View from Woodstock, 40 years on

Greg Dewey of Yellow Springs performed at Woodstock 40 years ago as the drummer of Country Joe and the Fish. He still plays music whenever he gets the chance.

When the 40th anniversary of Woodstock takes place Aug. 15–17, Greg Dewey will be one of the small group who remembers the historic event from the vantage point of being on stage, looking out over an ocean of fans.

Like all of the Woodstock musicians, Dewey of Yellow Springs got his first glimpse of the massive crowd when he was flown in by helicopter right before his performance.

“There was this audience that literally went over the horizon. It didn’t end,” Dewey said about the three-day festival that took place in a pasture in Woodstock, N. Y. “Flying in was incredible, to suddenly see that.”

While an estimated 400,000 people attended the event — about 10 times the number organizers planned, leading to shortages in food, medicine, port-o-potties and everything else — Dewey, a drummer, was one of only 130 musicians who performed. And at 21, having recently joined the San Francisco-based psychedelic band Country Joe and the Fish, he was almost certainly one of the youngest.

Dewey found himself suddenly catapulted onto a stage grander than he had ever imagined.

“It was such a momentous event in rock and roll history, “ he said. “It cast a huge shadow on everything else I did.”

Dewey can be seen performing on Woodstock, the famous documentary of the event. Originally scheduled to play in late afternoon on the third day of the festival, the band’s set was postponed due to a powerful storm.
“We were all set to play. Suddenly, the sky got black and it began pouring,” he said.

During the storm, which included high winds, thunder and lightning, the electrical towers beside the stage began swaying, Dewey said, spreading fear among the mass of young people near the stage, who had no shelter from the storm. Witnessing the crowd’s misery beneath the downpour, Dewey decided he had to do something. His drums were acoustic. In the rain, he sat down and played for the crowd.

“They wanted and needed someone to play for them,” Dewey said. “I’ve never wanted to play so badly for anyone in my life.”

While anyone who’s seen the documentary knows what it was like to be in the crowd, only a few knew what took place backstage. That was where Dewey spent most of the festival, in a Holiday Inn about 10 miles from the event. There, because the crowd was so big that no one could enter or leave the festival, the musicians holed up, leaving the motel only via helicopter when it was their turn to perform.

And when they weren’t playing, they hung out. Dewey found himself playing cards with the biggest rock stars of the day, including musicians from Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company and Jimi Hendrix’s band.

“We were stuck in that motel for days,” he said. “It was unusual for musicians because we had to deal with each other as people. I became friends with people I’d never have been friends with otherwise.”

Woodstock was a heady experience, and for a short time afterwards, Dewey’s dream of rock and roll stardom seemed to come true. With Country Joe and the Fish he toured Europe, and he found himself with more money than he ever imagined.

But that life ended a year later when Country Joe MacDonald decided to go solo. Dewey then made a life playing music in the Bay area.

“I was usually in five bands at once,” he said.

Dewey had arrived in San Francisco two years earlier, in 1967, during the “Summer of Love.” He came with his band, Mad River, which had formed at Antioch College. Influenced by jazz and Eastern music, the band was described as “psychedelic rock” and fit in well with the Bay music scene, which was exploding with groups such as Jefferson Airplane and Big Brother and the Holding Company. Mad River broke up in 1969, right before Dewey joined Country Joe.

Growing up in Yellow Springs right across the street from Antioch College, Dewey came by his affinity for music naturally. His father, George, loved music, especially jazz, and introduced Greg to musicians such as Miles Davis and Ravi Shankar, who performed on campus.

Greg took up drums in grade school, he said, having wanted to play either drums or trumpet, and finding out that the school band already had too many trumpets. His mom, Rae Dewey, who still lives in the Livermore Street family home, claims that Greg wanted to be a drummer since he was 5.

His parents always supported his profession, Dewey said.

“My parents raised me to believe that being an artist is a valid way of making a living,” he said.

The 1970s was an exciting time to be a rock and roll star in the Bay area, but within several years the musician’s life began taking a toll. Specifically, Dewey found himself spiraling downward into alcoholism. His Woodstock fame contributed to his downward turn, Dewey believes, since he could never top that momentous event so early in his life.

“It’s a struggle for anyone to have such huge success all of a sudden,” he said.

Dewey believed that if he stayed in the Bay area music scene, he would die. To save himself he moved to Albuquerque, where his brother lived. He stopped drinking and later managed the local Alcoholics Anonymous center, still playing music on the side. Dewey’s life began turning around. He met his wife, Laurie, and the two had a daughter, Lela.

In 2000 the Deweys moved to Yellow Springs. George Dewey was dying, and Greg wanted to be close by. His father died after Greg had been home only a few months, but the couple felt the village would be a good place to raise Lela. They were right, they now believe.

Greg Dewey has a very different life than the one he imagined for himself onstage at Woodstock 40 years ago. He’s not a rock and roll star. But he’s been sober since 1984. He has a wife who is proud of him (she suggested this article) and a daughter who seems to be thriving. He plays music whenever he can, he said, including last Friday night at the Emporium with Carl Schumacher and the Honky Tonk Boys. His gigs include an annual performance each year for the Mills Lawn kindergarters and another for the special ed class that his wife teaches in Springfield.

It’s not the life he imagined back then. But it’s a good life, Dewey said.
“When I say I played at Woodstock, people don’t believe me,” he said with a shrug. His current venues are perhaps less illustrious than those he once played, but they allow him to do what’s most important.

“I’ve never stopped playing music,” he said.

Contact: dchiddister@ysnews.com