ipl-logo

Bob Dylan At The Newport Folk Festival Analysis

530 Words3 Pages
In the reading for today, Benjamin Filene describes the controversial performance of Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. Although the author acknowledges that stories about the performance have been wildly embellished since the event, he notes that “[Pete] Seeger’s backstage rage was real” and that Dylan received boos from a moderate portion of the audience because of his use of electric instruments, as well as the shortness and the poor sound quality of his set(pg. 184). Folk purists were allegedly outraged with Dylan turning his back on both the acoustic guitar and politically motivated lyrics which encouraged crowd participation. For example, Peter Yarrow, who introduced Dylan at the festival and also performed with his three-piece
Show More
Related
459 Words | 2 Pages

Guitar can be seen as a parallel to Malcolm X who also believed that blacks should achieve equal rights by any means necessary. The critical and accusatory tone represents Guitar’s beliefs and provides insight into his later actions, such as willing to kill his best friend

Read More
1380 Words | 6 Pages

Altschuler discusses media commentator Jeff Greenfield’s opinion about the influences of Rock and Roll on American youth. Greenfield states, “Nothing we see in the counterculture [of the 1960’s], not the clothes, the hair, the sexuality, the drugs, the rejection of the reason, the resort to symbols and magic – none of it is separable from the coming to power in the 1950s of rock and roll music.” He continues with “Brewed in the hidden corners of black American cities, its [Rock-n-Roll] rhythms infected white Americans, seducing them out of the kind of temperate bobby-sox passions out of which Andy Hardy films are spun. Rock and Roll was elemental, savage, dripping with sex; it was just as our parents feared.” (Altschuler, 8) Rock and Roll stood as a powerful alternative to the conformist ideals Americans had valued.

Read More
1504 Words | 7 Pages

As stated earlier, blues music grew out of post-Reconstruction African American communities. It was the black proletariat from the Southern United States that was the economic force behind performers such as Ma Rainey (Springer 34). While discussing Ma Rainey’s latest record sales, Sturdyvant reveals that he is disappointed by the sales data. Although Ma’s records are popular in Memphis, Birmingham, and Atlanta, they did not sell well in places such as New York City (Wilson 19). As a result, Sturdyvant expresses to Irvin his desire to began a career in a more “respectable” industry (Wilson 19).

Read More
1307 Words | 6 Pages

The narrator then asks what kind of musician is still frowning at this “musician” choice to which Sonny responds seriously, “‘I want to play with jazz musicians.’ He stopped. ‘I want to play jazz’” (Baldwin, p. 134). After hearing this, the narrator then frowns more than before.

Read More
1459 Words | 6 Pages

The years prior to 1969 were rigorous, but when 1969 arrived it all changed. This change was demonstrated with several events and developments that helped America thrive. 1969 was full of “firsts,” and life-changing events; for instance, the Moon Landing, Woodstock, the Vietnamization policy, and new scientific developments occurred because of people’s cooperation, decision-making, competitiveness, and pride in America. Science took a giant leap when the Cold War started.

Read More
926 Words | 4 Pages

Sonny's music helps the storyteller comprehend his life and trials (Page 236 In reference). Baldwin's critique about the significance of stories proposes that composition, similar to music and different types of craftsmanship, fills this need. From the demise of the storyteller's little

Read More
1363 Words | 6 Pages

The Poietic Aspect of Hendrix 's "All Along the Watchtower" Jimi Hendrix, probably one of the greatest guitarists of all time, in 1968 covered "All along the watchtower," a song originally written and performed a few months earlier by Bob Dylan. Even though Hendrix 's admiration for Dylan 's work was well known , his choice to cover a song belonging to a completely different music genre is emblematic. So why did Hendrix decide to cover Bob Dylan 's "All along the watchtower?" In this paper, I will argue that Hendrix 's cover of Dylan 's "All along the watchtower," thanks to its lyrics and sound dynamic, optimally conveys his anti-war and anti-violence beliefs.

Read More
1450 Words | 6 Pages

To Sonny jazz is everything to him, he even told his brother “I want to play jazz” (Baldwin 109). Jazz is how Sonny expresses himself and “In this story music is the thread that accompanies and develops the brotherhood/scapegoat metaphor. For in his music Sonny reveals both his suffering and his understanding of others’ pain. His music becomes a mystical, spiritual medium, an open-ended metaphor simultaneously comforting the player and the listener and releasing their guilt and pain” (Robertson 10).

