The phrase “When Dylan went electric” once held as much weight in pop culture history as “the fall of the Berlin Wall” has in history. Both events now feel like a long time ago, but to many die-hard Bob Dylan fans in the folk scene in the early 1960s, they would have seemed equally unlikely. Those seemed to be serious issues as well. To understand the culture of this decade, you need to understand the significance of Dylan’s appearance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, backed by Mike Bloomfield and other members of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.
The death of rock and roll in the ’50s is often talked about through the lens of tragedy, but there was also anger, disgust, and public discontent. The payola scandal had an impact, as did Elvis’ enlistment and Little Richard’s return to religion. Rock and roll has been destroyed, tamed, and turned into commercial fodder. Simply put, it wasn’t cool at all, and even the Beatles couldn’t single-handedly save it. Their American landing is mythologised as the Normandy of music history, credited with inspiring countless musicians, but without Dylan and the blues artists he imitated, things might have gone in a very different direction.
In the early ’60s, Jonathan Gould writes, “the respective musical followings of Dylan and the Beatles were certainly perceived as living in two separate subcultural worlds.” Can’t Buy Me Love: The Beatles, England, and America. “Dylan’s core audience consisted of young people emerging from adolescence, such as college students with artistic or intellectual leanings, nascent political and social idealism, and a gentle bohemian style…In contrast, the Beatles’ core audience consisted of true “teen boppers,” high school or elementary school students, fully enveloped in commercialized popular culture, such as television, radio, pop records, fan magazines, and teen fashion. They were seen as idolaters, not idealists. ”
Evoking something akin to the commercial pablum of Beatlemania, Newport similarly spoke of a rebellion against folk authenticity. Some people called out, “Where’s the apple?” Others called him “Judas.” Dylan’s set “will be remembered as one of the most divisive concerts of all time” — (which is saying a lot) — and “temporarily plunged both the folk and rock worlds into an identity crisis.” Michael Madden writes for Consequence of Sound. The former folk hero accomplished this with all three songs, “Maggie’s Farm.”Like a Rolling Stone” and “The Phantom Engineer,” an early version of “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry.” Pete Seeger famously “threw a huge tantrum” after hearing the first few bars of “Maggie’s Farm,” above, but later said he was annoyed by the sound quality.
It was a defining moment – and Dylan apparently decided to do it on a whim after hearing Alan Lomax insulting the Paul Butterfield Band, who were workshopping it at a festival. He then returned to the stage and played two acoustic songs to the remaining appreciative audience, undeterred by the enthusiastic response of half the audience to his first set. But a revolution returning rock to its folk and blues roots was already underway. Within six months of meeting Dylan in 1964, Gould wrote, “John Lennon would be making records that openly imitated Dylan’s nasal drones, delicate strums, and introspective vocal persona.” (Dylan also introduced him to cannabis.)
In 1965, “there would have been little distinction between folk and rock audiences.” The two met in the middle. “The Beatles’ audience would have shown signs of growing up with the way the world was,” while Dylan’s fans were showing “signs of growing up.” underJust as hundreds of thousands of folkies in their late teens and early 20s rediscovered the “spirit of their youth.” They also discovered electric blues. Newport marks Dylan accelerating his transition and marks the arrival of an incomparably great electric blues rock guitarist. mike bloomfieldan aggressor in his own right who inspired a generation with “Like a Rolling Stone” and the absolute classic lick Paul Butterfield Blues Band’s debut albumreleased the year Dylan went electric.
Note: An earlier version of this post appeared on the site in 2020.
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Tangled in the Blue: Decoding Bob Dylan’s Masterpiece
How Bob Dylan continued to reinvent the songwriting process and breathe new life into his music
josh jones I’m a writer and musician based in Durham, North Carolina.
Source: Open Culture – www.openculture.com
