Album Review

Taking Woodstock – Official Soundtrack

• 7th Nov 2009

The movie may have received mixed reviews, but the Taking Woodstock soundtrack, as you’d expect from a film about the summer of love, is full of gems. The format is unusual: live (not necessarily from the festival) and studio tracks from the era, most played by artists who performed at Woodstock, accompanied by instrumental interludes with a sixties vibe, courtesy of Danny Elfman.

Some of the artists are obvious picks even to those with only a passing interest in the film’s subject matter: Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead and The Band are all present and correct, but there’s more depth to this album than that: Woodstock opener Richie Havens’ 2009 take on ‘Freedom’ – first played at the event – is a nice touch and appropriately, if obviously, starts the CD off. Tracks like Arlo Gurthrie’s ‘Coming in to los angeles’ and Country Joe’s ‘I-feel-like-I’m-fixin’-to-die rag’ are brilliant time capsules, capturing the zeigeist in hedonism and protest respectively. Purists may balk at the inclusion of The Doors and Love (neither of whom played), but all the songs carry the vibe along and even provide two of the soundtracks stronger moments.