ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that, during the 1960s, the broad field of popular music was enriched by a variety of different styles and approaches by different performers. It focuses on the differences between acoustic and electric music, partly in terms of rapid technological developments, but also essentially in terms of musical genres and lyrical contents. Woodstock represents the final moments in that transitional musical period before the dominance of electric rock music in the early 1970s. The consideration of acoustic music will relate it partially to the waning influence of the rural in popular music in the twentieth century. The chapter suggests that the Woodstock festival was almost the last very public celebration of the rural within popular music and that it was also the last occasion on which acoustic performers shared a major public stage with electric acts on equal terms.
