Bob Dylan

Biography

Since its beginnings in the years 1960, Dylan, by its texts and its search for new ways (against its public sometimes), appreciably marked the contemporary musical culture: in testify the many artists who are claimed of his influence (David Bowie, Jeff Buckley, Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, etc ), or the vast repertory to the songs which it composed, from which draw of the musicians of all the horizons and all the generations (Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Neil Young, U2, P.J. Harvey, The White Stripes, Guns Pink, Jimi Hendrix etc ).

The references which Bob Dylan to make evolve/move its art takes as a starting point are not only to seek as regards legendary American musicians, such Hank Williams, Woody Guthrie and Robert Johnson, but also in writers of the Beat Generation, like Jack Kerouac or Allen Ginsberg. He also appreciates Arthur Rimbaud, with which he will be often compared, and is interested in playwrights, such Bertolt Brecht.

With the 21e century, nearly 45 years after the publication of its first album, Dylan traverses the world in concert in concert and continues to compose.

Complex, in constant evolution (it regularly reinvents each one of its standards in various registers, energy of the aggressive rock'n'roll to the Jazz while passing by the Ballade S), near to the social and cultural aspirations of the times that it crossed, the work of Dylan has, perhaps more than very other, makes evolve/move the role of the popular music in Occident ( cf Analyzes). Since 1997, Bob Dylan is regularly put in nomination for obtaining the Nobel Prize of literature. In addition, the texts of its songs, which are between poetry Surréaliste and American traditional music, are studied in the American universities. Its last album studio, Modern Times, appeared at the end of August 2006, entered directly n°1 the charts to the United States, making of him the single singer in the 65 years old world still in life, n°1 with the hit parade.

1941 - 1961: beginnings

Origins

The grandparents of Robert Zimmermann are originating in Europe of the East, of which they fled the Pogrom S of the end of 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Ben D. Stone, his maternal grandfather settles in Hibbing, while Zigman Zimmermann which fled Odessa in 1907, settles with Duluth, in the Minnesota. Beatrice Stone and Abraham Zimmermann, two their children, marry in 1934 and give rise to Robert (Bob) the May 24th 1941. This one passes its early childhood to Duluth then in 1947, moves with his/her parents and David, his young brother, in Hibbing.

In its autobiography Chronic, Volume 1 appeared in 2004, Dylan writes that his/her maternal grandmother bore the Kyrgyz name of , that the family of this one had lived with Trabzon, on the Turkish coast of the Black Sea; although it had grown in the district of Kağızman, it came from Istanbul, in the West of the Turkey. His/her paternal grandfather was originating in Trabzon.

Hibbing

Hibbing is at the time a mining city of approximately: 17000 inhabitants, with preserving manners and of Christian tradition . Abraham, cured Poliomyelitis which it contracted in Duluth, opens a hardware. Towards the age of 8 or 9 years, Robert initiates himself with the piano then later, the guitar and the harmonica. He impassions himself first of all for the country music of Hank Williams of which he repeats the pieces, and listens to radios which diffuse Blues, such as that of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, John Lee Hooker and Jimmy Reed. He will be also marked by Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Bill Halley and Little Richard, whose the gestural scenic one and the anticonformist attitudes fascinate the teenager generation as far as they scandalize her elder.

With the college, the just teenager of the small formations, such as The Golden delicious Chords , with which he plays in festivals and “talent contests”. With friends sharing his taste for the music, it extends its musical culture by exchanging discs of Jazz and Rythm and blues.

Mineapolis

In September 1959, 18 years old, Zimmermann is registered at the university of the Minnesota to follow courses of art there and settles in Dinkytown, the student district of Mineapolis. Not very assiduous with courses which it will follow only a few months, it discovers the folk (Pete Seeger, Cisco Houston) “of the songs which one always holds of somebody”. He plays occasionally in coffees folk such as The Scholar or The Purple Onion for 2 or 3 dollars, it is at that time that he starts to be made call Bob Dylan .

The origin of this name was a long time regarded as a reference to the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, that Zimmermann knew, but it is actually about the deformation of its second first name Allen . August 9th, 1962, Dylan legally makes change its name with the Supreme court.

