Dear Listeners,
Jon Pareles here, chief pop critic at The Times, sitting in for Lindsay. With pop in its early January lull, let’s dive into some history that’s now being rediscovered.
“A Complete Unknown,” the Bob Dylan biopic, peaks at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, where Dylan plugged in and made his break from the folk revival. His sound wasn’t entirely a surprise; “Bringing It All Back Home,” with electric rock on Side 1, had been released three months earlier and soared into the Top 10. His single “Like a Rolling Stone” arrived on July 20, just days before the festival opened. His next electric album, “Highway 61 Revisited,” came out soon afterward, in August 1965.
What made Dylan’s public change bolder was the context: a festival dedicated to traditions and traditionalism, and to an ideal of music that was made by and for a community, arising out of collective experiences — regional, occupational, spiritual — and ripe for everybody singing along. It was intertwined with a do-it-yourself, anti-star ethos that would re-emerge, much louder, with punk.
The festival booked marquee names like Dylan, Joan Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary. (News of Peter Yarrow’s death arrived at press time, another loss from the vanishing folk-revival generation.) But the festival was designed to encourage urban-folk fans to discover the dozens of other acts on the lineup: the little-known fiddlers, blues singers, gospel choirs and international visitors that festival organizers had sought out with the determination of ethnomusicologists doing field work. Their mission was more pedagogical than commercial; they were determined to preserve older and more local styles by finding new converts.
The folk revival was full of paradoxes and tensions: amateurism versus expertise, imitation versus innovation, authenticity versus outreach, self-expression versus solidarity. At Newport in 1965, Dylan brought those tensions to a boiling point. But there was far more to the event than his pivotal electric set. Here’s a playlist that recalls the rest of the festival. Some tracks are from Newport in 1965; others are by performers who were on the roster, but were recorded elsewhere.
Feel free to sing along,
Jon
Listen along while you read.
1. Bob Dylan: “Maggie’s Farm”
Bob Dylan had already performed around the festival, playing as an acoustic troubadour in its informal workshops. But on closing night, on the big stage, this was his unforgettable electric salvo. Backed by a hastily rehearsed group, with Al Kooper and members of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Dylan sneers with deliberate dissonance that he’s no longer following anyone else’s agenda. Between his lines, Michael Bloomfield’s lead guitar twists the knife.
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2. The Paul Butterfield Blues Band: “Born in Chicago”
Newport had heard electric guitars before; Chicago blues was traditional enough for folkie approval. The Butterfield band, whose rhythm section came from Howlin’ Wolf’s band, performed on its own earlier in the festival, without boos. The song that would open its first album, later in 1965, was the speedy “Born in Chicago.” Written by Nick Gravenites, the song depicts Chicago as a city of gun violence and young men’s deaths. But the frantic back-and-forth between Butterfield’s harmonica and Bloomfield’s guitar sounds adrenalized, not mournful.
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3. Pete Seeger: “One Grain of Sand”
A presiding spirit of the folk revival and a founder of the Newport Folk Festival, Pete Seeger devoted his life to the hope that sharing songs could change minds and build community. One of the quieter songs he sang at Newport in 1965 — though this is a studio version — was his own “One Grain of Sand,” about how tiny things, and lone individuals, can create great consequences.
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4. Lightnin’ Hopkins: “The Woman I’m Lovin’, She’s Taken My Appetite”
“The meanest, most nasty blues guitar, Lightnin’ just plays it with ease. He can play fast, slow, dirty, any way you want it.” An admiring Michael Bloomfield said that to introduce the Texas bluesman Sam (Lightnin’) Hopkins at Newport in 1965. This wry, lovelorn plaint is a cagey display of subtle dynamics and counterpoint on a lone electric guitar. Hopkins juggles a thumb-picked bass, neatly sketched chords and lead lines that tease, coil and suddenly wail. Stick around for the outro, where Hopkins invites the audience to visit his home address; would that happen at a 21st-century festival?
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5. Joan Baez: “Farewell, Angelina”
Dylan’s hold on the 1965 folk scene was clear even when he was offstage. Other Newport performers were singing his songs, trying to emulate them, or both. Joan Baez, whose pristine soprano had made her a headliner before Dylan reached New York City, was an early champion of his songs, and he handed her his unreleased “Farewell, Angelina”; it became the title song of her 1965 album. It’s a Celtic-tinged waltz filled with cryptic, turbulent imagery: “The sky is on fire, and I must go,” Baez sings, gently but knowingly.
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6. Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys: “Molly & Tenbrooks”
Bluegrass music got its name from the Blue Grass Boys, the fast-fingered string band led by the Kentucky-born mandolinist and singer Bill Monroe. One of the songs they performed at Newport in 1965 was “Molly & Tenbrooks,” a tribute to a horse who could outrun a train. This 1957 rendition races wildly ahead.
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7. Rev. Gary Davis: “Samson & Delilah (If I Had My Way)”
Rev. Gary Davis, born in South Carolina in 1896, mingled blues, ragtime and gospel with rowdy virtuosity. He could moan, preach, rasp and shout, and his guitar playing was endlessly inventive: unpredictable rhythm chords, melodic comebacks and counterpoint, abrupt slides and lunges. Davis was a Newport regular, and this acrobatic version of “Samson & Delilah” was recorded before 1965; it jumps.
