This Day in History May 24, 1941 – Bob Dylan is born
Singer, songwriter, cultural icon "Power Gone" at Newport Folk Festival - turns 80 today
Okay, we know, he's not a native Rhode Islander, but perhaps his greatest moment as a musician came in Newport in 1965.
Singer-songwriter, "Song and Dance Man" Bob Dylan was born as Robert Zimmerman in 1941 to this day in Duluth, Minnesota. Dylan moved to New York City in 1961 and the rest is history. He quickly rose to the top of New York City's folk scene and began filling concert halls around the world.
Dylan made his debut playing solo acoustic guitar at the Newport Folk Festival on July 26, 1963, and returned to the event the following two summers. It was in July 1965, when he came on stage with an electric guitar and a rock band behind him that he shocked the audience of the folk festival. They then launched into "Maggie's Farm", a fast-paced rocker for the sound of cheers and boo ...
There is more than enough debate on how the crowd reacted to that performance, we will leave it to the dialanologists to dispose of. His later career was full of controversies and achievements, including Grammy Awards and Nobel Prizes, numerous albums, box sets, reissues, and more.
Love him or hate him, there is no doubt that his imprint in the music world is well established, and he will go down as one of the most popular songwriters in history by far. To celebrate, we are sharing some old videos of Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival.