The 1960s were the most interesting times to be youth in the west. London had a remarkable metamorphosis from a ‘gloomy, grimy post-war capital into a bright epicentre of style’. It became the focal point of the Swinging Sixties that coincided with a youth driven cultural revolution emphasising modernity and fun-loving hedonism. Music was an essential part of the revolution, of London’s swing. While Liverpool had the Beatles, London hosted a mix of bands, including The Who and The Rolling Stones, who achieved worldwide success.
In America the decade was marked by significant social, political and cultural shifts. The simmering fight for racial equality culminated into landmark legislation like the Civil Rights Act of 1964; there were protests all around and American involvement in Vietnam War sparked widespread anti-war protests. A youth led movement emerged that challanged traditional values and norms like never before. This so-called ‘counterculture’ saw the rise of hippie culture, experimentation with drugs and sex, and a focus on peace, love and rock-n-roll. Popular music also hugely contributed to a more individualistic and expressive society. Newport Folk Festival, which began in 1959 in Newport, Rhode Island, was a first of its kind of annual music festival where protest songs were performed live by folk legends like Pete Seeger, Johnny Cash and Joan Baez in front of jam-packed spaces. Bob Dylan was introduced to the festival crowd in 1963 and his subsequent appearances catapulted him from relative obscurity to sublime popularity.
By 1965 Bob Dylan had become the leading singer and songwriter of the ‘American folk music revival’. That year he stirred a hornet’s nest in the folk music community by experimenting with electric instruments. On July 25 at the Newport Folk Festival, Dylan challenged the widely accepted notion that authentic folk music was only acoustic by singing his popular number’Like a Rolling Stone’ with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Some sections of crowd booed the performance and on subsequent tours, his electric instruments were often met with derision from the audience. In a particularly acrimonious incident during a British tour in Manchester someone shouted ‘Judas!’ at Dylan. In any event, Dylan’s dalliance with electric altered the course of folk music in America.
The Electric Dylan controversy is the subject matter of the 2015 book titled ‘Dylan Goes Electric!’ by the American Grammy Award winning musician and author Elijah Wald. This book has served the basis of the film ‘A Complete Unknown’. The film evocatively depicts the ‘Electric Dylan’ controversy arising out of the conflict between Pete Seeger, the folk purist, and Bob Dylan, the iconoclast.
The movie is set in the influential New York City music scene in the early sixties. The 19-year old Bob Dylan hitchhikes here from Minnesota to meet his ailing music idol, Woody Guthrie, the composer, singer and songwriter who was widely considered as the greatest living American folk artist. The opening scene comes as an absolute delight for a diehard Dylan admirer like me. Dylan meets Guthrie in the hospital along with Guthrie’s close friend Pete Seeger. He performs a song he wrote for Guthrie, impressing the two great folk musicians. The viewer is sure to get wowed. The performance by Timothée Chalamet as the film’s protagonist Bob Dylan is as good as it can get. The movie presents a sumptuous fare of about 40 of Dylan’s best songs making it a befitting musical biopic. Chalamet has incredibly performed the songs all by himself. A Dylan fan would scarcely make a distinction.
Edward Norton has put in an excellent performance as Pete Seeger who had helped Bob Dylan scale towering heights in the New York City musical landscape. Joan Baez, the celebrated singer and songwriter of the counterculture era of the sixties, did much to popularise his early songwriting efforts and also performed and recorded with him. Her tumultuous relationship with Dylan later became subject of songs by each of them and generated much public speculation. The beautiful Monica Barbaro’s portrayal of Joan Baez is outstanding, to say the least. If Baez’s chemistry with Dylan was the stuff of widespread speculation in the sixties, the sterling performance of the actors has brought their romantic and musical partnership vividly to the fore. The biopic also features Sylvie Russo, portrayed by Elle Fanning, as Dylan’s first girlfriend when he comes to New York. Though a seminal character in the movie, Sylvie’s relationship with Dylan is adversely affected by his professional closeness with Baez.
Towards the end of the story Bob Dylan stands separated from his girlfriend Sylvie and his artistic collaboration with Joan Baez also ends in disaster. Dylan’s experimentations with electric guitar and other instruments affected his relationship with Baez, as well as Pete Seeger, who as staunch folk artists overwhelmingly preferred simple acoustic arrangements. His desire to break free of expectations of the established folk traditions probably drove him to go electric. Dylan had composed his generational anthem ‘The Times They are A-Changiń’ during this period only.
The film’s last scene is deeply moving. On his way out from Newport after the electric controversy, Baez catches Dylan and bids the final adieu by telling him that he finally got the freedom he wanted. Dylan visits Woody Guthrie one last time and listens to a recording of one of Guthrie’s songs before finally leaving New York City riding on his Triumph motorcycle.
One month after Newport, Bob Dylan released ‘Highway 61 Revisited’. The partly electric album topped the charts and it’s considered one of the most influential albums of all time. Since 1965, Dylan has released over fifty albums and still continues to tour the world. He is the only singer-songwriter to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He didn’t however attend the 2016 award ceremony.
American writer Nick Hornby rightly says that ‘there is density and gravity to a Dylan song that you can’t find anywhere else’. He regrets, as do I, of never having heard any of the songs at the right age, in the right year. What must it have been like to listen to ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ at Newport in 1965 ! Indeed the 1960s were the most coveted time to be a youth in America.
(The writer, Ajay Kumar Singh, is an IAS Officer in the Government of Jharkhand and is currently based in Ranchi).
