Forty years ago on Aug. 15, a half-million people gathered on a pig farmer’s property in upstate New York for a three-day music festival that would come to symbolize a generation of Americans. And packed in among the masses at Woodstock was a college freshman who would later become a state district judge in Dallas.
During the summer of 1969, Marty Lowy was home in Baltimore after finishing his first year at Michigan State University when he was listening to an evening radio show promoting the music festival. Lowy hadn’t heard of most of the bands scheduled to play, except Jimi Hendrix and The Who. But the station was chartering a bus to go to the show and offering an attractive pitch to listeners.