Dylan is a kid with the paces of vagrant, his way of playing of the guitar is considered to be almost suitable, its too monotonous voice, too raucous, but it allures. He learns much and quickly: in continual search for new songs to be learned, it benefits in particular from the culture and the discotheques folk of the parents of its friends - at one time when the discs folk are rare and invaluable. Inventing stories sometimes, Dylan gradually acquires all the characteristics of an authentic singer folk.

It makes knowledge of David Whittaker, student gauchiste with which he becomes friendly, and by which he discovers Woody Guthrie, of which he devours the autobiography, Bound For Glory . In December 1960, Dylan takes the road of New York to meet there its god, patient of the Chorée de Huntington, which remains with the Greystone Hospital , in the New Jersey.

New York

After a stay of a few weeks with Chicago, Dylan arrives at New York besieged by the cold, at the end of January 1961. It goes directly to Greenwich Village, a Bohemian district where cohabit political singers, artists and militants; does the evening even, it play coffee Wha? . It goes to the bedside of Woody and progressively of the visits, the two men sympathize. Dylan becomes acquainted with Gleason, to which Guthrie spends its weekends, and whose apartment of East Orange was transformed little by little around Guthrie into a place of creativity where join together the great names of the scene folk (Cisco Houston, Jack Elliot, Pete Seeger). Not scorning the hospitality of Gleason, Dylan studies and repeats the recordings of Guthrie that those have.

Arrived at New York recently, Dylan was not thus long in tying relations, but, regarded as too marginal by the coffee owners, he pains to be made engage “Man there said " Like back nap other day,/You sound like has hillbilly/We want folk singer here" ”. In April 1961 however, he plays in front of the company of music folk of the Université of New York, with the Loeb Student Center . On this occasion, Dylan meets Susan Rotolo, 17 years old. Dessinatrice, painter, Suze do not represent the stereotype of the unconditional admiror. Its implication in the student movements, its knowledge of Bertold Brecht, Rimbaud, Villon take part in the metamorphosis of slightly anachronistic Dylan, playing ignorance readily, in an author shining whose feather will incarnate the alarm clock of the deadened political consciences.

At the time of evenings for beginners (of the “hoots”, or “hootenanny”) of a famous club of the Village, the Gerde' S Folk City , Dylan is located by its director Mike Porco, who engages it for two weeks, on the councils of Robert Shelton, critical musical with the NewYork Times: April 11th, 1961 constitutes the first engagement of importance for Dylan, where he plays in first part of John Lee Hooker, an “incredible” guitarist, still little known of the general public. When Mike Porco reprograms Dylan on September 26th, Robert Shelton is present and publishes three days later a very eulogistic article on “a new designer of the folk”, which reinforces notoriety incipient from Dylan.

The Columbia

The Renaissance Folk does not develop however in only Greenwich Village: With Cambridge, in New England, Joan Baez and Eric Von Schmidt also fill with enthusiasm their public, in particular with the Unicorn and the Club 47 . It is with the latter that Dylan meets Carolyn Hester, a singer of Folk which has just signed with Columbia Records. Carolyn is in the search of a harmonicist for the album to which she works, and proposes the place with Dylan, which accepts. At the meetings of recording, Dylan plays Carolyn a piece which it composed, Like Back Baby , which allures John H. Hammond, one of the artistic directors of Columbia. Progressively of the meetings, Hammond becomes aware of the talent of Dylan and, in spite of the reserves of its direction, makes him sign a contract: “I saw this kid with his cap which played of the harmonica - not terrible besides, but I was immediately allured. I asked to him whether it could sing. If it composed. If he did not want to record. ”.

The business manager of Dylan is called Al Grossman, agent famous and discussed of New York: greeted for successes in which it took part, it is also criticized for its primarily commercial objectives, not very reconcilable with the popular misery which the singers folk denounce. Grossman is also the cofounder, with George Wein, owner of a club folk in Boston, in 1959, festival Folk de Newport, and manages the careers of the Kingston Trio, Odetta and the trio folk Peter, Paul and Mary. Hiding its interest to promote the career of Dylan, Grossman encourages Izzy Young, owner of the Folklore Center at the Village at the head to produce the first concert of Dylan of poster, with the Carnegie Chapter Hall , on November 4th 1961.

