The album cover of Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More was thought to be a heart-tugging snapshot of an American couple, but Jessie Kerr from Comox, B.C., says she knows that’s false because the woman in the photo 50 years ago is actually her.
“These people have built a whole myth around this for themselves,” Kerr says. “I feel badly for them … you can tell it’s not them.”
In August 1969, Kerr was a 20-year-old student at UBC when she decided to hitchhike with a French-Canadian friend, Luise, who was en route back to Quebec after staying with Kerr.
She didn’t want Luise to go alone and also wanted to see more of the country.
“We stuck our fingers out, I think, just at Boundary Road before you entered the highway,” she says. “If you lived on the west coast and went to Montreal, you felt like you were in Europe.”
An American guy, who was hungry to see more of Canada, gave them a ride and the trio travelled through Banff and camped there before reaching Quebec three or four days later.
Kerr says they eventually met a group of Americans who said everyone was staying in an older, empty townhome — the kind made of stone with a long stairway to greet you at the door.
“We met, we clicked, we talked.”
There, she met Jon, a student from Boston.
“He was just one of the people there, we met, we clicked, we talked,” she says.
“He knew about this music festival and asked me to come … I had never heard of it before.”
With $20 in their pockets, Luise stayed behind in Montreal while Kerr, Jon and others hitchhiked to New York. After being dropped off and trekking through bumper-to-bumper traffic on foot, they reached the gates — or rather, the remnants of a gate at the festival site.
“It was a disaster area … babies were being born, you would hear announcements over the loudspeakers” she says. “All while these musicians were playing incredible music.”
After a sleepless night of pouring rain and sound waves crashing over the crowd, Kerr says she and Jon stood together in a sea of people as the sun began to climb — wrapped in a pink and white blanket.
“We picked it up off the ground,” she says.
“We didn’t do anything special, we were just there, like those two people who say that they’re in the picture … they seem like a nice couple but they have been carrying on this fiction for many years.”
“It’s us. That’s who we are”
Nick Ercoline says he was at a local diner named Dino’s Bar in February 1969 when Bobbi walked by for the first time.
“Long, blonde hair, she was a gorgeous girl. She’s a gorgeous woman,” Ercoline says.
When her boyfriend left on that Memorial Day weekend, Ercoline says he approached Bobbi — and they’ve been together ever since.
“She’s still my best friend. We get along great… For the most part we’re attached at the hip,” he says.
That summer, after three months of dating, they headed to the now iconic festival on a whim.
They knew the back roads and were able to make it within eight kilometres, but were too far back to make out the stage.
The air was heavy and humid, with spots of rain. The space around them was littered with members of the tie-dyed masses and a Vietnam veteran snoozing on the grass behind them.
It was Sunday, Aug. 17, 1969, the third day of Woodstock, and Nick says their arms were wrapped around each other, tying their bodies together inside the pink and white, mud-smeared blanket.
He said they only stayed that one night.
“I try to explain that photo as a couple of 20-year-olds who were in love with each other. It’s us. That’s who we are. Still. You can still find us holding hands and hugging each other,” Nick says.
Now, Bobbi says, they’re on vacation “taking a break from Woodstock,” relaxing with family and friends.
Kerr says she tried reaching out to Bobbi years ago about the image, writing, “you are not the person in the photo and I know that.” But she says the couple never responded.
Asked how she would respond to Kerr now, Bobbi says, “I haven’t a clue.”
“I took the photo”
Burk Uzzle captured the classic moment. Uzzle, formerly working at LIFE magazine, worked with Magnum Photos during the festival.
While Uzzle, 31 at the time, remembers taking the photo, he doesn’t remember who the people in the photo are.
“I didn’t get close enough to even talk to them,” he says.
Kerr says she tried reaching out to Uzzle, too, but he says she is not the first to call the Ercolines imposters.
“Many people have sent me emails saying they’re the ones (in the photo).”
“I was surprised”
Two decades after the concert, Kerr’s friends told her she was in the picture.
She saw the snapshot in LIFE magazine, but didn’t see her name.
Kerr says she wrote a letter to the publication and attached a photo of herself — she didn’t have any pictures from the concert because it was too expensive back then.
She felt hopeful the magazine would sort things out, but soon after it went out of business.
Before the magazine went defunct, Kerr says they wrote back.
In an image of what appears to be a letter from the publishers responding to Kerr’s complaint, David M. Fischer, LIFE letters manager, writes, “our reporters corroborated the claims of the individuals, including Nick and Bobbi Ercoline, who identified themselves as having appeared in Woodstock photographs” deeming the evidence as “satisfactory.”
Kerr says her friends believe her, noting her distinct glasses in Uzzle’s photo, but suggests that the Ercolines may have claimed the blanket belonged to them.
“That’s why it strikes me as odd, unless they are truly mistaken,” she says.
Kerr didn’t go public about being in the picture because she was an aspiring teacher and didn’t want to be judged for going to the festival.
“Since Jon and I lost contact, we couldn’t go to the publisher together,” she says.
“I don’t know what happened to him”
Kerr never heard back from her summer lover, but apparently the kind boy from Boston did come to Vancouver for a visit around the time the photo was released.
She says he knocked on the door, but never got an answer.
“I was away working,” she says. “I had a job painting windows for occasions like fairs and stampedes around B.C. and northern Washington state … I was saving money for school tuition.”
Still, they wrote letters, which she kept in a trunk that her three kids ended up selling without knowing about the letters.
Kerr, who eventually married, remembers Jon’s bigger nose, his love for raw green peppers and how similar their beliefs were about war and peace.
“It was like a summer romance. We felt a lot of affection for one another. We just clicked. Maybe if I had been in Vancouver, we would have gotten married,” she says.
Kerr thinks Jon may have been sent to Vietnam after school, despite her own efforts to aid draft dodgers at the time.
“Jon was a very lovely person, the kind who would stay in touch, I don’t know what happened to him — I don’t even know if he’s still alive,” she says.
“It’s kind of sad, actually — I’m sure he had a great life. I’ve had a great life. I’m a lucky person.”
• Email: [email protected] | Twitter: bobbyhristova
— With files from Ashley Csanady and AFP
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2019
