This is half an hour. Wanted to be a baseball player, but i always loved music, and my mother always had beeny goodwin and the lombardos, one of the two guys that had the big bands. She was into big band music and my uncle loved listening to jazz so those were the influences i had. Was your mother a pianist . No. My mother founded the freedom rise, and if you get my group youll see the equality that will blow your mind about shirl kornfeld. Shes the star in my family, not me. Today you are the star. Well, im just a representative of a hope, of a dream. Capitol records was a new concept at the time and you took a pretty commanding position there. How did that happen . My good friend sold his stock in Martha Stewart and was change an of the board of emi records for 15 years. We met if you read my book youll see, we met by accident in a snack bar, and he had taken over the job working for donny kisher in, and if you were a writer, i had already had a record out when i was 16. I was signed when i was 16 and i had a record out and it died and nothing else happened and i ran into charles and if you read the book youll crack up and its hysterical how that all happened and next i go with the demo i made and i played with donny kishner, and sedaca, and brian wilson, jan berry, and great writers all around and there i was the screen gems. We were just on the screen gems at the time, and it was so simple. You wrote a song and you played it for Donny Kirshner and you got a budget to go into the sound. Well, not bell. In those days we went to smaller studios. Im trying to remember the names. I dont even remember, but we go into dick charles. Dick charles was the place to go to make demos and you get your three hours and you get your three songs in three hours that included the vocals and everything and i dont even know if it was the track at that point, but i think it was two track and we were cutting two track and what happened is jerry and, it was my housekeeper. And freddy scott was a handyman and he sang hey girl, you know . I did it with the shirelles thing and we got so good at making demos that a lot of us went into producing records. You know . Its up there you left capitol. Yes. I left capitol. Before capitol i had already run mercury, and i had already run roulette. So capitol was my third label and my biggest because i was the first Vice President of rock in the music Business History because thats the way the pr went out. Vice president of rock, and then rock was just coming in, and it was about 1965 or 6. It was just going out and i was hanging out with the moby grape, and i signed quicksilver and stuff like that and that was the start of rock, right . Im talking to you later about moby crate and the manager is a total lunatic. He used to drink his own urine. He did, and he had his daughter do it, too, and he believed that was a longer life. Anyway, that was a private story. Sorry, matt he lived near malibu, thats all i know. What was the Tipping Point that said, gee, im going to create this Company Called the woodstock music and Arts Festival . No. I was running capitol and i was very successful and i ran the east coast. I had no budgets. I mean, the president and the chairman of the board loved me. I probably signed first year where i had no limits and nobody could say no to what i wanted to do. I was in the studio with debbie harry at the time. I had axelrod was producing, lou rawls and they were producing Linda Ronstadt and things were happening and just one day and i had an open door for everybody and my secretary said that theres a kid out here with long hair who id never seen. So i did have bird summer who i produced three albums with, and i knew the guys and they were redo, and she says his name is michael line us. I said does he have an appointment . I said ask him if he can come back tomorrow. Hes from bensonhurst and hes from the neighborhood so i brought him in. His story i was sitting on my desk smoking hash, and that was so bizarre and i hadnt gotten high and hes the one that got me into grass. John sebastian gave me a joint one time. That was the extent of my drug experimentation, and lang had lost his hat shop and the Police Closed him down in florida, so i wound up living i was already living in the tallest building in manhattan in the penthouse apartment and still in my jeans and still with my wife, and i had a new baby and life was wonderful, you know. Capitol paid for everything and it was even more wonderful, you know . So this guy michael came in and we became friends instantly like that, and he didnt have money so i supported him for like a year and a half and one day we were shooting pool, and we were playing bumper pool, and i was on the 40th floor, and i looked out that was the highest residential building at that time and you could look out over the whole city and michael said, you know, youre tainted. You dont go to concerts anymore. I said michael, ive been doing this since 1956, you know . Ive seen so many concerts, ive played in so many clubs and seen so many concert, you know . Im in the studio all of the time and i write and you dont do that stuff and your way of getting connected to music is to go see it and mine is to make it. I said what if we took a broadway theater and had and just made it free until we use my money because you dont have any and when we run out of money well just close it down, but well try to get the biggest acts we can and well make it free. He said, well, i started to work on a thing in miami called miami pop, but what happened is it raped and it folded, you know . And it was called a festival. So that snuck my mind, festival. And linda, my late wife, arrest in peace, she said why dont you guys take it outside. And then i actually saw the field. I said well, if we took it outside, michael. Supposedly i had hendrix and joplin and all these people. How many people do you think will come . He said 50,000. My wife said there will be more than 300,000 and i swear to god and i looked out that terrace and i actually saw the field and when i was interviewed, i was looking at the field. I was looking at a dream that came true. I had seen it a year before because we talked about it for four or five months and we met john and joel. They wrote in the book, artie did all of the talking and i talked him into the 250 grand and that was the start, you know . Location, location, location. We were always going to call it woodstock only because our friends were there, and i had the band at capitol and they were there. Albert grossman was one of my best friends and richey was living there and everyone was in woodstock or Coconut Grove florida or sausalito in california, and thats just the way it was, you know . Michael did a stupid thing and he went out and build a site with no permit from the town. So that wiped out the whole budget and so i ran the ad that brought in a million and a half dollars with tickets, and i didnt even think we were going to sell tickets. I was shocked, you know . And when it was all over we were a million four in debt. It cost 2. 4 million. The original budget was 250,000. Michael went 600 over budget. I went 60 over budget, but i had 2 Million People on the road still, you know. I promoted it and i didnt promote it very heavy. I planned it out. I knew how to promote records and id been writing songs for these people and they were buying my songs. I knew the audience. I knew them and i knew the program directors, and i got time that people couldnt get and i got disk jockeys talking about it, you know . So it was really it was like like bruce who lives here who lz wild promotions and he said woodstock was not your greatest promotion and Tracy Chapman was. Hes right. Woodstock was easy for me to promote and i knew exactly what to do. It wasnt me. I was the messenger and i was not the creator and i used from whatever power i was in on. I just knew exactly what to do. . How did you end up with matts part . The real story is im sitting in my apartment and my cousin lenore lived on 52nd street and he had a neighbor. It was all lies. All lies, totally. I get a phone call from this guy and he says mr. Kornfeld, i live next door to your cousin lenore and my uncle has a cattle farm up in bethel, new york, and hes going to lose it. He needs 60,000 desperately. So i said, well, let me have his number and i called michael. I said, michael, theres a guy named max yasger. This is the true story and this is the honest truth and there are witnesses to the story and its even in my book. People who heard the conversation, and michael went and made the deal with matt. It was 60,000 originally and when i got out there i couldnt believe it. We got done closing the deal and we left from Warner Brothers to get out there and michael says to me, take the motorcycle. Were all over these farmers lands. There are 12 farms here and weve got 40,000 people on the land, and i said, well, why didnt you get releases . You have to do that. I said, michael. I dont even ride motorcycles. Second of all, you should have taken care of this. Thats your part of the trip, you know . Im on the other side of the fence. Im in new york getting people there. So i went from door to door. I drove the motorcycle, and i went with a pad and i had the right to sign and if you were vito and you had your whole life invested in this farm and all of a sudden everything was getting trampled and if you wrote i want 60,000 to be paid within 120 days, and i did that to about 16 farmers. I went to every farm and called them all out. Some were very nice and i had coffee and a piece of my and some of them came to the door with shotguns. Yeah. That was my greeting to woodstock after i got totally wasted with jerry hart and mickey garcia. I noticed that one of the things you were able to get the acts and you paid them 12,000. Thats all bullshit. Thats not true at all. No. There was no set priss on anybody. The first act to sign was sly stone, and really, david kaepernick, his manager was a friend of mine so people can say how sly got in and this and that, and i knew him for ten, 15 years before woodstock. He was in the music business and so was i. No, was there no set price on anybody. I dont know. Thats a fable. Did you have the bands that were selected there. Did you have your a list and b list . No. No, what happened. What was really good is michael got in touch with bill graham which was smart and bill graham brought his whole crowd, the whole San Francisco group. In reality only well, sweetwater and nancy nevins the singer, they were the only band to get a major deal and that never really happened and that brought in santana. That brought in the dead. That brought in sweet water who am i forgetting . The starship or the airplane at the time, and so that was that group, you know, and i was talking to different managers that i know and different producers so i knew felix and doug prager, and i put in bird summer because i produced them and melanie was a friend of mine and i got her a could have deal and i put her into woodstock and michael, we both had a friend named hector morales. When i was a singer and had the pied piper out and he was never mentioned by mike or anybody, and he got most of the acts because he was a William Morris agent. He was living in puerto rico and i dont know what he was doing for a living. He was in puerto rico, but he had a lot to do and i mentioned him in my book and no one ever mentioned him and steve cohn who was the stage manager at woodstock. Steve cohn was mentioned in my book. The pressure on him was so intense that he flipped out and i had to sit with him for four hours and took him down. He lost it. The pressure got to him. He couldnt take it because when the rain hit michaels stage wouldnt turn anymore. So to change the act because if you took too much time with that many people, a big chance for a riot. You couldnt have people sitting there for 45 minutes in between acts. So how this when i watched this guy work i was mesmerizid and wanted to kiss every single one of these every single one of these guys working and i wanted to lift it myself because i saw what they were going through because without the turn table and they were doing changes for 20 minutes for bigname acts and that was amazing. That was really amazing, you know . Its not true that jimi hendrix wanted to close the show because he was the headliner because if you listen, go into the archives of the artie kornfeld, and you had the percussionist with the band the gypsies and hell tell you the whole story of jimi hendrix. Jimi said to me when he came up to the stage, jimi and buddy miles were friends of mine years before woodstock. Jimi said if i could have played at 9 00 when i was supposed to i was so tired and worn out it was only average, and it was. It was only average and thats what jimi felt and thats what i felt. Were there bands that you just couldnt entice . No. No. No. I i dont know what michael was doing. I was really busy, you know, doing the word of mouth. I was meeting with the black panthers and the weathermen and sds, hitting every group that could cause trouble and making deals with them. Well give you medical assistance and Legal Assistance if youre busted and well give you food if you dont have any. Those were the deals you made with all those groups . They accepted it. When they showed up there was no problem. There was a fear factor, but you dont read that much about the fact that all those groups are going to possibly take advantage of that situation. You dont read about it because i didnt have a pr person, and i didnt push that out there, but its in my book. Yeah. Such a fascinating concept. I knew what i had to do, you know . Like michael said to me on the phone last week. I said michael you went 600 over. He said artie, you know i never did one. You know i dont know what i was doing. If you think about the concert, was there no opportunity for a lot of soundchecks. No, but to tell you the truth, when the rain hit, michaels crew came through. I mean, michael did pull his weight. It took the two of us and my wife to come up with the idea and it did take michaels staff buzz he went and bought the best he could get. So, you know, chip mufrpg was doing lights and he was the best in the world. Henley was doing sound. He was the best in the world. Steve cohn was an incredible stage manager. John morris was a pro, you know . Everybody was top drawer, you know . So he covered himself and and i was proud that it held. When the rain hit it was so terrible and it was such a threat and thats when the miracle happened. When the rain hit thats when the miracle happened and we had the threat of being in jail or committing manslaughter if someone died and everybody on the field just was so up about it and then my friend barry the fish who was a lawyer he never lost a case and he was a public defender in yolo county while he was in country. And hes a very great lawyer. So barry the fish started chanting no more rain. No more rain and the rain did stop, and i even did the mudslide because did you do that . Yeah, i did. I wanted to see what they were doing and i wanted to enjoy it. I walked up on the field. I didnt walk to the very top. I walked up to the smoke shop and that was one of my best friends from college that i played basketball with. Oh, yeah . Yeah. The movie which was iconic. You were instrumental in making that happen. According to the president of Warner Brothers i was the only reason it happened and honestly, thats true and im not being egotistical. Its just a fact. If i didnt produce. What happened was when i was at americary, freddy winetravel on the bitter end came to leon bib from canada, and i spent 80 grand and i produced his act. When i was getting ready to go to woodstock three or four days before i went to variety, he becomes Vice President of films for Warner Brothers. So i called freddy and he says, artie, i picked up and youre not going talk about the crazy thing youre doing upstate. I said yes, i am, freddie and you owe it to me and thats why i went over and we sat for 35 hours and he even wrote about it in his book. His book is out. Freddy weintraubs book. As a matter of fact, in my book there is a letter from Freddy Weintraub stating how the movie woodstock happened. It was after 35 hours it was over. Ted actually came in and fortunately ted ashley was my agent when i was producing the castles. So i had ted and freddy and they both owed me, and after 35 hours they said lets forget it. Movies were almost bankrupt at Warner Brothers. Moves are not doing anything and documentaries are doing nothing, and then i said out of nowhere, after 30 hours, i said what if its a disaster, and the 100,000 kids die . This thing will be the biggest movie in history. They started laughing like crazy and freddy turned to me and said what do you think . Lets get a couple of secretaries down and we sat there for another ten hours and we wrote a handwritten contract and i