In March 1962 appears the first album of Dylan ( Bob Dylan , 1962). Composed of recoveries folk and blues, it also contains two original titles: Talkin' New York and Song To Woody . The disc, confined with the coterie folk, is sold badly, but the contract of Dylan, firmly defended by Hammond and Johnny Cash, is not broken, as it was with the departure considered.

1962-1964: an incipient notoriety

Broadside

Since February 1962, appears periodically Broadside Magazine , a magazine folk rested by Agnes Cunningham and on the initiative of Pete Seeger. Albums will be also produced by the magazine, The broadside Ballads , where Dylan appears under the pseudonym Blind Boy Grunt, often written in the moment, which testify to the incoercible faculty of Dylan to compose on all the subjects, of the inanity of hunting for the Communists with the dislike that it tests after the summary execution of a 14 years old black and the release of his assassins, white.

Carried by the evocative power of its texts, Dylan becomes the voice of a generation exceeded by the injustices and the conservatism which prevail then. Blowin' in the Wind , that Dylan composes in April 1962, appears in the number six of Broadside . Begun again on all the campuses and popularized by the trio Peter, Paul and Mary, it symbolizes social dimension and policy which is acquiring its young author.

The Freewheelin'

Blowin' In the Wind will be the first song of its second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan , which it starts to record in June. For that, Dylan composes of many songs engaged such as “has hardware rain' S gonna fall”, written during the crisis of the missiles of Cuba, “Masters off War” and “Oxford Town”. But it also breaks with the tradition folk of its first album with titles plus intimists such as “Gift' T Think Twice, It' S Alright”, “Girl From The North Country”, and “Bob Dylan' S Dream”, revealing of the mythology and the direction of the poetry which live it, accompanied by a piano, a battery, two guitars and low. The simple one, which also includes/understands “Corrina, Corrina”, does not agree with the image of singer of folk of Dylan and is quickly withdrawn from the sale .

First televised appearances

Discovered by the realizer Philippe Saville in Greenwich Village, Dylan leaves to London in December to take part in a televised part: Madhouse One Castle Street , diffused the evening of January 13rd 1963 with BBC. The part describes the history of a rebellious young man who is locked up in a pension and refuses to leave there; his/her sister and her vicinity try to discover the reason of it. Dylan is initially had a presentiment of to play the main role, but noting the lack of naturalness of Dylan when he plays, Saville rewritten the part and allots to Dylan a role of singing narrator. Dylan interprête four songs of which Blowin In the Wind , of which it is the first diffusion; The original of the recording was destroyed in 1968 and no copy for summer has found. Phelps known as to fear a lawsuit in slandering, with surprised ED Sullivan: Hootenany , another television program had agreed to diffuse a song of the Chad Mitchell Trio , whose target was also the John Birch Society . The song, under the pressure of lawyers of CBS, is also withdrawn from The Freewheelin' , on which the song was initially envisaged.

This episode does not mark the stop of the televised appearances of Bob Dylan: In May, is diffused an emission of Westinghouse Studios , entitled Folk songs and more folk songs , presented by John Henry Faulk, in which also the Brother Four take part, Carolyn Hester, Barbara Dane and The Staple Singers. Dylan interprets there “Blowin' In The Wind”, “Man Of Constant Sorrow” and “Balad Of Hollis Brow”.

This episode illustrates the implication of Dylan and many other artists for the civic rights to this period: Via Suze Rotolo, which worked with the CORE (the “Congress off Racial Equality”), and of Broadside . May 10th, 1963, in Greenwood, in the the Mississippi, Dylan had sung with a gathering organized by the SNCC, to encourage the black population of the States of the South to be registered on the electoral rolls. Grayed by alcohol, he makes a speech désastreux.
At the time of a profile carried out by Nat Hentof for the New Yorker, Dylan described his impression: “I fell into a trap when I accepted the price Tom Paine as soon as I pointed myself there I am felt oppressed. That really took to me with the throat. I started to drinking. I have… considering a group of people who had nothing to do with my kind of political ideas. I looked at the floor and I had the jitter. It would have been said that they gave of their money because they made feel guilty”. In this article, Dylan also says: “I belong to any Movement. If not I could nothing make of other but be in the Movement . I cannot see people sitting down and manufacturing rules for me. I make a heap of tricks which no Movement would authorize. ”

Joan Baez, from which Dylan moved away in 1964, described it in the following way: “For one does not know which reason, in my opinion, it wants to be released from any responsibility. Any responsibility, concerning no matter whom, seems to me it. To draw some just with what the others have to offer. ”.

