It’s one part early Bob Dylan biography, it’s one part the making of a small hippy town into a piece of music history, oh and its also a one part a super depressing insight into corrupt artist management and the horribly unhealthy lives the people in the industry lead. 

The book is written by Barney Hoskyns, a British music critic and editorial director of the online music journalism archive, Rock's Backpages. For the most part, Bob Dylan is the main star of this story, he’s on the front page, his moving to Woodstock really opens the reader into getting to know the town at the same time as Dylan does, and he also interacts with many of the key characters such as The Band and Hendrix. However, the real star of this book isn’t actually on the cover and his name is Albert Grossman.

Grossman was an American manager for folk acts like Dylan and rock bands like Janis Joplin, he also evolved into quite the entrepreneur after his success with these acts slowly building bars and fancy restaurants evolving the quiet hippy town into something very different. It’s often during periods talking about Grossman that the reader is confronted with bloated paragraphs of names, which sometimes contain famous names but often are lists of unknowns, and I found myself beginning to skim over these sections as these people would not go on to have interesting tales told of them later on or sometimes even mentioned again.

As much as I enjoyed reading Small Town Talk, I found there to be very frustrating sections. We get to spend a good hundred pages flowing in and out of what Dylan was up to, you know, on drugs, not on drugs, being a jerk, deciding to not be as much of a jerk etc. and I get that he is on the cover but when we get to, say, Jimi Hendrix, there is only a smattering of about 10 pages dedicated to him in a four hundred page book. Jimi was insecure and his manager was a creep and then he died.

I was also puzzled by the amount covered on the historical festival, Woodstock, as I imagined a book revolving around the goings-on of the town would have had a fair few crazy stories to be told pre-festival, during and post but there is only about ten pages dedicated to the three day concert. I would love to have known about some of the backlash from the town after it had ended, or something more about the event management.

What Small Town Talk does get right is immersing the reader into the vibe of the town, the cultural shifts, the boom of the hippy movement. We’re talking about the 60s and change is in the air and Bob Dylan just released The Freewheelin Bob Dylan with protest songs like ‘Blowin in the wind’. When Dylan signs to have Grossman as his manager, he also moves to Woodstock to live with Grossman and bask in the small town away from busy New York. I took that ride too, along the long open roads with the tall trees and the leaves scattered all over the sides of the footpath, felt like I was going to the country too. When you read about The Band getting together in the Big Pink house, all dressed like these cool original versions of what Mumford and Sons would aspire to look like, it really made me want to start rehearsing in the basement of a house in the woods. This house, by the way, would go on to have Dylan’s iconic Basement Tapes and The Band’s debut album Big Pink recorded there.

There is something comforting about this book, like sitting in front of a fire on a cold night, and I think that all comes from the homely attitude that is ingrained in the town of Woodstock. Before it “sold out” because people cottoned onto the fact that every famous rock band was retreating there, it didn’t have any sense of pretentiousness or trying. Dylan is chilling out at a café in town reading books and doing some writing. The Band is at your local bar having drinks and playing on the bar piano. It sounded really fantastically relaxing and cool, and that’s why so many people were drawn to it. George Harrison is mentioned three times as popping by and “digging the vibe” but alas as the the Beatle once sang, all things must pass, and pass they did. The town gets too crowded, much like certain moments of this book, and after all the best people like Van Morrison and Joplin have left, the end of the book is left with Grossman mismanaging nobody bands that get more pages than Morrison or Hendrix ever do.

It all ends with a pretty sour note as we see the final places for our lead characters such as The Band’s members dying off and Albert Grossman’s empire looked back on with contempt from the people who knew him. But that’s rock n roll isn’t it? I’ve read a lot of these books about rock n roll and they’re all very similar to my favourite gangster movies. They start with that excitement and the money’s pouring in its all so promising but then one arrest here, a bad business meeting there and next thing you’re Tony Montana off your face on drugs, all alone cause you’ve shat on everyone who cares about you, screaming to whoever will listen about you being the best, and then you die. 

Oh, I’m sorry, what a tangent. What I’m trying to say is that Hoskyns has done a great job with this book, it’s an easy read and there are plenty of great stories about your favourite artists for you to pass on to your friends when they can be bothered listening to you. 

- Tom Harrison