Taking Woodstock (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) [Deluxe Edition]

The 2009 Ang Lee film Taking Woodstock is a comedic adaptation of Elliot Tiber’s 2007 memoir by the same title (Tiber along with dairy farmer Max Yasgur allowed the famed festival to encroach on their respective properties). This collection celebrates music of the time — not just the tunes of those who played the historic event. The Doors for instance weren’t allowed to play Woodstock, but their twisted nursery rhyme “Maggie M’Gill” is here in its bluesy glory, as is Love’s “The Red Telephone” — one of the more important songs from their psychedelic baroque-pop masterpiece Forever Changes. Other standouts include a newly recorded version of Richie Havens’ “Freedom” (allegedly strummed with a matchbook instead of a guitar pick, just as he played it back in 1969) and a live version of the Band covering Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released.” The Deluxe Edition also contains the entire 18-track Danny Elfman score, doing an outstanding job of approximating the sound and feel of late ‘60s music without any aural anachronisms other than the obvious 21st-century-sounding production.