Welcome! Friday, March 29, 2024 | Login | Register
   
Anniversary of NC's Woodstock is here
This was the scene at the Love Valley Rock Festival back in July, 1970. It was North Carolina's version of Woodstock and plenty of folks from our area attended three days of music, peace, and love. Ed Buzzell photo

It seems unreal, yet cool and groovy, that it's been nearly half a century ago that North Carolina's version of the fabled Woodstock rock festival took place. Nontheless, the 48th anniversary of one of our state's most pivotal social and cultural events took place this week, July 17-19, way back in 1970.
Dubbed the Love Valley Rock Festival, the three-day musical and merrymaking happening was held at Love Valley near Statesville and saw upwards of 100,000 hippies, hippie wannabees, and other folks of various varieties flock to the place to hear music, mingle, spread the message of peace and love, and yes, burn weed.
Love Valley itself is a tiny town built by the late Andy Barker after he returned from WWII. The twist is, Barker was big into the Old West culture and owned a construction company. So, he bought a big piece of land off NC115 out in the middle of Iredell County and built his own Wild West town, complete with hotel, jail, saloon, and various other structures in a style straight out of a John Wayne movie set.
The town is still there and folks still visit to "play cowboy". Horses are the only mode of transportation allowed on the Main Street and there's a Western-style restaurant where you can grab a cold one or a burger. But what took place in 1970 is the thing that put Love Valley on the map.
What happened that eventually led to the rock festival taking place was Barker's daughter asking if perhaps he could find a band to play at her birthday party. Andy sniffed around and found an up and coming combo named the Allman Brothers. He convinced them to come to Love Valley and pluck out a few tunes for his daughter and her friends.
Somehow, news got out among the youth culture that a "happening" was going to take place at Love Valley. Word spread throughout "head shops", schools, and other places. Barker went with the flow and had tickets printed. The cost to attend was five bucks. On the festival's opening day, a veritable tidal wave of folks and vehicles clogged the two lane road to Love Valley. Traffic stretched back nearly to Statesville. Flower children jostled in a mass that filled every inch of the town and beyond.
The stage where the Allman Brothers and other groups such as Wet Willie, Big Brother, Tony Joe White, and Stone Blind played was in a rodeo arena at the base of a huge slope that soon became packed with people. Just like Woodstock, food ran short and free kitchens were set up. It was hot. It was crowded. It was psychedelic.
"I love these kids and have faith in them," Barker had said at the time. "We're going to start a whole new thing in Love Valley."
Ed Buzzell was a UPI photographer in 1970 and chronicled the Love Valley scene with his camera.
"At the time in 1970, Hugh Peralta and I were stringing for UPI in Charlotte and decided to check out the festival," Buzzell said. "So we rode up to Love Valley on a motorcycle to avoid the traffic congestion and long walk in and spent all day Friday and Saturday shooting images. One memory is of a group called Kallabash that performed at sunset right before the Allman Brothers and during their performance of "Little Help From My Friends" they cranked up some smoke machines and set off some flash boxes and jumped out of the smoke completely nude on stage. Huge reaction from the audience as you might expect and I understand made the Paul Harvey news the next day."
Everyone who was at the Love Valley Rock Festival, and there are still plenty of local folks around including this writer who made the scene, came away with unique memories, and knowledge that they had taken part in something that made a mark on North Carolina, and hippie, history.

By Alan Hodge
alan.bannernews@gmail.com


Printer-friendly format