Dylan Goes Electric!, Elijah Wald
Dylan Goes Electric!, Elijah Wald
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Dylan Goes Electric!
Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties

Author: Elijah Wald

Narrator: Sean Runnette

Unabridged: 11 hr 56 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 05/16/2017


Synopsis

On the evening of July 25, 1965, Bob Dylan took the stage at Newport Folk Festival, backed by an electric band, and roared into 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.

In Dylan Goes Electric!, Elijah Wald explores the cultural, political, and historical context of this seminal event that embodies the transformative decade that was the sixties. Wald delves deep into the folk revival, the rise of rock, and the tensions between traditional and groundbreaking 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.

About Elijah Wald

Elijah Wald is a writer and musician whose books include Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues and How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music. A respected expert on the folk revival, he collaborated with Dave Van Ronk on The Mayor of MacDougal Street, the inspiration for the Coen brothers' film Inside Llewyn Davis. His awards include a 2002 Grammy, and he has taught blues history at UCLA and lectured widely on American, Mexican, and world music. He currently lives in Medford, Massachusetts.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Ian on March 27, 2025

CRITIQUE: Introduction I bought this book in 2019, but have only read it now, after seeing the film inspired by it ("A Complete Unknown"). At the time, I googled the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, and thought I discovered an article by Thomas Pynchon (that I can no longer find online). However, havi......more

Goodreads review by Nick on August 25, 2024

A lot denser than I thought it'd be, but a pretty indispensable history of the folk through lines that shape (or don't shape) Dylan's career. I am so curious how they're going to adapt this for "A Complete Unknown" and convey anything more than "wow Dylan went electric, lots of people didn't like th......more

Goodreads review by Justin on February 08, 2025

Hate to be harsh, especially because I loved the movie so much and there is certainly enough here to inspire such a film. Wald is a terrific writer, too, and the bits where he allows himself a little poetic license to analyze the musical and cultural forces of the sixties through the avatars of Dyla......more

Goodreads review by Nooilforpacifists on August 15, 2015

Wald's focus is the night Dylan took the stage at the 1965 Newport Jazz/Folk festival, backed by most of the Paul Butterfield Blues band, and "electrified one half his audience and electrocuted the other." Newport principally had been acoustic (and, if not, featured only electrified ethnic folk musi......more

Goodreads review by Andrew on February 11, 2025

Having just seen 'A Complete Unknown' and noted numerous obvious historical errors, it seemed appropriate to read the book that was the wellspring for this recent Dylan biopic, Elijah Wald's Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night that Split the Sixties, and I am most pleased wit......more