as a possible site.)
Kornfeld wasn't a fan of the 1999 30th anniversary Woodstock concert.
It caused a rift between him and Lang. Kornfeld felt that that the
event was more about money than the spirit of Woodstock, of which he
is very protective.
"I felt betrayed," he said. "It wasn't about the music, about people
passing a sandwich and everyone taking a bite. ... It was such a
dichotomy from what Woodstock meant to me and the hundreds of
millions who were there and have seen the film. ... Michael and I had
an agreement that we wouldn't do anything about Woodstock unless we
did it together."
In contrast, he points to a couple of projects he's working on that
are more in the spirit of the original. In October, he says, he's
running a Summer of Love anniversary concert in Golden State Park in
San Francisco that has free admission and free food.
Further buttressing his sentiments about the power of music, he says
he has a letter of intent from the government of Morocco to arrange a
concert that will be performed simultaneously there, in Geneva and in Israel.
That spirit of peace resides with Kornfeld, as well. "I put aside the
reason I couldn't talk to Michael; I now consider him one of my
dearest friends." Still, Kornfeld doesn't believe it wise to announce
a 40th anniversary concert never likely to take place. "It makes you
look like you're AIG, like you're Bank of America."
While Kornfeld's involvement with Woodstock is the center of
attention on this day, it is, he claims, "only 5 percent of his
career." It is a career still going strong today, though a long way
from Woodstock in decidedly un-countercultural West Palm Beach, Fla.
That is where he hosts an online radio show, "Spirit of the Woodstock
Nation," that goes out over Artistfirst.com Wednesdays at 10 p.m.
Over the last four months, nearly eight million listeners have tuned
in to hear Kornfeld interview Woodstock artists such as Country Joe McDonald.
He's still asked to produce records. "I have offers all over the
place," he says. And why not? He certainly has the track record.
As a youngster he hung out at the Brill Building, the famous Broadway
home of such singer-songwriters as Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Neil
Sedaka and Carole King. At one time he was part of a rock band,
Changin' Times, that opened for a Sonny & Cher tour. He wrote songs
with Jan Berry of Jan & Dean and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys
(including "Dead Man's Curve") and with Steve Duboff ("Pied Piper," a
No. 1 hit for Crispian St. Peters). By the time he was 24, he'd
written over 75 songs that made the Cash Box charts, more than any
other BMI (Broadcast Music, Inc.) writer.
He was also (at age 21) the first vice president for rock and roll at
Capitol Records.
"I accomplished everything I set out to do by hard work and being an
honest person with a lot scruples." It is the last two attributes
in a business not known for either that fueled his success. He
attributes both to his Jewish upbringing.
Kornfeld was born in Brooklyn. He remembers as a young child getting
up mornings and going to temple with his Orthodox maternal
grandfather and stopping for a bagel on the way home. His mother was
active in the civil rights movement.
His father had to give up a full athletic scholarship to Syracuse
University to support his widowed mother and seven sisters. "He came
from Russian immigrants and worked three jobs a day almost his entire
life. He was the most honest, ethical man I ever met in my life."
While that same attitude helped propel his professional life, it did
not protect him from the vagaries of the real world. His wife of 17
years died of an aneurism; his daughter of a drug overdose. Kornfeld
himself succumbed to the temptations of cocaine.
After 15 years of addiction, "in 1983 I prayed to God one night
please help me," Kornfeld says. "I said a little prayer in Hebrew
and I woke up totally sober."
While that seems a stretch, and he doesn't provide any other
supporting details, Kornfeld insists it's true. A few months after
his recovery, he says he and a bunch of other former addicts in Los
Angeles jointly founded a 12-step program to help others kick the
cocaine habit. Today, Kornfeld says he is helping 300 mainly
inner-city kids through detox, lending them both financial and moral
support. It's all part of payback, part of the code of ethics he
learned from his grandfather and his parents.
"I am a Jew and that says everything about me." That, and a little
three-day festival on a patch of green in upstate New York that
changed America.
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