[1] Shelton had previously noted Dylan in a review for The New York Times of WRVR's live twelve-hour Hootenanny, July 29, 1961, at Riverside Church in Morningside Heights, Manhattan.
"Among the newer promising talents deserving mention are a 20-year-old latter-day Guthrie disciple named Bob Dylan, with a curiously arresting mumbling, country-steeped manner."
Shelton refused to answer questions from the committee about any affiliation with the Communist Party or about fellow Times staffer Matilda Landsman, and was indicted by a grand jury for contempt.
Shelton's intention from the outset was to write a serious cultural study, not a showbiz biography; as a result, he later said his life's work had been "abridged over troubled waters".
An updated edition of this book, The Electric Muse Revisited, with new material by Robin Denselow, one of the original quartet of contributors, is scheduled for publication by Omnibus Press in May 2021.
In 1996, Shelton's papers, and his collection of books, records and research material were donated to the Institute of Popular Music at the University of Liverpool.