Celebrating its 50th anniversary in August, the Woodstock music festival is often, with the benefit of hindsight, hailed as an example of what can go right when hundreds of thousands of young, stoned music fans assemble—in stark contrast to the Altamont Speedway Free Festival just a few months later, where four people died. Here, we round up new, forthcoming, and older releases and reissues, which give adults and young readers a window onto the three-day event in Bethel, N.Y., and the larger culture that gave rise to it.
Take a trip back 50 years to Woodstock through the lens of Jim Marshall’s camera. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame commemorates the 50th anniversary of Woodstock with the exhibition “Woodstock at 50,” which in addition to peace, love, and music, features many of Jim’s iconic images of the event, including a series of rare prints produced from his archives that are not, and will not, be exhibited elsewhere.
During extraordinary times for popular music, photographer Jim Marshall was everywhere that mattered: in the Village in New York City with Bob Dylan, at sound check with Hendrix at Monterey Pop, greeting the sunrise at Woodstock with The Who; and probably flipping the bird right back at Johnny Cash once he caught the moment at San Quentin. The list goes on, beginning in the late 1950s and ending only when he died in 2010.