Read More
1524 Words | 7 Pages

There was rock, folk music, and many more. But, in the late sixties Rock n Roll, commonly reckoned as the golden age of rock and roll when it attained a maturity unimaginable for the delinquent rebellion of the fifties, there are numerous references to the Vietnam War. The criticism of the war is submerged in or displaced by the politics of sexuality, lifestyle, and drugs. Rock music of that time period celebrated anti-materialism, spiritual awakening and social disengagement (James pg 133). Like the social movement it made possible, hippie music was ideologically and economically assimilable.

Read More
1106 Words | 5 Pages

Moreover, Baldwin’s short story “Sonny’s Blues” centers on the social issue of drug use in the music scene as the story’s main characters—Sonny, a jazz musician, and ex-heroin addict, and the narrator, Sonny’s older brother, try to reconcile after one of them reads in the paper that the other has been arrested. The text demonstrates both characters that have taken different paths and the outcomes for both—the narrator has a job, family, and a place to live but is dealing with identity issues and with feeling truly “happy”, while Sonny has ended up with a heroin addiction and in prison. Baldwin presents many social issues within the short story, but the one that stands out most is the use of drugs amongst musicians, which is still ongoing as you have popular names such Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, etc. who have died as a result; it is clear that this is still a social issue. Just like the

Read More
1950 Words | 8 Pages

Neil Young, the musician who transformed noise into music for the whole world, is a great Canadian. He created songs for everyone to listen and also co-founded the benefit Farm Aid. He is what people would call a man for others since he even fits the five grad at grad characteristics. He is loving, committed to justice, open to growth, intellectually competent and lastly religious. Young is a man who everyone would want to be around.

Read More
1967 Words | 8 Pages

According to the late, tragic folk hero, Joe Hill, “A good song could be learned and remembered, while a pamphlet would be read once and thrown away.” (Weissman, 175) Such an idea proves its validity when examining the long-lasting professional and societal success of the depression-era folk protest singer, Woody Guthrie. Throughout his adolescence and his adventures as a box-car musician during the early 1930s, Guthrie faced hardships unparalleled by popular singers of his day. Taken aback by the horrors he witnessed as the dust bowl and the Great Depression tore through the badlands he called home, Guthrie faced emotional turmoil, both in himself, and in the society that surrounded him.

Read More
1428 Words | 6 Pages

Music is the most significant of symbols in Oates short story to the point that it is dedicated to Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan was a popular singer of the 1960’s and many of his songs spoke out in favor of the civil rights movement and anti-war movement, perhaps Oates felt inspired by his work when she created this story. Considered a window to the soul, music plays a large role as the backdrop of the story. Throughout the entire story, the type of music and the songs playing are listed such as at the dinner and Bobby King’s radio station playing in Arnold Friend’s car. These types of music are conflicting as the music in the dinner is described as “background music like music at a church service” and the station in Arnold’s car is “hard, fast, shrieking songs” (pg 1056-1058).

Read More
366 Words | 2 Pages

Bob Dylan is one of the most influential musicians to ever live, and there’s a reason behind that. He had such a creative way of making his songs not only sound good, but leave an emotional impact on the large events that had occurred in the 60’s. The songs that were reviewed were some of Bob Dylan’s most influential songs, for in his songs he had addressed some of the biggest conflicts that had occurred in the 60’s, from segregation being put to an end to woodstock and some sort of anti-cultural revolution. The first song reviewed was “Blowin’ In The Wind” and was formatted by Bob Dylan asking several symbolic questions about society during the 60’s.

Read More
343 Words | 2 Pages

"Desolation Row" is a 1965 song written and sung by Bob Dylan. It was recorded on August 4, 1965 and released as the closing track of Dylan's sixth studio album, Highway 61 Revisited. It has been noted for its length eleven minutes-twenty one seconds and surreal lyrics in which Dylan weaves characters from history, fiction, the Bible and his own invention into a series of storytelling that suggest destruction and urban chaos. Now at midnight all the agents

Read More

More about Bob Dylan At The Newport Folk Festival Analysis

Related Topics

Open Document