Bob Dylan Goes Electric

It's February 6th, 1958, at a high school in Hibbing, Minnesota.

The school's auditorium is packed with the entire student body in attendance for the coronation of the school's homecoming queen.

A full roster of performances is already underway.

The students are watching on as the marching band plays.

Meanwhile, backstage, the next act prepares for their turn to spotlight.

These aspiring musicians are a group of awkward-looking adolescents who have coined themselves the Golden Chords.

At the center of the band is a wiry boy with hair stuck up as high as possible.

This 16-year-old is Bob Zimmerman, a music fanatic obsessed with making it to the big time.

Eventually, his dream will come true after Bob finds fame as a singer-songwriter under the name of Bob Dylan.

But at Hibbing High School, Bob Zimmerman is somewhat of an outcast.

Still, he's managed to find a sense of belonging on stages like this one.

This is not his first school performance.

He's presented several various iterations of his band in the past.

None of them have been warmly received by his peers, but Bob doesn't care.

He just presses on.

While his bandmates tune their instruments, he tests a few chords on the school's decaying piano, preparing to open their set with a wild rendition of a song entitled Rock and Roll is Here to Stay.

As the marching band finishes their final piece, the auditorium erupts in applause.

With the clapping falters as the golden chords come on stage, the group of gawky teenagers immediately looks out of place.

But as always, Bob is undeterred by the whispers and laughter rippling through the auditorium.

Without hesitation, he nods to his drummer and kicks their performance into action, his head held high.

Even in his sleepy Midwest town, the nation's growing counterculture and the music accompanying it had found their way to Bob Zimmerman.

Having already grown a disdain for authority and society's many mainstream establishments and norms, Bob has found his release in music, listening to artists like Elvis Presley and Little Richard and allowing them to inspire his own art.

His performance at Hibbing High School will show off all his passion and angst.

Growing so energetic and frenzied that he accidentally kicks the pedal off his school's piano, Bob will eventually have his mic cut and the curtains closed on him mid-song by his principal.

It will be one of the first in a line of characteristically strong-willed performances that will define his career as a singer-songwriter.

And throughout his breakthrough years in the cultural epicenter of New York's Greenwich Village, Bob will hone his lyrical talents, singing of issues ranging from race relations to nuclear war and becoming a voice of a generation.

His anti-establishment attitude will earn him intense adoration, but it will also bring him much irer, especially after Bob challenges the folk establishment itself, changing his sound and ushering in a new genre when he ditches his trademark acoustic guitar at the Newport Folk Festival and goes electric on July 25, 1965.

From Noiser and Airship, I'm Lindsay Graham, and this is History Daily.

History is made every day.

On this podcast, every day, we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is July 25th, 1965, Bob Dylan Goes Electric.

It's January 29th, 1961, in the city of East Orange, New Jersey.

19-year-old Bob Zimmerman, now going by the name of Bob Dylan, walks through a residential neighborhood, checking the numbers on each house until he's found the one he's looking for.

After graduating high school two years ago, Bob enrolled in the University of Minnesota.

But recently he decided to abandon his education to pursue his real passion, music.

After discovering his love for rock and roll as a teenager, Bob has found a new obsession in the folk genre, and he's ready to go all in.

So Bob dropped out of college and hitched a ride to New York where he hopes to start a successful career as a singer-songwriter.

And since arriving in the Big Apple earlier this month, Bob has been busy trying to get his name out there.

He frequents the coffee houses of Greenwich Village, taking any opportunity to perform.

But amid the hectic daily grind, Bob has decided to take some time out for a special meeting.

For years, the folk music icon Woody Guthrie has been Bob's idol.

To him, Woody is the true voice of the American spirit, and he's determined to be the folk hero's greatest disciple.

After Woody was recently hospitalized with Huntington's disease, Bob made it his mission to meet the alien musician before it's too late.

Today, this quest has taken him all the way to New Jersey, where Bob has just arrived at the home of local electrician, Bob Gleason, and his wife, Sid.

The couple are fans of Woody just like Bob, and they live near the hospital where Woody is staying.

And after hearing about the folk legend's failing health, they invited Woody and his family to spend weekends at their house.

