Booklist Review of Woodstock

This coffee-table tome adds more to the merchandising of the celebrated "Aquarian Exposition" (as the official poster styled it) than to music history, but as a visual reminder of a milestone of rock-music history and ethos, it's quite serviceable. Amid photographs of the crowd and musicians in action, this fortieth anniversary tribute provides candid offstage shots of performers accompanied by snippets of their observations, nearly all pithy or haunting (like the scent of patchouli). Interesting tidbits and reminders abound. Some acts didn't agree to be filmed for reasons that now seem odd, and Joni Mitchell wasn't even there. Assigning an appearance on The Dick Cavett Show top priority, she relied on the impressions of others, including then-squeeze Graham Nash, to write the song "Woodstock." And so forth. The nudity and drugging so evident in earlier Woodstock pictorials are scarce here, but their paucity hardly matters, except by making the expressions on many faces in the crowd strictly inscrutable. Not what you'd want for the serious history of Woodstock, but a darn nice, "lite" treatment.

Review by Mike Tribby