Electric Dylan controversy
[a 1] That year, he began recording and performing with electric instruments, generating controversy in the folk music community.
The response to his albums The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan and The Times They Are a-Changin' led the media to label him the "spokesman of a generation".
On July 20, 1965, he released his single "Like a Rolling Stone" featuring a more fully integrated folk rock sound.
On July 25, 1965, he performed his first concert with electric instruments at the Newport Folk Festival, joined on piano/organ by Barry Goldberg and three members of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band: guitarist Mike Bloomfield, bassist Jerome Arnold and drummer Sam Lay, and also with Al Kooper playing keyboards on "Like a Rolling Stone".
Members of the folk movement, including Irwin Silber[a 2] and Ewan MacColl,[3] criticized him for moving away from political songwriting and for performing with a rock band.
Retrospectively, his electric period has come to be recognized by critics and fans as producing some of his best music, and his controversial performance at Newport has been considered a pivotal moment in the development of folk rock.
"[11][12] At the time of Cash's death in 2003,[13] Dylan stated that “Johnny wrote the magazine saying to shut up and let me sing, that I knew what I was doing.
I’ve kept the magazine to this day.”[12] On Saturday, July 24, 1965, Dylan performed three acoustic songs, "All I Really Want to Do", "If You Gotta Go, Go Now", and "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" at a Newport workshop.
Taplin said Dylan had been irritated by what he considered condescending remarks festival organizer Alan Lomax had made introducing the Paul Butterfield Blues Band for an earlier set.
On the night of Sunday, July 25, Dylan's appearance was between Cousin Emmy and the Sea Island singers, two traditional acts.
[16] Dylan's band included two musicians who had played on his recently released single "Like a Rolling Stone": Mike Bloomfield on lead guitar and Al Kooper on organ.
Two of Bloomfield's bandmates from the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, bassist Jerome Arnold and drummer Sam Lay, also appeared at Newport, as well as Barry Goldberg on piano and organ.
[17] Although Al Kooper played organ on the studio recording of this song, at Newport he switched to bass replacing Jerome Arnold.
Dylan performed two songs on acoustic guitar for the audience: "Mr Tambourine Man" followed by "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue.” The crowd exploded with applause, calling for more.
[21] Joe Boyd, who worked with Paul Rothchild on the sound mixing for the festival, described the audience reaction in his memoir, White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s.
The musicians didn't wait to interpret it, they just plunged straight into the second song.Filmmaker Murray Lerner and others present at Newport argued that the boos were from outraged folk fans who disliked Dylan playing an electric guitar.
Others present, including musician Al Kooper, disagreed, arguing that the audience were upset by poor sound quality and the short duration of the set.
I've heard recently a recording of that night, and it doesn't sound to me like booing so much as a roar, just a kind of general hubbub between songs, and during Yarrow's attempt to get Dylan back on stage...
"[28] Poor sound quality was the reason musician Pete Seeger, who was backstage, gave for disliking the performance: he says he told the audio technicians, "Get that distortion out of his voice ...
[30] In the same film, Dylan claimed that Seeger's unenthusiastic response to his set was like a "dagger in his heart" and made him "want to go out and get drunk".
[31] According to jazz historian John Szwed, the legend about Pete Seeger cutting the cable or pulling the cords of the acoustic system may have arisen from an actual incident from earlier that afternoon.
[35] The next concert Dylan played after his Newport performance was on August 28, 1965, at Forest Hills Stadium, in Queens, New York.
The most influential writer-performer on the pop music scene during the past decade, Dylan has apparently evolved too fast for some of his young followers, who are ready for radical changes in practically everything else... repeating the same scene that occurred during his performance at the Newport Folk Festival, Dylan delivered a round of folk-rock songs but had to pound his material against a hostile wall of anti-claquers, some of whom berated him for betraying the cause of folk music.
In 1999, he took part in a BBC Radio documentary about Live 1966, and asked about his reaction at the time, he replied, "I kind of think: 'You silly young bugger.
'"[43] In 2012, Dylan referred to the incident while addressing criticism that he had not clearly acknowledged his lyrical sources for his new album Tempest: Wussies and pussies complain about that stuff.
[44]Despite the mixed reaction afforded to Dylan at the 1965 Newport festival, several electric acts appeared at the following year's event, including the Lovin' Spoonful, Howlin' Wolf, Chuck Berry and the Blues Project.
[46][47] In an article recounting the festival for The New York Times, the critic Robert Shelton suggested that the Lovin' Spoonful's warm reception "reflected the growing acceptance of folk-rock and other amalgamations of contemporary folk songs with electric instruments".
[47] In July 2012, an episode of the PBS series History Detectives recounted the story of New Jersey resident Dawn Peterson, who said she had the Fender Stratocaster Dylan played at Newport.
"[48] Dylan and Peterson settled a legal dispute over the guitar, and in December 2013 it was sold by Christie's auction house in New York for $965,000.
The tribute set included Gillian Welch, Dave Rawlings, Willie Watson, the New Orleans Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Jason Isbell, and several others.
