What happened at Newport in 1965 was not just a musical disagreement or a single artist breaking with his past. It marked the end of the folk revival as a mass movement and the birth of rock as the mature artistic voice of a generation, and in their respective halves of the decade both folk and rock symbolized much more than music.This book is back in the zeitgeist thanks to the new film version, A Complete Unknown. Haven’t seen the movie but the book is great. Elijah Wald charts the history of folk music, with particular emphasis on the co-ordinating role that Pete Seeger played. Only then does he profile Bob Dylan as he rises out of Minnesota to the folk club scene in NYC. And while the two seemed to initially be participants in the same project, he charts their differences: In a simple formulation, Seeger and Dylan can stand for the two defining American ideals: Seeger for the ideal of democracy, of people working together, helping each other, living and believing and treating each other as members of an optimistic society of equals; Dylan for the ideal of the rugged individualist, carving a life out of the wilderness, dependent on no one and nothing but himself.Those differences were ultimately irreconcilable and largely generational: In the 1930s Seeger had to travel to the Asheville Folk Festival to find the raw southern sounds that changed his life, but Dylan made the same journey without leaving his bedroom. To some extent that meant they had different relationships to the music: for Seeger it was inextricable from the communities that created it and the historical processes that shaped those communities, while for Dylan it was a private world of the imaginationWhile Dylan did travel, to an extent, in search of folk heroes–including befriending a dying Woody Guthrie–in post-War America life was simply too comfortable for the music to take on the meaning it had for a Seeger, steeped in the Depression era. Effectively, Seeger was rebelling against a system that had produced poverty, Dylan against one that had provided affluence. And it was the nature of the economic boom times that you could package protest songs and turn them into cash cows: Anyone hoping to understand the cultural upheavals of the 1960s has to recognize the speed with which antiestablishment, avant-garde, and grass-roots movements were coopted, cloned, and packaged into saleable products and how unexpected, confusing, and threatening that was for people who were sincerely trying to find new ways to understand the world or to make it a better place.While Seeger, like Alan Lomax before him, derived pleasure from finding, reviving and spreading old tunes that came from marginal communities, Dylan became a prolific writer of songs,. At least in part, because that’s where the money lay in the music business. Meanwhile, the reality was that the folk traditionalists had never been puritans about electrified music. After all, several of the great blues musicians theyu had dioscovered or popularized were already playing electric guitar. And Dylan himself had already released recordings that were electrified. So what was it about his electric performance at Newport that night that made it such an apocalyptic event? It was that he was so conspicuously playing rock and roll, rather than folk, that he was signalling his departure from that world or his growing beyond it:. "Of course, Dylan had already “gone there” six months earlier on Bringing It All Back Home. But at Newport something else happened. During the intermission that night, Theodore Bikel put it in a nutshell, telling a Broadside writer: “You don’t whistle in church—you don’t play rock and roll at a folk festival.” For that analogy to hold, Newport had to be the church: the quiet, respectable place where nice people knew how to act. Pete Seeger was the parson. The troubled fans were the decent, upstanding members of the community. And Dylan was the rebellious young man who whistled. Which was exactly what he had always been, and what Seeger had been, and what Newport had celebrated. It was not Dylan who was transformed by that weekend; it was Newport and the delicate balance of alliances that had formed the folk revival and the spirit of the 1960s—the old 1960s, which few people yet thought of as old, when the threat was a vague bomb hanging over everyone’s heads, the young left still admired the old union organizers, and the hope was integration and civil rights for all. Or, to personify that era, it was not Dylan who was transformed; it was Seeger. That was how Nelson ended his characterization of the audience’s choice: they could choose the past or the future, and they chose Seeger. It was not news that Dylan was the future; the news was that Seeger was the past."In retrospect, it seems obvious that no one was ever going to get Dylan to act the way they wanted him or to honor the strictures of any church. For me, the key to the Dylan story is rervealed when Mr. Wald leans into the motorcycle iconography of these early years. Dylan didn’t just ride a motorcycle enthusiastically–famously crashing shortly after Newport–but dressed in a leather jacket like a wannabe James Dean or Marlon Brando. Let us think of Seeger and Dylan as having spent their careers as performers. Seeger