Michigan's Woodstock: Sherwood Forest #20042

0:04 Hello, uh, this is Arthur Bush. You're listening to Radio Free Flint, and today I have a really, really good show for a change. This show is gonna take us all back, those from the Flint area, to our youth. That is the 1960s and eventually the 1970s if you made it that far. We're gonna talk about Sherwood Forest, Davidson, Michigan, Richfield Township, and what was for many, many, many uh of the boomers, uh one of their fond memories of all. And let me bring back those fond memories, for example. If you can bear with me, my guest is Dean Sherwood, who is the son of Don Sherwood, who was the owner of Sherwood Forest, and the guy that made all this possible for so many years.

0:59 Well, Badfinger played there, Chuck Berry played there, Big Brother in the Holding Company, Blue Oyster Cult, Brownsville Station, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, or Commander Cody and The Lost Planet Airmen, a great band. Uh Climax Blues Band, another good one. Alice Cooper, The Electric Prune Flash, The Frost, with Dick Wagner, of course, great local band. Uh Fruit, The Ides of March. I forgot what song. You remember what song they they sang? Vehicle. Vehicle. Vehicle, yeah.

1:42 Yeah, Ides of March, I love this band. Bottom horn. Jojo Gunn, Justice Miles, MC5. It's a great guitarist, who I'm trying to get as a guest, by the way. Montrose with Sammy Hagar, Parliament, Funkadelic with George Clinton, Iggy Pop and the Stooges, The Mysterians. I don't know if Question Mark played it. Dude, Question Mark had to play. Yes. The Raspberries with Eric Carmen, who in his own right when the solo act did really well. Ario Speedwagon, I definitely have heard of them. Smoky Robinson and the Miracles, Rumor, and of course Detroit's Great, Mitch Rider and the Detroit Wheels, SmackDab, Spooky Tooth, SRC, I remember that band.

2:33 Sugarloaf, T Garden and Van Winkle, Third Power, Whiz Kids, and of course, I loved Edgar Winter's White Trash with Rick Deringer. And Stevie Wonder. Stevie Wonder played there. I couldn't believe it when I heard that. And of course, we left out a couple others. We left off Terry Knight, of course. And we left off Bob Seeger. And other than that, I think, and all the versions of Grand Funk Railroad, right, Dean? Grandfunk never played there. Oh, Grandfunk never played.

3:13 Oh no, just Don Brewer, right? Yeah. And yeah. Well, the pack, carrying the pack, and then back to the pack again, but never Grand Funk. Tell us a little tell us how Sherwood Forest got rolling. Well, my dad was a dairy farmer with acreage on uh M15. And he bought an adjacent farm that fronted on Richfield Road. And he had a wet spot he could never do anything with. Um tried to drain it, tried everything he could, but finally gave up and dug it as a pond.

3:55 And um that really was the beginning of things. The um the uh second farm that he bought there on Richfield Road had a small house on it that he started renting out um for parties and such. And somewhere in the along the line he got it in his head to uh to build that first reception hall, which is the one for the Wild Wednesdays you remember from you know behind the stage. He built that hall in 1958, right? If you remember. Uh yeah, I believe it opened in 58, 57. Yeah, and the idea there was to have dances and like a like a wedding hall, right?

4:37 Like right. Uh when he built the second edition, 1969, um, that was the largest hall around. So if you're gonna do anything of any size, you know, your next step up was pretty much the IMA auditorium. There was an outdoor stage there. Yeah, the original was uh a band shell, um, just an old-fashioned band show with the polished concrete patio for dancing on. And uh that was uh the early days. Um a lot of sock hops. Yeah, that was in 1959, is what I discovered. Okay. I I didn't know the year, I was only two years old then, so uh but um yeah, that's where Stevie Wonder, the Four Tops, the Motown acts all performed.

5:30 Wow, the Four Tops too. Yes. I missed them. Uh there were um, yeah. Um and so in the early days they Stevie Wonder would have played in that shell, not in some larger right. So it was a very, very intimate, very intimate uh setting. It was a dance, it was a teen dance. He played drums and harmonica and sang. Did you ever meet him? Yes, the first blind person I ever met. What kind of person was he? Yeah, I didn't get to spend any time with him, uh, but you know, he he seemed to be quite the gentleman.

