DYLAN AT NEWPORT

Step back in time with Spy Vibe to to the early 1960s, where a young folk singer channeling Woody Guthrie took the Newport Folk Festival by storm. 1963 was Bob Dylan's first visit to the event, and under the wing of Time cover-star Joan Baez, Dylan, with his gift for poetry, was adopted as the voice of the new generation. Coming from the cafe scene in Greenwich Village, Dylan was swept into a busy year performing at festivals, on television, and at major events like the March on Washington. Although he seemed to arrive as a star, his journey as an artist was just beginning. Two years later at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, he famously plugged in a Fender Stratocaster and launched a new branch of popular music. In related news, that very same guitar (photo below) just sold on December 6th at Christie's for $965,000! Scroll down to see the live auction footage.

History through Bob Dylan's set-lists from Newport via the Examiner (some songs repeated over a few days each year). Image below from the Morrison Hotel Gallery. 

1963: With God On Our Side, North Country Blues, Talkin' World War III Blues, Only a Pawn in Their Game, Talking John Birch Paranoid Blues, A Hard Rain's-A-Gonna Fall, Blowin' in the Wind, We Shall Overcome, Who Killed Davy Moore?, Masters of War, Playboys and Playgirls, With God On Our Side

1964: It Ain't Me Babe, Mr. Tambourine Man, All I Really Want to Do, To Romona, Chimes of Freedom, With God On Our Side

1965: Mr. Tambourine Man, Love Minus Zero, All I Really Want To Do, Maggie's Farm, Like a Rolling Stone, It Takes a Lot to Laugh it Takes a Train to Cry, It's All Over Now Baby Blue, Mr. Tambourine Man 

Here is a collection of video clips about Dylan's at Newport, including a short interview with Pete Seeger about what really happened behind the scenes in those first moments of electricity in 1965. You can learn more with Suze Rotolo's memoir, A Freewheelin' Time, Martin Scorsese's No Direction Home, and the documentary The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at the Newport Folk Festival 1963-1965. Follow photographer Rowland Scherman as he walks NPR through his portfolio of images from the 1963 festival here. Bob Dylan recently put out a series of unreleased recordings from his career (The Bootleg Series, Side Tracks), and an iPad APP for his Another Self Portrait set. A 41-album box set, The Complete Album Collection vol. 1, was just released in November. Spy Vibers might also enjoy the new Cohen Brothers film called Inside Lleyn Davis, about a musician struggling in the Greenwich Village folk scene in 1961. Smithsonian Folkways just released a Dave Van Ronk box set called Down on Washington Square. Also check out the many books and CDs by John Cohen (New Lost City Ramblers), including a collection of early Dylan portraits. Photographs from the era by John Byrne Cooke here. 

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