annoyed people with the degree to which he always played the humble socialist activist. Dylan mystified people because they could never pin down what he believed in personally. But that is his performance: he is a rebel without a cause, rebelling against whatever you got. After 60 some-odd years in the spotlight maybe we can finally see that the point of the persona he constructed was always just to be someone noone could pigeon-hole. The rebellion is the message. Seeger–literally or figuratively–storming around looking for an axe to chop Dylan loose from what he was metamorphising into was just the first to be broken by his inability to force upon the singer-songwriter the message he wanted him to amplify. The following decades would see any number of interest groups and fans face the same sort of frustration when their preferred Dylan was left behind. He’s not just a complete unknown but has worked his tail off to be completely unknowable. But when he’s gone we’ll still have the songs he wrote and we know many of them by heart. (Reviewed:) Grade: (A-) Tweet Websites:-WIKIPEDIA: Elijah Wald -AUTHOR SITE: Elijah Wald – Writer, Musician -BOOK SITE: Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties by Elijah Wald (Harper Collins) -PRESS PACKET: Elijah Wald – Dylan Goes Electric! Press packet (ElijahWald.com) -AUTHOR PAGE: Elijah Wald (Hachette) -TWITTER: @elijahwald -BLOG: Old Friends: A Songobiography (Elijah Wald) -DISCOGRAPHY: Elijah Wald (Discogs) -ENTRY: Elijah Wald (The Autheors’ Guild) -COLLECTION: Elijah Wald Collection, 1946-2007 (UNC: Wilson Special Collections Library) -FILMOGRAPHY: Elijah Wald (IMDB) -INDEX: Wald, Elijah (Internet Archive) -INDEX: Elijah Wald (Research Gate) -INDEX: Elijah Wald (Oxford American) -INDEX: Elijah Wald (NPR) -VIDEO ARCHIVES: “elijah wald” (You Tube) -PLAYLIST: A Complete Unknown: A Listening Companion from Smithsonian Folkways (Written & Curated by Elijah Wald, 12/17/24, Flagging Down the Double E's) -ESSAY: The Difficult, Adventurous, Happy Life Of Rosalie Sorrels (Elijah Wald, 6/15/17, NPR: The Record) -ESSAY: Think Twice: Remembering Bob Dylan’s forgotten album (Elijah Wald, December 13, 2016, Oxford American) -ESSAY: The Blue Blues: The Staying Power of Old School Vulgarity (Elijah Wald, December 14, 2016, Oxford American) -EXCERPT: Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties: An excerpt from Elijah Wald's new book about Dylan's infamous night at the Newport Folk Festival. (Pitchfork, July 28, 2015) -AUDIO EXCERPT: The Blues: A Very Short Introduction by Elijah Wald · Audiobook preview (Google Play Books) -ALBUM: Street Corner Cowboys by Elijah Wald (Band Camp) -ESSAY: Respecting the Blues Makers (Elijah Wald, Music Mission) -ESSAY: Add Fats Domino to the pantheon of founding rock ’n’ rollers (Elijah Wald, October 25, 2017, CNN) -ESSAY: Did Beatles push black music aside? (Elijah Wald, August 25, 2014, CNN) -PODCAST: Interview with Elijah Wald (Eli Smith, 5/05/07, Down Home Radio Show) -PODCAST: S03.13 Not Completely Unknown 04: Elijah Wald on Newport '65 (with Stu Levitan) (Dylan.fm, 1/01/25) -PODCAST: Episode #935: Elijah Wald on “A Complete Unknown” (Kreative Kontrol, 12/23/24) -PODCAST: Elijah Wald on Newport '65 (with Stu Levitan, Jan 01, 2025, The FM Club) -PODCAST: Elijah Wald on Robert Johnson: We re-examine the myth of Robert Johnson. The most famous blues singer of them all died at the age of 27 after recording only 29 songs. Today he's idolized, but Elijah Wald tells Anne Strainchamps that may be for the wrong reasons. Wald is the author of “Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues.” (Anne Strainchamps, April 13, 2020, To the Best of Our Knowledge) -VIDEO: Elijah Wald: Elijah Wald shares discusses his book Hitchhiking with Strangers and shares his best tips for getting a good ride and responds to concerns about the dangers of hitchhiking. He also talks about his other works. A musician and former music critic for the Boston Globe, Wald is the author of several books on the music world, including Narcocorrido, The Mayor of MacDougal Street, River of Song. (Scout Dialogue, 06/05/2006) -VIDEO: Elijah Wald presents his book "Jelly Roll Blues: Censored Songs and Hidden Histories" (April 13, 2024, Bird & Beckett Books) -VIDEO: Book Talk and Reading with Elijah Wald (NOLA Jazz Museum, Apr 4, 2024) -PODCAST: Escaping the Delta (Megan Sukys/Dave Beck, 02/10/2004, KUOW: The Beat) -PODCAST: The 'Mayor of MacDougal Street' (Megan Sukys/Dave Beck, 04/20/2005, KUOW: The Beat) -VIDEO INTERVIEW: Ethelbert Miller interviews Elijah Wald -LECTURE: "My Culture, Right or Wrong: Thoughts about Music and Power" (Elijah Wald, Keynote Address and Q&A by Elijah Wald for "The Power of Song: The Cultural Politics of Singers Around the Globe," a conference at Dartmouth College on December 4, 2020) -VIDEO: Sing Out! Broadsides and Banjos: The Folk Music Revival (Elijah wald, The New York Public Library, 4/02/13) -VIDEO: Dylan Goes Electric! Music, Myth & History (Elijah Wald, Jun 27, 2016, Library of Congress: American Folklife Collection) -VIDEO: Elijah Wald w/ Kim Mack on Jelly Roll Blues: Censored Songs and Hidden Histories (PMBiP, 15/04/24) -VIDEO: Elijah Wald & Amanda Petrusich | Dylan Goes Electric! (Strand Book Store, Aug 