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Woodstock Allstar Poster Collection, Music, Arts, Comedy Tattoos, Cars - $2,500 (Olivebridge)
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Most of the posters are from 2006-2012, but the date range could also be earlier or later than that. Most of the posters are 18x12, 11x17, or 13x10, but there are also some that are 8x10, and the cards are mostly postcard size, although some are bigger. The posters are on everything from heavy card stock, light card stock, paper, and a couple are even mounted.
The posters and cards cover just about every venue near Woodstock, so let’s get right down to a description of some of my favorites. One that’s a beauty is The New Orleans Suspects at the world famous Bearsville Theater. The artwork is super cool and the band features Fred Tackett and Paul Barrere of Little Feat. The New Riders of the Purple Sage at the same venue is also a great one. Beautiful artwork and graphics. I love the laminated poster from the 1st Annual Hudson Vallet Tattoo Exposition, which features Hindu gods for the artwork. Horton’s Holiday Hayride at Colony Woodstock is incredible, featuring 4 bands, any one of whom could headline the show all by themselves! It’s Reverend Horton Heat, Junior Brown, The Blasters, and Big Sandy from Big Sandy and The Fly Right Boys. I’ve got 4 years and multiple copies of the Woodstock Invitational Luthiers Showcase posters, with art by Bruce Ackerman, himself a well known guitar builder, from 2009, 2010, 2012, and 2013. This is a guitar builder’s showcase event that’s been going on since 2009 and still going strong. My posters are from the 1st annual, 2nd annual, and 4th and 5th year. One of the most precious posters is Todd Rundgren’s Johnson Tour at the Bearsville Theater, featuring Prairie Prince, Kasim Sulton, and Jesse Gress in Todd’s band. Todd is a former Woodstocker who had his Utopia Studios on the same property as the theater, so it’s always a homecoming when Todd plays in Woodstock (which is not very often, or at all, lately). Then there’s Melvin Seals and JGB (Jerry Garcia Band) at Colony Woodstock from 2010, and Blue Chicken at Bearsville Theater from 2012. Blue Chicken was a pop-up band that featured members of The Band and the Levon Helm Band. Of course, Bill Kirchen, formerly of Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen, at Bearsville Theater is no slouch, either the poster or Bill’s Telecaster slingin’! The Spampinato Brothers, Joey and Johnny, formerly of NRBQ, are represented in my collection, and Joey Spampinato famously was recruited by Keith Richards to play bass in the band Keef put together for the Chuck Berry biopic, “Hail Hail Rock and Roll”! The Woodstock Guitar Expo of 2012 is really cool, but one of my favorites is for a band called Red Eye at a place called The Abbey, in Boiceville, NY, just outside of Woodstock, which claims to have the “world’s greatest New Orleans Jazz”! I have not been able to find any info on the band or the venue, but the poster, which is 11x14 on thick cardboard, is really old. Today, I asked an old-timer who’s been in Woodstock since 1969 if he ever heard of The Abbey and drew a blank! My eye tells me it’s from the 1950s, but it could be from the early 60s, or even the 40s. I just don’t know, but one look at it and you know it’s super vintage! I could go on and on, but let me just do a roll call on some of the other events memorialized in these posters. Here we go. Wreckless Eric, Anders Osborne, Ben Harper with Trombone Shorty opening, Cindy Cashdollar, The Flying Other Brothers featuring Pete Sears, GE Smith, and Barry Sless, Kid Congo, Jack DeJohnette and Gerry Marotta’s Drum Boogie Festival, Slambovian Circus of Dreams, Murphy’s Law, and the band 3! There’s close to 100 posters in all! And then there’s the postcards! I’ve got about 200 smaller, postcard size or slightly bigger, which feature Max’s Kansas City Project, Hell’s Angels parties, tributes to Townes Van Zandt, the famous portrait of Debbie Harry by photographer Bobby Grossman, who signed both of the cards, a postcard for, and 2 unused tickets to, Stone Temple Pilots, with King’s X and Steven Adler (original Guns and Roses drummer) as opening acts, dozens of Mountain Jam postcards from 2008-2014 featuring Phil Lesh, Levon Helm, Bobby Weir, and The Allman Bros Band as headliners, Marco Benevento, the Woodstock Film Festival, Alex Chilton, car shows, comedy, Rockabilly, Jazz, Hip Hop, Railroad Earth, Sister Sparrow, and dozens of others! There’s even a postcard from Kate’s Lazy Meadow, a Bed and Breakfast that was owned by Kate Pierson of The B-52s!
