Woodstock '69

When he was 16-years old, future VH1 Behind the Music subject Joel Rosenman '63 had no clue which college to go to.

"I knew nothing about colleges; I didn't go to visit them," he said, admitting the sole reason he chose Princeton was that "the coolest kid in the senior class ahead of mine wanted to go."

With his landscaping venture — a lawnmowing business — then in full gear, Rosenman was not so sure he actually needed to go to college. But he came to Princeton anyway.

"The deciding factor was that I was 16, and the consensus by my family included that I didn't have a shred of judgment and should be persuaded to go to college," he explained, laughing.

So he left for the "shocking" experience of attending a single-sex school. In the 1960s, there were no female students at Princeton. "It just takes some getting use too," Rosenman confessed.

And after Princeton, Rosenman would return back to his early and ambitious entrepreneur days. He had something bigger to organize — Woodstock '69.

In 1968, Rosenman — who had just graduated from Yale Law School — and his business partner John Roberts, were in the process of building a recording studio in midtown Manhattan when things took a sudden twist.

"It was the first real big project that we had undertaken," he said. "We were trying to make it as leading-edge as possible."

Their project had generated much publicity and immediately caught the attention of Artie Kornfeld and Michael Lang, who were also thinking of building a recording studio in a small town in New York called Woodstock.

At the time, great artists like Bob Dylan, John Sebastian, The Band, Tim Hardin, Van Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin were moving to the area. Kornfeld and Lang had hoped that the unique and convenient location of the retreat recording studio, away from signs of city life, would attract these superstars.

"It was considered poisonous to the soul or some such notion to spend too much time in the city," Rosenman said. "The country was a good, the city was bad. The country was natural, the city was not."

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Because Rosenman and Roberts already were planning to build a recording studio, Kornfeld and Lang suggested that building one of a more modest scale in Woodstock might be more rational. Offering the prospect that Bob Dylan could be lured out of his house to the studio, Kornfeld and Lang approached Rosenman and Roberts and proposed their idea.

But they were not so easily convinced. "Roberts looked at this proposal, and we had the same thought here," Rosenman said, "We were pretty nervous [already about building our original recording studio]. It was a lot of money, and we had no idea how it was going to turn out.

"We didn't know it at the time. It could have been a disaster," he added.

Yet despite financial uncertainties, Rosenman was fascinated by the project. "I thought that this could be huge," he said, "I was not totally into rock and roll at the time, but I still knew who Bob Dylan was. I wasn't dead."

In response to Kornfeld and Lang's proposal, Rosenman and Roberts countered with an alternative plan of a concert featuring famous musicians like Bob Dylan. For more than a week, negotiations went back and forth, with little progress in sight.

Kornfeld and Lang still strongly pushed for a recording studio but eventually conceded with the promise that the proceeds of the concert would be used to build a recording studio in the future.

Rosenman at-tributed their victory to financial influences. "We had the money, the access to capital," he pointed out.

But what started off initially as a business venture transformed into what Rosenman called a "psychedelic music ride" that refused to end for years.

Starting from scratch, the inexperienced group took eight months to plan and organize the event.

"In essence, we constructed a small city on bare land, in the middle of nowhere, in upstate New York," Rosenman said.

"It was a massive project that we never thought of that got bigger every day," Rosenman said. "Like building a house, renovating your kitchen or editing your thesis — like just as long as I change this paragraph, keep changing and redoing the whole section — I have this many artists, so why don't we just have a third day, why don't we just have another section. It just got bigger and bigger.

"It took on a life of its own," he noted.

With the stage nearly completed five months into the project, the group encountered complications.

Word of mouth promoting the musical festival swept across the nation — including the zoning board that had granted them their permits.

According to Rosenman, with the event rumored not to emphasize as much craft and classical music as the crew had previously suggested, and with rising estimates of more than 50,000 people attending, the zoning board became nervous. Though the group vehemently denied the rumors, calling the board's claims "preposterous," they could only helplessly watch as their permits were revoked — five weeks before opening day, August 15th.

"We had blown most of our money and most of our time, [and] already there were a great deal of Americans on the move to get there," Rosenman said.

Without a home, the group looked for a new site and found one a week later. In less than a month, they built an entire new site.

"It was a Herculean effort," Rosenman noted.

Their finances were drained, however, and they needed to charge an entrance fee. But they also had neither the time nor the money to build fences or ticket booths for the concert site.

The foreman of the construction crews told Rosenman that he had enough manpower, material and time to finish the stage or build ticket booths — but not both. In response, Rosenman asked for a night to sleep on it. But the decision would already be made for him.

The next morning, three days before the event was supposed to take place, Rosenman woke up in his trailer to find that "quietly and almost eerily," more than 50,000 people had materialized in the field in front of the half-finished stage.

"The prospect of having people stand up and leave — the 50,000 — struck me as a little bit absurd, just so you can readmit them. It didn't seem feasible," he said. "I didn't have a chance to do the right thing, it was done for me."

What was once labeled as the "Nightmare in the Catskills" by The New York Times to the "Miracle in Bethel," soon became the cultural and musical hub of the nation. Almost half a million flocked to Woodstock in the summer of 1969 to experience the historical four-day musical festival.

Though Bob Dylan never came out of his house, they managed to get a significant number of musicians, including the Grateful Dead, Hardin and Hendrix.

"We got a fair number of really substantial artists," Rosenman said, "Woodstock took care of the rest."

So what exactly personally inspired Rosenman to organize the event?

"Greed," he answered candidly. "It was a business venture."

He makes no mistake. It was money. Financial gain was Rosenman's key motivation for financially supporting Woodstock in the first place and little has changed over the years. He still seeks and takes advantage of business opportunities. Financial success remains his primary criteria.

Residing in New York City, as the CEO of JR Capital, he now looks at about three to four business projects a week and determines whether or not they have potential. If so, he finances them or finds companies or people who will finance them.

"I am still doing the same thing as in 1968," he said, "looking at business projects, trying to decide whether they make sense financially."

He acknowledged, however, the recent downturn has made it harder.

"These days it's a little difficult to generate enthusiasm among investors because many have been burned lately in the financial market," he said. "But there are some who still have spirit of adventure and a good project is a good project.

"[Woodstock] could be [one of my accomplishments I am most proud of.]," he added. "It was so incredibly instructive," he said, "It was a very deep project in terms of business value."