3, 2015) -PODCAST: #38 – Elijah Wald – The Blues: A Very Short Introduction (Tony Peters, 11/01/10, Icon Fetch) -VIDEO INTERVIEW: Time to Connect Episode #80 – Elijah Wald (Time to Connect (with john krajicek), 122/21/24) -PODCAST: F2K Ep. 46 - Music Historian Elijah Wald (Dan Buskirk, Fun 2 Know Podcast) -AUDIO: Newport Folk Festival Kicks Off 50 Years Since Bob Dylan Went Electric with Elijah Wald (WBUR, July 24, 2015) -PROFILE: For Bob Dylan’s biographer, ‘A Complete Unknown’ is a dream come true — even if it’s mostly fiction: Elijah Wald’s ‘Dylan Goes Electric’ inspired the new Timothée Chalamet-led Dylan biopic (Jim Sullivan, December 17, 2024, Forward) -INTERVIEW: Talking with Elijah Wald about His Book, “Dylan Goes Electric!” (Henry Carrigan, July 25, 2015, No Depression) -INTERVIEW: 50 Years Ago, Bob Dylan Electrified A Decade With One Concert (NPR: All Things Considered, 7/25/15) -INTERVIEW: Dylan Goes Electric! Interview with Elijah Wald — a complete unknown: Peter Stone Brown interviews author Elijah Wald, whose book would inspire Jay Cocks and James Mangold’s ‘A Complete Unknown’ (Peter Stone Brown Archives, Nov 30, 2022) -INTERVIEW: Cambridge native Elijah Wald wrote the book that inspired ‘A Complete Unknown.’ Here’s what he thinks of the film.: “It’s not historically accurate, but it’s poetically accurate,” says Wald of the new Bob Dylan biopic. (Lauren Daley, December 23, 2024, Boston.com) -INTERVIEW: A Hitchhiker's Guide to America (NPR: Talk of the Nation, July 6, 2006) -INTERVIEW: Biographer says ‘A Complete Unknown’ is fiction but pure Bob Dylan (Alistair Hunter, 1/02/25, The Downey Patriot) -INTERVIEW: ‘Dylan Goes Electric’ Book Author Talks Newport 1965 ( Jim Sullivan, Best Classic Bands) -INTERVIEW: Interview: Folk and pop historian Elijah Wald (Michaelangelo Matos, August 3, 2015, Red Bull Music Academy) -PROFILE: Elijah Wald (Country Blues) -INTERVIEW: Bob Dylan Biography Writer on What's Fact or Fiction in Timothee Chalamet's A Complete Unknown (JJ Dorfman, CBR) -INTERVIEW: A Cultural Mission gets dirty with Elijah Wald and Jelly Roll Morton (Andrew Gilbert, April 11, 2024,, Mission Local) -INTERVIEW: Dylan Goes Electric: An Interview With Elijah Wald (Aaron Ghitelman, Headcount) -AUDIO INTERVIEW: Listeners' Favorite Movie Bands; Elijah Wald Remembers Dave Van Ronk (WNYC: Soundcheck, December 11, 2013) -AUDIO INTERVIEW: Jelly Roll Blues: A Conversation with Author Elijah Wald (Tom Parkinson, September 27, 2024, Kansas Public Radio) -INTERVIEW: Elijah Wald on Escaping the Delta (Ned Sublette, 1/26/05, Afropop Worldwide) -INTERVIEW: Elijah Wald Dives Into Bob Dylan's Iconic Break With Folk (Jim Sullivan, 7/15/15, WBUR) -AUDIO INTERVIEW: 50 Years Ago, Bob Dylan Electrified A Decade With One Concert (ARUN RATH, 7/25/15, NPR: Newport Folk Festival) -INTERVIEW: Elijah Wald: how the guitar shaped – and didn’t shape – the world (Dr Ken Murray, 16 Jul 2019, Melbourne Conservatorium of Music) -INTERVIEW: Music Historian Explores Work of Blues Legend Robert Johnson (Voice of America, October 26, 2009) - - - - -STUDY GUIDE: Dylan Goes Electric! (BooKey) -VIDEO: Bob Dylan - Maggie's Farm (Live At Newport Folk Festival - 1965) -VIDEO: Bob Dylan - Like A Rolling Stone (Live at Newport 1965) -VIDEO: -VIDEO ARCHIVES: Bob Dylan Newport 1965 (YouTube) -ESSAY: Newport Folk Festival Marks 50 Years Since Bob Dylan Went Electric: Fifty years later, Dylan's plugged-in performance is considered one of the most important events in rock history. (Associated Press, 07/19/2015) -ESSAY: Revisit Bob Dylan’s electric performance at Newport Folk Festival 50 years later: Revisit the start of a rock 'n' roll revolution (Michael Madden, July 26, 2015, Consequence) -ESSAY: Did Fans Really Boo Because Bob Dylan Went Electric at Newport? (Dave Lifton, Published: July 25, 2015, Ultimate Classic Rock) -ESSAY: Remembering When Bob Dylan Shocked The World By Going Electric, On This Day In 1965 (Rex Thomson, July 25th, 2024, Live for Live Music) -REVIEW: of Bob Dylan: Electric: American Writers Museum, Chicago, November 16, 2018-April 30, 2019 (Kenneth Daley, The Dylan Review) -ESSAY: What Really Happened the Night Dylan Went Electric? (Alan Light, Dec. 27th, 2024, NY Times) -ESSAY: The Birth of Bob Dylan: The iconic moment Dylan goes electric (Jeffery Peeno, 3 December 2019, Far Out) -ESSAY: July 25, 1965: Dylan Goes Electric at the Newport Folk Festival (Jess Righthand, July 23, 2010, Smithsonian) -ESSAY: The day Dylan went electric: ‘They certainly booed, I’ll tell you that’: Fifty-five years ago at the Newport Folk Festival, Bob Dylan changed the direction of popular music. Mark Beaumont, 25 July 2020, Independent) -ESSAY: Why Bob Dylan's 1965 Newport Folk Festival performance sparked controversy from friends and fans: 'He betrayed the cause' (Callie Ahlgrim Dec 26, 2024, Business Insider) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -READING GUIDE: Weekly Questions for “Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues” by Elijah Wald (Blues and Jazz Dance Book Club) -ARCHIVES: Newport Folk Festival (NPR) - -REVIEW ARCHIVE: Elijah Wald (Kirkus) -REVIEW: of Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties by Elijah wald (John Harris, The Guardian) -REVIEW: of Dylan Goes Electric (Anita