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From drug deaths to stardom, the destinies of the musicians who played Woodstock were shaped forever by the epoch-making festival of 1969. Two of its biggest names, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, overdosed barely a year later as little-known musicians shot to fame to become divas of pop.

But 40 years on, many are still playing and still stuck on the message behind the “summer of love.” More than any other number, Hendrix’s four-minute “Star-Spangled Banner” most vitally and musically encapsulates the mood of protest and opposition to the Vietnam War prevalent at the three-day orgy of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll. But after one last concert at the Isle of Wight, the guitar hero who fractured the US anthem into fragments was found dead at 27 in September 1970. Joplin’s gravelly voice switched off a month later. Their deaths, along with those of Brian Jones and Jim Morrison around the same time, closed a chapter in the rollicking drugs free-for-all of the ’60s made legendary by Woodstock.

For others, the festival — especially the movie and album that etched it into history — served as a launchpad to fame. A case in question was the former Sheffield plumber who wowed the half a million on hand with his groundbreaking rearrangement of the Beatles’ number “With a Little Help From My Friends.” Joe Cocker’s gritty voice and compelling body moves made him a star. Shooed off stage for a period thanks to drugs and alcohol abuse, Cocker miraculously resurfaced in the 1980s with hits such as “You Can Leave Your Hat On” and “Unchain My Heart,” and is still performing.

Not so lucky was Sly Stone, whose groundbreaking multiracial Sly and the Family Stone band is cited by the likes of George Clinton, Prince and Earth, Wind and Fire, as a pivotal influence in funk and soul. Miles Davis rated them on par with Hendrix. Though the band recorded five Top 10 hits, his worsening cocaine habit and internal disputes undermined the band’s reliability. Repeatedly arrested, jailed and sent into rehab, Sly Stone never resurfaced. Canned Heat, whose “Going Up the Country” epitomized Woodstock’s “peace and love,” likewise soon saw tough times when Alan Wilson was found dead on sleeping pills in 1970. But through thick and thin it limped along, touring and recording into the 1990s .

Founders this year played “Woodstock Reunited” concerts. The Band, already prominent in 1969 after touring with Bob Dylan and recording with him at a house in Woodstock called “Big Pink,” lasted only a few years, famously retiring at a 1976 concert filmed by Martin Scorcese in the cult movie “The Last Waltz.” But members also got together sporadically and are still in the business.

Woodstock, on the other hand, launched Carlos Santana’s innovative fusion of jazz, rock and Latin rhythms, its biggest commercial triumph registered in 1999 with the sale of 25 million copies of “Supernatural.” Currently at his 38th album, released last October, Santana is mulling a change in seven years ... to become a church minister. After the death of The Who drummer Keith Moon, the group broke up in 1982, but occasionally reunited for concerts and tours.

Sole survivors Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend in 2006 recorded a new studio album titled “Endless Wire.”

Already known as the godfathers of psychedelic acid rock when Woodstock took place, Grateful Dead continued to enjoy a large following until the death of its musical leader Jerry Garcia in 1995. Jefferson Airplane, also a psychedelic rock pioneer, split up shortly after Woodstock but band members would reunite periodically either under the same name, or under one of the band’s offshoots: Jefferson Starship, Starship and KBC. Folk rock stars Crosby, Stills and Nash up until now headline festivals worldwide, releasing solo and group albums, with or without on-off Canadian partner Neil Young.

Of all the performers at Woodstock, Young probably proved the most versatile and forward-looking, moving from folk to country to garage rock and dabbling in electronic music. In the 1990s, Young’s dark lyrics and use of distortion were the inspiration behind a new generation of musicians that included Sonic Youth and Nirvana. He became known as the godfather of grunge. Like Young, whose songs as often as not touch on political and social issues, many former Woodstock performers remain activists at heart. Richie Havens, best remembered for his wrenching rendition of “Freedom” that opened the three-day fest, is involved in schooling children on the environment. Joan Baez sung for Solidarnosc, Cambodia, and more recently Iran.

As for Country Joe McDonald, who wrote the festival’s emblematic anti-war hymn, “And it’s one, two, three, what are we fighting for? Don’t ask me I don’t give a damn.”

“Next stop is Vietnam,” his work with war veterans recently inspired him to launch a project promoting Crimea War heroine, Florence Nightingale, the “Lady With the Lamp” revered as the founder of modern nursing.


AFP