By the Time We Got to Woodstock: Goin' up the Country

      Here's a playlist taken from a chapter in By the Time We Got to Woodstock that I like to call "The Vegetable Theory."

1969 gave us a wholesale shift among the rock cognoscenti toward Country music. The simple answer as to why this happened was to blame it all on Bob Dylan, who scheduled a return trip to Nashville in February of 1969 for the recording of his first pure country album, Nashville Skyline. Although Dylan had been recording in Nashville since Blonde on Blonde in 1966, to the faithful this radical move to the music of the enemy (the right) could be explained by one thing and one thing only: he had clearly lost his mind in his 1966 motorcycle accident. 

     Nevertheless, thanks to Dylan and friends like the Byrds, the Band, and the Flying Burrito Brothers, a previously close-minded generation was opened up to some great songs and songwriters, including legends like Johnny Cash, Joe South and Kris Kristofferson. Hearing bluesy belter Tracy Nelson take on "That's All Right, Mama," with Elvis sideman Scotty Moore backing her on guitar, is alone worth the price of admission.