CHAPTER 17 | FURTHER READING 439
evening concert, he sang a set of his own topical songs to an appreciative audi-
ence. The concert ended with Dylan, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, and others joining
together in the civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome.” In August of that year
the same performers gathered to sing during a march on Washington, which
culminated in the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic “I have a dream”
speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
Dylan’s contribution to the Newport Festival of 1964 consisted of two
new songs that could have been topical only to him: “It Ain’t Me, Babe,” and
“Mr. Tambourine Man,” the latter a swirl of phantasmagoric imagery thought to
be inspired by Dylan’s experiences with hallucinogenic drugs. The festival that
year also included musicians outside the usual folk circle, including the country
singer Johnny Cash and Chicago bluesman Muddy Waters. These two musicians,
plus Dylan’s own determination to move beyond topical songs, pointed the way to
elements that the young singer would soon integrate into a fresh personal idiom.
A year later, Dylan’s performance with a loudly amplifi ed rock band at the
1965 festival set off howls of protest among the folk community. That concert
has long been recognized as a landmark event. Among other things, it signaled
Dylan’s passage from the folk sphere to the popular sphere. From this time for-
ward, Dylan would be thought of as a rock artist, not a folk singer. With that
new persona, he would revolutionize rock music much as he had expanded the
conceptions of folk song and folk singer. In popular music after 1960, perhaps
no other single fi gure would be as profoundly infl uential as Bob Dylan.QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND REVIEW
- What features distinguish the new popular styles of the postwar era—
bluegrass, honky-tonk, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll—from main-
stream popular music? What similarities tie them to that mainstream? - Contrast and compare country music before and after World War II. Do the
same for prewar blues and postwar rhythm and blues. - In what ways was rock and roll a distinctly new genre in the 1950s? In what
ways was it a continuation of earlier styles? - W hat were the principal trends in folk music after World War II? W hat social
and political developments are reflected in the subject matter of the new
topical folk songs?
FURTHER READING
Allen, Ray. Gone to the Country: The New Lost City Ramblers and the Folk Music Revival. Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 2010.
Cantwell, Robert. W hen We Were Good: The Folk Revival. Cambridge, M A: Harvard University
Press, 1996.
Malone, Bill C. Country Music USA. 2d rev. ed. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002.
Palmer, Robert. Rock & Roll: An Unruly History. New York: Harmony Books, 1995.
Rosenberg, Neil V. Bluegrass: A History. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985.
Shelton, Robert. No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan. New York: Morrow, 1986.
Zak, Albin. I Don’t Sound Like Nobody: Remaking Music in 1950s America. Ann Arbor: University
of Michigan Press, 2010.172028_17_412-439_r3_sd.indd 439 23/01/13 10:59 AM