Bandleader Tim Woods of Greensburg was 7 years old when the original Woodstock festival spread its message of peace, love and music from Bethel, N.Y., across the nation’s consciousness as the tumultuous 1960s neared their end.
While he didn’t get to attend, he was precisely the right age to be thoroughly steeped in the music of the artists who performed.
“I had older brothers, and I was exposed at a really young age to a lot of that music,” said Woods, who grew up in Murrysville.
Woods will bring his band to this year’s Murrysville Concert in the Park, which will be themed on Woodstock’s 50th anniversary.
“We started toying with the idea about a year ago,” Murrysville Recreation Director Carly Greene said. “Finding the right bands, and availability, turned out to be a big challenge.”
This year’s Concert in the Park lineup will feature the Tim Woods Band, the Granati Brothers, Elias Khouri and Jenkins & Crum.
For Greene, a former Marine Corps staff sergeant who grew up in a military family, a few hundred thousand hippies gathered in a New York field was not cause for celebration.
“It was not looked upon fondly in my family,” she said. “There was so much going on at the time, politically and socially, but the whole basis of that event was, ‘Let’s get some bands together and have some music.’ ”
That sentiment was the basis for moving from the former Murrysville Community Day to the current Concert in the Park format, now in its third year.
“The first year, we still had some volunteer groups there and we did some community awards, and the two did not mesh very well,” Greene said. “What we love with the concert is that people come, and they stay. They mingle, they find people they know, and they have a good time all day.”
Woods said the music from Woodstock set the foundation for much of music that came after.
“Over the years, people just keep going back to that time, to how good that music was and the quality of all those bands,” he said.
Woods is planning a mixed set list that draws on Woodstock-era tunes as well some of his own originals.
“We mix it up and each show is a little different,” he said. “Whether it’s CCR, the Doors or other artists, and our originals, we have a couple hundred songs we can throw around.”
For more on this year’s Concert in the Park, which is free to attend, see MurrysvillePArecreation.com.
