20 STORIES FOR 20 YEARS

In the summer of 1969, Duke Devlin hitchhiked northeast from Texas, eventually making his way to Woodstock. Now a local legend, he’s the hippie who stuck around for so long after Woodstock that Bethel Woods gave him a job as site interpreter. 

 

“I stayed on because this area has been known for its hospitality and beauty. After the festival was over, I helped clean the field and surrounding woods. We had sticks with nails and picked up everything and put it in piles. Cleaning up the woods was the hard part. The field was easy. Oh, we found some goodies, herbs and spices...we found wallets and different things like that. We took them down to the post office. 

 

I stayed on, and I landed a job in a dairy farm. Later I took a custodian job at a school. This was a temporary thing, you know? Well, anyway, I stayed there for 27 years. I became head custodian. I had a farm stand, too, a nice little business with my wife. One day, I open up the market in the morning. This is 1989, the 20th anniversary of Woodstock. They came, like the sleeping giant was starting to wake. Here’s this beautiful gal, she looked like a French woman, with this big accent. She asked, ‘Is it true that you went to the festival, and you're still here?’ She was from the biggest newspaper in Paris. She put that story out on the AP. 

 

After that, they were carpooling from the Woodstock field to my shop. I came across a big picture from Woodstock, cut it out of a magazine and I would carry that picture in the back of my truck. I would come down the road, see people all around looking at the monument, even before the monument was there. Yeah. And I would stop and show them the picture and talk to them. I would say, ‘This is where the site was. As you can see, it's a natural amphitheater. Stage was down there, the helicopter landed in this meadow right behind me.’ And, you know, I showed them the bridge and all. 

 

So then, later on, it was owned by the Gerry Foundation. Well, I was just about ready to retire from the school, and I was approached by Robyn Gerry and different ones. They said, ‘We'd like to have you stationed at the monument area.’ They built a platform there, and a real nice, big open tent. And I'd have a table, and pictures of Woodstock. And I would point out to these visuals as they come through. So, that was really a nice job. 

 

My friends said ‘They pay you for that?’ I said, ‘Yeah, they pay me good, too.’ But what they don't know is, I would do it for a pack of Twinkies and a YooHoo, you know? 

 

The performing arts center opened two years before the completion of the museum. I used to say, ‘I'm the museum, because there is no museum.’

 

And then one day, the bosses all came down to me. ‘Tomorrow, we're gonna have Brad Paisley come here, and we’d like to bring him down, introduce him, and you can explain to him what you do.’  So I went home, and me and my wife had been divorced, but then I had a girlfriend. I said, ‘Look up this guy.’ I always loved country music, but he was new to me.

 

The next day, I can see them coming down the road, two eight-seater golf carts, the press is with them, and all of a sudden, I got, like, stage fright, you know? I couldn't swallow my own spit, man. What am I gonna say to this guy? I said, ‘Man, you know what? You're a singing son of a bitch, man. I love you, I love your music, man.’  It's only thing I could say. Oh, he liked that. He laughed and carried on, and I told him all about the whole story there. He had his lovely wife with him. And then they had their little puppy dog with them, too. 

 

When I got done at the monument, I went backstage. Brad said, ‘Duke, can you do me a favor? I have my mother in law, my father in law, my sister in law, and her husband. Could you take them around and then tell them about what you did for me?’ I said, ‘Absolutely, man.’  I turned to my bosses, ‘Get me a van over here,’ you know? 

 

So that was the beginning of a new page for me. That weekend, they said, ‘We'd like to offer a tour to the artists. as they come here.’ That's how I got into doing the artist tours.

 

Joan Baez, I love her, man. I was backstage one afternoon. And she happened to walk out. And I was there in my cart, I had a girl driving for me. I caught up with her. ‘Ms Baez, I give site tours here, and I would love to give you the site tour.’ 

 

And she goes, ‘Duke, I just washed my hair. I'm gonna sit over here in the grass until my hair dries,’ Then she came over and I took her around the tour. She loved that. ‘You remember, this was where you were,’ Wow. She was really reminiscent. We took her back up, and this big guy came out, muscle guy. I thought it might have been her bodyguard. Then she said, ‘Do you know who this is?’ I figure, I have to know who he is now, and I go, ‘He looks familiar.’ I was fudging it. And she goes, ‘He was at Woodstock with me.’ I said, ‘Nah, he's too young to be at Woodstock.’ She goes, ‘He was in my tummy.’ Gabriel, his name is. She was just wonderful. Putting her on the bus that night. I said, ‘You know, Joan, I really, I really love you and your music.’ She said, ‘Duke, I can see it in your eyes.’ Isn't that nice? Yeah, she's great. I love her, man. She's two years older than me.

 

I told Ringo, ‘You know, this could be the end of a career for you.’ ‘What do you mean by that?’ I said, ‘You're playing in a farmer's field tonight.’ ‘We played in worse places than that,’ he says. I goofed on them. I had fun with them. 

 

The one guy from Lynryd Skynyrd, the guitar player, was at the original event. He said, ‘Duke, take me out in the field, and I want to find my spot... Look, here. No, no, not here. I don't think this is the spot.’ You know, he was lost. So finally, finally, we got him in a spot, we took these pictures. That was a lot of fun. He was so excited. 

 

And when I retired, Bethel Woods gave a party for me at the Event Gallery. I still go to the monument maybe once or twice a week.I usually pick a day before a big show. 

 

I stopped at Nashville one year on our way to Florida. And you know how you can do on your iPhone: ‘this is where I am.’ Oh, my phone lit up, man. 'Cause a lot of those guys, you know, the lighting guys... ‘Duke, you're in my territory. Come to my house. Come with me.’ I thought that was amazing. 

 

I have a great passion for what we did in '69. And I have a great, great passion for what we're doing now, this Bethel Woods. It's so educational. It's not all about protests and mud and water and rain, and, you know, it's a giving back, you know?

 

Elton John, I thought, was fantastic. I even got tears in my eyes when they came out on stage. I didn't tour him, but I toured Elton John’s guitar tech. And then we took him backstage again, and the stage was already set. This is in the afternoon. The piano was there, but it had around it, you know, when the bank had them ropes? Had them around it, and ‘Do not touch.’ So he clicks one of them things, and we walked up to the piano, and he said, Hey, Dukey, would you like to tinkle the piano? I said, ‘I better not.’ ‘It’s fine. I'm the tech. Yes, go, go.’  I just wanted to touch three notes like that, you know? And, uh...  it really felt cool to do that. 

 

I gave Rose Stone and her daughter a tour while they were there with Elton. She was already in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at that time. 

 

I live on the property. They treat me great. You know, when I retired [from custodian work], I was searching for a house, and Robyn Gerry said ‘We got a beautiful trailer home here. Why don't you move into that? I said, ‘No, no, no, no, no, no. I buy my own little house, so I can have my dog and garden,’ you know? And, uh, finally, she said to me, ‘Well, why don't you just move in there now? And you keep searching for your house.’ So I did that. Well, that's over 20 years ago now. I love it, you know. 

 

Look what Bethel Woods did, this community, you know? People come from all over the world. I mean, I met people from everywhere. 

 

You know, Bethel Woods takes a kid off the street and sets him down in front of the piano. Now, how does somebody who's not around music like that learn how to do music? Yeah, 'cause when they teach them how to play a little something, they can go, ‘Oh, that's music’. Yeah. So I love that they do that with all different instruments. You know, I donated some drums, I think. Yeah. I was percussion, you know.

 

I've been to over 250 concerts. I wake up in the morning and say, ‘Man, thank you, Lord. I'm still rocking. What do you want me to do today?’”