6:11 In 1964, things moved along, and then Don Brewer played in 1964 at that stage, or one of those stages. The Jazz Masters. Uh Don Brewer, by the way, is later became part of the Grand Funk Railroad, which was which was one of the better-known bands ever to come out of the Flint area. Also, Smokey, Robinson, and the Miracles. They played in 1964 at that venue. Uh they're still going, by the way. Did you know that? The Miracles, and Smokey is too.

6:53 Uh I'll give you a little trivia tip. The Miracles have as their lead singer now, who's supposed to, well, yeah, it does sound like Smokey. He's a Flint guy. I can't think of his name right off the top of my head, but he's actually a Flint guy. But I don't know. I think there's one miracle left, something like that. Uh okay, so last person was Terry Knight, of course, who was the infamous musician, and ultimately he became a promoter himself, didn't he? Or manager? He was a manager. Yeah, manager. He managed Grand Funk. Now, then uh there was a fella by the name of Peter C.

7:34 Kavanaugh that came along. Who is he? Who was he? Um Peter was probably the best promoter that that ever came to Flint, or possibly anywhere else. He was just a delight to be around, even as a kid. He was always a delight. He he's a smart guy. He is a smart, smart guy. Yes, he is. Peter C's day job at that time was working at WTAC radio. Yeah, he did the morning show, I believe. And so he was really a disc jockey that that ended up expanding his career in conjunction with your dad.

8:23 Yes. Yeah. So what's your dad think of this guy, Peter C. Kavanaugh? There was a mutual admiration between the two of them. I've heard Peter say several times that he thought my father was the kindest person he ever known. Um and my dad uh certainly uh certainly respected and loved him. They had a very good working relationship. As zany as he was, he had a quiet businessman's side to him that was always in control. Peter C being the ultimate promoter of the day, that was before uh Ticketmaster, right?

9:05 Yes, yes. But you know, you know, Dean in reading up on this subject, uh a lot of guys who played at Sherwood Forest still talk about Peter C. Kavanaugh as being someone who was just a remarkable person who gave who gathered people and created something beautiful. Is an amazing person. My understanding is that WTAC had an exclusivity, you know, and he would handle the promotions. And WTAC became the sponsor in 1969, and from there things started to roll.

9:47 That's the year my father built, you know, the larger of the reception hall. This concert venue um was quite large. I mean, the the air what made it what made it such a fun place is it was such such a great expanse, don't you think? Well, yeah, the size helped. Your dad never really saw this as some place that was gonna be a concert venue. Not originally, no. Uh my interpretation of it, uh, my father being a man of few words, was sort of a family farm for the people that had left the farm. He saw it more as a park than he did anything else. Yes.

10:28 Remember, he opened it before the county parks came along. Your dad made an interesting comment. He said this is gonna be a a park for people that left the city, that that left the country or left the farm. It was gonna be a park for those people. He dug dug the pond, as I mentioned earlier, put up a tobogganing hill. You have to put that dirt somewhere when you dig the pond. Uh he also wisely sold the marl, the soil uh from that marshy area, uh, as a soil conditioner to the federal government. So he he did all right there. There are outdoor pavilions, horse-drawn hay rides, and sleigh rides, really a dray on sleds or wheels, a horseback riding stable.

11:14 Your dad created all kinds of things out there. Tell us a little bit about some of the other stuff, the park aspect of this place, other than just as a concert venue. Well, you know, the picnic grounds. You know, once again, before the county parks and that, people didn't have any place to really go for a picnic. Rides were brought in by others. The right- you mean the rides being the horses and stuff? No, the um the tilted world, the uh there was an amusement park. He's becoming in Barnum Barnum and Bailey Circus here with all this activity, isn't he? Barnum Bailey came out there too. They played there several times. Only four or five summers in a row.

11:55 The largest tented circus left on earth. Some people have described this Sherwood Forest as is the Woodstock of Davidson uh in the 1960s. You know, your father really, uh maybe it was Peter C. that came up with the idea, but the Woodstock was right around that period when he made this deal with Peter C. Kavanaugh. Do you remember what they called the event that they they started to stage through WTAC? Um there were Super Sundays and Wild Wednesdays. Wild Wednesday, yes. So Wild Wednesday, Wild Wednesday was always the Wednesday closest to the summer solstice.