A significant evolution

It is on February 10th 1964 which The Times They Are a-Changin' appears, the album which constitutes the second shutter of what is sometimes called the trilogy folk of Bob Dylan.

On this album, on which Dylan has for the first time a total control, it still looks further into the register of the “topical song” with spouted out songs of the political context and social to the the United States: for example “Only has Pawn in Their Game” which evokes the murder of Medgar Evers, leader of NAACP for the Mississippi at the beginning of the summer 1963, “The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll”, inspired by a fact various of the suburbs of Baltimore, or a man “of good company” killed a servant, after having it frappée.
Surtout, the album contains “The Times They Are A-Changin'” which, two years after “Blowin' In The Wind” becomes the new anthem of youth. This song summarizes the mood of the years 1960, in which a prophetic voice announces a world in full change, where journalists, critics, politicians should not bar the road with rising water of the change.

However, The Times They Are a-Changin' reveals a significant evolution in its author: first of all with the back of the small pocket and in an insert are printed 11 Outlined Epitaph , “11 epitaphs outlined”, which constitute the first publication of poetry of Dylan, and where, subjectively, he speaks more freely about itself. Allusions to the road, with the escape are also recurring there. These poems will be republished later in Writings And Drawings and will be also the support of a biography of Dylan: Bob Dylan, Epitaphs 11 .
In addition, is included in the album of the songs like “One Too Many Mornings” or “Boots off Spanish Leather”, where Dylan expresses feelings on the women, the love, friendship, which the traditional ballades folk cannot express.

Its public, also, changed: in love with music folk the, calm ones, sober vestimentary manners succeeds a public pop, young person, enthusiastic, exuberant. It is also what notices Terri Van Ronk, which dealt with the very young career of dylan, at the time of concert with the Carnegie Hall on October 26th, 1963, in front of 3000 spectators:

Another Side

Its following album, Another Side Off Bob Dylan , is recorded in one in June day, and appears on August 8th 1964. It is an album in the continuity of Freewheeling, which remains faithful to the idiom folk (guitar and harmonica), but there is no more song protester. Here also, by the poems accompany the album.

The central themes of this album are the love, individual freedom, the human reports/ratios. Dylan also develops another topic of importance to with it: the futility of engagement, as “my back pages evokes it”: Dylan makes fun of itself, its vision manichéenne, and judges there that the old speeches and other symbols are only futilities and lies (“Ah I was so old then/I am younger than that now”).
Dylan takes part thus in the creation of a cultural climate which was going to allow the artists, with the rock groups to make share their poetic vision, to exceed the limits of the song of then. During the recording in studio of the album, Dylan entrusts to Nat Hentoff, journalist in New Yorker: “There will be no song protester in this album. These songs, I had them make because I did not see anybody making this type of things. Maintaining many people make songs of protest, pointing finger what does not go. I do not want to write to for people any more, to be a spokesperson. I want that my texts come from the interior of myself”.

The album is badly accommodated by criticism and the folk medium, reproaching him its excess of subjectivity in particular, its lack of esthetism. A newspaper wrote in particular following criticism: “But Bob/It has two problems/the small ones/the language which it writes/is not of English/the measurement which it beats/is not song/and it you species of intellectualism reversed/made only/to bore me with death. ”.

1965-1966: the first period rock'n'roll

With Beatles

August 28th, 1964, Dylan for the first time met the Beatles with their hotel in New York, at the time of their American round. Beyond initiation or not with the marijuana of the seconds by the first, this meeting is the symbol of their reciprocal influence during the years 1960: whereas at the beginning of 1964 Dylan had observed with attention the rise of Beatles, those were sensitive “to the words and the attitude incredibly original and brilliant. ” of Dylan. In 1965, at the time of the English round of Dylan, Beatles post their attraction openly, as the title the article of Ray Coleman in the newspaper Melody Maker of January 9th: Beatles say: Dylan shows the way .

The passage to the rock'n'roll

The future is in the electric instruments. In 1965, it engages the rising guitarist of the time, Mike Bloomfield, the “American Clapton” and records a new album, semi-acoustics, semi-electric, Bringing It All Back Home . Its public folk does not follow and is sulky the album, however still rather near to the precedents, even on the titles with electric instruments.

