This course, part 1 of a 2-course sequence, examines the history of rock, primarily as it unfolded in the United States, from the days before rock (pre-1955) to the end of the 1960s. This course covers the music of Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Phil Spector, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, and many more artists, with an emphasis both on cultural context and on the music itself. We will also explore how developments in the music business and in technology helped shape the ways in which styles developed. Rock emerged in the mid 1950s as a blending of mainstream pop, rhythm and blues, and country and western--styles that previously had remained relatively separate. This new style became the music of the emerging youth culture and was often associated with teen rebellion. We will follow the story of how this rowdy first wave of rock and roll (1955-59) was tamed in the early 60s but came roaring back with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and then went psychedelic by the end of the decade.
Dylan Goes Electric
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From the course by University of Rochester
History of Rock, Part One
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From the lesson
American Responses (1965-67)
Dylan, the Byrds and folk rock. Garage bands in the northwest. Sonny and Cher and the legacy of Phil Spector. TV rock, Paul Revere and the Raiders, and the Monkees. Music in New York and Los Angeles.
Meet the Instructors
John CovachProfessor of Music and Director
Institute for Popular Music
We continue our story of Bob Dylan. In the first video we emphasized that
Dylan's emergence as a traditional folk singer, and the transformation that
started to happen during those early years leading up to 1965 with Dylan away
from a traditional folk singer and more toward a singer songwriter.
Now we talk about the big moment at least in the American response.
One of the most important one's, in American popular music in the 1960's, and
that's the moment when Dylan goes electric.
why should Dyl Bob Dylan picking up an electric guitar be such a controversial
thing? After all, don't all rock and rollers
play electric guitar? Well in the folk movement, the electric
guitar, when it was associated with traditional electric blues, chest style
blues, that kind of thing, no problem for the electric blues, the electric guitar,
that's fantastic. But when it was associated with songs
and, and you know, somebody who's music was primarily like a folk singer,
primarily about the lyrics, when you brought an electric guitar in, it, it, it
made it seem much more commercial. I mean that was about AM radio, that was
about teeny bopper music. And so for Dylan to embrace the electric
guitar as part of his folk act was, was really seen as a kind of a sell out to
the, to the folk traditionalists for whom he'd become the hero really, it was like
a kind of a slap in the face. And what's interesting is that when you
look at Dylan's history, the, the first, the first real use of the of the electric
guitar in a, in an important way that seems to shock everybody is his album
Bringin' It All Back Home, which was released in March of 1965.
But if you look at some of the earlier records not only were there electric
guitar on, on a couple of those things, but there were unused tracks that he
tried out almost in a kind of a rockabilly style that used electric
guitar. So, it's not like it was a big change as
far as he was concerned. And remember, before he turned to folk,
he was interested in rock and roll anyway.
But anyway, it still made a tremendously big impact that Dylan went on this went,
went electric, and didn't go completely electric.
Anyway, I mean, half the album Bringin' It All Back Home was accoustic, the other
half was electric. featured on that album is a track called
Subterranean Homesick Blues which, which was released as a single and went to
number 39 in the summer of 1965. So in many ways that that blending of
electric guitar and folk music or folk rock, American folk rock is we call it,
this, this track, Subterranean Homesick Blues is one of the first ones to chart
in the style making Dylan a real kind of a ground breaker.
But the real trouble erupts when Dylan shows up at the Newport Folk Festival, a
kind of big festival of the year for all the traditional folk musicians, and shows
up and, shows up with a band. And he, he was booed.
I mean, there were people who were screaming at him.
of the you know, they, they thought that he had sold out.
There are all kinds of stories about Pete Seeger being there, most of them probably
not incredibly accurate. One of them has Pete Seeger running
around with his, you know, his hands on his ears.
Another one of them, another story has him sitting in a car backstage with the
windows rolled up so he couldn't hear it. Even one other sort of more dramatic
story has him running around trying to pull the power out of the amplifier, you
know, the, the, the plugs out of the wall or whatever [LAUGH] .
What, whatever story you believe, or however it actually went, there is one
general theme that we take away from it, and that is Pete Seeger was not pleased
with what Dylan was doing. And some people were, say well they
weren't yelling because they didn't like the electric guitar they just thought it
was too loud or they couldn't hear or whatever.
