Joel Rosenman (born 1942) conceived and co-created the

Woodstock Festival Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held during August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, United States, southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, Woodstock. ...

in 1969. Rosenman thought of the idea for the three-day concert when he and business partner

John Roberts John Glover Roberts Jr. (born January 27, 1955) is an American lawyer and jurist who has served as the 17th chief justice of the United States since 2005. Roberts has authored the majority opinion in several landmark cases, including ''Nati ...

were evaluating a proposal from Michael Lang and

Artie Kornfeld Arthur Lawrence Kornfeld (born 1942) is an American musician, record producer, and music executive. He is best known as the music promoter for the Woodstock Festival held in 1969. Kornfeld is also known for his collaborations with Artie Kaplan. ...

for a recording studio in upstate New York. The four went on to create the event. Rosenman and Roberts are the co-authors of ''Making Woodstock'', originally published as ''Young Men with Unlimited Capital'', a non-fiction account of their exploits as producers of Woodstock.

Childhood and education

Born the second of three children, Rosenman grew up on Long Island in the town of

Cold Spring Harbor, New York Cold Spring Harbor is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the Town of Huntington, in Suffolk County, on the North Shore of Long Island in New York. As of the 2010 United States census, the CDP population was 5,070. History Cold Spri ...

. He is

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

Early career and media sound

In 1967, after hearing Rosenman perform at

The Bitter End The Bitter End is a 230-person capacity nightclub, coffeehouse and folk music venue in New York City's Greenwich Village. It opened in 1961 at 147 Bleecker Street under the auspices of owner Fred Weintraub. The club changed its name to ''The Ot ...

in Greenwich Village, John Hammond, then head of A&R at

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...

, offered Rosenman a recording contract as a vocalist. Rosenman opted instead for a career in writing and venture capital with friend, and then partner,

John P. Roberts John P. Roberts (1945 – October 27, 2001) was an American businessman who bankrolled the Woodstock Festival. He was the heir to the Block Drug, Polident/Poli-Grip denture adhesive fortune. Biography After graduating from the University of Penns ...

. In 1967, Rosenman and Roberts drafted the pilot episode of a

situation comedy A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ne ...

based on two young men looking for investment opportunities. In search of plot material for the series, they placed a classified ad in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' and ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'' claiming to be "Young men with unlimited capital" looking for "legitimate and interesting...business proposals." Rosenman and Roberts received hundreds of harebrained responses, but along with them came a few responses which seemed legitimate and intriguing. They decided to investigate those proposals as possible investments. Along the way, the sitcom was shelved. The two main characters of the first episode had come to life as

entrepreneurs Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

named Rosenman and Roberts.

Portrayals

In the 2009 film ''

Taking Woodstock ''Taking Woodstock'' is a 2009 American comedy-drama film about the Woodstock Festival of 1969, directed by Ang Lee. The screenplay by James Schamus is based on the memoir '' Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, a Concert, and a Life'' by Ell ...

'' Rosenman is portrayed by Daniel Eric Gold. Rosenman also appears in several other Woodstock-related films, TV shows, interviews, panels.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rosenman, Joel 1942 births Living people people from Cold Spring Harbor, New York American music industry executives 20th-century American Jews 21st-century American Jews Woodstock Festival