Contact: David Salidor

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Roots of Woodstock Live Concert 

 

40th Anniversary Concert Brings Festival Home to Woodstock 

 

Woodstock, NY—May 19, 2009—Weston Blelock, author and editor of WoodstockArts’ forthcoming Roots of the 1969 Woodstock Festival: The Backstory to “Woodstock,“ has confirmed a rumored 40th-anniversary concert to be held on August 15 at the Bearsville Theater in Woodstock. Blelock will co-produce the show with his sister, Julia, in association with Steve Walter, formerly of The Cutting Room in New York City.

Walter, whose Cutting Room club hosted a series of top-notch music acts like Sheryl Crow, Stills, and Nash, Paolo Nutini, and Keane, notes, “I am booking bands that will evoke the original festival energy and bring it back home to Woodstock.” Blelock adds, “The town has long been at the epicenter of music festivals-from those on the Maverick beginning in the 1900s, to the Sound-Outs in the 1960s, and the mega-concert of 1969. Simply due to space constraints, some of these failed to happen in the town of Woodstock itself.”

Part of the proceeds of the concert will fund the town’s Zero-Carbon Initiative, passed in 2007. The concert team is also in discussion with a media partner to film and record the event. According to Walter, “We want to mix sixties acts with the up-and-coming to connect with the Woodstock legacy, but also to embrace the cutting-edge vibe of tomorrow.”

Concert developments can be tracked at www.RootsOfWoodstock.com.

About the Blelocks:

Weston and Julia Blelock have had a presence in the Woodstock area since 1956. During the sixties, Weston was at school in the UK but summered in Woodstock. He attended several Sound-Outs and the ’69 festival in Bethel. During the 1990s, he was a radio journalist in Canada. More recently, he co-founded WoodstockArts, a publishing, and production company. He is currently Vice President of the Historical Society of Woodstock.

Julia Blelock also grew up in Woodstock. She left town to pursue a marketing career in information technology, based in New York City and Los Angeles. She recently returned to Woodstock and has become an ardent promoter of area artists through her work for the Woodstock Chamber of Commerce & Arts and the Woodstock Arts Consortium. She is a co-founder of WoodstockArts.

About Steve Walter:

Managing partner and booker for The Cutting Room from 1999 to 2009, Walter is a graduate of Boston’s Berklee College of Music. He began his career as a lighting director at the Sunshine Inn on the Jersey shore for acts like Procol Harum, Johnny Winter, Seals & Croft, and Richie Havens. In 1999 he launched The Cutting Room, and within ten years, it became one of New York’s top showcases for talent as diverse as Sting, Donovan, Melanie, Alanis Morrisette, and Mary Wilson of The Supremes.

About WoodstockArts:

WoodstockArts is a publishing and production company based in Woodstock, NY. As a publisher, it specializes in quality regional art books. A recent title, Woodstock History and Hearsay, is an award-winning art history of the town. As producers, the company’s principals have worked on a number of local projects. One such was staging a guitar sculpture auction in conjunction with Sotheby’s/eBay in 2002 for the town’s Byrdcliffe Art Colony centennial celebration. Last August, WoodstockArts produced the Roots of ’69 Woodstock Festival panel discussion and Contemporary Sound-Out. The firm is planning a July release of Roots of the 1969 Woodstock Festival: The Backstory to “Woodstock.”