Woody accepted the offer, and word spread through New York's music scene, that the musician is receiving visitors every Sunday in East Orange, New Jersey.

Bob hopes these rumors are true.

He knocks on the Gleason's door, and it opens to reveal Marjorie Guthrie, Woody's former wife.

As Marjorie stands in front of Bob, the final light of defense before meeting his idol Woody, she takes a look at the gangly 19-year-old.

Bob's dressed almost exactly as Woody used to, in an old khaki shirt and work boots.

The familiar garb makes her smile, and she gladly invites the young musician inside, confident Woody will be pleased to meet him.

Though it's often said to never meet your heroes, Bob's first meeting with his idol is everything he hoped it would be.

Upon being introduced to Woody, Bob is uncharacteristically speechless, and Woody is just as happy to meet a buddy musician.

Together, they spend the afternoon singing along to Woody's old songs.

Then, as their time draws to a close, Woody reaches for a card and pen.

Slowly, he writes something down and hands it to Bob, who reads the acerbic message, I ain't dead yet.

Bob smiles and nods in deep appreciation to Woody, placing the keepsake in his pocket before leaving in a dreamlike trance.

Bob's meeting with Woody Guthrie instills within him a confidence and passion that pushes him to new creative limits.

As he returns to New York, the beloved card in his pocket feels like a talisman, a baton passed to him directly from his hero.

For the next year, Bob works tirelessly to jumpstart his music career.

He quickly builds a cult following, and by the fall, he's discovered a talent scout and signed to Columbia Records.

The following spring, he releases his eponymous debut album, full of covers of traditional folk classics and even a special tribute to Woody Guthrie, entitled A Song to Woody.

But the project is not the auspicious start he hopes for.

The album is not a commercial success, failing to hit the charts.

He sells only 5,000 copies in its first year and receives mixed reviews.

Some critics deem it too derivative of his folk and blues influences.

But Bob doesn't let this criticism get him down.

Within a month of his album's release, he will be back in the studio working on another.

This time around, he will decide not to do covers, but write his own songs.

And as the months wear on, Bob will find his voice, making a name for himself with self-penned songs, focusing on various topical issues.

With his star growing, plans will get underway for the release of a second album, and success will seem just around the corner, but getting his music out into the world will prove more challenging than expected.

It's May 12th, 1963, at the studios of The Ed Sullivan Show, one of America's biggest variety TV programs.

Backstage, Bob Dylan rehearses for what is due to be a watershed moment in his career.

Ahead of the release of his second album, Bob is set to be Ed Sullivan's musical guest, reaching a national audience larger than anything the young songwriter has ever known.

But midway through rehearsing his new song, Talking John Birch Paranoid Blues, Bob is interrupted and Ed Sullivan's show executive cuts in to tell him he must leave out this song from his performance.

With its references to the anti-communist group, the John Birch Society and its unflattering look at the nation's anti-communism hysteria, the executive explains that the lyrics are just too controversial.

If he performs it on the show, there's sure to be a public backlash, maybe even a potential lawsuit.

But Bob is unwilling to choose a new number.

So when the show starts to air, the songwriter is nowhere to be seen.

He's decided to leave the studio without performing at all.

The opportunity is a hard one to walk away from.

The Ed Sullivan Show has done wonders for musicians' careers.

But Bob is sure that people have and will listen to his music with or without him being on TV.

And in fact, Bob's absence from the Ed Sullivan Show does even more for his career than his appearance might have.

And while the story of his aborted performance attracts significant media attention, including some controversy and criticism, it also garners plenty of free publicity, helping establish Bob's reputation for uncompromising integrity and building a new anticipation around his imminent release.

When his second album, The Free Wheelin Bob Dylan, does come out two weeks later, it receives great acclaim.

Full of protest songs that would become generational anthems, the project catapults Bob into the mainstream.

And over the next two years, his success compounds on itself.

Bob releases three more albums, fleshing out his discography with more socially charged lyrics and further cementing his popularity.

He goes on several tours, performing dozens of shows and reaching new levels of success.

But as his star rises, Bob begins to feel constrained by the protest and folk scenes he's become a figurehead of.

Determined to reinvent himself, he starts to experiment with his sound, venturing back toward the rock and roll he loved so much as a teenager.

