Customers say
Customers find this book highly readable and entertaining, with well-researched content that provides a great background to Dylan’s music. The writing style receives praise from multiple customers, with one noting the author’s ability to imitate voices. Customers appreciate the book’s historical value, with one review highlighting its comprehensive study of folk music intersecting with rock, while others praise its thought-provoking perspective on popular music history.
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A quick rundown of this product’s key features:
THE INSPIRATION FOR THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE A COMPLETE UNKNOWN. One of the music world’s pre-eminent critics takes a fresh and much-needed look at the day Dylan “went electric” at the Newport Folk Festival.
On the evening of July 25, 1965, Bob Dylan took the stage at Newport Folk Festival, backed by an electric band, and roared into his new rock hit, Like a Rolling Stone. The audience of committed folk purists and political activists who had hailed him as their acoustic prophet reacted with a mix of shock, booing, and scattered cheers. It was the shot heard round the world—Dylan’s declaration of musical independence, the end of the folk revival, and the birth of rock as the voice of a generation—and one of the defining moments in twentieth-century music.
In Dylan Goes Electric!, Elijah Wald explores the cultural, political and historical context of this seminal event that embodies the transformative decade that was the sixties. Wald delves deep into the folk revival, the rise of rock, and the tensions between traditional and groundbreaking music to provide new insights into Dylan’s artistic evolution, his special affinity to blues, his complex relationship to the folk establishment and his sometime mentor Pete Seeger, and the ways he reshaped popular music forever. Breaking new ground on a story we think we know, Dylan Goes Electric! is a thoughtful, sharp appraisal of the controversial event at Newport and a nuanced, provocative, analysis of why it matters.
“In this tour de force, Elijah Wald complicates the stick-figure myth of generational succession at Newport by doing justice to what he rightly calls Bob Dylan’s ‘declaration of independence’ . . . This is one of the very best accounts I’ve read of musicians fighting for their honor.” — Todd Gitlin, author of The Sixties and Occupy Nation
Our Top Reviews
Reviewer: Brian Russell
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: One of the Best Dylan Bios out there (Plus you learn about the entire early 60s folk scene)
Review: Fantastic book. I love Dylan, but this book is more than just a Dylan bio. I learned so much about the folk music movement of the early 60s.
Reviewer: Kindle Customer
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Well, it’s complicated
Review: Since “Dylan Goes Electric” by Elijah Wald is listed as the source material for the movie “A Complete Unknown”, and since I enjoyed the movie more than any that I’ve seen in a long while, I had to read it. It is a readable and thorough history of the two folk music giants of the 60s, Pete Seeger and BobDylan. Although the narrative is sometimes shrouded in “too many words” and “too many details”, it seems to give an accurate history of those men and those times. Having been in college during those tumultuous years, I walked back through memory lane and had those memories both validated and sometimes corrected.This book is not for the faint of heart, but it is definitely for the diehard Dylan fan. I recommend Wald’s book for those folks.
Reviewer: Michael Rossi
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Excellent…and timely
Review: Fans of the new movie “A Complete Unknown” would do well to dive into Wald’s exposition on the scene itself. This was a great read: highly informative, fun, and compelling. Looking into more from Wald.
Reviewer: Jack B. Siegel
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Objective, Without Deification
Review: I’ve read a lot of Dylan books over the years. There is a reason Dylan apparently has told people who see the new movie to read this one. It puts Dylan in context, both in terms of the music world and the times. The author acknowledges when certain myths no longer can be determined to be true. Wald focuses as much on the side players in the Dylan story as on Dylan, resulting in a revelatory story. Easy to read, and very engaging.
