A Young Couples Journey To Woodstock That Became Music History

8 min read

Hi everyone, I’m Rick Barron, your host, and welcome to my podcast, That’s Life, I Swear

Her name was Bobbi Kelly. She and her boyfriend became a symbol of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair without realizing it. It was early in the morning of August 17,1969 and this young couple embracing one another, greeting the dawn, were to become one of the defining symbols of probably the most famous music festival in history. 

Let’s jump into this 

Bobbi [Kelly] and Nick Ercoline, whose hug became a symbol of Woodstock, died on March 18, 2023. Who was she? Let’s start at the beginning.

It started in February of 1969 when Nick Ercoline, a young 20-year-old, was bartending at Dino’s, in Middletown, N.Y., and Bobbi Kelly, all but 19, was dating a waiter at Dinos. Fast forward to May of the same year, and it’s the Memorial Day Weekend, and the waiter who was dating Bobbi, decided to take off to the Jersey Shore for a guy’s trip without telling her. Nick saw an opportunity and took a chance. He built enough courage to invite Bobbi for pizza and a movie. 

It didn’t take long before Bobbi dropped her boyfriend and her heart belonged to Nick.

Jump ahead a few months to August 15, 1969, and Nick is tending bar at Dino's, while his girlfriend of about ten weeks, Bobbi, was at a table, sipping nickel draft beer and listening to the news on the radio. 

What Bobbi and Nick didn’t know was that about 40 miles up the road, hundreds of people were converging at the Max Yaggurisfarm in Bethal, New York. People were heading there for the first day of a four-day event called the Woodstock Music and Art Fair.

As Bobbi was listening to the radio, the DJ said the crowds were getting so big that a huge traffic jam had developed and estimates were that 500,00 attendees would be at the event.

Hearing this news Nick slapped his hand on the bar. ‘We got to go to this event. This may never happen again around these parts.’

The $18 tickets to Woodstock struck the couple as pricey, and initially they did not plan to go. Counting for inflation, that would be about $130 today. Brother, how times change.

The next day, Saturday morning Nick and Bobbi, contacted their friends, Mike Duco, Cathy Wells and Jim "Corky" Corcoran, a Vietnam veteran fresh out of the Marine Corp. They all  jumped into a 1965 Impala station wagon, that belonged to Corcoran’s mother, and drove down country roads not to mention a lot of cow pastures.

As the five them got closer to the event, it didn’t take long before they ran into the enormous cascade of people jamming to get into the Woodstock event. 

Hippies lighting up. Courtesy of: New York Times

Realizing they couldn’t get any further in the car, they parked the Impala. With their feet getting tired, they were able to hitch a ride for the last two miles, with a VW Van who occupants were some naked hippies. 

It didn’t long before the group arrived and they hopped out of the van to enter the Woodstock venue. While walking inside, Nick and Bobbi came across what they referred to as a ‘spaced-out Californian’ named Herbie, who was carrying a wooden staff with a plastic butterfly dancing from the tip. Remember Herbie and his wooden staff, as it comes up later in this story. 

Woodstock. Courtesy of: New York Times

Once the group got further inside the farm, finding a space to camp out was a land grab. The group quickly claimed a patch of mud on the rim of a slope. Bobbi remembered the scene being "a sea of humanity," Nick heard someone playing their guitar, a young couple making love, and someone smoking a joint [but of course]. The gradual crescendo of music felt like a bombardment on the senses. It was, without doubt, a visual assault on the eyeballs.

Why does this matter?

In 1969, the United States was knee deep into the controversial Vietnam War, a conflict many young people vehemently opposed. The civil rights movement era was also a period of great unrest and protest. Woodstock was more than a music festival. It allowed people to escape into music and spread a message of unity and peace. It was a counterculture movement. 

Truth be told, the Woodstock music festival was not a smoothly-run event, but brother it was electrified with music that made moment unforgettable.

Here’s a small anecdote. To put things in perspective, it was but a month earlier, during July, that Neil Armstrong, an Apollo 11 space mission member, had planted the American flag on the moon, and in mid-August, the Charles Manson family had murdered eight Californians, including actress Sharon Tate, in Los Angeles.

Enough of the history lesson, let's get back to Bobbi and Nick.

About a half-million people attended the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, Aug. 15-18, in 1969, a cultural phenomenon that has endured in the popular imagination partly with the help of “Woodstock,” a 1970 documentary, and its album soundtrack, featuring Jimi Hendrix, Joan Baez, Jefferson Airplane, Richie Havens and many more musicians. The event was in part a protest against the Vietnam War.

Ok, so this is where the story begins to unfold about Bobbi and Nick’s trip to Woodstock.

First, let me provide some context. I was on my way into the U.S. Army in August of 1969. I received my induction notification in the mail in late July.  Packed my bags, and draft card in my wallet, I headed off to Ft. Lewis, Washington state, for two months of basic training and soon started the beginning of my two years serving my country during the Vietnam War.

While going through basic training I picked up a newspaper and caught an article about an music event that recently happened in New York. The name of the event took place at a farm southwest of the town of Woodstock. Just as I started to read the article, I recalled hearing something about this event prior to leaving for basic training. 

