Thirty-two acts took to the stage in Bethel, New York that weekend, and the book gives the performers and the music their due consideration. Who were they? Where did they come from? What songs did they play? What happened to them afterward? How did the festival impact their careers? Those are the questions explored in these pages. Further, the book attempts to restore the chronological arc of the festival from concept to concert to its aftermath and enduring legacy.Drawing on his experiences as a media scholar, Harkins ponders how the album releases and Michael Wadleigh's Academy Award-winning 1970 film Woodstock helped shape the narrative of the festival and in the bargain distort people's memories of the actual event.

Thomas Edward Harkins (Brooklyn, NY'), 'native of Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, New York, has a diverse work history, professes a lifelong love of writing, literature, and music, and boasts an impressive background in academia, highlighted by attaining a doctoral candidacy at NYU Steinhardt's (former) Media Ecology program, and a decade of teaching undergraduate courses in that school's Department of Media, Culture and Communication.