Jefferson Lujin is ready for his hometown to see a longtime job tied to perhaps Sedalia’s most notorious webpage in the heritage publications.
Lujin, a neighborhood filmmaker who also operates at Scandinavia Place in Independence, has spent elements of more than 13 several years piecing together a documentary on the Ozark Music Festival, a one particular-time occasion that spanned July 19-21, 1974, and rivaled Woodstock from 5 many years before for its scale, if not nationwide lore.
Of the clichéd “sex, medicines and rock ’n’ roll,” Lujin said, “There was an abundance of all of it, and then possibly a fourth component, which we’ll phone X.”
“The person who was in charge of the phase termed it the ‘last of the significant, silly, uncontrolled’ festivals.”
Upcoming thirty day period, July 16-19, he will present “The Tale of the Ozark Music Pageant: 3 Days of Sodom and Gomorrah in Sedalia, Missouri” at Sedalia’s Liberty Heart theater.
“My main intention is laughs initial, heritage next,” Lujin claimed.
Lujin, who was 3 yrs previous in Sedalia when the festival happened at the Missouri Point out Fairgrounds, has prolonged been fascinated by that weekend and has expended “every little bit of” $100,000, traveled to states as significantly away as Arizona, Nevada and New York to interview about 140 men and women – some of whom have because died – and cobbled jointly film clips to piece with each other the film. He debuted an early rendering of it 7 years back in Sedalia, but this is a more polished product.
“It’s as concluded as it will be, with my funds,” Lujin reported. “If it didn’t go any further, I’d be satisfied with it.”
The Ozark New music Competition left part of the fairgrounds trashed and prompted investigations
When the Ozark Audio Competition had been billed in city as “bluegrass and folks rock” with no a lot more than 50,000 tickets offered, it was advertised in Rolling Stone magazine and became clear even the day in advance of that figure – and all the planned logistics – ended up woefully small. At least 2 times the lots of admirers showed up – with some estimates up to 350,000 – and superior heat permeated through the weekend.
The 27-band routine included such acts as the Eagles, Aerosmith, Joe Walsh, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, the Marshall Tucker Band, REO Speedwagon, The united states, Bachman Turner Overdrive, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Jefferson Starship, Boz Skaggs, Charlie Daniels and Bob Seger. An up-and-coming Bruce Springsteen experienced been billed on the concert poster but ran into transportation issues and ultimately didn’t engage in. Wolfman Jack was the host.
No subject the amount of persons there, then 4 or 5 transportable toilets on hand were plainly inadequate, hundreds of drug overdoses integrated 1 death (among the Lujin’s interviewees was a man assumed to be useless from an overdose who somehow revived) and a nearby corn fields and even a few cows and pigs ended up pillaged for meals.
Later on, with a section of the fairgrounds trashed and the state fair weeks away, crews utilised lime to disinfect the region and bulldozed the topsoil to get rid of the leftover medicines, paraphernalia and other content.
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A different a single of the functions, Ted Nugent, as a guest on a talk exhibit years afterwards, identified as the craziest scene he’d witnessed in his everyday living.
“There have been causes to be unnerved,” Lujin claimed of Sedalia’s citizens at the time. “Everyone’s yards were being afflicted.”
“It wasn’t talked about, not by the founding fathers,” he said. “The people that were being in control of the city surely regarded it an embarrassment.”
For longtime Kansas Town-centered concert promoter Chris Fritz, it marked his first substantial songs function, Lujin mentioned – and the male is continue to banned from Sedalia, and the condition good did not e book rock bands for about 15 years.
The competition spawned investigations by both the Freeway Patrol – which had undercover brokers in attendance – and a Missouri Condition Senate committee that in its report declared the occasion could only be explained a “disaster” and that “The scene created the degradation of Sodom and Gomorrah seem moderate.”
Still, Lujin explained, “The bands all confirmed up, everybody obtained paid and the electric power only went out to the town after.”
As of now, the Sedalia theater is the only position Lujin is scheduled to show The Tale of the Ozark New music Festival,” though he’s hoping to routine a exhibiting on the Independence Square. Tickets are $20 and can be procured both at Scandinavia Area and at Backwoods Guitar in Sedalia.
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