Plus, I’m throwing in postcards from The Dead Reunion Tour, The Jalopy Theater and other venues in Brooklyn and Manhattan, fine art photography books with John Lennon, Gram Parsons, and The Doors as subjects, The Down Home Radio Show, and 5 Jay Blakesberg photo postcards of Neil Young and Eddie Vedder intensely performing at The Bridge School Benefit, Tom Petty and Mike Campbell onstage, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin, back in the day, Jerry Garcia onstage with one of his famous hand built guitars, and what looks like Tedeschi-Trucks Band, but that one’s hard to tell for sure because it’s in shadow. These 5, along with the signed Bobby Grossman pics of Debbie Harry, Kate’s Lazy Meadow, and The Dead reunion tour are some of the highest highlights of the postcard collection, but there are dozens of others equally as cool!
But, I digress. Let’s return to the primary focus, the posters. One that is amazing that I love is the extremely rare poster for the Duke McVinnie Band. McVinnie has a long resume as a musician, composer, and producer. His band, Shivaree, was signed to Capitol Records, they had a song in Kill Bill, and he jammed with Albert Ayler when he was a kid! I was going to all their gigs about 10 years ago because they were simply like nothing else on earth, and totally mindblowing! A very odd, but great, bunch. I was able to snag a poster for their residency at BSP Lounge in Kingston, NY, and the poster is like their music, unique and beautiful. It’s a hand painted and penciled print that is stunning to look at. I mention it because most people won’t know who McVinnie is, but once you know, he, and his poster, are a treasure!
Another one that’s real cool is for a venue called Opus 40, just outside of Woodstock. It’s a huge outdoor rock sculpture park on 63 acres, and was the brainchild of Bard professor, Harvey Fite, who named it Opus 40 because Fite thought it would take 40 years to complete. Unfortunately, he died after 37 years working on the project, supposedly all by himself, with no helpers. When you see the property, which Architectural Digest called one of “the most beguiling works of art on the entire continent”, you’ll find Fite’s claim hard to swallow, especially after you see the huge obelisk installed on the property, but you’ll be amazed, never the less! Nowadays, they have events there, and the poster I have is for a real special one. It’s Medeski and Wood, of Martin, Medeski, and Wood, Bruce Springsteen’s original keyboardist, David Sancious, and Larry Campbell (Bob Dylan, Levon Helm, Phil Lesh, Hot Tuna) with Teresa Williams (Levon Helm Band), Amy Helm (Levon’s daughter), and Byron Isaacs (Levon Band)! The line up’s amazing, The venue’s amazing, and the poster’s amazing!
Anyway, I could go on forever, cause, like I said, there’s close to 300 pieces in this collection, but I’ll try n haul it in here. Look at my pics for as many examples as CL will let me post of this remarkable collection, and if you want to see more, ask and I will send!. I have about another 40 pics I could send, if interested. There’s so many I haven’t even mentioned that will blow your mind, like the year long musician’s nights at The Boiceville Inn just outside of Woodstock, that featured some of the area’s top musicians, like 7 time WC Handy Award nominee Bruce Katz (Gregg Allman, Butch Trucks, Delbert McClinton, John Hammond Jr.), Pete Levin (Miles Davis, Paul Simon, Mingus, Wayne Shorter, and Tony Levin’s brother), Jay Collins (Gregg Allman, Levon Helm Band), Randy Ciarlante (The Band), Lincoln Schlieffer (Levon Helm Band), Tom Pacheco (amazing songwriter), John and Chris Reddan (Popa Chubby, Bill Perry Blues Band), Gary Lucas (Captain Beefheart, Jeff Buckley), and Murali Coryell (Larry Coryell’s son), amongst others, and many of these have doubles and triples that I threw in at no extra cost and without counting them in the total! I even threw in about 20 posters from a Gary Lucas/Jeff Buckley gig in Woodstock that was cancelled the day of the show during covid, that I counted as one poster. In other words, what I’m saying, is that you will get close to 100 different, rare and unique posters, and roughly 200 different, rare and unique postcards and smaller cards when you buy this collection, plus doubles and triples and extras! It is a collection that is unequaled for it’s place and time!
Most of the posters and cards are in mint condition. Some do have pinholes. A few have tears. Overall, the collection is in excellent to near mint condition. You won’t be disappointed on that count, but you gotta remember, some of these were tacked and taped up in stores and bulletin boards. Most are near mint, but not all.
Besides the extra postcards, I’ve also included a newspaper spread on Levon that they did when he turned 70, and the backstage pass key from his Beacon Theater shows in NYC around 2008. This document displays all the passes and what type of access each one bestows upon the bearer. Finally, I threw in 2 programs from Mountain Jam 2008 and 2009.
I will be happy to ship the entire collection anywhere in the USA, with insurance, for $100.