The music of 1969 was nothing but exceptional, there had been nothing like it before or since.  The bands were numerous, songs abounded. There were the new age songs,  like "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In" and "In the Year 2525". Country rock, "One", "Green River"  and "Easy to Be Hard" by the Three Dog Night, who would later become the first concert I would go to.  

I want it long, straight, curly, fuzzy
Snaggy, shaggy, ratsy, matsy
Oily, greasy, fleecy
Shining, gleaming, streaming
Flaxen, waxen
Knotted, polka-dotted
Twisted, beaded, braided
Powdered, flowered, and confettied
Bangled, tangled, spangled, and spaghettied  

Hair (hair, hair, hair, hair, hair)
Grow it, show it
Long as I can grow it
My hair (hair, hair, hair, hair, hair)

I liked "Time of the Season" The Zombies, the third album I bought. There was "Love (Can Make You Happy)" by Mercy, yes it could if only Ginny would love me I thought when it played and "I'd Wait a Million Years" by The Grass Roots.  And the list went on, "Lay Lady Lay" by Bob Dylan, "Traces" by Classics IV, songs by The Turtles, Bob Seger to name a few. But my favorite and the first album I bought was “Abby Road” by the Beatles.  It spent weeks on my turntable after I bought it,  I knew the lyrics of each song by heart.

Then there was Woodstock, held in August 1969 outside the town of Woodstock, New York, which has since been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  They initially planned for 80,000 people when unexpectedly, over 400,000 hippies showed up for the concert in which more than 200 thousand tickets sold. It was the largest music festival held in history for many years, the music event of the century, with many popular musicians playing including Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. It was crazy, music, drugs, people running naked, skinny dipping and having sex in the open.  I didn’t attend and didn’t even hear about it until the following year, although interesting enough, a few years later, I dated a girl a couple of years older than me who had attended.

Updated: 10-31-2022

Leigh Hall