Woodstock festival co-creator Michael Lang dies at 77

Michael Lang, a co-creator and promoter of the 1969 Woodstock music festival that served as a touchstone for generations of music fans, died Jan. 8 at a hospital in New York City. He was 77.

Michael Pagnotta, a family spokesman, said Mr. Lang had non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Along with partners Artie Kornfeld, John Roberts and Joel Rosenman, Mr. Lang put together the festival billed as “three days of peace and music” in the summer of 1969 as the Vietnam War raged and led increasing numbers of disaffected young Americans to turn away from traditional mores and embrace a lifestyle that celebrated freedom of expression.

Roughly 400,000 people descended on the hamlet of Bethel, N.Y., northwest of New York City, and endured miles-long traffic jams, torrential rains, food shortages and overwhelmed sanitary facilities. More than 30 acts performed on the concert’s main stage at the base of a hill on land owned by farmer Max Yasgur, and concertgoers heard historic performances from artists including Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana, the Who and Jefferson Airplane.

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Mr. Lang, sporting a head of bushy brown hair, is seen throughout Michael Wadleigh’s 1970 documentary movie that chronicled the festival.

“From the beginning, I believed that if we did our job right and from the heart, prepared the ground and set the right tone, people would reveal their higher selves and create something amazing,” Mr. Lang wrote in a 2009 memoir, “The Road to Woodstock,” written with Holly George-Warren.

Mr. Lang and others sought to mount a concert in 2019 commemorating the 50th anniversary of the original Woodstock, but the endeavor ultimately was scrapped because of financial issues and difficulty securing a venue. In an interview with the Associated Press at the time, Mr. Lang called the experience “a really bizarre trip” and said he still hoped to hold the concert in the future.

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Although Woodstock often is viewed as creating the template for large-scale music festivals, it wasn’t the first to take place in the United States. Two years earlier, the Monterey Pop Festival drew about 200,000 people to California, and the Miami Pop Festival, which Mr. Lang also organized, followed in 1968. But Woodstock nonetheless holds an indelible place in history.

“A lot of them are modeled after Woodstock — Bonnaroo and Coachella, in particular,” Mr. Lang said of other festivals in a 2009 interview. “There was a ritual that was created that keeps getting replicated.”

A complete list of survivors was not immediately available.

— Associated Press

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