Frank & Charli

by Frank Yandolino

  A man died, a baby was born, and Woodstock became a city larger than some of the biggest in the United States, a true microcosm of a new society. Abbie Hoffman was the first to call it the “Woodstock Nation.” Young and old came from all over America to demonstrate our right to be free in mind, spirit, and body, and to believe in what you believe, not what is forced on you. It was really all about freedom, whether it was for peace and music or to protest the war. A million people showed up to unite, along with millions more worldwide who took part spiritually. Richie Havens’s opening song, “Freedom,” set the tone and brought it all together:

  Freedom Freedom Freedom Freedom Freedom Freedom Freedom Freedom

  It was as simple as that.

  Working with Tuna during those early days, I became very close to Artie. I visited his apartment almost daily, and he often came to my place. Our friendship led to one of the greatest tales of my life, and it’s time to fess up.

  Some people will know what I’m talking about. For decades, I have told the same story over and over again. People liked to hear it so I kept telling it. It’s hard to keep a good story down, whether it’s real or not. Even Artie confirmed it. It goes like this: two weeks before the festival, he and I were flying to Yasgur’s farm in a helicopter. In the story, I turn to him just before the farm comes into sight over the ridge.

  “How many people do you think will come?” “Hundreds of thousands,” he says without hesitation.

  Then we see it. Thousands of people already there at the site, clearing land and pitching tents. It was a heart-stopping moment, a life-changing experience. The problem is it never happened. I never did fly in that helicopter, and as a matter of fact neither did Kornfeld. I have no idea who found the Woodstock site. I was drawn into the controversy by Artie. He and Michael both claim to have made the deal to secure Yasgur’s farm.

  If you want to press me for my honest opinion as to who found the site, I’m not sure. Elliot Tiber, who lived in Woodstock and knew a bit about Michael’s site predicament, had ties to Yasgur’s farm in Bethel, New York. He knew Max Yasgur through the Hotel El Manaco his parents owned across the lake, and when he heard Wallkill, New York, refused to allow the festival, he may have reached out to Michael Lang and introduced him to Max Yasgur and the hallowed ground farm site. Who knows? All I know for sure is I wasn’t on any helicopter ride and neither was Artie. There. It’s out in the open. Now I never have to repeat it again.

  Here’s what I do know. According to Artie, before the festival, I was at his apartment, sitting on the floor playing with Jamie when the phone rang. Not knowing who was on the other end, I remember Artie leaving the room to answer it. He came back excited. I can’t swear to the exact words, but he said something like this to Linda: “Babe, I think we can get a site. My cousin knows a guy who has a farm in Bethel.” That’s all I remember, all I know. Thirty-five years later, I received a call from Artie. He was writing a book and wanted proof to his version, which went something like this:

  “Cheech.” (Artie likes to call me that. It’s an Italian nickname for Frank.) “You were in my apartment, right, when I got the call offering me the land? And I accepted.” Now he was looking for assurance. “Will you verify that you were in my apartment?”

  I should have been more aware of his usage of the word verify. But Artie’s my friend, so I said, “Sure.” A few months later, I received a letter. It started out:

  I, Frank Yandolino, swear that …

  So I ran with it.

  To this day, in 2012, every time I talk to Artie, he reveals a new tidbit. As I was writing this he called me, and I asked him when he first saw Yasgur’s farm. He surprised me with his answer.

  “I didn’t see it until the first day of the festival when Linda and I hitchhiked to the site. Michael had to come to the security gate to let us in.”

  “What? You never saw the site?!”

  I was surprised by his admission and his transformation. I asked if he saw the original site in Wallkill. He again surprised me.

  “I never saw that site, either. Michael wouldn’t let me.”

