The Ozark Music Festival of 1974 was three days of drugs, sex and rock ’n’ roll in a land of jam judging, tractor pulls and 4-H lambs. The Woodstock generation throwing a final blowout in a small Missouri town.

“It was the last of the uncontrolled rock festivals — and something Sedalia didn’t want to talk about for years,” Lujin said....

Instead, a crowd estimated at 150,000 to a quarter million people from all over the country flooded into a town of 23,000. Most of them stormed the gates. The main craft turned out to be joint rolling. Hundreds overdosed on harder drugs, and one person died. Business owners boarded up stores. The governor mobilized the National Guard.

Aerosmith, Bob Seger, the Eagles, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Ted Nugent and REO Speedwagon stirred up a storm that Sedalia and the state of Missouri could hardly ride out.