This last month was the 50th anniversary of Woodstock (1969, height/end of hippie generation, claimed-to-have-ended-Vietnam-War blah blah zzz) a subject that both fascinates me and I never need to hear another word about ever again. But thanks to Chris Molanphy and his fantastic podcast "Hit Parade" I now know a ton of stuff about it that I didn't before. 

C-Molan is Slate magazine's pop critic and wisely framed the 3-day festival in his episode "We are Stardust: We are Gold-Certified" as a countdown of the acts whose careers saw the greatest chart benefit from appearing at Woodstock. In addition to all-of-this which I didn't know at all, I also learned…

• Most acts who got a bump from playing Woodstock didn't reap the benefits until the next year. Billboard charts just didn't move that fast in 1969. 

• Woodstock's organizers were in debt for years afterward. The Woodstock Movie and Soundtrack Album were largely projects to dig them out of a hole. 

• Many of the tracks on the original soundtrack were recorded elsewhere as the sound quality for many of Woodstock's performances was too poor to include on the record. 

• The Who hated their performance at Woodstock even though it is considered one of the event's best. Because of the rain and other acts being stuck in traffic, the band had to wait hours before going on stage. When they did, they were tired, annoyed and wanted to go home. 

• Santana got to play Woodstock because of their mentor, San Francisco concert promoter Bill Graham. Woodstock's organizers had asked Graham for advice and he only agreed to give it on the condition Santana got to play the festival. Barely known outside of the Bay Area at the time, here's how Santana took advantage of the opportunity. 

The band's first album came out the following week. The rest, as they say…