The Artists Who Never Got to Woodstock

The California-based band famous for the album “Forever Changes” that had come out two years before Woodstock decided not to perform because of conflict within the group.

Folk rock’s troubadour was in talks to perform at the festival (he actually lived fairly close by), but his son became ill and he opted out. He also was a bit off-put by the number of people descending on the region for the concert. Dylan would headline the Isle of Wight festival in England several weeks later.

Chicago, famed for its brassy take on rock and roll, was called Chicago Transit Authority in the late 1960s. The group was scheduled to perform at Woodstock, but their concert promoter, Bill Graham, rescheduled them for a gig at the legendary Fillmore in San Francisco at the same time the outdoor concert. Santana, who also worked with Graham, took Chicago Transit Authority’s place at Woodstock.

One of rock’s greatest guitarists was a man without a band at the time of Woodstock, with the Yardbirds and Cream — two bands he helped embed into rock and roll folklore — disbanded. Clapton was busy in England working on his next superband with music wunderkind Steve Winwood, a project that would become the short-lived Blind Faith.

Music iconoclast Frank Zappa decided not to have his band, the Mothers of Invention, play at Woodstock because he thought the weather would turn the affair into a quagmire.

British blues/rock band Free, formed in 1968, landed a big hit with “All Right Now.” Free was invited to play at Woodstock, but band leader Paul Rodgers turned down the invitation. Rodgers would go on to form the power supergroup Bad Company that would find success in the early 1970s. Rodgers did play at Woodstock’s 25th anniversary concert in 1994.

Iron Butterfly is most famous for its 17-minute 1968 psychedelic/heavy metal hit “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.” The band was booked to perform at Woodstock but became stranded in New York. The band’s manager demanded that the promoters send helicopters to New York City and fly them to the concert site, have them perform on arrival, be paid on the spot, and fly them right back out. Woodstock’s promoters declined the request.

Guitar maestro Jeff Beck, who played with Eric Clapton in the Yardbirds several years earlier, was on the Woodstock bill with his band The Jeff Beck Group, but Beck broke up the group a week before the concert.

Ian Anderson, lead singer for the prog rockers, didn’t want to go to the muddy venue with “unwashed hippies.” It was something of a gamble for the English band, who had only formed two years prior and was not that well known in the United States. But the decision did not change their destiny of becoming one of the most influential progressive rock bands of the 1970s.

The Beatles playing at Woodstock was always something of a pipe dream. They had not performed publicly in three years by the time of the concert. The possibility of John Lennon performing at Woodstock had some momentum, but Lennon had immigration problems stemming from a conviction for possession of cannabis resin in 1968.

The folk singer was booked to play Woodstock, but her manager, future entertainment mogul David Geffen, deterred her from performing at the concert so that she would be fresh for her appearance on the Dick Cavett talk show. As if that wasn’t bad enough, also appearing on the Cavett program were Stephen Stills and David Crosby from the band Crosby Stills and Nash, and Jefferson Airplane, rock acts that had just performed at Woodstock. Mitchell ended up writing the hit song “Woodstock” based on the observations of her boyfriend Graham Nash.

Perhaps the greatest hard rock band to ever pierce the ears of a generation was in its infancy and in the middle of a very successful tour of the United States. Band manager Peter Grant decided the British band would be better off playing Convention Hall in Asbury Park, New Jersey, rather than be just another of the 32 acts at an outdoor concert in upstate New York.

The prog rockers were building a following, and their signature hit, “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” was getting some airplay on the radio and on college campuses and would eventually be played in movies such as “The Big Chill.” Procol Harum was invited to perform at Woodstock but begged off because they were tired from a long tour. Also, band member Robin Trower was awaiting the birth of one of his children.

Michael Lang, one of the concert promoters, hatched the idea of having Roy Rogers, famed singing cowboy of movies and television, close the concert with his signature song “Happy Trails.” Rogers’ manager didn’t think it was a great idea, and it never happened.

America’s premier folk duo was riding high from their success as the soundtrack to the coming-of-age counterculture classic “The Graduate” included “Mrs. Robinson,” which also reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. They passed on Woodstock, claiming they were too busy. There was also mounting tension between the two.

The twangy folk-rockers of “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Turn, Turn, Turn” fame were burned out from touring. They had played big outdoor venues already, including Monterey Pop two years earlier, and band members didn’t think Woodstock was going to be that big of a deal. They also heard there were concerns about how much bands were getting paid. Band members later said they regretted their decision not to appear at Woodstock.

Like a lot of stories about why certain groups didn’t appear at Woodstock, this one has various versions. Band member Ray Manzerek said in a web chat on the official Doors site that the band thought Woodstock would be a second-rate repeat of Monterey Pop. There is also the story that frontman Jim Morrison, the self-styled “Lizard King,” did not like outdoor concerts and was afraid of getting shot.

The British prog rockers were booked to play at Woodstock and were even on some of the original promotional material. However, they chose a gig in Paris instead. Lead singer Justin Hayward said on the online site onmilwaukee.com that the Moody Blues opted for Paris because they had built a strong base in Europe playing the large festivals there.

The Rolling Stones declined to appear at Woodstock because Mick Jagger was in Australia filming a biopic titled “Ned Kelly.” At the same time, guitarist Keith Richards’ girlfriend Anita Pallenburg had just given birth. The Stones would tour the United States later that year, an odyssey that would become a rock and roll legend, chronicled in the concert film “Gimme Shelter” that would end in tragedy at Altamont Motor Speedway in California.

Tommy James and the Shondells were a bubblegum/pop rock band that dabbled in psychedelic, trippy music with the hits “Crimson and Clover” and “Crystal Blue Persuasion,” both of which peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1969. They were in Hawaii when they got the invitation to perform at Woodstock by phone from their secretary who undersold the venue and they passed.