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Arts & Entertainment

No Need to Go to Woodstock to Write a Book

Pete Fornatale missed Woodstock, and that led to a book and program he will host at Morris Museum.

In July of 1969, Pete Fornatale was a young disc jockey working at WNEW-FM in New York when he read his first live commercial–promoting the Woodstock Music and Art Fair.

But that job at one of the all-time great rock stations did not lead to three days of peace, love and music for Fornatale. In fact, it meant quite the opposite.

“I was new to the station, so three weeks later, when the festival happened, I was going up with some of the other disc jockeys and my program director said, ‘You know, we’re going to need somebody back here to do fill-in work and news reports. You’re elected,’” Fornatale said. “And when you’re the new kid on the block you don’t have that much bargaining power, so I literally spent that weekend shuttling news reports back and forth from the WNEW-AM newsroom to the WNEW-FM studio.

“And as the story got bigger and more exciting, I said to myself, Anytime I sit down with someone who was there–backstage, onstage or in the audience–I was going to get them to tell their story.”

Those stories eventually became a book, “Back to the Garden: The Story of Woodstock” published in 2009 for the festival’s 40th anniversary. On Aug. 18, Fornatale will share stories and insights during a program he will host about Woodstock at the .

The program is tied to the museum’s “Jersey Rocks: A History of Rock & Roll in the Garden State” exhibit, which explores the music’s history in New Jersey. 

Fornatale worked at WNEW during its heyday of the 1970s and also hosted shows on WXRK and on XM Satellite Radio. He can be heard on Fordham’s WFUV, where he was a disc jockey as a college student. Through all of the changes in the radio industry, he has managed to host shows where he plays the music he wants to play, as opposed to playing what a computer says he should.

Fountain of Woodstock Knowledge

During an interview he casually mentions facts about the festival such as, Richie Havens wasn’t supposed to open the concert, he was scheduled to go on fifth. But Sweetwater, the band that was supposed to go on first, was stuck on the New York Thruway and couldn’t get to Max Yasgur’s farm in Bethel, N.Y., where the concert was held.

“There was a mad scramble for someone to do it and Richie got elected, and now he and that performance have become so symbolic of that event,” Fornatale said.

Other facts Fornatale casually brings up during the interview are that Havens improvised his legendary performance of “Freedom” and that the festival was supposed to end on Aug. 17 but continued into the morning of Aug. 18, ending with Jimi Hendrix playing between 8 and 10 a.m. Fornatale’s talk at the Museum will take place on the 42nd  anniversary of the festival’s last day.

Woodstock took place Aug. 15-18, 1969. A few weeks earlier, between Aug. 1 and 3, the Atlantic City Pop Festival included many acts who would appear at Woodstock, including Santana, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Joe Cocker and Janis Joplin. That concert, he said, drew about 75,000 people, which is what Woodstock’s organizers expected for their concert. Instead, an estimated 450,000 to 500,000 people showed up.

“The book and the show try to explore the reasons why it just was bigger than anyone’s expectations,” Fornatale said. “And of course, preserved in the movie, which won an Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1970, those performances in the film have become stenciled on our consciousness, whether it’s Alvin Lee and Ten Years After or Santana doing “Soul Sacrifice” or Richie Havens with “Freedom,” which he made up on the stage at the show. I think that’s what made Woodstock Nation an international reality.”

Fornatale said the book was the idea of his son, Peter Thomas Fornatale, who works in publishing. They had previously worked on a book about Simon and Garfunkel’s Bookends album.

They had such a good time working together, Fornatale said, that son came to father with another book idea, about the 40th anniversary of Woodstock.

“I said, ‘Woodstock! I’ve got half the book done already,’” Fornatale said.

That was because of all those interviews he had done over the years, not only with performers, but with people who worked backstage or were in the audience. Work on the book involved preserving reel-to-reel tapes on which the interviews were recorded, transferring them to digital, transcribing interviews and putting them into book form. 

“And I thought once the 40th anniversary was over, that it would just fall off the table,” Fornatale said. “But what I’ve learned is that Woodstock at this point is such a cultural landmark, that it transcends anniversaries.” 

Expect Fornatale’s talk to feature stories that are funny, surprising and touching. One story he shares involved Henry Gross, a member of Sha Na Na, who later had a hit with the song “Shannon.”

Gross had known Hendrix back before Hendrix was famous. The two hung out before the concert, and then when Gross got into a limo to take him to the show, Jerry Garcia was the other passenger.

“So between Jimi’s Southern Comfort and Jerry’s, what should we call it, Jerry’s psychedelics, Henry was flying pretty high by the time he got to Woodstock,” Fornatale said. “But in the middle of the interview, he stops and he points at me and said, ‘Pete, they say that five tons of marijuana was consumed at Woodstock and not one reported case of glaucoma.’”

In addition to his own interviews, Fornatale used other sources to get stories from people who had died or who weren’t interested in talking about Woodstock anymore. His son came up with the idea of working with the Museum at Bethel Woods to gain access to interviews they had done with Woodstock participants Fornatale never got to talk with.

“So I really think we covered all of the angles,” Fornatale said, “and I have a very good feeling that going forward, anyone that cares to know about these magical three days in August of 1969 will somehow stumble upon this book.”

Pete Fornatale will host a discussion about Woodstock at the Morris Museum, located at 6 Normandy Heights Rd. in Morristown, on Aug. 18 at 6:30 p.m. Admission to the museum is $10, $7 for seniors and children. There is no additional charge to hear the program. For information, go to www.morrismuseum.org or call 973-971-3700.

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