Reviewer: J. Dollins
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A Kaleidoscopic Look at the Rise and Fall of the Folk Revival
Review: Elijah Wald’s history of the folk revival of the early 60s gets to the heart of folk music through its “Rashomon”-esque approach to the story. Folk tradition is about celebrating voices and heroes. This book does both, providing the (often conflicting) perspectives of those who experienced the period while also building the stories of our heroes Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan.Through contrasting these two men, Wald gives us not only insight into the movement and why Dylan’s shift in 1965 was so significant, but also how that conflict continued to play out in popular music. There’s a deep truth in here, shown in Seeger’s frustration with Dylan’s change: that one day all of the young rebels become someone else’s fascist.
Reviewer: James Demas
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great Music History Here
Review: Never was a big Dylan fan….but after seeing the movie I had to get more info and book fills in the gaps and good background for me.
Reviewer: Lundy E. Smith
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: you’ll find the first half of the book a bit tedious. So much of the book is the back …
Review: If you know the back stories of Pete Seeger and Dylan, you’ll find the first half of the book a bit tedious. So much of the book is the back story leading up to the famous concert at Newport. A good read–I’m glad I read it–but not a great read.
Reviewer: applecore
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: An accurate story
Review: The movie “A Complete Unknown” differs a lot from this book, which it is supposedly based on. While Timothy and Monica do a great job imitating the voices and sounds of Dylan and Joan Baez and the sound is outstanding, Dylan comes off as too much of a hero in the movie. After all, he didn’t have to bring his new electric sound forward at the Newport Folk Festival and humiliate his benefactor Pete Seeger who had been treated badly for many years by the government. And his electric performance was actually horrible even though it sounded great in the movie. Dylan turned a folk festival into a modern rock festival and all that entails, killing an event that Seeger and others had created and nurtured for years. He could have played his acoustic guitar one last time before going electric at his next event. The movie also indicates that Woody Guthrie, who Seeger visited regularly, approved of what Dylan did when he probably had no idea what happened. I think Baez understood Dylan perfectly. Her music seems to be out of fashion now which is a shame.
Reviewer: Jorge Luis Landin
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Explica de una forma sencilla y amena la historia del rock enmarcada en la vida de uno de sus padres fundadores. Para mí personalmente el playlist de mis primeros 60 años. Viva Dylan!
Reviewer: christopher luff
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Avec la sortie du film sur les débuts de Dylan “A complete unknown” (une des premières phrases du refrain de la chanson like a Rolling Stone.) Ce livre a inspiré le film et la montée de Dylan comme un “Icone” des début 60, et surtout la résurgence du “Folk Music” surtout d’origine Celtique/Gaélique/Grand Breton des Colons du 17/18ᵉ siècle mixer avec la musique Blues de leurs esclaves venus d’Afrique !Ce livre explique la passation de la guitare sèche, banjo, fiddle (violon du Far West ! style”Blue grass”), country, vers le côté électrique du genre Rock suite à la “British Invasion” de l’Amérique” des Beatles et des Stones, qui entre autres eux, ont été inspirés par Elvis et Chuck Berry., comme Dylan aussi…Il est évident qu’il faut bien connaitre et lire, l’anglais/américain pour apprécier ce livre. Thank you, Bob, outre un poète et aussi un merveilleux mélodiste et aussi un très bon chanteur l’air de rien, ce que beaucoup de gens oublient ; il a fallu 6 mois pour Timothée Chalamet, acteur pro., pour essayer de maîtriser le chant de Dylan, le résultat est bluffant, à écouter absolument la bande son du film, surtout avec les sons et enregistrement de 2024. “Thank you, Bob,” comme a dit un jour Mick Jagger un jour sur scène ou les Stones ont interprétés “Like a Rolling Stone”.
Reviewer: Thomas B.
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Got it as described. UK products come later to the EU and with a delivery extra but that’s the politicians fault, not the sellers
Reviewer: Amanda Gillespie
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Perfect pesent
Reviewer: Seymore
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Elijah Wald’s account of a major turning point during the 1960s is magisterial, encyclopedic and just plain fun to read. It’s a lovely companion to the movie, A Complete Unknown.
Price effective as of Apr 10, 2025 22:32:50 UTC
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