Well, I don't know. The way it goes down in the annals of
history is that Dylan was rejected at the Newport Folk Festival primarily because
he was playing the electric guitar, and this rejection caused him caused him to
become increasingly angry with the traditional folk establishment, and he
basically sort of broke his connections with them.
the big song that summer for him, a number two hit released in, at about the
same time as the Newport Folk Festival, was Like a Rolling Stone.
again that being a big hit for him, and again, the, the second one for him on the
charts in this new style. when he, in his anger Bob Dylan writes a
song that is released in September of 1965 called Positively Fourth Street,
which is just verse after verse after verse of him pointing his finger at the
folk establishment for being false friends, saying that they had, that,
that, that he thought they cared about him, but all they cared about was
themselves. And in many ways, this was Dylan's
official break. Well, what, what's so interesting or
special about this particular electric Dylan music?
Well, the use of the electric guitar, drums, bass, this sort of a jingly,
jangly kind of sound that, that went with what was essentially be, sort of folk
music or at least singer songwriter kind of music, that's the basic recipe.
very American sounding, certainly under the influence by the Beatles, but, but
not really sort of doing quite exactly what The Beatles were doing.
An interesting feature on these records is the music, is the organ playing of Al
Kooper. Al Kooper is a very fascinating figure
as, as the history of rock unfolds as a songwriter and as a producer, doing a lot
of different kinds of things, mostly behind the scenes.
by the way, Al Kooper, spelled with a K, not the same as Alice Cooper who we'll
talk about in the 70s when we talk about theatrical rock and this kind of thing.
Anyway, Al Kooper went to those Dylan sessions, for Bringing it All Back Home,
hoping that he would play guitar but there was another guitar player who was,
who was at some of the sessions, Michael Bloomfield, who was sort of the iconic
electric blues guitarist in the New York area.
So Al Kooper didn't really want to pick up a guitar while Michael Bloomfield was
present, so he went over to the organ, which he didn't really play, but he could
sort of you know, play chords and this kind of thing and started to play.
Well, they're listening to the playback of Like a Rolling Stone, and Dylan says,
it, they're in playback, turn the organ up.
And Tom Wilson who was producing the session said, no, hey, you know, you
don't want to hear the, the organ. That guy, he can't really play.
Now Dy, Dylan said, no, no, I want to hear the organ.
And it was Kooper's particularly almost amateurish take on playing the Hammond
Organ, which really created one of the most important parts of the Dylan sound
from that period. So if you listen to Like A Rolling Stone
and Positively Fourth Street, really listen for Al Kooper's organ together
with, with Dylan's vocal delivery and you really get a sense of what constituted
that. Kooper likes to tell the story of him and
Dylan going on tour. Whenever they would go on tour, they
would, they would go to record stores and pick up records, bring them back to the
hotel and listen to their records, and they would hear record after record where
people were imitating Al Cooper's organ style because Dylan's music became so so
popular, so that these people are imitating Al Cooper's organ style and
Dylan and Al Kooper just thought that was the funniest thing in the world that
people should imitate Al Kooper's play. Anyway that's the way Al Kooper tells the
story. so Dylan, Dylan continues through 65 into
66 to have this tremendous popularity, but now the important thing is not only
does he go electric, but now Dylan is important as a performer.
Up to this period in mid 1965, he was really just a songwriter.
Not just a song writer, but he wasn't really thought of as a performer, right.
In 1965 he really becomes the Bob Dylan we know.
Bob Dylan, the persona who is really a, a star in his own right, not only as a
songwriter but as a performer. The albums that followed from that
Highway 61 Revisited from August of 65, Blonde on Blonde from the summer of 1966,
but then Dylan has a motor a, motorcycle accident in upstate New York out by
Woodstock. And it's really quite unclear what the
extent of his injuries were or what happened but whatever went on with Dylan,
that accident and his recovery from the accident created a kind of withdrawal
from the music business. And, and he's later talked about it as,
as being on purpose. Maybe the world was spinning a little too
fast for him. things were things were sort of clouding
his mind because of fame and fortune, and all that came with it.
So he in, in a sense withdrew for a while, and so it actually makes for a
very a nice sort of story for us to think about Dylan in this period between 64 and
66 because by the time Dylan reemerges in, into the late 1960s, things have
changed quite a bit and we're no longer thinking about American response.
So, if we think about Dylan as one of the central figures in our story of the
American response in the 1960s, we now need to think about who were some of the
others that were important, and to a certain extent, what, what role did
Dylan's influence play on those, to, on those people?
And, it's, that's what we're going to turn to in the next video.
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