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8. Peter, Paul and Mary: “If I Had My Way”
Peter, Paul and Mary’s adaptation of “Samson & Delilah” backs up Peter Yarrow’s hearty lead vocal with brisk guitar strumming and an assortment of cleverly planned vocal harmonies, staccato and sustained. Still, they sound a little less likely to “tear this building down” than Davis did on his own.
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9. The Chambers Brothers: “I Got It”
Before the Chambers Brothers found psychedelic soul glory with “Time Has Come Today,” they flaunted their gospel upbringing with full-throated, raspy-voiced, call-and-response harmonies directly from the Baptist church. “I Got It” is a rocking affirmation of faith, propelled by handclaps and — even at Newport — a distorted electric guitar.
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10. Odetta: “Troubled”
With her deep contralto and her fiercely strummed guitar, Odetta could — and did — sing just about everything when she emerged in the 1950s: spirituals, pop, jazz, blues, gospel, even opera. She brought the power and dignity of her voice to the civil rights movement, and Dylan acknowledged her as an inspiration. “Troubled” is from her 1964 album “Odetta Sings of Many Things”; it’s a plaint delivered with steely determination.
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11. Spokes Mashiyane: “Jika Spokes”
The festival’s producer, George Wein, recalled in his memoir, “Myself Among Others,” that the South African pennywhistle player Spokes Mashiyane was an unexpected sensation at the 1965 festival. In South Africa, Mashiyane was a hitmaker who shaped the lilting, whistle-topped style called kwela; at Newport, he got impromptu (and probably less swinging) backup from Pete Seeger on banjo and Wein on piano. Here’s one of his South African hits, “Jika Spokes.”
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12. Ed Young: “Hen Duck”
Colonial-era fife-and-drum groups got an Africanized makeover from workers on Mississippi plantations. For big outdoor picnics, they made music with piercing melodies on fifes cut from sugar cane, and drumbeats far more syncopated than “Yankee Doodle.” The ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax, a festival board member, recorded this fife-and-drum tune in 1959 on a trip to Mississippi, and the fifer Ed Young’s group appeared at Newport in 1965. There’s a kinetic, tantalizing snippet of their performance in the 1967 Newport documentary “Festival.”
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13. Cousin Emmy and the New Lost City Ramblers: “Ruby, Are You Mad at Your Man?”
Who had the unenviable spot just preceding Dylan at the 1965 festival? With true folkie egalitarianism, it was Cousin Emmy: Cynthia May Carver, born in 1903 in Kentucky, who wrote songs, played banjo and other instruments and sang with a bright Appalachian twang. Her first, successful career was largely in performing on radio, not records, during the 1940s and 1950s; most of those shows are lost. She was rediscovered by the New Lost City Ramblers: urban fans of old string-band music who became adept, research-oriented revivalists. They made an album with her and backed her at Newport in 1965. This Cousin Emmy song, with her twangy near-yodels, found a second life when the Osborne Brothers turned it into a bluegrass standard.
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14. Eck Robertson: “Sallie Gooden”
Back in 1921, Eck Robertson — Alexander Campbell Robertson, a fiddler born in Arkansas who settled in Texas — recorded what were later recognized as the first country singles. The festival’s folklorists tracked him down to perform in 1965, and his recorded Newport performance was vigorous. But here I’ve included that very first Victor Records single, released in 1922: a solo version of the traditional tune “Sallie Gooden.” Robertson spins out a dozen variations, over drone notes that make the track sound timeless and mysterious.
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15. Peter, Paul and Mary, Odetta, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Theodore Bikel and many others: “Come and Go With Me to That Land”
The traditional finale to a folk festival was a mass singalong like this one, which capped Peter, Paul and Mary’s set with a spiritual turned civil rights anthem: “Ain’t no kneeling in that land where I’m bound.” Odetta commanded the lead vocals as more and more of the festival roster joined in, among them Richie Havens, Fannie Lou Hamer, Jean Ritchie, the Freedom Singers and the jug-band leader Jim Kweskin. It was ragged, rousing and righteous.
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The Amplifier Playlist
“Highlights From the 1965 Newport Folk Festival (Beyond Bob Dylan)” track list
Track 1: Bob Dylan, “Maggie’s Farm”
Track 2: The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, “Born in Chicago”
Track 3: Pete Seeger, “One Grain of Sand”
Track 4: Lightnin’ Hopkins, “The Woman I’m Lovin’, She’s Taken My Appetite”
Track 5: Joan Baez, “Farewell, Angelina”
Track 6: Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys, “Molly & Tenbrooks”
Track 7: Rev. Gary Davis, “Samson & Delilah (If I Had My Way)”
Track 8: Peter, Paul and Mary, “If I Had My Way”
Track 9: The Chambers Brothers, “I Got It”
Track 10: Odetta, “Troubled”
Track 11: Spokes Mashiyane, “Jika Spokes”
Track 12: Ed Young, “Hen Duck”
Track 13: Cousin Emmy and the New Lost City Ramblers, “Ruby, Are You Mad at Your Man?”
Track 14: Eck Robertson, “Sallie Gooden”
Track 15: Peter, Paul and Mary, Odetta, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Theodore Bikel and many others, “Come and Go With Me to That Land”
A quick correction: The Amplifier on Friday misidentified the original name of Sam Phillips’s studio. It was the Memphis Recording Service Studio, not the Memphis Recording Studio.
The post Bob Dylan Wasn’t the Only 1965 Newport Highlight. Hear 14 More. appeared first on New York Times.
