Small Town Talk

It’s the End of the Road as we know it

Having survived the middle-class bacchanalia of Port Eliot, I’ll hope to see some of you at the dependably charming END OF THE ROAD festival in Dorset on the first weekend of September. I’ll be small-town-talking about Woodstock/Bearsville with Julian Mash in the Literature “space” and it’s a lovely way to wind down the summer…7-Tame-NME1-1200x500

Small Town audio

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Welcome to the audio edition of my latest book.

Read by Mike Chamberlain • 13 hrs. • Unabridged • © 2016

Although Woodstock, New York, is best known for the festival of the same name that occurred in 1969–actually held in Bethel almost 60 miles away–the town has long been an enclave for creative types, musicians in particular, starting in the post-war years. This book focuses on the adventurous climate of the sixties and seventies, when artists like Bob Dylan, The Band, and Van Morrison ran wild among its rural confines. While one can’t deny the clarity of narrator Mike Chamberlain’s voice, its blaring cadences seem better suited to a more in-your-face audio topic than this subtle ode to a rustic hamlet whose name will always be symbolic of a mellower place and time. J.S.H. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine [Published: MAY 2016]

Van Morrison

NEW AUDIO for Rock’s Backpages subscribers this week: VAN MORRISON discusses the Woodstock years of Moondance and Street Choir with, er, me (2014)…

PLUS over 60 NEW PIECES in the RBP library, including:

• Paul Gorman on CASSIUS CLAY’s ‘I Am the Greatest’ album (Rev-Ola Records, 1998)
• Howard Wuelfing sees TOM WAITS live in D.C.  (Unicorn Times, 1975)
• Sylvie Simmons takes POISON (Kerrang!, 1987)
• Mark Williams reviews LEONARD COHEN’s ‘Songs from a Room’ (International Times, 1969)
• Bethan Cole hangs with drum’n’bass duo 4 HERO (Mixmag, 1996)
• Mike Mettler looks back with BOSTON’s AOR god Tom Scholz (Sound + Vision, 2006)
• Chris Welch hangs out with the SMALL FACES (Melody Maker, 1969)
• Mick Brown reports on the death of Led Zep’s JOHN BONHAM (Guardian, 1980)
• Sean O’Hagan meets Street Sounds mogul MORGAN KHAN (NME, 1985)
• David Hemingway talks with Ultra Vivid Scenester KURT RALSKE (unpublished, 2002)
• Kathryn Flett reports from the LIVE8 festival (Observer, 2005)
• Jeff Slate natters with NOEL GALLAGHER (Daily Beast, 2015)