signed it. I called michael who flew while he was up there with no film with 18,000 photographers and no film. He flew to the top and i gave him a check for 100,000 and he went to his places in new york, bought the film and flew back up and started shooting the woodstock movie and thats how it happened exactly. How many cameras were there . I think he had about six cameras going. Really . Yeah. Just the mere factor of the film. Michael and i did michael was involved in that part. We saw the mazely stuff. We saw barbara koppels stuff and we saw the documentarians stuff and the concept fascinated us and we saw some of his work that he was working on and that was it. It took a while for it to actually come out. Did it get caught up in just editing . First was the battle. You know, they had to get through the battle. I really cant say anything because there are legalities involved, but michael and i got screwed very bad, you know. If i would add more money we would have won the case. Thigh knew i made the deal and i would assist. My deal was 50 of the gross minus negative and they said artie, we wont have to advertise because you advertised the festival so much we wont have to spend a dime on advertising and it was 50 50 on Warner Brothers. John and joel were rich kids. All they wanted was to look good to their fathers friends and get back the million before they were in debt. So we raised a Million Dollars with Albert Grossman who was a good friend of mine, and the night we came to sign we were going to sell to them for three months the movie and we had 90 days to get the other 400,000 we needed and we didnt know, when i went to warners, they said we had to keep out of it and say neutral purpose we were negotiating in bad faith with joel and johns family. John roberts went to college with the board, and they were negotiating the whole time because all they wanted was the million four back and thats what happened. Theetd or who broke the New York Times strike and the litigator, here was michael and after my lawyer, i realized it wasnt heavy enough. We went to ted keel and we said weve got him, but it will cost another 50. Im doing this pro bono, but it will take another 50,000 because ive got to get investigators to investigate this because i have the proof now that they lied to you, that they cheated you and it will revert back to you own 50 of the music, and i didnt have the 50 grand. I said to michael. Inneh of us hitting the papers and ruining the name of the concert, lets just take the 75 grand and whatever weave got and lets just walk. And thats what i did, you know . I walked from that and i walked right into the eye of the tiger and rocking in the free world. Is it hard to watch the movie today . Hard to watch the movie . Hayeah. Ive only watched it three times in 45 years. Is it hard to watch it . I think michael watleys directors cut is much bet e the 40th directors cut, you know . And its no. Its like my baby. Its like watching my child grow up. Its easy to watch it. Ive seen it on tv. Ive had a copy and ive only played it twice. I gave i have 50 i have 75 platinum albums and gave them to charity to be auctioned off and i have nothing on my wall. I did see the woodstock sold for 9,500 on ebay about five months ago, and i gave it to the foundation which is a muse beic Business Foundation to help kids that are born to crack mothers and stuff like that. We raised about 200 million a year and its that big. Hughey lewis. I ran the Golf Tournament and we made about 6 million on the weekend and i was on the board. I gave a lot of my income to that sxhcharity. Yeah. I wrote the pied piper almost predicts woodstock and follow me on the mied piper and ill show you where its at. And what it happened and its all around you and i was talking to the generation. And to fall in line. And its that. 45 years ago and the folks are there today, and, and and i said i would have to have the feeling of woodstock and my internet show which is the show in the world and 18 million hits and 150,000 and 200,000 and everything in the archives has over 300,000 hits, and i made that interview 2. 4, and it was a million, and michael talking. So im seeing, im seeing and i said its going to take three to four to five generations and woodstock will hang around. When i went to italy, and it was a documentary festival and they flew us over and it was first class, and these kids were so into woodstock and when i went to korea, these kids were so into woodstock and i spoke to 12 colleges in 15 days in korea and all those kids, and i went to one college in seoul and the kid comes back with the rolex watch and he said i love you i want to give you a gift i want to give you a gift and hes waving a rolex watch and its heavy and im wearing my 19yearold Swiss Army Watch that i wear and now im wearing my target 12 watch, you know, because im not really into that kind of stuff. So he comes running down and he was tall and its unusual for korean, but it was really touched him and i said no, i dont need your watch, brother. I just love you and he went walking back and he was so excited that and out of nowhere this guy comes running up and i thought he was going stab me. He was waving this watch. And it was there at 10 00 at night to 11 00 and try to come down in two hours because the shows are always good because i know what to ask, you know . And i have great acts on. I am just so thrilled. Whats the legacy of woodstock . The legacy of woodstock . The legacy of woodstock is that is that in 500 years when they forgot about the beatles, if there are still People Living theyll remember the greatest peaceful event and the latest of the time ma