Small Town Talk by Barney Hoskins

Small Town Talk

Author: Barney Hoskyns

ISBN-13: 978-0571309757

Publisher: Faber & Faber

Guideline Price: £20

UK music writer (and editorial director of online rock journalism library, Rock's Backpages) Barney Hoskyns is an expert on American roots music and particularly its latter-day offshoot, Americana. Here he focuses on the hub where Americana was forged. The subtitle of Bob Dylan, The Band, Van Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix & Friends in Woodstock is the only unwieldy aspect of the book, as Hoskyns vividly recreates the small town locale and community (not to be confused with the iconic hippie festival of the same title, over 60 miles away) via interviews with principal players and his own informed writings. He pitches Woodstock and its creative residents as a bucolic pleasure dome with hidden, sometimes dark curves. There is a well-told, evocative story on virtually every page of this book – small town talk, maybe, but big on detail.