Dylan goes electric

Bob Dylan begins adding electric instruments to his music—a marker for the birth of folk rock.

Last time we stressed Dylan’s path from traditional folk singer to singer-songwriter by early 1965. Now a key moment in America’s reply—and one of the most important in 1960s U.S. pop: Dylan goes electric.

Why is Dylan on electric guitar controversial? Don’t all rock players use electric guitars? In the folk world, electric guitar is fine in traditional electric blues such as Chess blues—excellent, even. But for someone cast mainly as a folk singer, for lyric-first music, electric guitar can sound commercial, like the AM-radio teen fare. So adding electric sound to folk reads as betrayal to folk traditionalists who treat him as a hero—a slap in the face. Interestingly, if you look back, the album that shocks with electric guitar is March 1965’s Bringing It All Back Home. Yet earlier records already have some electric tracks, and unreleased cuts try rockabilly with electric guitar. To him it is not a huge leap—and before folk he already liked rock and roll. Still, going electric causes a huge reaction. The LP is not fully electric: half acoustic, half electric. Lead track “Subterranean Homesick Blues” is issued as a single and reaches No. 39 in summer 1965. This mix of electric guitar and folk is called folk rock—or American folk rock. “Subterranean Homesick Blues” marks the style’s birth; Dylan is its founder.

Trouble still hits when he appears at the Newport Folk Festival, the big annual gathering for traditional folk. Dylan walks on with a band and gets booed; some scream that he has betrayed them. Many legends surround Pete Seeger that night—mostly inaccurate: covering his ears and running; shutting himself in a car so he cannot hear; yanking amp plugs from the wall. Whatever version you believe, Seeger dislikes Dylan’s music that night. Some say the shouting is not hatred of electric guitar but volume that buries the words. I do not know the full truth; the historical story is that Dylan is driven off Newport mainly for playing electric guitar. That expulsion hardens him against traditional folk power; he largely cuts ties. That summer he issues his signature hit—almost concurrent with Newport—“Like a Rolling Stone,” which peaks at No. 2, his second chart single after the style shift. Angry, he releases “Positively 4th Street” in September 1965, aimed stanza by stanza at traditional folk circles as false friends who care only for themselves. In large part it is a formal break with traditional folk.

What is interesting and special about this electric Dylan sound? At base it is folk—or at least singer-songwriter singing—backed by electric guitar, drums, and bass. It sounds American, Beatles-influenced but not identical to the Beatles’ method. A striking part of these records is Al Kooper’s organ. Kooper is a rock-history figure—writer, producer, mostly behind the scenes. Note: Kooper starts with K; not Alice Cooper of later theatrical rock. During Bringing It All Back Home sessions Kooper wants in as a guitarist, but they already have Michael Bloomfield, a noted New York electric-blues player. So Kooper sits at the organ—he is not really an organist, but he can play chords. On playback of “Like a Rolling Stone,” Dylan asks to turn the organ up; producer Tom Wilson says forget it, the guy cannot play. Dylan insists. Kooper’s near-amateur Hammond becomes one of the period’s defining parts. On “Like a Rolling Stone” and “Positively 4th Street,” listen to Kooper’s organ with Dylan’s voice to hear how the style is built. Kooper often tells tour stories: in each town they buy records and listen in hotel rooms; as Dylan’s music spreads, people start copying Kooper’s organ. To him, being imitated is the funniest thing in the world.

Through 1965–66 Dylan stays hugely popular—and not only electric: he becomes an important performer. Before mid-1965, even when he is more than a songwriter, he is not really cast as a star performer. In 1965 he becomes the Bob Dylan we know—a star on his own, writer and performer.

Then Highway 61 Revisited (August 1965) and Blonde on Blonde (summer 1966). After that, a motorcycle crash near Woodstock in upstate New York; no one knows the injuries exactly. Through accident and recovery he steps away from the industry for a while. Later he says it was deliberate—maybe the world around him moved too fast; fame, money, and everything that came with them pressed in, so he pulled back. The 1964–66 Dylan story matters because by his late-1960s return the frame has changed; we are no longer talking America’s reply to the Invasion.

If Dylan is one center of that 1960s reply, we should ask who else matters and how Dylan shapes them—that is next.