Theodore Bikel, Oscar Brand, Peter Seeger and , founder of the already-well-established , and his partner, . The Festival is reknown for introducing a number of performers who would go on to become superstars, most notably (who appeared as an unannounced guest of performance.
famously (and infamously) associated with the festival.
Dylan appeared without incident in and The festival draws on folk music in a wide and loosened sense. For instance in the 1960s there were famous performances by respectively. The festival was associated with the Blues Revival of the 1960s, where artists "lost" since the 1940s were The Newport Folk Festival fell on hard times in the later 1960s, even closing its doors for a number of years, beginning in folk music festivals in the United States, alongside the , which began in .
It has run without interruption ever since 1985.
Concerts have been a rich source of recordings, as searching CD catalogues for phrases such as "live at newport" or "newport folk" will reveal. directed the 1967 film Festival based on the 1963-1965 festivals.
In recent years a multi-act bill, only loosely centered around folk music, has toured the US under the Newport Folk Festival moniker.
As rock legend has it, Bob Dylan was roundly booed at the 1965 festival for appearing backed by an band. The lineup included three from the , , guitar; Sam Lay, drums and Jerome Arnold, bass, plus , organ and , piano.
Dylan was regarded by folk purists as betraying his "folkie roots" by doing this. Defenders noted he had instrumentation, and that the performance was modelled on the standard practice of , who had been using the in his performances for years.
Some controversy surrounds the existence, extent and motivation of the booing from the crowd.
Footage of Dylan's performance at the Newport Folk Festival surfaced publicly in 2005 in 's documentary, . The introduction of Dylan: "Ladies and gentlemen, the person that's going to come up now has a limited amount of time ..
. His name is Bob Dylan." In the documentary footage, the sound of loud booing and sporadic cheering begins just a few bars into Dylan's first song, " ", and continues throughout the next song, " " (which was the closing number of most of his performances around this Many of the festival's performers were backstage during this part of the performance.
said that he went to the sound system and told the technicians, "Get that distortion out of his voice ...
It's terrible. If I had an axe, I'd chop the microphone cable right now." A rumour spread instantly among the performers that Seeger was backstage with an axe and was threatening to cut the cables.
Seeger was quoted later in an interview that the reason why he lyrics.
The band played "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, it Takes a Train to Cry" (not shown in the documentary); Dylan said to them, "Let's go, man. That's all," and walked off-stage.
The sound of loud booing and clapping can be heard in the background. Peter Yarrow returned to the microphone and begged Dylan to continue performing. Dylan, by some accounts highly distressed, was coaxed back by Yarrow and .
Accompanied only by his acoustic guitar and harmonica, he sang two songs to the now-silent audience — " ," perhaps a farewell to the "traditional folkies" who objected to his electric guitar, and " " — and left Newport, not to return until , when he was welcomed back with open arms.
The crowd's motivation is unclear. As one version of the legend has it, the boos were from the outraged folk fans Dylan alienated with his electric guitar.
An alternative account has it that audience members were upset by poor sound quality and a surprisingly short set. Prior to the release of the documentary, Bruce Jackson, who was a director of the Newport Folk Festival, he contends the booing was directed at Peter Yarrow, who upset the crowd when he attempted to keep Dylan's spot to its proper disliked Dylan's music, electrified or not.
Dylan himself said, "I had no idea why they were booing .
.. I don't think anybody was there having a negative response to those songs, though.
Whatever it was about, wasn't about anything that they were hearing.
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