'Zappa' remembers Woodstock: 'Wow, that just happened'

As a 1987 candidate for Mayor of La Conner, Marc “Zappa” Daniel was often unorthodox, frequently controversial and always quotable.

He was, to use a trite cliché, one in a million.

But, then again, he had a head start.

Well before his somewhat accidental arrival in La Conner, Daniel had already been one in half a million – among the 500,000 people who trekked to rural New York state for what would become a defining moment for an entire generation.

Devoted to rock-n-roll since his mom brought home the 1964 “Meet the Beatles” album, Daniel not only attended the famed Woodstock Music and Art Fair 50 years ago, but stayed all three days, and was there to witness the late Jimi Hendrix perform his iconic guitar solo version of the Star-Spangled Banner that closed the show.

By then, heavy rains had turned Max Yasgur’s 600-acre farm into a muddy quagmire. Daniel, 18 at the time, was fortunate to have shelter.

“One time I came back to my tent and a girl was in there,” he recalls. “I almost lost my virginity.”

When the party was over, Daniel hitched a ride to Brooklyn and then caught a bus home to New Jersey.

“I was all muddy and carrying a tent,” says Daniel. “Everybody on the bus looked at me real funny.”

That, too, was before Daniel grew a mustache and long hair, giving him an uncanny resemblance to non-conformist musician Frank Zappa. Thus the nickname that has stuck with the off-beat and witty Daniel since he first came to La Conner and the Skagit Valley in 1979.

In addition to his quixotic primary run for Mayor – a race in which Daniel, despite promoting a hardline Lesser La Conner agenda was somewhat improbably supported by then-town Republican Party precinct chairman Wayne Everton – Daniel is perhaps best known locally for having promoted concerts and dances at nearby Rexville Grange.

The long-locked Daniel and Grange Master Vern Stevens, who sported a crew cut, forged what on the surface seemed an unlikely partnership during the seven years of Rexville events. In fact, they got along quite well.

“His big thing,” Daniel says of Stevens, “is he wanted the hall utilized.”

Daniel became something of a whiz at marketing the Rexville venue. He had plenty of examples to draw upon. He had attended countless Grateful Dead concerts in addition to taking in other big name acts, from Donovan to B.B. King to Simon and Garfunkel.

He was also very familiar with the inner workings of the music biz.

“I never did play an instrument,” he concedes, “but I did a lot of roadie stuff and light shows.”

The Woodstock alum evolved into a pretty fair capitalist as well as music promoter, paying off the mortgage on a two-story house in Mount Vernon and being a landlord for three decades.

But in the summer of 1969 his lifestyle was far less conventional. Daniel hit the road for the Atlantic City Pop Festival before arriving tent in hand at Woodstock.

“Those were exciting times,” Daniel stresses. “We had landed on the moon. The anti-war movement was going on. People were getting involved. It was the Age of Aquarius.”

The so-called “three days of peace and music” lived up to its billing. Despite the huge crowd, says Daniel, there was no violence or mayhem.

Daniel, flashing his trademark grin, doesn’t deny illegal substances were passed around the grounds. But the constant buzz at Woodstock was mostly fueled by an all-star lineup of headliner bands and vocalists, he insists.

Daniel’s favorite memories include sets performed by Santana, Joe Cocker, the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. And, of course, Hendrix.

Because Woodstock fell behind schedule over the long ,wet weekend, Daniel was among the relative few – historians estimate the numbers at about 25,000 – still on hand when Hendrix took the stage. None who were there have forgotten his rendition of the Star Spangled Banner, then considered by some as being overly irreverent.

That view has since softened.

“If you can’t appreciate Jimi Hendrix’s Star-Spangled Banner,” says Bill McCuskey, one of Daniel’s friends of long standing, “then there’s something wrong with you.”

Still, 50 years ago, at Woodstock, it stirred emotions.

“It was like, wow, that just happened,” Daniel remembers.

After Woodstock, Daniel briefly studied philosophy and sociology at Rutgers before joining what he calls the Great Hippie Migration to California in the 1970s. From there, he eventually hitched a ride with friends up the coast. Their destination happened to be La Conner, home to novelist Tom Robbins, whom Daniel had previously met at a book signing in Berkeley.

“I was a tourist who never left,” he quips.

It was a great time to be into the music scene, says Daniel, who like the basketball player Bill Walton became a tie-dyed-in-the-wool Deadhead, following the band and its legendary lead guitarist and singer Jerry Garcia all over the country.

“It wasn’t so elitist back then,” Daniel says of the music industry. “Guys in the bands would come out and talk to the audience. I met Jerry a couple times and he was just a regular guy.”

Woodstock had that same fan-friendly appeal. Daniel believes while media hype is one reason for its lasting legacy, the music itself – which flowed during a true crossroads period in American history – is why Woodstock remains so firmly embedded in the nation’s psyche.

“The focus was different,” he explains. “Music was in the center of everything going on. Each generation does things differently. I’m not saying that we were right on everything. But the music made us dance and the words made us think.”