  “Holy shit! What about the helicopter ride? Didn’t you take a ride that I was supposedly on?” I asked. “No. The only helicopter I ever took was after the festival when everything had fallen apart and we were being sued. Michael told me to take the helicopter and go into town to fix it. Dysfunctional, the whole thing.” My first day at the festival I walked from the hotel that was set aside for special guests near the site, and as I got closer to the stage, I saw Linda Kornfeld leaning against a fence while Bert Sommer was performing on stage. It was very surreal and bizarre to me, the revelation that this was finally actually happening. On the other hand, somehow it all felt very natural and that I was meant to be there, which was different than those who say I wish I had gone or say they did but didn’t. So far I have met over two million and counting who say they were there, when in reality it was more like half a million people.

  I still have on my fireplace mantle a small glass bottle from the festival stage. Inside it I have twelve hits of psychedelics—Timothy Leary’s blotter acid, orange sunshine barrels, mescaline, and the famous Brown Acid. Oddly enough, I didn’t take any psychedelics during the festival. It was the ultimate natural trip. And I was an insider, one of the invited guests. Little did I know how famous some of the people standing around me would become, or how much of my life would revolve around many of them: Michael, Artie, Abbie Hoffman, The Hells Angels, Joe Cocker, Bert Sommer, Paul Butterfield, Rick Danko, Levon Helm, and The Band. I was twenty-four years old when, as I like to say, I was reborn at Woodstock.

  Everyone knows what happened at the festival. It has been documented on film and written about as many times as there are people who say they were there. The characters behind it, particularly Lang and Kornfeld, are a story unto themselves. If you ever knew or crossed paths with Michael Lang, you may not recall where or when, but you always remember that you did.

  Artie was a true representation of the hippie movement; he saw and experienced Woodstock as a kid tripping along with a million other kids who were sending out a collective vibe. He got the spirit in him through the elevator of the hallucinogen psilocybin, gliding through it all, going with the flow. I myself left the Woodstock festival in 1969 a new man. I designed a poster reflecting that time. It read:

  To have a head is hard enough.

  Getting it together with the rest of our body even harder.

  Then to get all our heads together, WOW.

  Unfortunately, when they got back to reality, Artie’s and Michael’s heads were nowhere near each other. The Woodstock aftermath took its toll both emotionally and financially. Owing millions of dollars to creditors and investors, the partners split into three camps. First, it was the original investors John Roberts and Joel Rosenman’s camp versus the producers Artie Kornfeld and Michael Lang’s camp. Then Michael and Artie turned against each other, especially regarding their debt and future income, including the ownership of the house and land in Woodstock, and most of all the rights to the title and name “The Woodstock Music Festival.” You see, both of them wanted to be king. It really was a great house, just outside of town. Michael still owns it. Just after the festival we would go up to the house, known as “Tapooz,” just Michael and his inside crew—not Artie—like Robin Hood and his band of merry men and dogs, big dogs. It was a special place.

  Not wanting to give in to the other but still totally joined at the hip because of the media’s interest in Woodstock, Michael and Artie came up with a plan to form two separate production management companies that they would each control. Michael’s was called Lang Kornfeld and Artie’s was Kornfeld Lang. In 1970 I became art and advertising director for Kornfeld Lang Productions, responsible for Eluthera Records, ads, album covers, and taking photos of Artie’s acts Buzzy Linhart/Music, Swamp Gas, and Bert Sommer.

  Even though I was working primarily with Artie I occasionally visited Michael at his small, one-room offic
e at Columbus Circle in the Gulf & Western building. He shared the space with his new partner, Marv Grafton—but that didn’t last long. Marvin flipped out and disappeared. Unfortunately for me, years later he surfaced again. I’ll get into that later. At this time, though, in 1971, Ray Paret entered the picture. Ray co-owned a recording studio, was the manager for the group Quill, and worked with Aerosmith. He and Michael formed Just Sunshine Records and moved into larger offices.

  Billy Joel was a new artist who hung around the Sunshine office, sometimes sleeping on the floor. At the time, Michael and Artie Ripp were his managers. Thinking that “it’s covered,” Billy’s first master recording was cut at the wrong speed, and he sounded like Alvin and the Chipmunks. When the record came out Billy freaked and ran away to LA to hide, changed his identity, and started singing solo in piano bars. That’s when he wrote and became “The Piano Man.” In yet another example of things of my past merging together, Elizabeth Joel, Billy’s first wife and at the time his manager, would years later become my assistant in New York during the pre-production of the Rivera 76 festival.

