When you start tossing around words like “legend” you should expect to run up against myth.

One popular story about local musical legend Bugsy Maugh is that he played at the Woodstock music festival in 1969.  That, as it turns out, is a myth, because he didn’t.

“It’s a very popular rumor, ” says Jay Kerner, who is now updating his book about the bass player from St Joseph who rose to national fame with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.

“When we worked on the book together that was one of my first questions, you know, tell me about Woodstock, and he said ‘I’d love to but I wasn’t there.’ ”

“He said people think he was, because in the movie that they made of it, someone apparently thought they saw him there, and so on the movie soundtrack you can hear an announcer say “Bugsy Maugh please report to the courtesy tent…; or something like that.”

“He was actually in St Joe where his wife was having a baby,” Kerner says. “They hadn’t anticipated that that festival was going to be what it of course turned out to be.”

“That’s just part of the Bugsy legend, that he was at Woodstock, when in fact he was in St Joe at the time.”

Kerner says his book, “Bar Chords with Bugsy,” may soon get an update.   Kerner hopes to add some chapters to the book soon, because so much has happened since it was finished a few years back.  For instance, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band was recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Kerner says he’s expecting to hear from Bugsy’s bandmate Mark Naftalin soon with some exciting news.

Bugsy was unceremoniously omitted from the induction broadcast at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because he was not an original member of the band.  Kerner traveled to Cleveland for the event, and he says Mr Naftalin gave Bugsy a long and heartfelt onstage tribute, which did not make the final edit of the HBO production.  The video is still in the can, however, and Kerner says he’s hoping to get a copy from Mr Naftalin.

Kerner also confirms that a musical tribute could be in the works.