12:38 The others had different names. And that was all in the promoter's head. Yes, yeah, that was all I'm pretty much pretty sure that was Peter. Peter C and your father really what they saw was was, I mean, they were trying to play off of what happened in Woodstock basically by taking the uh the farm and the music and the water and this outdoors kind of atmosphere where you know peace and love and uh coexistence can exist. Would that be an apt description? Yeah, yeah, they clearly played off of it. I mean, there were 12-hour outdoor rock concerts.

13:18 I believe the top crowd was around 14 to 16,000, right in that rank. Of course, initially bought this property for farming. His view about this was quite different than a lot of the uh a lot of the fathers of the day. What was what what do you remember him saying about this whole thing? The idea that he he'd open it up to kids like this. Yeah, um, I don't know. One of his most common sayings was the kids have to have someplace to go. That was, you know, that was the thing. The kids have to have someplace to go. You know, he was on the Ritual Township zoning board and just thought was, well, we have to bring some jobs, you know, here for the locals.

13:58 You know, kids have to have something to do. How many people were employed there? Hard to say. At any one time, I would say seven to ten. Not counting the musicians. Right. Or Peter C or the radio crew or any of that. But I mean, it had an economic impact on that area. Yes. One of the things that I discovered is that it had it had crowds that were as big as the concerts when it came to picnics. Do you remember picnics at this place? Well, sure. You know, a lot of families came out. I mean, there were picnic tables everywhere. Organizations would hold picnics there as well.

14:41 Oh, yes. The UAW, like you said, every Labor Day. That was huge. That was worse than cleaning up after 14,000 hippies. Well, the the the Flint Journal reported that there were about 10,000 union guys out there in their families. Yes. Yeah, it was it was huge. And a lot of people remember those. They probably didn't drink, they probably drank more than the kids, right? Because the kids weren't old enough to drink. No doubt. No doubt. Okay. Now when did your dad pass? He's not alive now. No, um March of 2000. I'm sure you had some conversations with your dad about you know what this was that he had created because it affected, you know, it touched so many thousands of people in uh in in Michigan, particularly Genesee County.

15:33 But uh what was what was it that he wanted Sherwood Forest to be remembered as? Uh the family gathering place. The last conversation we had with three days before his heart attack, you know, I mean, he didn't regret the concerts in that, but he was always afraid that that was going to end up being his legacy. And it was the family gathering place that that was really important to him. The concerts were what uh four times in the summer, you know, the out big outdoor concerts at indoor concerts, you know, virtually every Sunday night, September through May, but um but that was a small part of his business. Well, when you're bringing people like Smokey Robinson of the Miracles and Stevie Wonder and Bob Seeger to the place, I don't think it's gonna be remembered for the old union leaders or some preachers in Flint.

16:23 Its legacy grew after it no longer played music, right? After the music died. He he sold it a couple of times on land contract and it came back like a boomerang before he finally did sell it. Why'd he want to sell it? My father was a workaholic. That park was a 16-hour-a-day thing for him. It was never even mentioned that one of his kids would take it over. I don't even I don't even remember it being mentioned uh from the time that I could toddle and pick up papers. So that wasn't an age when he wanted to pick up papers, I take it. No. Yeah, but yeah, that was that was the thing.

17:03 I mean, you're old enough to clean something, you're old enough to work. That was that. So eventually what happens to to the music aspect of this is that the music industry essentially changed uh in the uh in the early 70s. And then we we started getting big promoters, so that smaller smaller venues, so to uh we never looked at say pine knob as competition, they were a bigger venue, you know, and they could detract bigger acts. You know, the the the larger venues weren't like I said, they weren't direct competition. There was plenty of room for pine knob and Sherwood Forest.

17:46 Yeah, I don't know how much longer it would have been there, and they paid two dollars to get in. Do you remember who the first act was? How old were you? Like I was I was 12, and I I really don't well. Let me tell you who they were. Bob Seeger was the first Wild Wednesday, The Rationals. I thought it was gonna be the Rascals, but it's the Rationals, SRC, was a big-time Detroit rock band. Oh, yeah, and the Bang, that was the first rodeo for for Sherwood Forest, and that was Bob Seeger still looks back at this. Did you get to know him at all? Yes, yeah, yeah.