Sethi, The Guardian) -REVIEW: of Dylan Goes Electric (Carl Wilson, Slate) -REVIEW: of Dylan Goes Electric (Timothy Farrington, WSJ) -REVIEW: of Dylan Goes Electric (Joseph Pescheel, Boston Globe) -REVIEW: of Dylan Goes Electric (Andy Gill, Independent -REVIEW: of Dylan Goes Electric (Tony Clayton-Lea, Irish Times) -REVIEW: of Dylan Goes Electric (Helen Brown, The Telegraph) -REVIEW: of Dylan Goes Electric (Ted Lehmann, No Depression) -REVIEW: of Dylan Goes Electric (Peter Stone Brown, Counter Punch) -REVIEW: of Dylan Goes Electric (Jeff Strowe, PopMatters -REVIEW: of Dylan Goes Electric (Mark Levine, Book List) -REVIEW: of Dylan Goes Electric (You Do Hoodoo) -REVIEW: of Dylan Goes Electric (Kirkus) -REVIEW: of Dylan Goes Electric (Mark Thompson, Blues Blast) -REVIEW: of Dylan Goes Electric (Luther Sp[oehr, HNN) -REVIEW: of Dylan Goes Electric (Bob Levin, Broad Street Review) -REVIEW: of Dylan Goes Electric (Simon Warner, Rock and the Beat Generation) -REVIEW: of Dylan Goes Electric (Michaelangelo Matos, Billboard) -REVIEW: of Dylan Goes Electric (Kirkville) -REVIEW: of Dylan Goes Electric (NPR Book of the Day) -REVIEW: of Dylan Goes Electric (Gerald Peary, Arts Fuse) -REVIEW: of Dylan Goes Electric (Dorian Lynskey, Spectator Australia) -REVIEW: of Dylan Goes Electric (Tampa Bay Times) -REVIEW: of Dylan Goes Electric (Tyson Call, Slug) -REVIEW: of Dylan Goes Electric (Robert Loss, LA Review of Books) -REVIEW: of Dylan Goes Electric (Jan Gardner, Boston Globe) -REVIEW ESSAY: of 10 reasons why Bob Dylan's 1965 Newport show was the most important moment in rock history (Rob Hughes, Classic Rock) -REVIEW: of How The Beatles Destroyed Rock ‘n’ Roll by Elijah Wald (Nick Marino, Paste) -REVIEW: of How the Beatles Destroyed Rock'n'Roll (Jon Dennis, The Guardian) -REVIEW: of How the Beatles Destroyed Rock'n'Roll (Erik Himmelsbach, LATimes) -REVIEW: of How the Beatles Destroyed Rock'n'Roll (Malcolm Jones, Newsweek) -REVIEW: of How the Beatles Destroyed Rock'n'Roll (Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist) -REVIEW: of How the Beatles Destroyed Rock'n'Roll (Roger Launius's Blog) -REVIEW: of How the Beatles Destroyed Rock'n'Roll (NY Observer) -REVIEW: of How the Beatles Destroyed Rock'n'Roll (Margaret Moser, Austin Chronicle) -REVIEW: of How the Beatles Destroyed Rock'n'Roll (louis P. Masur, PopMatters) -REVIEW: of How the Beatles Destroyed Rock'n'Roll (Joel Francis, The Daily Record) -REVIEW: of How the Beatles Destroyed Rock'n'Roll (Second Series) -REVIEW: of How the Beatles Destroyed Rock'n'Roll (Michael Cala, NY Journal of Books) -REVIEW: of How the Beatles Destroyed Rock'n'Roll (Bill Jones, Mantex) -REVIEW: of How the Beatles Destroyed Rock'n'Roll (Anthony Hutchison, Journal of American Studies) -REVIEW: of How the Beatles Destroyed Rock'n'Roll (Devin McKinney, BookForum) -REVIEW: of How the Beatles Destroyed Rock'n'Roll (Scottunder) -REVIEW: of How the Beatles Destroyed Rock'n'Roll (George Grella, Brooklyn Rail) -REVIEW: of How the Beatles Destroyed Rock'n'Roll (Kirkus) -REVIEW: of How the Beatles Destroyed Rock'n'Roll (Peter Keepnews, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW: of Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues by Elijah Wald (Blaine Waide, The Journal of American Folklore) -REVIEW: of Escaping the Delta (Brad’s All Vinyl Finds) -REVIEW: of Escaping the Delta (Nick Lauro, The Drum Doctor) -REVIEW: of Escaping the Delta (frank Matheis, Country Blues) -REVIEW: of Escaping the Delta (Kirkus) -REVIEW: of Escaping the Delta (C. Michael Bailey, All about Jazz) -REVIEW: of Escaping the Delta (Eric Weisbard, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW: of Escaping the Delta (Richard Parks) -REVIEW: of Escaping the Delta ( -REVIEW: of Escaping the Delta ( -REVIEW: of Jelly Roll Blues: Censored Songs and Hidden Histories. by Elijah Wald (Richard Parkinson, Americana uk) -REVIEW: of Jelly Roll Blues (Noah Schaffer, WBUR) -REVIEW: of Jelly Roll Blues (Garth Cartwright, Jazzwise) -REVIEW: of Jelly Roll Blues (Kirkus) -REVIEW: of Jelly Roll Blues -REVIEW: of Jelly Roll Blues -REVIEW: of Narcocorrido by Elijah Wald (Josh kun, Boston Phoenix) -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of Book-related and General Links: FILM: -FILMOGRAPHY: Bob Dylan (IMDB) -FILMOGRAPHY: A Complete Unknown (2024) (IMDB) -FILMOGRAPHY: James Mangold (IMDB) -WIKIPEDIA: A Comp[lete Unknown) -FILMOGRAPHY: A Complete Unknown (Rotten Tomatoes) -FILMOGRAPHY: A Complete Unknown (Metacritic) -SCREENPLAY: ‘A Complete Unknown’: Read The Screenplay That Plugs Into The Moment Bob Dylan Became An Icon (Patrick Hipes, January 3, 2025, Deadline) - - - - -OBIT: Film-maker DA Pennebaker dies aged 94: The documentary-maker’s work included Monterey Pop, Bob Dylan’s Dont Look Back and Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust concert film (Andy Welch, 8/03/19The Guardian) - - -ESSAY: Bob Dylan’s Famous Moment in A Complete Unknown: The new biopic dramatizes the conflict at Newport, which was about more than music. (Howard Hussock, Jan 03 2025, City Journal) -REVIEW ESSAY: Printing the Legend: The naysayers are dead wrong about James Mangold’s remarkable new film about Bob Dylan and the Greenwich Village folk scene of the early 1960s. (Ronald Radosh, 26 Dec 2024, Quillette) -ESSAY: Bob Dylan Slipped a Totally Inaccurate Scene Into His Own Biopic: Dylan himself had a major influence on the Timothée Chalamet-starring A Complete Unknown, writing dialogue and insisting on the inclusion of something that never happened (Brian Hiatt, November 18, 2024, Rolling Stone) - - - - -ESSAY: Unmasked and Anonymous: A brief history of Bob Dylan on screen. (Benjamin Kerstein, 1 Jan 2025, Quillette) -ESSAY: Don't Look Back, Bob Dylan and the invention of the rockumentary: DA Pennebaker’s landmark film is being celebrated with its own exhibition, and more than 50 years on, it still sets the standard for the rock documentary (Simon Bowcock, 17 May 2016, The Guardian) -PROFILE: How Timothée Chalamet ‘Pushed the Bounds’ to Play Bob Dylan in ‘A Complete Unknown’: The actor and his co-stars take us deep inside the year’s biggest biopic (Brian Hiatt, November 18, 2024, Rolling Stone) -PROFILE: Timothée Chalamet Goes Electric: In Chapter Three of our ongoing project, the young actor talks candidly about coming of age over the last few years — a process he calls “adultifying" — during which he turned a professional corner, discovered a cohort of colorful peers, and learned to embrace his spirit of rebellion. (Daniel Riley, October 17, 2023, GQ) -DISCUSSION: Does Bob Dylan's life defy the biopic format?: Bob Dylan experts Vish Khanna, Caryn Rose and Ian Grant unpack the film A Complete Unknown (CBC Arts, Jan 03, 2025) -ESSAY: What the Bob Dylan Biopic ‘A Complete Unknown’ Gets Wrong: The Timothée Chalamet film traces Dylan’s life from 1961 to 1965. We detected at least 27 places where it veers from historical record (Andy Greene, December 11, 2024, Rolling Stone) -ESSAY: ‘A Complete Unknown’ Fact Check: Were Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash Really Pen Pals? (Brady Gerber, Dec. 24th, 2024, Vulture) -ESSAY: Enough With the Dylan-Splaining: ‘A Complete Unknown’ Isn’t a Documentary!: The creative liberties taken by the Bob Dylan biopic are short-circuiting its target audience. (Jordan Hoffman, December 30, 2024, Hollywood Reporter) -ESSAY: ‘A Complete Unknown’ Fact vs. Fiction: Bob Dylan Experts Go Deep on What’s True or Fanciful in the Celebrated Biopic (Chris Willman, 12/26/24, Variety) -ESSAY: 'A Complete Unknown': Bob Dylan went electric moment in film goes beyond 'reductive' historical assessment: "In a lot of ways, that became one of the great symbolic moments of conflict between one era and another," Edward Norton said (Elisabetta Bianchini, December 29, 2024, Yahoo! News) -ESSAY: Timothee Chalamet’s Bob Dylan rejects communist activists<./a> (Harry Khachatrian, December 31, 2024, Washington Examiner) -ESSAY: Getting to Know ‘A Complete Unknown’ (Healdsburg Tribune, Jan. 1st, 2025) -ESSAY: The new Bob Dylan biopic isn’t a history lesson. That’s OK. (MSNBC, Dec. 25th, 2024) -ESSAY: Need More Bob Dylan? Here’s What to Read (and Watch) After ‘A Complete Unknown’: From 'Dylan Goes Electric,' the book that inspired the film, to Todd Haynes' experimental 'I'm Not There,' here's what to read and watch to go deep on Dylan (Jonathan Zavaleta, 122/27/24, Rolling Stone) -ESSAY: ‘A Complete Unknown’ Tells the Big Dylan Lie: Even a genius has to learn how to play music (Jim Arndorfer, 12/28/24, Book and Film Globe) -ESSAY: Bob Dylan acted out "A Complete Unknown's" script before he approved it: The legendary singer would also annotate parts of the script after talking with director James Mangold (Nardos Haile, December 30, 2024, Salon) - - - - - - - - - - - -FILMOGRAPHY: I’m Not There (2007) (IMDB) -WIKIPEDIA: I’m Not There -FILMOGRAPHY: I’m Not There (Metacritic): -FILMOGRAPHY: I’m Not There (Rotten Tomatoes): -FILM REVIEW: -FILM REVIEW: I’m Not There (Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian) -FILMOGRAPHY: : Bob Dylan: Dont Look Back (IMDB) -FILMOGRAPHY: Don’t Look Back (Rotten Tomatoes): -FILM REVIEW: -WIKIPEDIA: Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese -FILMOGRAPHY: Rolling Thunder Review (IMDB) -FILMOGRAPHY: Rolling Thunder Revue (Metacritic) -FILMOGRAPHY: Rolling Thunder Revue (Rotten Tomatoes) -FILM REVIEW: Printing the Legend: The naysayers are dead wrong about James Mangold’s remarkable new film about Bob Dylan and the Greenwich Village folk scene of the early 1960s. (Ronald Radosh, 26 Dec 2024, Quillette) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown Misses the Elusive Genius of Bob Dylan : The biopic starring Timothée Chalamet is a star-is-born fable viewed with 20/20 hindsight and through rose-tinted glasses. (Adam Nayman, 12/23/24, New Republic) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian) -FILM REVIEW: What the Bob Dylan Biopic ‘A Complete Unknown’ Gets Wrong: The Timothée Chalamet film traces Dylan’s life from 1961 to 1965. We detected at least 27 places where it veers from historical record (Andy Greene, December 11, 2024, Rolling Stone) -FILM REVIEW: ‘A Complete Unknown’: Timothée Chalamet’s Bob Dylan Biopic Blows (in the Wind): Chalamet’s legions of fans will be impressed by his meticulous impersonation of Dylan’s quirks, but purists will be put off by the film’s blank, two-dimensional take on the bard. (Nick Schager, Dec. 10 2024, Daily Beast) -FILM REVIEW: ‘A Complete Unknown’ proves that one thing about Bob