Are You Old Enough To Remember The Ozark Music Festival?
I'm old enough to remember this event but I don't. I was 14 years old, and I was less than 90 miles away from Sedalia in 1974. I had just moved back to Butler, MO from Albuquerque, New Mexico so I'm guessing I was getting acclimated to my surroundings in my hometown.
This July marked 46 years since the 1974 Midwest Woodstock experience aka the Ozark Music Festival. What stories have you heard or can tell from first-hand experience?
It was July 19, 1974 and it was the beginning of something that residents of Sedalia, Pettis County and the State of Missouri will never forget. The stories are still told over cold beers, and the memories will live forever.
According to information from the the Ozark Music Festival Facebook page, It was a hot summer on the Missouri State fairgrounds with temperatures over 100 degrees. Bodies were plentiful and clothing was scarce. Also scare was water and sanitary conditions.
Overdoses were plentiful at Bothwell Hospital (Today known as Bothwell Regional Medical Center) as were the drugs that were available on the fairgrounds during the three-day event.
The music lineup was phenomenal. Such groups as Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Eagles, Joe Walsh, Charlie Daniels and Aerosmith, just to name a few, led the lineup of performers. Wolfman Jack emceed a lot of the shows.
All-in-all, most likely there isn't a story, either postive or negative, that survives in hundreds of resident's memory banks. It was a festival to be remembered and one that to this day is still talked about. Some with a smile and others with a grimace.