18:26 And my mother, of course, is his biggest fan, or was his biggest fan, I should say. Really? Yeah, he even visited her on Macken Island uh after my folks retired. Well, tell us a Bob Seeger story. I have pictures of me doing the bunny hop and hokey pokey with Bob Seeger, with Tommy jumping with the saxophone and the bunny hop. We go in the the lower part of the the older hall, which is what served as a dressing room, and old jukebox down there, and I'd always put it on continuous play when he was around. He would play a lot of the old combo jazz and big band. You know. And then of course the bunny hop and hokey pokey.

19:07 Now, do you ever talk to him? Because he doesn't live far from uh no, he doesn't live far from me, but no, I don't. I haven't been in touch with him in a long time. What what what kind of guy was he? How would you describe him? He was, you know, I mean, he's sort of blue-collar Bob. Um, definitely not full of himself uh in any stretch. Um and he was also, you know, the the protagonist in Turn the Page. I just remember him as Bob. One of the things that I'm sure a lot of little girls in the area remember is that that was also a day camp for the for the Girl Scouts.

19:50 It was for the Kersley area as well as Davison. And and also for the one of the synagogues in Flint had Camp Maccabee out there every summer. You had Wild Wednesdays got going and got wild. That be a fair statement. Yeah. It may be an understatement. Uh, because there's a lot of people gonna listen to this who know what those were. And then there got to be Super Sunday. Well, Super Sunday was first. Oh, it was. Super Sunday goes back to days with uh WTRX. Yes. Okay. Now I thought you said there were only four of those.

20:32 Four Wednesdays during the summer. No, I don't know how many Super Sundays there were. Oh, okay. And it was Super Sunday inside or outside? Outside. The Sunday concerts uh were generally two bands, you know, one opened and then you know Bob Seeger or uh Donovan or somebody else, you know, followed. Donovan. Yeah. The psychedelic folk singer. Yeah. In fact, the Ides of March was an indoor concert. I don't remember who opened for them, but so in 1971, there's it's reported that there's a crowd of 10,000 people show up to listen to the Amboy Dukes, Brownsville Station, and Bob Seeger.

21:14 By 1972, the last show was held out there. Do you re do you recall that last show and who played it? 74. So the last show was Ted Nugent and Frigid Pink. So 72 is the last super Sunday, which would have been a big crowd outside. And then in 1973, stuff started happening. You're talking about the political stuff? Started to be problems. There were a lot of complaints all along about the concert. Bunch of hippies. There was never any trouble or vandalism or fighting or such.

21:58 I don't know. My father always attributed it to jealousy, but it became politically difficult to keep up with the concert. So so basically, the the local government was getting irritated. The neighbors probably were always irritated by it, but the sheriff of Genesee County is a different story. John O'Brien. Yeah. Tell us about him. I didn't know him well. I was 16 at the time, after all. Uh, if you're talking about him sending people in to make arrests, uh yes. They also set up safety checkpoints for vehicles down the road.

22:41 All right, so then the cops started to bear down on this place for something to do, it looks like. And then the cops came in and they kind of ruined the party, so to speak, is what it comes down to. Yeah. Yeah. 1969 they they didn't like the first one uh that was held indoors. They broke it up because they used speech? Yeah. In an indoor event. Did did anybody come to your rescue? Oh yeah. Yeah, Peter handled it very well. He did, yeah. Yes. Yes. Um, so so MC5's on the stage, they say kick out that's their song, their signature song, kick out the jams, motherfucker.

23:24 And then the cops come in and shut the thing down? Yeah. Lord have mercy. Did anybody get arrested? No. They just kicked them out. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Okay, well, we people that are younger than me, my children's generation, gotta remember it was America, love it or leave it. Remember that? Yes, I do. And I and the Merle Haggard song, I'm proud to be an okey from Muskogee. Yep. And he sings about how how in in Oklahoma they don't smoke pot. Right. But he smokes it every day.

24:09 He got this image as a red, as the ultimate redneck, and he was he was using dope every day. Uh amazing stuff. So in June 26 of 1994, as Don McLean would sing, was the day the music died, right? 1974. 1974, excuse me. That's the day the music died. And on stage, as you recall, was Bob Seeger. And there was also Sammy Hagar and Spooky Tooth.

