This handout photo shows Jimi Hendrix at the original Woodstock festival in Bethel, New York in August 1969

From drug deaths to stardom, the destinies of the musicians who played Woodstock were shaped forever by the epoch-making festival of 1969.

More than any other number, Hendrix’ s four-minute “Star-Spangled Banner” most vitally and musically encapsulates the mood of protest and opposition to the Vietnam War prevalent at the three-day orgy of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.

But after one last concert at the Isle of Wight, the guitar hero was found dead at 27 in September 1970.

Joplin’s gravelly voice switched off a month later.

Their deaths, along with those of Brian Jones and Jim Morrison around the same time, closed a chapter in the rollicking drugs free-for-all of the 60s made legendary by Woodstock.

For others, the festival – especially the movie and album that etched it into history – served as a launch-pad to fame.

A case in question was the former Sheffield plumber who wowed the half a million on hand with his groundbreaking rearrangement of Beatles’ number “With A Little Help from My Friends.” Joe Cocker’s gritty voice and compelling body moves made him a star.

Shooed off stage for a period thanks to drugs and alcohol abuse, Cocker miraculously resurfaced in the 1980s with hits such as “You Can Leave Your Hat On” and “Unchain My Heart,” and is still performing.

Woodstock on the other hand launched Carlos Santana’s innovative fusion of jazz, rock and latin rhythms. Currently at his 38th album, released last October, Santana is mulling a change in seven years… to become a church minister.

Folk rock stars Crosby, Stills & Nash up until now headline festivals worldwide, releasing solo and group albums, with or without on-off Canadian partner Neil Young.

Of all the performers at Woodstock, Young probably proved the most versatile and forward-looking, moving from folk to country to garage rock and dabbling in electronic music.

As for Country Joe McDonald, who wrote the festival’s emblematic antiwar hymn – “And it’s one, two, three, what are we fighting for? Don’t ask me I don’t give a damn. Next stop is Vietnam” – his work with war veterans recently inspired him to launch a project promoting Crimea War heroine, Florence Nightingale, the “Lady With the Lamp” revered as the founder of modern nursing.

Source: AFP