Dylan will certainly endure: The new Dylan movie packs an emotional wallop, even if it fakes just like a biopic (Gary Lucas, December 16, 2024, Tablet) -FILM REVIEW: Not a Complete Flop: James Mangold’s cartoonish Dylan biopic is lazy and unnecessary, but topped (barely) my very low expectations. (Russ Smith, 12/30/24, Splice Today) -FILM REVIEW: Timothée Chalamet Does Dylan: Despite Timothée Chalamet’s best efforts, A Complete Unknown is a cookie-cutter Bob Dylan biopic for a legendary artist who deserves something far more interesting. (Eileen jones, Jacobin) -FILM REVIEW: 'A Complete Unknown' Misses a Key Part of 1960s History: The Bob Dylan film forefronts a conflict between acoustic and electric music, while ignoring how the Vietnam War divided folk musicians. (Nina Silber, 12/25/24, Made By History) -FILM REVIEW: The New Dylan Film: It's Worth Seeing (Carl Eric Scott, Jan 02, 2025, PostModern Conservative) -FILM REVIEW: “A Complete Unknown” — A Fable Well Worth Telling (Tim Jackson, 12/21/24, Arts Fuse) -FILM REVIEW: Dylan goes electric in a solid biopic (Michael Phillips | Chicago Tribune) -FILM REVIEW: Movie Review: Bob Dylan biopic ‘A Complete Unknown’ is electric in more ways than one (Paul Jurgens, Dec 23, 2024, KFGO) -FILM REVIEW: “A Complete Unknown” Shears Off Vital Details in the Life of a Colossal, Complicated Artist (Richard Brody, Dec. 19th, 2024, The New Yorker) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (Kyle Smith, WSJ) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert) -FILM REVIEW: ‘A Complete Unknown’ Review: A Thrilling Tour of Established Myth: Timothée Chalamet looks, acts, even sings like Bob Dylan in this biopic. But director James Mangold treats Dylan as a mythical figure rather than a person, leaving his mystery intact. (Emily Zemler, 12/11/24, Observer) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (Caryn James, BBC) -FILM REVIEW: ‘A Complete Unknown’ Review: Timothée Chalamet Is Uncanny as Bob Dylan in James Mangold’s Offbeat and Incandescent Biopic: It's a drama of scruffy naturalism, but with the feel — the effect — of a musical, as Dylan's songs become the story the movie is telling. ( Owen Gleiberman, Variety) -FILM REVIEW: Don't think twice, A Complete Unknown is more than all right: The Bob Dylan biopic fits into James Mangold's pattern: A brainy story, accessibly, rousingly, energetically told. (Tomris Laffly, December 10, 2024, AV Club) -FILM REVIEW: In 'A Complete Unknown,' Timothée Chalamet brilliantly plays a Bob Dylan hard to grasp but easy to believe: Being elusive like the genius himself, the actor still manages to deliver a ring of essential truth. (Richard Roeper, Dec 17, 2024, Chicago Sun-Times) -FILM REVIEW: When The Celebrity Is Too Big For The Performance: Timothée Chalamet’s gargantuan fame eclipses his portrayal of Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown.” But that’s only one of the many problems the film has. (Candice Frederick, Dec 23, 2024, Huffington Post) -FILM REVIEW: Bob Dylan Broke Rules. A Complete Unknown Follows Them.: The biopic turns its subject’s independence and idiosyncrasies into the stuff of bland summary. (Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown Celebrates the Dazzling Unknowability of Bob Dylan: Man, Legend, Jerk (Stephanie Zacharek, December 25, 2024, TIME) -FILM REVIEW: Does A Complete Unknown Help Us Better Understand Bob Dylan?: Timothée Chalamet has the singer down cold, but there's a problem at the heart of any Dylan movie: telling the story of a towering, enigmatic figure. (Chris Nashawaty, Dec 24, 2024, Esquire) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown Review: A Flimsy Slice of Bob Dylan: Timothée Chalamet can’t rescue James Mangold’s unelectric biopic from the tropes of the genre. (Madison Bloom, December 10, 2024, Pitchfork) -FILM REVIEW: -FILM REVIEW: -FILM REVIEW: -FILM REVIEW: -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (Joshua Rothkop, LA Times) -FILM REVIEW: Timothée Chalamet Inhabits Bob Dylan’s Mysteries in A Complete Unknown: Review: Timothée Chalamet delivers a remarkable, if deliberately inscrutable, performance as the musical icon (Liz Shannon Miller, Consequence) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (Manohla Dargis, NY Times) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (Robbie Colin, The Telegraph) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (Ross Bonaime, Collider) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (Brian Truitt, USA Today) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (Leonard Maltin) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (Peter Travers, Good Morning America) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (Rich Cline, Shadopws on the Wall) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (Sonny Bunch, The Bulwark) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (James Brewer, World Socialist Web Site) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (The Canadian Press) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (Abby Hepworth, PureWow) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (Folk Alley) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (Joshua Edelglass) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (Mark