Re: Subject: Re: [Harp-L] dylan electric @ Newport '65

[Ken Ficara <kenficara@xxxxxxxxx>]

I just watched it last week; you can see it in Festival as well. It's
hard to tell (it was dark) but some people are yelling, some are
confused, some are leaving, and you don't see lots of ecstatic
listeners. It does seem that the sound really sucked. Pete Seeger
denies the axe story and a couple of other witnesses say it did
happen. Who knows? Al Kooper obviously has a biased viewpoint, plus he
was onstage so has no idea what it sounded like in the audience. It's
also difficult because no video document shows the whole set, just
excerpts, so you don't know whether it starts bad, ends up well, or
what. People certainly yelled for an encore, but more because they
were shocked at how short the set was than because it was so good.

Think about it. You're headlining an acoustic music festival, and you
show up with a rock band and no provision for properly amplifying the
band. The sound is lousy and it's hard to hear your vocals. You've
barely rehearsed, so you do a sloppy 15-minute set and walk offstage.
Of course you get a negative reaction. I'd boo you too. "That's all we
know"???? That's a pretty unprofessional reaction: You've been asked
to headline the biggest folk festival in the northeast and you can't
be bothered to prepare? Come on.

It's true that at the time, people were condemnatory enough of Dylan's
move to non-political non-acoustic music for Johnny Cash to write a
letter to Sing Out defending him. But the story of Newport '65 is not
one where he shows everyone the future of rock&roll with a spectacular
amplified ste and gets booed for doing so. That story certainly
happened -- listen to the so-called Albert Hall show in 1966 -- but
not at Newport.

Ken

On 12/6/05, billhines4@xxxxxxxxxxx <billhines4@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Can someone that has the recent Dylan bio from PBS (i'm talking about the DVD here) fire it up and look at the actual footage of that set and report back to us? I could be wrong but I seem to remember the audience reacting in horror and being upset. Maybe I was only looking at a select few who stood out and not the majority. I believe the camera was panned back enough to get a good general feel for how much of the audience was into it versus horrified. Hard to argue with the actual video footage versus Al's perhaps nostalgic and unobjective memories :-)
>
> Bill
>
>
> > Without being there personally, this is all postulation at best.
> >
> > Someone was there and wrote another perspective on that set - Al Kooper.
> >
> > "Our portion of the show opened with "Maggie's Farm" and concluded with "Like a
> > Rolling Stone". In the middle of "Maggie's Farm", somebody f*cked up and Sam Lay
> > turned the beat around (played the snare on beats 1 and 3 instead of 2 and 4)
> > which thoroughly confused everyone onstage until the song mercifully stumbled to
> > its conclusion. But "Like a Rolling Stone" was played perfectly and we really
> > got it across. Dylan came off and appeared to be satisfied, and people were
> > yelling for an encore.
> >
> > If you've read any accounts of that infamous evening, chances are they centered
> > on how Dylan was booed into submission and then returned to a tearful acoustic
> > rendering of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue." A romantic picture, perhaps, but
> > that's just not the way it was. At the close of the set, Peter Yarrow (of Paul
> > and Mary fame and the emcee for the evening) grabbed Dylan as he was coming
> > offstage. The crowd was going bonkers for an encore, as we had only played
> > fifteen minutes! I was standing right there.
> >
> > "Hey," Peter said, "you just can't leave them like that, Bobby. They want
> > another one."
> >
> > "But that's all we know," replied Dylan, motioning toward the band.
> >
> > "Well, go back out there with this," said Yarrow, handing his acoustic guitar to
> > Bob.
> >
> > And Dylan did. That's all there was to it. I was right there.
> >
> > .....Can you imagine (the audience) staring in disbelief as Dylan left the stage
> > after fifteen minutes??? Damn right, they booed. But not at Bob-rather, at
> > whoever was seemingly responsible for yanking him offstage after fifteen
> > minutes. We had just run out of rehearsed material and that's why we stopped.
> >
> > ....Bob, seizing the moment, returned to the stage with Peter's acoustic guitar
> > and sang "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" to these people; banishing the
> > acoustic-folk movement with one song right at the crossroads of its origin. If
> > ever there was a galvanizing moment in musical history, this was it.....
> >
> > But the medea misconstrued (or manipulated) the whole point. They attributed the
> > booing to Dylan's electric appearance."
> >
> > Al Kooper, from his autobiography
> >
> > The Iceman
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: billhines4@xxxxxxxxxxx
> >
> >
> > "The audience could have been booing because it was only a 15 minute set, too"
> >
> > nah, the footage i've seen showed people holding their hands over their ears and
> > upset the whole 15 minutes. they were obviously displeased from the get-go.
> > maybe it was "bad" music to them (most likely scenario), or secondary theories
> > could still be that it was too loud or distorted to enjoy.
> >
> > Bill
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--

Ken Ficara
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http://www.kenficara.com