Fast forward and I was nine months into my service and overseas.  One night I heard music blasting in our barracks. My curiosity got me, and I walked closer to the sound of the music. I saw one of my friends playing a new three-LP vinyl album he picked up at the PX. Listening to Jimi Hendrix, I took note of the cover. It was the picture of a couple holding one another, wrapped in a pink blanket as the morning sun was coming up on the horizon. 

Little did I know that years later I would find out who this famous couple were, and never knowing that I would be doing a podcast about Bobbi and Nick and their photo.

If you take a look at a bigger version of the photograph that appeared on the “Woodstock” album, there are some highlights to call out. Looking to the right of Bobbi and Nick in their pink blanket, which Bobbi found on the ground by the way, you can see their friend, Jim “Corky” Corcoran fast asleep, most likely dreaming about being happy to have returned in one piece from serving in Vietnam as a U.S. Marine. 

Jim "Corky" Corcoran. Courtesy of: The Palm Beach Post

To the far left of the photo you can see the plastic butterfly attached to a wooden staff, a gift from Herbie, the ‘spaced-out Californian.’

So, who took this infamous ‘being in the right place at the right time’, photo?

The photographer’s name was Burk Uzzle, a freelancer. Burk spent some time around the concert stage listening to the various performers. His gut told him that the real story was out in the sea of attendees.  As he made his way the farm, he saw many people ‘tripping’ as they said back then, others building tents, many skinny-dipping in a pond and sharing crates of bananas and loaves of bread. It was a moment of letting go and not giving a damn about the Vietnam War. 

The next day, Burk woke up early at about 4:30 am on Sunday morning, August 17th. Woodstock was coming to a close the next day, and Burk wanted to make sure he’d gathered enough photos before leaving. As Burk left his makeshift tent with his cameras strapped round his neck, in the far-off distance he could Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane singing, bringing up the dawn. 

Unbeknownst to him, about 15 feet away from him stood Bobbi and Nick embracing one another in the pink blanket, welcoming the morning. 

Bobbi and Nick's infamous pose. Courtesy of: New York Times

Burk took notice of Bobbi and Nick hugging, kissing, smiling at each other. When Bobbi leaned her head on the Nick’s shoulder and the sunrise coming up over the hills, Burk saw the million-dollar shot and started snapping away. He had just enough time to get off a few frames of black and white and a few of color, before the light and mood was over.

Little did Burk know that his timing to take that photo would later become his best-known photograph. Bobbi and Nick were so in the moment, they never took notice of a camera clicking.

It was May 11,1970 when the Woodstock album was release to the public. The cost of the three-vinyl album set was $8. Jim Corcoran was quick to pick up a copy and gather his friends to listen to it. 

When Bobbi picked up the album, she was looking at the back side showing all of the music artists names and the song titles included on the three-vinyl album set.  It wasn’t till Bobbi turned the album cover around that her eyes were amazed at what she was seeing.  Without saying a word, she handed the album cover to Nick, and when he saw that it was a picture of them hugging in that pink blanket, they both smiled and hugged each other as if reliving the moment.

A little factoid here. When Bobbie went with Nick to the concert, she had lied to her mother where she’d be for the next few days. Knowing the album would be publicized, she couldn’t hide from the lie anymore, and eventually faced the music by telling her mom and dad where she had been, and told them about the incriminating album picture cover. 

Bobbi and Nick got married in 1971. After focusing on raising their sons, Mathew and Luke, she got an associate’s degree in nursing at Orange County Community College in 1986. As a nurse, she worked mainly at an elementary school. Nick became a union carpenter and a construction inspector.

In addition to her husband, Bobbi is survived by her sons; a brother, John; and a sister, Cindy Corcoran (who married one of Jim Corcoran’s brothers); and four grandchildren.

Bobbi and Nick in their older years. Courtesy of: Smithsonian 

Nick, said the cause of death was leukemia. Bobbi died on March 18, 2023 at her home in Pine Bush, N.Y. She was 73.

The Ergoline’s became frequent interview subjects for historians of Woodstock, and they often spoke about their marriage as a symbol of its lasting influence and an example of peace and love in action. Every morning when they woke up and every night before they went to bed, they kissed and held each other for about a minute — just as they had on a grassy hill in the summer of 1969. It was a union of two people meant to be.

What can we learn from this story? What’s the take away

It was a moment in time when a young couple wanted to see what the fuss was about a concert happening in Woodstock. Little did they know they would become permanently a part of music history.

Behind a pair of big shades, clad in a multicolored garment and partly covered by a comfy pink-trimmed blanket wrapped around her boyfriend, Bobbi and Nick seemed to embody the flower-child spirit.

It was a time for the young generation to vent their anger against a war they saw as unnecessary, while a united group of musicians translated that anger with their music. 

The photo of Bobbi and Nick represented something else, and that was the broad appeal held by the counterculture of the 1960s.

For one couple it was a moment to remember, for a photographer it was a moment captured in time.
 

Well, there you go, my friends; that's life, I swear

For further information regarding the material covered in this episode, I invite you to visit my website, which you can find on either Apple Podcasts/iTunes or Google Podcasts, for show notes calling out key pieces of content mentioned and the episode transcript.

As always, I thank you for listening. 

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