Bob Dylan Research Paper

Mashiah 1

Shawn Masiah

Pezza/Rosser

American Studies

25 May 2018

Dylan’s Impact

“Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone” were lyrics from Bob Dylan’s most famous song, ‘Like a Rolling Stone’. Folk music encountered a jurassic change within the years of Bob Dylan. Viewing the historical context of Bob Dylan followed by events in which impacted the music world, Bob Dylan was an important person in history because he changed people’s views on music and impacted the world with the music he created.

Dylan’s early life had an impact on the rest of his life. Born on May 24th, 1941 Bob Dylan was named Robert Allen Zimmerman. He studied at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Bob Dylan appeared at the NewPort Folk Festival and was virtually

This helped launch an entirely new genre, country rock. Dylan was not yet finished making an impact on the world, therefore he decided to continue with what he loved to do. Over the next quarter century, he continued to record, tour, and was widely honored, though his impact was never as great as it originally was in the 1960s (“Bob Dylan”, Britannica 4). Bob Dylan had been widely impacting the world with his new type of music. People did not appreciate him until the 1960s where his most impactful years as a singer/songwriter were taken place.

July 25th, 1965, Bob Dylan went electric at the Newport Folk Festival. He performed a rock-and-roll set publically for the very first time while a roar of shouts and screams and booing rained down on him from a disappointed audience. When he performed an electric version of ‘Maggie’s Farm’, Almost immediately, the jeering and yelling from the audience was getting louder and louder. The audience was so loud that the sound of Dylan and his band were overcome by the audience. Witnesses say the yelling and screaming was because of the terrible quality of the performance (“Dylan Goes Electric” 1). Many people at this live performance did not like that Dylan decided to switch things up from his usual acoustic guitar playing, to electric. Which is a key factor as to why people were screaming so much during his performance. Dylan’s new classic ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ was a sense of dismay and betrayal on the part of the audience that was unprepared for the singer’s new artistic direction and change in the new music style that was starting to grow popular throughout the 1950s and 60s, and soon make an impact on the