When he releases his fifth studio album, titled Bringing It All Back Home in spring of 1965, Bob pivots toward electric-inspired rock and roll.

This project is a great success, becoming the first of his albums to break into the top 10 on the Billboard charts.

But its stark departure from his previous work also earned Bob plenty of detractors in the folk community, who pine for the musician to return to his roots and call his new sound a betrayal.

Bob is more aware of these calls than ever as he prepares for his sets at Rhode Island's Newport Folk Festival a few months later.

Since the release of his hugely popular second album, Bob has become a fixture at the festival, but this is the first time performing there since his shift in sound.

On his first night at the festival, Bob opts to keep his songs within his acoustic range to satisfy his folk fans.

But then a sour interaction compels him to change course.

After Bob comes off stage from a performance, festival organizer Alan Lomax introduces the next act, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.

But Alan's opening remarks are imbued with condescension, amounting to a critique of the band's use of electric instruments at what's supposed to be a folk festival.

Backstage, Bob doesn't take kindly to the festival organizer's words.

His original intention had been to keep the folk festival crowd happy with a collection of the older acoustic numbers.

But after witnessing the treatment of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Bob's defiant streak comes out in full force, and he's ready to subvert tradition, even if it means challenging the folk establishment itself.

Seeing an opportunity to show Alan Lomax and the many other electric detractors what they're missing, Bob grabs Paul Butterfield after his performance and instructs him to cobble together a band capable of playing electric songs.

If the festival organizers want to keep electricity out, then that's exactly what Bob wants to bring in.

Paul will conduct auditions deep into the night, forming a band for Bob's headline performance the following day.

Meanwhile, Bob will prepare himself for what will become the most momentous shows of his career and one of the most pivotal moments in the history of rock and roll.

Thank for.

It's July 25th, 1965 in Newport, Rhode Island, where the Newport Folk Festival is underway.

As Bob Dylan arrives on stage for his hotly anticipated headline set, it's immediately clear to the audience that something is different.

To their surprise, he's not wearing the usual washed out cotton shirt and work boots reminiscent of the unkempt folk image of Woody Guthrie.

Instead, he's dressed in a black leather jacket and hanging around his neck as an electric guitar.

The audience is confused and apprehensive, and so is much of Bob's sleep-deprived ragtag band.

They barely know the songs and all wonder how this performance is going to go.

But Bob takes it all in stride as he hits the first chords on his electric guitar with an opening rendition of Maggie's Farm.

With its themes of oppression and conformity, the song seems perfectly fitting for this moment.

But the audience disagrees.

It doesn't take long for the crowd to erupt in boos.

A mixture of anger from folk purists is combined with annoyance at the poor sound quality.

The festival engineers had a hard time setting up for a last-minute electric band.

But despite the poor reception, the impact of the performance is undeniable as Bob leaves the stage, having enraged his audience, but also having just ushered in the novel genre of folk rock.

Bob's performance at Newport is his first electric performance since his school days.

And in this way, the move brings the songwriter back to his musical roots, while satisfying his desire to evolve with the times.

But for many, his transition to electric guitar is seen as a move in line with the very commercialist, capitalist ideals he's been singing against for the entirety of his career.

In the wake of his performance in Newport, Bob will be accused by many of selling out, and many folk purists worry that he's forever altered the landscape of the folk scene.

Indeed, the newly dubbed folk rock genre will explode onto the world stage as folk's popularity decreases over the coming years.

But what once seemed scandalizing and catastrophic to fans will later be looked on by many as a stroke of genius.

As the decades pass, Bob Dylan would go on to prove his artistry alongside his popular appeal, becoming one of the best-selling musicians of all time and simultaneously growing regarded as one of the greatest songwriters in music history.

This trajectory, in part, will be created by Bob's intense commitment to his own values and visions, a dedication that led him to make history by going electric at the Newport Folk Festival on July 25, 1965.

Next, on History Daily, July 26, 1990, disability rights activists achieve a major victory when President George HW.

Bush signs the Americans with Disabilities Act.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily.

Hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio, editing, and sound design by Molly Bach.

Music by Lindsay Graham.

This episode is written and researched by Luke Lonergan.

Executive producers are Alexandra Curry-Buchner for Airship and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.