  Debbie “Blondie” Harry was another singer who came around Sunshine with her band The Wind in the Willows. I loved her from the night we went to see her perform in the village. Artie Kornfeld asked me to design the cover for Bert Sommer’s new album Inside Bert Sommer. In order to get the project going I invited Bert to stop by the apartment so we could work on the concept. When he arrived he headed straight to the refrigerator. He took out all the sweets he could find, sat down on the floor, and ate everything. I had no idea that he was a junkie at the time. The album cover depicts Bert walking from the front to the back cover. When opened, he continues to walk as an artist. I have always been interested in the subliminal use of images, the behind-the-scenes meaning. In most things I created, I tried to make a point, a political statement. Not many people got my early messages. Take, for example, a poster I made for Bert. I meant to show his true inside as a troubled and helpless junkie. The poster had a negative image of Bert’s face, his eyes as dollar signs, and a brain filled with drugs. There were hypodermic needles stuck into his ears, and he was swallowing pills and LSD, smoking a joint, and had electrified, blown-out hair. When I showed the image to Artie and Bert, they laughed, thinking it was funny. But it wasn’t. The last time I saw Bert was a few years later, I was hailing a cab in the village when I felt someone tug at my pant leg. Looking down, there was Bert on the sidewalk selling belts. “Hey Frankie, want to buy a belt?”

  “No thanks, Bert.” I pulled out my wallet and handed him some cash. “Thanks, Frankie. I’ll call you.”

  He never did. Bert died a short time later, the ultimate victim to a life filled with enablers. His life, like so many others, reflected the struggle of the artist living in a colorless, capitalistic world, not willing or able to do anything else but write and sing.

  But I knew it didn’t have to be that way.

  Working with Artie, I spent many nights that morphed into days at various recording sessions. Not only was I designing album covers, ads, and promotion pieces, but I was now becoming familiar with the music production side of the business. I first met Buzzy Linhart and his group Music in 1970 and created one of the first artistically designed psychedelic album covers. It was a work of art, not just a photo like most covers. We were recording Buzzy’s album Music at the Record Plant studio, with Shelly Yakus engineering. Artie put some sort of psychedelics in a drink that he passed around to everyone in the studio. He was already tripping his brains out and began taking off the just-recorded tracks from the tape machines, throwing them in the air, unwinding the tape, and placing them on everyone’s head and body until we were covered in tape laughing our asses off. I don’t remember how it ended.

  On another fun-filled occasion Kornfeld and I went to Electric Lady Recording Studio, owned by Jimi Hendrix, at 52 West 8th Street in Greenwich Village. The building had round windows, like some sort of spaceship. Areas of the space were still under construction, but it was equipped with a light machine that generated multi-colored ambient light designed to relax Jimi and enhance his creativity. The main studio had a sweeping, wall-to-ceiling, psychedelic space-themed mural painted by artist Lance Jost. The whole place was spectacular. Kornfeld went there to meet with engineer Eddie Kramer, who worked with Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Bowie, and many others. When I arrived, I heard strange sounds coming from an adjoining studio. I slowly crept into the room. There he was Jimi all by himself, making guitar-like sounds with his voice and his fingers replicating those very sounds on his guitar. I could not tell one from the other. Different than songs you expect from him, this one had a slow jazz feel. He must have felt my presence. He looked at me, nodded his approval of my existence, and kept right on playing. Not knowing what to do next, I nervously said, “You were great at Woodstock.”

  “I try,” he politely answered.

  Imagine. Jimi Hendrix said he tries. He went on playing the guitar, sounds I’d never heard before or again. I politely sneaked out backward the same way I entered. My time with Jimi Hendrix was up.

  Hanging out at Kornfeld-Lang Productions, Eluthera, and Just Sunshine Records kept me in the middle of the music scene in New York. I was showing up for work at MPA later and later and many times not at all. That’s when I realized the art agency let me get away with it because I was very good at what I did and their clients would request that I direct the art campaigns. It then developed into more of a freelance arrangement. I would show up when I felt like it or when the project was interesting to me, and I was able to be creative and use my artistic talent.