Three months later, appear Highway 61 Revisited . Entirely electric, the album is based on a basic rock'n'roll, very incisive. Where the pieces of the preceding album were often only “electrified” folk, those leave leave free course with the rageuses guitars and the organ tortuous. The words, abstract and coloured, are also at the end of sobriety folk: In “Balad off has Thin Man”, a business man in vain seeks the exit of a labyrinth populated “naked men” who, in a strange reversal of situation, see in him the monsters that they are in his eyes.

The admirors of the singer are perplexed: Bob Dylan is for them the perpetuation of a firmly anchored tradition, between American music of the origins and social engagement, and the rock'n'roll a commercial, dancing and vulgar music. Dylan, supported by an small group of Rock'n'roll garage, the Hawks , which will become later The Band , share in round which is, at the time, longest ever undertaken. Dylan plays its new songs everywhere in the world, and everywhere he is hooted. The divorce is consumed: Dylan will be never where it is awaited.

In the middle of this testing round, where the group plays more extremely than no matter whom before them, Dylan records the last shutter of “the electric trilogy”: Fair one Fair .

Recorded in two weeks of studio during which Dylan often writes the words a few minutes before the beginning of the session, Fair Blonde one , first double album of the history of the rock'n'roll, is a strange moment of calm in the middle of the fury of this time. Voices and music are based there to tell us all the last experiments of Dylan, lived and dreamed, in an ode with the love in all its forms, of the mother to the prostitute, while passing by the illusory love which the Drogue gives. Dylan is at the top of the world, vibrating internally of thousand strange feelings, and makes share its experiments in this album so surrealist that it is difficult to describe it. A chief of work out of the time which makes of Dylan the engine of the rock'n'roll.

1968-1970: the country roots

In July 1966, the epopee rock'n'roll of Bob Dylan stops more brutally still than it had not started: the motor bike Triumph Bonneville of the singer leaves the road, sending it to the hospital, which draws aside it from the scenes during three years. Forced at rest, Dylan breaks with the life filled of excess which it carried out hitherto, while the most insane rumors circulate in this connection: it is believed dead, insane, kidnapped by the CIA, etc His long retirement is the occasion for him and his friends of the Band, to record outlines of songs, which will leave in the Années 1970 under the name of Basement Slaps .

It is only in 1968 that Dylan reappears, with John Wesley Harding , an alleviated acoustic album, which disappointed at the time much of admirors. It shows less surrealist and more interested Dylan in the past of its country and nimbées popular stories of an unreal mystery. For as much, the admirors did not calm themselves: Dylan is still their leader and they wait until he assumes his role. Badgered, the singer takes refuge in the countryside, then anonymously takes an apartment in New York, but anything made there.

This stardom, of which he does not want, is undoubtedly partly at the origin of the two following albums, where Dylan equipped as a cow-boy, is tested in the country music. Nashville Skyline and the double album Self-service Portrait , all in ballades gentillettes and soft, dismays the admirors: their idol gives up the Contre-culture to become a quiet father. Nashville Skyline mark the meeting of Dylan with another superstar of the American song, Johnny Cash. The songs “I Threw It All Away”, their resumption of “Girl From the North Country” take part in the success of the album. Bob Dylan invests the country of its poetic genius. The album Self Portrait is more heterogeneous.

The years 1970, rebirths and declines

To the beginning of the year 1970, Dylan is devoted to its family life. It leaves a very calm album, New Morning , hated at the time by criticism and regarded today as means. It takes part in very discussed concert for Bangladesh and plays in a Western, Pat Garret and Billy The Kid , of which it writes the music. Mainly instrumental, this original soundtrack contains all the same a tube, Knocking one Heaven' S Door . It is only towards 1975, after an album often considered to be disappointing with The Band ( Planet Waves , which contains all the same traditional the Forever Young ), that Dylan starts to be bored, and thus decides to set out again in round.

