Woodstock, the music mogul, Dylan and Joplin

Music: Small Town Talk, Barney Hoskyns, Faber & Faber, hdbk, 440 pages, €26.50

Joan Baez and Bob Dylan

Nicholas Blincoe on a book about folk and rock'n'roll's Citizen Kane and the ­musicians' ­paradise that destroyed him and many of his inner circle of stars

The small town of Woodstock is a two-hour drive from New York, in the Catskill Mountains. It has been a retreat for artists since a Manchester mill-owner's son created a colony there in 1902, inspired by the Arts and Craft movement.