A fine book! Great backgrounds about the early lives of Dylan and Seeger, the development of the folk scene in the late 50s and early 60s, the history of the Newport Festival, and then a few in-depth chapters about what happened at the '65 festival when Dylan made his famous appearance with an electric band.

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Surprisingly one of the best books I've read. The book takes the reader from the start of the "folk revival" movement circa 1949 to the disastrous Dylan electrification at Newport in July 1965, to its aftermath.

I thought the history was excellent. It is clear that the author was trying to minimize the extent of damage Dylan did to the folk music movement. On the other hand the author may have been right that the real culprit was the Beatles and not Dylan and that Dylan actually went electric before Newport. He mentioned but minimized the possibility that Newport was just the wrong place to trespass with a different genre than people were expecting.

Overall though, with thos quibbles I rated it a "five." It made clear that the pre-1965 folk music movement, like the era itself, was not some Edenic idea. ( )

Elijah Wald is one of my favorite music writers for his ability to break down commonly held beliefs about popular music and show the reality of musicians and their music in the context of their time. Dylan Goes Electric! does the same for the notorious moment at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival when Bob Dylan played amplified rock music, the crowd was outraged, and Pete Seeger tried to cut the cables to his amplifier with an ax. Pretty much everything told about that night is incorrect, or at least incomplete.Dylan's performance, significant as it was, could not provide enough material to fill an entire book. What this book is instead a history of the Folk Revival in the 1950s and 1960s with a focus on key figures like Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie among others. Wald also traces the history of the Newport Folk Festival and how it grew and changed in the years from its origin in 1959 to 1965. Finally, Wald also details the early career of Bob Dylan, from his early influences in blues and R&B, to his quick rise to becoming a widely-renown folk musician, and his discomfort with fame and being the "voice of his generation."At the heart of all three stories - the Folk Revival, the Newport Folk Festival, and Bob Dylan - is a conflict between the ideas of authenticity and music for music's sake, and the lowbrow ideas of pop music and commercial success. Wald details that the Newport Folk Festival welcomed performances of electric blues and R&B bands while being uncomfortable the collegiate pop-style folk music of the Kingston Trio. And while the festival promoted workshops that presented the music of rural folk performers, it was the young, urban and pop-oriented folk musicians drew the largest crowds. As a result of the conflict over the meaning of folk music, new genres such as folk rock and singer/songwriter emerged.Bob Dylan's electric performance turns out not just to be a defining moment in Dylan's career but part of a bigger story within American folk music, and a conflict that in many ways continues to this day. The stories of what actually happened that night are so disjointed, because the meaning of what happened is different to many of the people involved (and those who hear about in later retellings). ( )

Abandoned this halfway through. There's more on the folk scene than I wanted, although if anyone wants to learn about the split between the real folkies and those seen as posers, this is a good source. I just have a hard time getting excited about "the sixties."

A terrific and fascinating look at Folk Music and the event that almost singlehandedly brought it down.

Folk was the music of the people, popular (to the chagrin of some of its practitioners) and important. Pete Seeger, a disciple of Woody Guthrie, was its gatekeeper. And Bob Dylan was seen as the next standard-bearer.

But Dylan is nobody's hero. The iconoclastic singer/songwriter showed up at Newport and plugged in. The rest is legend (and some of the legend is wrong), but that moment marked the end of the folk phase of protest music and the beginning of rock as the voice of the new generation.

This book looks at the history of the music and personalities leading up to 1965, and touches briefly on the aftermath.

A great read for anyone who likes Dylan, pop music, folk music, the Sixties or just a good yarn.

I received a free review copy of this book.

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