The concerts, in very big rooms, are enormous: Dylan in great form, is decided to reconquer this title of rock'n'roll star which it had given up itself a few years earlier. He sings in a way more aggressive than ever, chewing his words, but the public does not have cure of it: it gives finally the impression of living being and it is essence. The round is followed by a disc which perhaps explains this return to the strong emotions, because Dylan tells its divorce with his Sara wife there. Blood one the Tracks , undoubtedly one of the discs more cathartic of the rock'n'roll, since is regarded as one of its masterpieces. The songs explore all the facets of the distress in love: the compassion on oneself, anger, the relapses in love, etc All that in an inimitable poetic style and with a very new sound, synthesis perfect enters the old one and the new one: acoustics certainly, but equipped with batteries, low and keyboards which give him a terribly poignant thickness. The disc gains a great success, which is not enough to leave Dylan its depression, but does not remove either its legendary direction to him of distributed: with a journalist who entrusts his enthusiasm to him, it rétorque which he really does not see how one can like to try out feelings such as those expressed by Blood one the Tracks .

As of the following year, the singer, of return for good, brings together his old friends, among whom the singer folk Joan Baez, and leaves for a round which wants to be epic and Bohème, in a spirit Hippie exceeded already a little at the time. At the beginning, any walk formidably: the caravan, strong of tens of fêtards and musicians, fact stopover in small rooms, plays with musicians of bar recruited on the spot, a film is turned. All this beautiful enthusiasm will end alas up falling down, but not without to have produced its batch of music of exception: a live appeared in the Bootleg Series and the Desired album , result of the co-operation of Dylan and the lyric writer Jacques Levy (!).

This strange idea however gives very good songs, accounts nimbi of mysteries full with Pyramide S, of Gangster S and hooligans, equipped by a very rich orchestration where the violin, held by a musician met by chance during the round, occupies a great place. One has even found there, for the first time for more than ten years, a song of protest! Hurricane tells the lawsuit of the Boxe ur Hurricane Carter imprisoned for murder, and that Dylan is determined to make release. Album with share in its discography, Desire will be alas the last large disc of Bob Dylan before nearly three decades. The Années 1970 finish indeed with Street Legal , which shows us Dylan again depressed and tired, and does not gain a great success.

1979 - 1981: the Christian period

In 1979, Dylan operates one of these reversals of situation spectacular of which it has the secrecy: day at the following day or almost, it converts with the Christianisme and starts to write on its very new close relation with God. If the first disc of this period, Slow fox trot Train Coming , with in particular Mark Knopfler with the Guitar, appears sympathetic nerve, one cannot say as much the continuation of it: on the disastrous Saved and Shot off Coils , it writes its worst texts, which seem directly recopied of a book of Cantique S without any personal addition or almost, sings of a broken voice and equips its music with choruses and deafening coppers. Little appreciated, except by some for religious reasons, these albums off contain however a few excellent pieces such as Every Grain Sand .

The years 1980

In 1983, Dylan puts an end to its Christian period as brutally as it had inaugurated it, and connects curiously with Infidels , a disc considered as means whose topics turn around… of the Judaism towards which it operates an important return. The the Eighties were manifestly not the best period for the large artists rock'n'roll of the Années 1960 and 1970, it is also the case for Dylan: its albums are generally wasted by the discoidal sound of the time, which is not appropriate to them particularly, and its concerts by the lack of conviction that it puts from now on to sing. Of its own consent, to think by themselves and to give up the Messiah S, of some edge which they are.

While refusing to take part in the plays of the industry of the music, by changing musical orientation unceasingly, which regularly was worth to him to be marked of “ traîtrise ” by its former admirors, it changed the image of the popular musician, inserting the pop music on one level in the world of “serious” arts. Even its mistakes artistic, like its discs of the years 1980, where he invented the Christian rock'n'roll, were, seems it, especially an attempt to finish some with the idolatry of which he was the object since the years 1960. Admittedly, the complexity of the work of Dylan prevented it from being a very large salesman of discs, and thus of touching an audience as large as other high-speed motorboats of the pop. But, by influencing in a direct way almost all the artists of his time, it weighed considerably on becoming it of a music which changed the vision of the world of million people.

Passages of Bob Dylan to the Festival Folk de Newport

August 3rd, 2002, the return of Bob Dylan to the Festival of folk of Newport was the occasion to wonder about the rupture supposed between him and its public in 1965. The strong perceptible conspuation on the tapes is not anecdotic: it will indeed punctuate the American and European rounds which will follow.

