This July 25th marks the fiftieth anniversary of the controversial day Bob Dylan “went electric” at the Newport Folk Festival and to coincide with that event Dey Street Books is releasing DYLAN GOES ELECTRIC!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night that Split the Sixties by Elijah Wald (Dey Street Hardcover; $26.99) on-sale this July 14th.
Wald’s new book is a must-have not only for Dylan fans, but for aficionados of music history and anyone who wants a deeper understanding of a complicated, fascinating period that reshaped popular culture.
On the evening of July 25, 1965, Bob Dylan took the stage at Newport Folk Festival backed by an electric band and roared into a blistering version of “Maggie’s Farm” and his new rock hit, “Like a Rolling Stone.” The audience of committed folk purists and political activists who had hailed him as their acoustic prophet reacted with a mix of shock, booing, and scattered cheers. It was the shot heard round the world—Dylan’s declaration of musical independence, the end of the folk revival, and the birth of rock as the voice of a generation—and one of the defining moments in twentieth-century music. Wald delves deep into the folk revival, the rise of rock, and the tensions between traditional and cutting edge music to provide new insights into Dylan’s artistic evolution, his special affinity to blues, his complex relationship to the folk establishment and his sometime mentor Pete Seeger, and the ways he reshaped popular music forever.
Breaking new ground on a story we think we know, Dylan Goes Electric! is a thoughtful, sharp appraisal of the controversial event at Newport and a nuanced, provocative analysis of why it matters.
There are many conflicting accounts about what actually happened that infamous day at the festival, and Wald delves deeply into it all with additional insight from research and new interviews with audience members who saw it all. But more than just that day, Wald explores the cultural, political, and historical context of this seminal event that really transformed the sixties
Wald will also be presenting a special “Dylan Goes Electric” workshop at the Newport Folk Festival on July 26th to celebrate the occasion.
ABOUT ELIJAH WALD
: Elijah Wald is a writer and musician with twenty years of experience covering roots and world music. His books include The Mayor of MacDougal Street, inspiration for the film Inside Llewyn Davis; Escaping the Delta, about the myth and music of Robert Johnson; and How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ’n’ Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music. He has won a Grammy Award, an ASCAP-Deems Taylor award, and the American Musicological Society’s Otto Kinkeldey award; has taught blues history at UCLA; and travels widely as a speaker on popular music. He lives in Medford, MA.