Kennedy, AP) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (Mick LaSalle, SF Chronicle) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (Washington Post) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (John Nugent, Empire) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (Hilary White, Irish Independent) -FILM REVIEW: a Complete Unknown (Dorian Lynskey, Mojo) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (Julian Lytle, Riotus) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (Paul Leslie Hour) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (Katie at the Movies) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (Luke Savage, Toronto Star) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (Peterr Howell, Toronto Star) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (Pete Hammond, Deadline) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (Danielle Kessler, Spectrum Culture) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (Adrienne Murr, The Dartmouth) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown (Sonny Bunch, The Bulwark) -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown ( -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown ( -FILM REVIEW: A Complete Unknown ( LITTLE SANDY REVIEW: -ZINEWIKI: The Little Sandy Review -COLLECTION: The Little Sandy Review Collection (University of Minnesota Libraries) -ETEXT: Little Sandy Review) -ESSAY:A Complete Unknown? Not for ‘The Little Sandy Review’ (Adria Carpenter, December 11, 2024, University of Minnesota Libraries news) -ESSAY: The Little Sandy Review and the Birth of Rock Criticism (David Lightbourne, The new Vulgate) - - - - SUZE ROTOLO -WIKIPEDIA: Suze Rotolo -OBIT: Suze Rotolo obituary: Artist, activist and Bob Dylan's muse who resisted the role of handmaiden (Richard Williams, 28 Feb 2011, The Guardian) - - - - - - -ESSAY: Beacon and Black Hole: Suze Rotolo, Bob Dylan and Two Songs of Parting: This article examines Suze Rotolo’s account in her autobiography of her early life and relationship with Dylan. (Neil Corcoran, Winter 2019, The Dylan Review) -PROFILE: Tomorrow is a long time: Suze Rotolo was just 17 when she fell in love with Bob Dylan, who found her 'the most erotic thing' he'd ever seen. Through the photograph on his Freewheelin' album cover, they came to embody the ideal of the carefree 60s couple. Finally, she is telling her story. Richard Williams met her in New York's East Village (Richard Williams, 15 Aug 2008, The Guardian) -PODCAST: Suze Rotolo, Susan Crosland, Jane Russell and Major Peter Parkes : Matthew Bannister on Bob Dylan's muse Suze Rotolo, journalist and writer Susan Crossland, Hollywood star Jane Russell and brass band conductor Major Peter Parkes. (BBC Radio: Last Word, 3/06/11) PETE SEEGER: -WIKIPEDIA: Pete Seeger - - - - - - - -INDEX: Pete Seeger (The Guardian) -ESSAY: Seeger was a useful idiot for Stalin: Pete Seeger’s death at the age of 94 has brought forth scores of celebratory tributes. America had long ago showered him with honors, which all but made up for the scorn with which he was once held in… (Ronald Radosh, 2/05/14, Providence Journal) -ESSAY: Time for Pete Seeger To Repent (Ron Radosh, Jun. 12, 2007, NY Sun) -ESSAY: This Just In: Pete Seeger Denounced Stalin Over a Decade Ago: Pete Seeger, the leftist balladeer, apologized in his 1993 book "for not seeing that Stalin was a supremely cruel misleader." (Daniel J. Wakin, Sept. 1, 2007, NY Times) -ESSAY: This Land Is Your Land: The Story Behind the Song: Today, this classic folk song is usually sung as a popular pro-America anthem by Americans of every background. But it was written to have a radical edge that hollered for the country to make its bounty available to rich and poor alike. (The Kennedy Center, 1/06/25) -ESSAY: Another complete unknown is Pete Seeger’s communism (Mike Gonzalez, January 2, 2025, washington Examiner) -ESSAY: Pete Seeger's All-American Communism: The folksinger's romance with Stalinism remains disturbing, but it can't be separated from the rest of his work—nor from U.S. history. (David A. Graham, January 29, 2014, The Atlantic) JOAN BAEZ -WIKIPEDIA: Joan Baez -ESSAY: Joan Baez Helped Turn Bob Dylan Into a Star. He Eventually Broke Her Heart: The short-lived romantic relationship between the legendary folk singers influenced their music and lives for years to come. (Tyler Piccotti, Dec 26, 2024, Biography) -ESSAY: How Joan Baez helped Monica Barbaro prepare for ‘A Complete Unknown’ (Bob Strauss, Dec 23, 2024, SF Chronicle) BOB DYLAN -WIKIPEDIA: Bob Dylan - - - -JOURNAL: THe Dylan Review -ENTRY: Bob Dylan (Nobel Prize in Literature 2016) - - - - - - - - - - - - -VIDEO ARCHIVES: “bob dylan” (YouTube) -INDEX: Bob Dylan (Commentary) -INDEX: Bob Dylan (No Depression) -PODCAST: Dylan.FM -INDEX: Bob Dylan (The Guardian) -INDEX: Bob Dylan (Quillette) -AUDIO INTERVIEW: A Young Bob Dylan Talks And Plays On "The Studs Terkel Program"(1963) (The Studs Terkel Program, WFMT) -VIDEO: Bob Dylan - 1966 World Tour: The Home | Full Documentary -VIDEO: Bob Dylan: Busy Being Born | Full Movie (FilmRise) -VIDEO: Badass Bob Dylan Stories (Otis Gibbs) - - - - - - - - - - - -ESSAY: Art is Disagreement: A Complete Unknown and the myths of Bob Dylan (Sam Adler-Bell, 1/09/25, The Nation) -ESSAY: When