1963

Revealed 4 years earlier with this same festival, Joan Baez is the head of poster of the edition 1963 and introduced there Dylan (khaki military shirt and diluted jeans), preceded by its fame growing by singer protester. After its song recital, it joined on scene Peter, Paul and Mary, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger and The Freedom Singers, and the festival is completed in chorus on “We shall Overcome”. Sunday evening, Baez, which sings “With God one our side” invites it to join it on scene and the festival is concluded on the triumph from Dylan, then in total communion with its public, while the “topical song”, that compose of the artists such as Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton or Buffy Sainte-Marie are very popular, while Paul Wolfe, an author of Broadside , described Dylan like “a forger, a hypocrite and a manipulator of his public” The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, a group of urban blues, with amplifiers and electric guitars, which is success with “ Born In Chicago”, drawn from their first album The Paul Butterfield Blues Band . In addition to the singer Paul Butterfield, the group is composed of the guitarist Mike Bloomfield, the bass player Jerome Arnold and the beater Sam Lay.

Reinforced by the pianist Barry Goldberg and organist Al Kooper, Dylan and the musicians of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band repeat all the night a limited number of songs: Maggie' S Farm , Like has Rolling Stone and Phantom Engineer ”. The following day, they play these three pieces and their transitions are accompanied by an indescribable hubbub. The prayers of the presenter Peter Yarrow, from Peter, Paul And Mary , Dylan reconsiders accompanied by an acoustic guitar and interprets two of its successes: It' S All over Now Blue Baby and Mr. Tambourine Man.

From this event, reported by Robert Shelton, was born the legend from Dylan forsaking the folk for the rock'n'roll, indifferent to the indignation and the bitterness of its public, while in slide, the most insane noises circulated (the rumor claimed that the singer Peter Seeger, furious, sought an axe to cut the cables of the microphone; what he contradicted).

However, from the arguments come to contradict this interpretation, in particular those advanced by Bruce Jackson, one of the organizers of the festival, which studied the recordings that it had preserved. Jackson wire-drawer first of all that the whistled first nobody was Dylan, but Peter Yarrow, in responsibility to announce it of and with which the sentences intersected by long silences aggravated an impatient public. In addition, the applause is nourished when Dylan appears, whereas the electric instruments are already installed and visible on the scene. In addition, when the group plays, the voice of Dylan is drowned under the volume of the instrumentation, because of a too hasty balance of the sounds. Jackson also advances that in spite of the fact that Dylan is the head of poster of the festival, he plays only fifteen minutes, whereas others remained on scene 45 min. Enfin, public claims the return of “Bobby”, which interprets Yarrow by “with a guitar folk”.

In conclusion, Jackson advances the assumption that the reaction of the public of Newport guided that of the spectators of the concerts to come, décontenancés by a music in which they were not recognized any more.

Paradoxically with these divergent interpretations, the facts are well documented, it is question in particular about these various supports:

Festival! of Murray Lerner (1967)

No direction Home , of Martin Scorsese (2005)

Some pirate discs such as Folk Rogue , described on www.bobsboots (in English)

Discography

Recordings studio

(*) Albums having been remasterisés and republished in version hybrid SACD.

In public

1974 : Before the Flood
1976 : Hardware Rain
1979: At Budokan
1984: Real Live
1989 : Dylan And The Dead
1993 : The Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration
1995: MTV Unplugged

Compilations

1967 : Bob Dylan' S Greatest Hits
1971: Bob Dylan' S Greatest Hits, vol. 2 ( More Bob Dylan Greatest Hits )
1985: Biograph
1994 : Bob Dylan' S Greatest Hits, vol. 3
1997: The Best Off Bob Dylan, vol. 1
2000: The Best Off Bob Dylan, vol. 2
2001: The Essential Bob Dylan
2005 : The Best Off Bob Dylan
2007: Dylan

The Bootleg Series

1991 : The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991
1998: Live 1966 - Royal The Albert Hall Concert, vol. 4
2002: Live 1975 - The Rolling Thunder Review, vol. 5
2004: Live 1964 - Concert At Philarmonic Hall, vol. 6
2005: No Direction Home - The Soundtrack, vol. 7

Trade agreements

2005 : Live At The Gaslight 1962 - Starbucks Coffee Co.

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