On the fortieth anniversary of Woodstock, renowned New York City disc jockey Pete Fornatale brings the iconic rock concert to vivid life through original interviews with musicians like Roger Daltrey, Joan Baez, and David Crosby plus, organizers, and fans.
Widely respected as rock historian, Fornatale helped define rock radio for the last forty years. Before he made his mark at WNEW and K-Rock, he got his start as a Fordham University student working at WFUV.
Back to the Garden celebrates the music and the spirit of Woodstock through the words of some of the era’s biggest musical stars, as well as those who participated in the festival. From Richie Havens’s legendary opening act to the Who’s violent performance, from the Grateful Dead’s jam to Jefferson Airplane’s wake-up call, culminating in Jimi Hendrix’s career-defining moment, Fornatale brings new stories to light and sets the record straight on some common myths and misperceptions.
“Woodstock has moved culturally from whatever the reality of it was to some kind of mythology about it. It’s far less important now, how many nails were used to build the stage or how much the individual acts were paid than it is the messages of peace, love and music that were etched in the hearts and souls of not only those who actually attended, but the people who vicariously attended it through the movie, albums and through all of the accounts four decades later,” Fornatale said.
On Friday, August 15, 1969, a crowd of 400,000 — an unprecedented and unexpected number at the time — gathered on Max Yasgur’s farm in upstate New York for a weekend of rock ‘n’ roll, the new form of American music that had emerged only a decade earlier. For America’s counterculture youth, Woodstock became a symbol of more than just sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll — it was about peace, love, and a new way of living. It was a seminal event that epitomized the ways that the culture, the country, and the core values of an entire generation were shifting. On one glorious weekend, this generation found its voice through one outlet: music.
Perhaps not coincidently, Fornatale had just started the big radio gig at WNEW in New York City, where the first live radio commercial he read was for an event called The Woodstock Music and Art Fair, a 3-day Aquarian exposition at White Lake in the town of Bethel. The cost for three days—A whopping $18.
Why has so much been written and spoken around a 3-day “music and art exposition?”
“I think what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality…so we actually feel the rapture of being alive. Apart from everything else that you can say about Woodstock, it made us and continues to make us, feel the rapture of being alive,” says Fornatale.
I “discovered” Fornatale through his program Mixed Bag Radio heard on Sirius XM. Developed in 1982, Mixed Bag defies definition. It’s an eclectic collection of music which - despite its diversity - centers on a weekly theme. Throughout the years, the program has helped launch the careers of singer-songwriters such as Suzanne Vega and has featured Fornatale’s trademark in-depth interviews with icons such as Paul Simon, Pete Seeger and Joni Mitchell.
So, who has he regretted not interviewing; living or deceased. “There’s three answers to that…. ‘Dylan, Dylan and Dylan.’ I do know him, that’s the odd thing about it. We have had several personal encounters and there’s always been the promise that, ‘One day we’ll do it.’ But he’s a hard man to pin down in any respect,” Fornatale laughs.
Fornatale is also the author of several books, including The Rock Music Source Book, Radio in the Television Age, The Story of Rock ‘n’ Roll, and All You Need Is Love. He was also the primary writer of The Elvis Collection, a 600-trading card series on the life of Elvis Presley, and has written numerous radio and television features, including the syndicated Rock Calendar, several episodes of MTV’s Rock Influences, and the international television series Deja View. He co-hosted the 1991 HBO telecast of Paul Simon Live in Central Park and has regularly served as expert guest commentator on PBS specials featuring Bob Dylan, John Fogerty, The Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Roy Orbison, Peter, Paul and Mary, Simon & Garfunkel, James Taylor and others
He is a board member of World Hunger Year, the organization co-founded by Harry Chapin, and served as co-anchor of the annual Hungerthon broadcasts for many years.
While doing research for the interview, I ran across the following review:
“I have turned down tickets to every Woodstock there’s been, for the same reason: rock ‘n’ roll and camping have nothing in common. If you’d like to make up your own mind, tune in to Back to the Garden, Pete Fornatale’s fine history of whatever hit ‘em up there (in addition to the brown acid or brown rice, whichever it was). From Richie Havens to the endless repercussions, this is the tale…and even a veteran anti-hippie like me has to recognize it as an indispensable document of rock history.”
– Dave Marsh
Through all of the humor, Marsh sums it up perfectly, “an indispensable document of rock history.”
No matter if you were there, or not.
Pete Fornatale, author "Back to the Garden" [32:18m]: 
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