Studs Terkel Talked With Bob Dylan (David Haglund, Dec 16, 2013, Slate) -ESSAY: Studs Terkel and Bob Dylan (Long and wasted Year) INTERVIEW: with Bob Dylan (Nat Hentoff, February 1966, Playboy) -AUDIO: BOB DYLAN | NAT HENTOFF PLAYBOY INTERVIEW: Full-length recording of an interview Bob Dylan gave Nat Hentoff in the fall of 1965 -ESSAY: Remembering Bob Dylan’s mystifying and mystical 1965 Playboy interview (Jack Whatley, 7 February 2020, Far Out) -ESSAY: Fact and Fiction in Authorial Personae: Bob Dylan and Nathaniel Hawthorne (E.J. Hutchinson, 1/03/25, Ad Fontes) -ESSAY: “St. Herman’s Church”: Melville in Dylan (E.J. Hutchinson, 12/17/24, Ad Fontes) -ESSAY: In the Spirit of the Lord: Menacing, exuberant, eccentric, and ambitious—Dylan’s first evangelical record turns two-score and four. (David Cohen, 3 Aug 2023, Quillette) -ESSAY: How Bob Dylan fought the proto-woke: He refused to be a Leftist prophet (David Samuels, January 14, 2025 , UnHerd) -ESSAY: Ghosts of Electricity: The magisterial incomprehensibility of Bob Dylan’s ‘Visions of Johanna.’ (Thomas Larson, 30 Dec 2024, Quillette) -ESSAY: Bob Dylan and the “Hot Hand” (David Remnick, November 9, 2015, The New Yorker) -ESSAY: A Unified Field Theory of Bob Dylan (David Remnick, Oct. 24th, 2022, The New Yorker) -ESSAY: Bob Dylan’s Carnival Act: His identity was a performance. His writing was sleight of hand. He bamboozled his own audience. (James Parker, 12/17/24, The Atlantic) -ESSAY: Bob Dylan is accused of being a 'Judas': 17 May 1966: Number 10 in our series of the 50 key events in the history of rock music (Alexis Petridis, 11 Jun 2011, The Guardian) -CONCERT REVIEW: 20-Year-Old Singer Is Bright New Face at Gerde’s Club (ROBERT SHELTON, 9/29/1961, NY Times) -ESSAY: How Bob Dylan stole Christmas and made himself the crotchety elf-in-chief: With much-anticipated Dylan biopic ‘A Complete Unknown’ arriving in the US on Christmas Day, Kevin E G Perry looks at how the gravelly singer-songwriter became an unlikely festive favourite (Kevin E G Perry, 23 December 2024, Independent) -ESSAY: Bob Dylan has some Dylanesque thoughts on the “sorcery” of technology: Making high-tech resolutions for 2025 with the help of Bob Dylan. (Nate Anderson, Jan 4, 2025, Ars Technica) -ESSAY: For the Sake of the Song: Bob Dylan & The Band “Tears of Rage” (Bootleg Version) (Dean Nardi, 1/06/25, Americana UK) -ESSAY: The Truth About Bob Dylan’s Falling Out with Pete Seeger: The ’60s folk singers didn’t hate Dylan because he went electric, as ‘A Complete Unknown’ suggests. It was because he didn’t care about their lefty politics. (Michael C. Moynihan, 01.05.25 , The Free Press) -ESSAY: Another side of Bob Dylan, who is a circle (David Polansky, January 2, 2025, Washington Examiner) -ESSAY: Bob Dylan and the creative leap that transformed modern music (Ted Olson, December 20, 2024, The Conversation) -PROFILE: Bob Dylan: Our 1985 Cover Story (SPIN, September 8, 2019) -ESSAY: Six covers of Bob Dylan songs that were better than the original (Glenn Fosbraey, January 10, 2025, The Conversation) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -PODCAST: ‘A Complete Unknown’ Is a Bob Dylan Movie. How Does It Feel? (The Big Picture, 12/24/24) -EXCERPT: from Down the Highway : The Life of Bob Dylan by Howard Sounes: Chapter One: North Country Childhood -ESSAY: The 20 greatest Bob Dylan songs of all time (Jack Whatley and Tom Taylor, 5 May 2021, Far Out) -ESSAY: ‘Talkin’ World War III Blues’: Exploring the timeless charm of an overlooked Bob Dylan classic (Kelly Scanlon, 2 January 2025, Far Out) -ESSAY: When Dylan met the Beatles – history in a handshake?: Fifty years ago this week the Beatles and Bob Dylan got together to share a few joints – and the world of music was never the same again. Or so the story goes. But does pop culture really work like that? (Andrew Harrison, 27 Aug 2014, The Guardian) -ESSAY: My back pages: how Dylan’s Bootleg Series illuminates his past: As the singer releases every note he taped during his mid-60s peak, it’s time to assess how he has co-opted the unofficial recording to shed light on his creative genius (Richard Williams, 5 Nov 2015, The Guardian) -ESSAY: The Sound of Bob Dylan: In five years, Bob Dylan's stance has evolved from proletarian assertiveness to anarchist Angst to pop detachment. (Ellen Willis, November 1967, Commentary) -ESSAY: You Can Only Catch Bob Dylan With Time (Lauren Theisen, January 3, 2025, Defector) -ESSAY: Bob Dylan’s unexpected shows at a kindergarten class (Tim Coffman,t 4 January 2025, Far Out) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -REVIEW: of The Philosdophy of Modern Song by Bob Dylan (BenjaminKerstein, Quillette) -REVIEW: of Philosophy of Modern Song (Titus Techera, Law & Liberty) -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of Chronicles, Volume I by Bob Dylan (Roger Kaplan, Commentary) -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of Down the Highway : The Life of Bob Dylan by Howard Sounes (Perry Meisel, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of On Highway 61 – Music, Race and the Evolution of Cultural Freedom by Dennis McNally (Don Wilcock, American Blues Scene) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
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