Michael Lang, the man who was behind Woodstock, has died at age 77. The cause of death is announced as Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Lang also promoter the Woodstock ’94 event to mark the 25th anniversary of the festival, then the not so successful Woodstock ’99 and more recently, the 50th anniversary event that was planned for 2019 but crashed before take-off.
Michael Lang was in his mid 20s when he produced the Miami Pop Festival in 1968. It featured Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley.
The following year he worked on the historic Woodstock Festival. Woodstock had Joe Cocker, Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Who, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Canned Heat, Jefferson Airplane. It became the benchmark for music events for the next half century.
Woodstock 94 featured mostly contemporary acts of the 90s including Sheryl Crow, Collective Soul, Violent Femmes, Live, Metallica, Green Day and Nine Inch Nails plus some of the originals including Cocker, Crosby Still & Nash and The Band.
Woodstock 99 had Counting Crows, Dave Matthews, Ice Cube, Moby, Ben Lee, DMX and Korn was had problems with hot days and an angry crowd.
Lang became Joe Cocker’s manager after the first Woodstock and worked with Cocker for more than 20 years. He has a cameo in Joe’s ‘You Can Leave Your Hat On’ video.
Michael was planning a 50th anniversary Woodstock event for 2019 but the event from cancelled because of investor issues.
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