Most rock fans know which bands distinguished themselves at the Woodstock festival, properly styled the “Woodstock Music & Art Fair,” in August 1969—Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Joe Cocker, Janis Joplin, CSNY—but less well known are the various fees that producers John Roberts and Joel Rosenman paid to each individual artist. By that reckoning, Santana was a bargain and Blood, Sweat & Tears might have been just a touch overpaid, no offense to that fine combo.
UltimateGuitar.com found this great chart—it lists the fees for every act with the exception of Bert Sommer and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band:
Here’s the full chart, with 2015 equivalents listed in parenthses. For reference, $1 in 1969 is worth the same as $6.37 in 2015 dollars. The entire collection of talent cost $140,700 in 1969, which comes to $895,982.97 today. Whoever decided to fork over $1,375 to compensate Joe Cocker for his time made a very, very good decision.
1. Jimi Hendrix: $18,000 ($115,000)
2. Blood, Sweat and Tears: $15,000 ($95,000)
3T. Joan Baez: $10,000 ($63,000)
3T. Creedence Clearwater Revival: $10,000 ($63,000)
5T. The Band: $7,500 ($48,000)
5T. Janis Joplin: $7,500 ($48,000)
5T. Jefferson Airplane: $7,500 ($48,000)
8. Sly and the Family Stone: $7,000 ($45,000)
9. Canned Heat: $6,500 ($41,000)
10. The Who: $6,250 ($40,000)
11. Richie Havens: $6,000 ($38,000)
12T. Arlo Guthrie: $5,000 ($32,000)
12T. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young: $5,000 ($32,000)
14. Ravi Shankar: $4,500 ($28,500)
15. Johnny Winter: $3,750 ($24,000)
16. Ten Years After: $3,250 ($20,000)
17T. Country Joe and the Fish: $2,500 ($16,000)
17T. The Grateful Dead: $2,500 ($16,000)
19. The Incredible String Band: $2,250 ($14,000)
20T. Mountain: $2,000 ($12,700)
20T. Tim Hardin: $2,000 ($12,700)
22. Joe Cocker: $1,375 ($9,000)
23. Sweetwater: $1,250 ($8,000)
24. John B. Sebastian: $1,000 ($6,300)
25T. Melanie: $750 ($5,000)
25T. Santana: $750 ($5,000)
27. Sha Na Na: $700 ($4,500)
28. Keef Hartley: $500 ($3,100)
29. Quill: $375 ($2,400)
Here’s Hendrix’s Woodstock set, for your enjoyment. By the way, if anyone tells you that they saw Hendrix at Woodstock, they’re probably lying. The festival attracted in the neighborhood of 400,000 people, but Hendrix played early on Monday morning, and by that time almost the entire audience had left, after a long glorious weekend of sex, drugs, and rock and roll—and mud.