1961-1970

"An exploration of the year in which "the Beatles played Shea Stadium and made their first major artistic statement with Rubber Soul, the Rolling Stones topped the American charts for the first time with the sexually aggressive (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, ... the Who staked out their territory with the classic My Generation, Bob Dylan released his six-minute opus Like a Rolling Stone from Highway 61 Revisited and sent shock waves through the music community when he went electric at the Newport Folk Festival, Barry Maguire sang of the Eve of Destruction, and Simon and Garfunkel released their first number-one hit with The Sounds of Silence"--Amazon.com.

If Woodstock tied the ideals of the '60s together, Altamont unraveled them. Writer and critic Saul Austerlitz tells the story of "Woodstock West," where the Rolling Stones hoped to end their 1969 American tour triumphantly, with the help of the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and 300,000 fans. Instead, the concert featured a harrowing series of disasters, starting with its haphazard planning. The bad acid kicked in early. The Hells Angels, hired to handle security, began to prey on the concertgoers. And not long after the Rolling Stones went on, an 18-year-old African-American named Meredith Hunter was stabbed by the Angels in front of the stage. The show, and the Woodstock high, was over. Austerlitz shows how Hunter's death came to symbolize the end of an era, while the trial of his accused murderer epitomized the racial tensions that still underlie America. He also finds a silver lining in the concert in how Rolling Stone's coverage of it helped create a new form of music journalism, while the making of the movie about Altamont, Gimme Shelter, birthed new forms of documentary. Using scores of new interviews with Paul Kantner, Jann Wenner, journalist John Burks, filmmaker Joan Churchill, and many members of the Rolling Stones' inner circle, as well as Meredith Hunter's family, Austerlitz shows that you can't understand the sixties or rock 'n' roll if you don't come to grips with Altamont.

Introduces Woodstock Festival, a three-day concert in upstate New York in the summer of 1969.

Collects Ellen Willis's "Rock, Etc." columns, which appeared in "The New Yorker" for seven years, from 1968 to 1975 and explored a wide range of topics related to popular music.

A pictorial biography seeks to convey the late Beatle's iconoclastic personality and collects family photos and reproductions of documents that reflect his experiences, his relationships, and the inspirations for many of his songs.

Discusses the history of British rock in the United States.

An exploration of the year in which "the Beatles played Shea Stadium and made their first major artistic statement with Rubber Soul, the Rolling Stones topped the American charts for the first time with the sexually aggressive (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, ... the Who staked out their territory with the classic My Generation, Bob Dylan released his six-minute opus Like a Rolling Stone from Highway 61 Revisited and sent shock waves through the music community when he went electric at the Newport Folk Festival, Barry Maguire sang of the Eve of Destruction, and Simon and Garfunkel released their first number-one hit with The Sounds of Silence"--Amazon.com.

Provides information on every Beatles song, arranged chronologically, including the inspirations behind the songs, the instruments and equipment used, and where the recordings took place.

Contains lyrics with chord symbols and guitar chord diagrams for 194 songs by The Beatles.