At the 1964 Fest, country music giant Johnny Cash sung Dylan's praises and called him the best songwriter since Pete Seeger. Seeing the "Man In Black" sing a clip of "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" on this DVD was a pleasant surprise. And Dylan, a true showman by this stage, gave the nighttime crowd (July 26) a rousing, show-closing version of "Chimes Of Freedom" on harmonica and guitar. Afterwards, it was funny watching the poor stage announcer getting frustrated with an audience that wanted more Dylan and didn't give a hoot for whoever was coming next. Dylan did come back out to the stage eventually, but only to thank the crowd for going crazy for him.
A bit earlier in the '64 set, Baez, playing to the audience, did a pretty good imitation of Dylan's singing style — "Bobby Dylan singing Joan Baez" — before the two of them did a quick, but spot-on performance of "It Ain't Me, Babe." Baez and Dylan were both rising stars at this point and on-stage duets like this were something to see; the song itself influenced another famous male-female duo's hit, Sonny & Cher's "I Got You Babe." And they were far from the only superstar artists to get inspiration from Dylan in the '60s, as everyone from The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix to Peter, Paul and Mary either covered or were inspired by Dylan's work.
One constant in all these performances that speaks of Dylan's multi-dimensional personality is his penchant for humor and charm. He writes serious music all right, about social justice, war, politics, etc., but he often does so with dry wit and brilliant poetry (see "Talking World War III Blues" from his 1963 performance, for example).
But in 1965, Dylan was truly expanding his musical horizons, and thus traded in his acoustic for an electric guitar and for the first time, brought a full band on stage at Newport on July 25. The crowd of folkies didn't much care for the bluesy "Maggie's Farm," and astoundingly, really didn't appreciate what would later be considered one of the greatest pure rock songs of all-time, "Like A Rolling Stone." The boos weren't that loud after "Maggie's Farm," but they were noticeably louder after "Rolling Stone," and Dylan seemed bothered by it as he and his band flubbed the ending, then walked off stage. Once the crowd heard Dylan would be coming back with his acoustic however, they applauded, then were begging for more Bob Dylan after his final performance at Newport, "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue."
Article comments
1 - Glen Boyd
Nice review Charlie. If you put this together with Scorsese's No Direction Home, it pretty much tells you everything you need to know about Dylan during that period. (psst...by the way, I think that frustrated stage announcer you mention is actually Peter Yarrow).
-Glen
2 - handyguy
This is a great movie. We should all be grateful that this long-dormant footage has at last been put to good use.
3 - Charlie
Handyguy, I totally agree, hence my high praise in this review. The DVD (with the exception of the Murray Lerner interview, I believe) is all in black and white and kind of timeless in a way. And getting to see Dylan develop as an artist over a three-year period and in 80+ minutes is really fun and enjoyable. I hope many others think so as well.