  One night while recording at the Record Plant, Shelly Yakus told Artie that John Lennon was recording in the next studio. Artie jumped up and went to see John. He came back so excited; as a matter of fact, just today he told me that story again for the hundredth time, how he and John went to the bathroom and as they were talking, Artie, being the klutz that he is, turned to talk to Lennon standing at the urinal next to him, and proceeded to piss on Lennon’s shoes. This, of course, is according to Artie.

  As part of my hoarding nature I still have original notes, documents, photos, art, objects, and trinkets—you name, it I got it—dating back fifty years in one of our spare rooms in our apartment that Charli calls our garage. Much of the garage is filled with artifacts from these years working with Artie. Every one of the people I have met along my way pokes fun at that room and my ability to present proof of those experiences and people. One of those prized possessions came from the bass player from the group Swamp Gas. He borrowed some money from me, saying if he didn’t pay me back the next week, I could keep his bass. As collateral he gave me a pre-CBS Fender precision electric bass guitar, which he said he got from Noel Redding of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, complete with a Power to the Black Panther Party sticker on the back.

  I never was paid back and I still have the bass. Many musicians since have used it to record and perform live shows. It hangs on my wall, among many other artifacts and my personal memorabilia. When I look at any of our collections from all over the world I am often taken back to that time and place, and I see the image as if it were yesterday.

  Artie asked me to come up with some ideas for his first and only personal record album cover for The Artie Kornfeld Tree—A Time to Remember! The concept was to show an example of his beliefs and a reflection of our time. He and Linda would form the tree trunk of life, both beautifully nude, with their outstretched arms forming the branches, colorful, long-haired hippies singing and playing music, peace, and love. The back cover illustrated what was going on in our troubled world. A foreboding mushroom cloud of madness resented the result of the war in Vietnam. It was the black-and-white negative of the tree of life on the front.

  On a side note, when I first presented the idea to Artie, it was only a rough magic marker draft illustration, just to show the concept. I didn’t know that he’d turn it in to Dunhill Records as finished art. I w
as never really proud of that cover, but in retrospect, there are subliminal points there. Little did I know Artie’s album cover would actually happen to him. Life blew up in his face.

  In 1978, Linda Kornfeld died on Mother’s Day, according to the press, of an apparent drug-related aneurysm. Five years later, little Jamie Kornfeld died of a drug overdose. She was only fifteen years old.

  I would rather be wrong than right.

  CHAPTER 5

  Dominica

  Before Artie was able to settle down into his music business, he needed a change. The pressure with Michael and their finances was getting to him. He called me one day, after Woodstock was over, sounding frazzled.

  “Cheech. I gotta get out of here. Linda and I decided to get away from it all by taking a vacation to the island of Dominica.”

  I lit a joint. “Are you okay, Kornstalk? Where the hell is Dominica?” “I’m not sure. I think it’s an island in the British West Indies.”

  “Wow.” That’s far out.

  “Yeah, I rented a house for a few months from the president of the United Steamship Lines. Why don’t you come with us?”

  “To Dominica? Okay, when?”

  “Come as fast as you can. We’ll see you there. One other thing …” “What?”

  “You can’t bring Marsha. Linda and I are adamant about it.”

  Marsha was my girlfriend at the time, a wild beauty, a model-actress who posed nude on the cover of Evergreen magazine. She wore suede short-shorts and a knife strapped to her hip, her blonde hair hanging halfway to her ass. As you know, I have a thing for blondes.

  “We’ve decided you should bring Charli instead.” I was surprised. “Why Charli?”

  “Because Linda says you should. Just bring Charli. Okay? We’ll have a great time.” We made plans to meet there in about a week.

  I did actually like Charli more than Marsha, but I’ve always been reluctant to ask women on a date, or even to dance. Maybe it’s because of an encounter I had at an all-you-can-eat resort in the Catskill Mountains.