Woodstock: A New Look

Greg Walter, author of Woodstock: A New Look, worked for Woodstock Ventures during the summer of 1969. As he worked he took photographs. After the festival and his job were over, he dumped the developed slides in a shoebox and stuck it under his bed. When his number came up, he fled the country rather than be drafted to fight in a war he felt was "Dead wrong." He did not open that shoebox again until 1999. Walter shares those photographs in his memoir.

Woodstock: A New Look is not all photographs; Walter tells a story that begins in 1968. The first photograph shows a Vietnam war protester on the ground bleeding after being hit by a Chicago policeman at the Democratic National Convention. Missing from the short narrative is any mention of the murders of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy that year.

Lisa Grant is listed as co-author of the book, but Walter does not mention her in his preface. Grant is credited with Barbara Hodge as Book Cover and Interior Designers. Whether she did any of the writing or not, I think a few of the sentences needed editing. A simple comma added in some sentences or rearranging the order of the words in others would make the reading smoother. Despite that I enjoyed reading the book.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Some of the photographs in the book are included courtesy of AP IMAGES and Henry Diltz. Walter does not identify which photos are his and which were taken by other people. Most pictures do not have captions. A photo spread on pages 92 and 93 shows faces in the crowd of concert attendees. None of the people seemed to be enjoying themselves. Only one young woman has what might be a smile on her face; the rest appear to be either bored or angry. This surprised me. Woodstock and the hippie generation were all about love, peace and joy.

Woodstock: A New Look was published in 2008 by The Writers' Collective of Cranston, Rhode Island in conjunction with the forty year anniversary of the August 15/16 event. Youngsters might enjoy learning that a concert ticket featuring many rock bands cost $7.00 in 1969 and also what wages a typical high school graduate earned during the summer of love. The 60s generation, grown up, might nod in agreement with Walter as his narrative leads up to his evading the draft. He says, "The hypocrisy of America's elders paying homage to the Ten Commandments while systematically breaking every one of them was not lost on many of us."

The Great American Tush Award contest included in the book ended in June, 2009, so no more opportunity to claim the $5,000. prize. Although I would not purchase this book for myself it is a good book to be on library shelves. Walter had some interesting experiences prior to and after Woodstock. A memoir about those times would interest me.

On a personal note, I am two years older than Walter. Woodstock was meaningless to me. I did not listen to that kind of music and was a new mother in 1969. The only person I know who went to Woodstock that year was my father. He and Mom never arrived at their destination. The rain and traffic caused him to turn the car around, heading home, despite his interest in finding out what was going on to cause such a hoopla. Little did any of us know that Woodstock would become a defining moment in the history of a generation.