On July 25, 1965, Bob Dylan played for the first time in public with an electric guitar, the Newport Folk Festival audience booed it, but that Sunday night the folk-rock genre began. Something had changed. Innovation also passes through sharp turns that are not understood at the moment. On the contrary, that whistles and protests attract you.
In the early 1960s Bob Dylan was in his early 20s and he was already a star because of songs like Blowin’ in the Wind e The Times They Are a-Changin’. Authentic generational anthems. Folk. But in the meantime he had begun to explore new musical avenues. In January, a couple of songs were released that “proved that an electric amplification e a more intense rhythm was not a taboo “.
As is typical of the character, Dylan had not told anyone more than necessary of his intention to perform at a major folk festival, introducing rock elements (such as the electric guitar, in fact): “He did not imagine being challenged,” wrote many. years after Robert Shelton in a detailed biography. The fact that it is according to the organizers the festival should have been a folk response to new bands like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. It is no coincidence that Dylan’s performance was planned in the midst of two other very folk performances. But evidently Dylan had another idea: he had just completed a four-piece band choosing the latest member right in Newport, at a party, and they had tried all day in great secrecy.
Just on stage Dylan, with orange shirt and electric guitar, He attacked Maggie’s Farm, the audience began to roar. Then it was the turn of Like a Rolling Stone, published a few days earlier, and the protest was triggered: “Get rid of the band, this is a folk festival!”, was the meaning. After the third song between the boos Dylan disappeared in the back of the stage. Recalled by the presenter who offered him a classical guitar, Dylan agreed to do it acoustic version of Tambourine Man, greeted with an ovation. But the evening was black: in the biography it is described as “stunned, shaken and disappointed”.
Years later someone will say: “Perhaps that evening was brutal. But it shocked us. And that’s why we have artists and poets ”. And the best innovators.
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