24:52 That was the last, that was the last dance out there. Now, um you said your dad eventually sold it. Yes. It's not all that bad if you sell something twice. Sometimes you get to keep the money you got the first time if you're smart. So your dad sells the place, and then um and then what happened? Um he took uh the Canadian Highway 17 uh out to the West Coast and did sort of the grand tour of the West and came back.

25:36 And the uh next summer he became the first carriage or first caretaker of the carriage museum on Macken Island. And that's what he did as long as he continued working, which excuse me he'd have gone back to work in two more weeks if he hadn't died when he did. Wow. So he was 80 years old and had no intentions of retiring ever. At 80. At 80. Do you think your dad understood his place in history? Uh at least the history of Michigan music. He did.

26:17 When I look at it, and if John O'Brien was here sitting next to me today, I'd say John. I always thought that Peter Kavanaugh pretty much ran the show, and my father was along for the ride because he owned the property, but uh but Peter has assured me that was not so. You know, that my father was a very active managing part. I like to ask you a question. What do you think they remember most, the the the voters of this community about Sherwood Forest? You messing with it, Smokey Robinson, Bob Seeger, Sammy Hagar, you snuffing out the pot smokers, or the people that brought so much joy and great memories that have survived all these years.

27:01 And I won't answer that question for him. You know, when you have the view of history and you take it and assess it over 50 years or whatever it's been, keeping kids from listening to rock and roll music doesn't seem to be high on the radar screen to me. No, but it was a popular pastime for many. Yeah, for sure. For sure. It still is. So Michael Moore, what did he say about uh Peter Kavanaugh saved uh Flint from the likes of Pat Boone? Nita Bryant. And then not only did the music die, but Sherwood Forest had a great calamity after your dad left. Pretty much uh kids came over from the neighboring trailer park and you know they vandalized the place.

27:42 I mean, at one time they had destroyed a wedding cake and things like that, eventually they burned it down. Really don't have details. I was so the place went to ruin basically, and it was no longer uh what could have been an extraordinarily valuable asset to the county. It attracted a lot of people who had money in their pocket. The place is destroyed and it sat there from 1989 when the fire occurred. Yeah, in 2019, it went for sale for$700,000, but you know, it never has regained any of its luster in terms of being a park. Obviously, there's a lot of parkland now, 11,000 acres worth out in the neighborhood.

28:24 Uh that's that's the sad story of Sherwood Forest. The happy story is that all the rock musicians lived happily ever after. And that that was largely because of your father um who gave them their start. I wonder as a boy, did you you were growing up too, you were getting to be a teenager at some point here. When all that music was going on, did you ever just want to go out there and listen to it? Yes, it's it's been uh I I I've it's been only in the last probably 15 years I've been able to just sit and enjoy music. If a band is playing, I should be doing something. Like picking up trash and beer cans, it should be working, and and it and it really has been the last, like I said, you know, the Rusty Wright band uh played at a concert here in in West Bloomfield at a park.

29:17 Yeah, I want to say it was probably 2008, maybe 2009, when I finally realized that I was just there. So I told my mom I was gonna listen to Mitch Ryder and she's oh tell him I said hi. I said, Mom, I'm not backstage anymore. You know, I just not did your mom know all these people? Yes, did she invite him in for pie or whatever? You know, she'd take care of them like a mom does. Yeah, yeah, she, you know, I mean, actually, not much at the park because there wasn't much of an opportunity, but uh, but yeah, she you know, she had her favorites. Bob Seeger was clearly her favorite. Yeah, she she was always in the concession stand and she always had a kind word for them.

29:58 Really, what Sherwood Forrest was behind all that all that stuff was really a family-run business that was involved in a lot of aspects of the whole entire operation. Yeah. Boy, that's something. Yeah, that was my father. Well, look, Dean Sherwood, you're a delightful, delightful guest. Uh, and you've helped us reconstruct the history of Genesee County and music in Michigan, and I appreciate that, and it's been fun. So I'll leave you with uh a few seconds here of what uh Lake Michigan's all about, which is the lake, the sound of Lake Michigan.

30:46 Take care. Bye-bye.