Martin Aston

I first wrote about Bob Dylan for Radio Times in 2005 when BBC's Arena strand showcased Martin Scorcese's No Direction Home, about, "a rock 'n' roll-loving kid in the Midwest to his arrival as a major force in the world of folk music." In 2007, director Murray Lerner focused on Dylan's legendary appearances at successive Newport Folk Festivals in the '60s, "a clear, lucid, isolated expression of Dylan," he said, for which i interviewed five Dylan aficionados - Lerner, folk legends Martin Carthy and Peter (as in 'Paul & Mary'...) Yarrow, Newport production manager Joe Boyd, The Other Side... and Dylan film biographer Todd Haynes. Find the feature below the image.

The footage of Bob Dylan at the annual Newport Folk festival in 1963, 1964 and 1965 shot by American filmmaker Murray Lerner charts arguably the foundation of modern rock – the singer-songwriter’s transition from acoustic folkie to electric shaman. After Dylan’s metamorphosis, The Beatles were never the same, and neither was the music scene.

Lerner’s documentary Dylan at Newport: The Other Side of the Mirror forms the centrepiece of Arena’s night dedicated to Dylan and Newport where he publicly launched his new amplified offensive in the summer of 1965. Some of the footage was included in Martin Scorsese’s celebrated Dylan documentary of 2005, No Direction Home, where Dylan’s faced the camera for the first time in 20 years and talked about his journey through the 60s, starting out as a Woody Guthrie wannabe who soon developed a capacity for searing – yet exquisitely poetic - protest songs such as 1963’s Blowin’ In The Wind. But much of Lerner’s new documentary has never been seen before, with Dylan such a bewitching star both on and off stage that Lerner took the decision to leave out any narration or interviews. “I had some outtakes of Dylan talking about Newport but even that seemed to get in the way,” he says. “The music is a clear, lucid, isolated expression of Dylan, and that’s all you need.”

Well, as clear and lucid as you’ll get with Dylan. He has consistently given elusive and elliptical answers to probing questions, and wrong-footed anyone who predicted what he would do next. Looking back was not his style – as the man once said, “Nostalgia is death.” In 1965, to the dismay of the acoustic folk movement that had exalted him, Dylan had started plugging in, while his songs eschewed politics for surreal, introspective explorations of his crazy, colourful life, such as Subterranean Homesick Blues. But after a stale decade following his conversion (from non-practising Judaism) to Christianity in the late 70s, in 1992 he celebrated his roots with the acoustic folk covers album Good as I Been to You (followed by another, 1993’s World Gone Wrong) and, after recovering from pericarditis (a life-threatening heart infection) in 1997, he has released records that draw heavily on the blues like 2006’s Modern Times.

Since his hospitalisation, Dylan has slowly opened up. In 2004, he published an autobiography, Chronicles: Volume One, followed by No Direction Home and in 2006, a radio show, Theme Time Radio Hour where DJ Bob chose a different theme (see sidebar) to showcase many of the classic and obscure records that shaped his music. Now,  Dylan has given his blessing to Todd Haynes’ film I’m Not There (released next month), where different eras of Dylan's life are played by six different actors, including Cate Blanchett, who plays Dylan in his Newport phase.

So has he mellowed? Arena series producer Anthony Wall thinks so. “In his radio show and his book, it seems to me that he’d found a place where he feels incredibly at home. He sounds like he’s having a whale of time, like he’s turned up to the studio with a box of own records. There’s Sinatra and rock’n’roll in there but the core is that roots music, which were the foundations of what he was able to do himself and which he then managed to express within that profound, surreal, extraordinary landscape of his.”

Are we truly any nearer to understanding Dylan? Probably not. Bob himself reckons, “Well, what’s so bad about being misunderstood?” That hasn’t stopped RT from asking a number of Dylan aficionados what they make of Dylan and his incredible journey – of which Newport proved to be one milestone among many.

Martin Carthy

The British trad folk icon befriended – and influenced – Dylan when the latter first visited Britain in 1962.

What was Dylan’s first impact on you?

I was singing at the King & Queen pub in Foley Street [London] and mid-song, standing in the doorway, I recognised the face I’d seen on the cover of Sing Out! magazine. After, I asked if he fancied singing. He looked a bit startled, and replied “ask me later,” but he did sing three songs. Talking John Birch Society Blues brought the house down. He was only 21, so to have that kind of wit was amazing. But he struck me as an ordinary bloke with an extraordinary talent, very down to earth and quiet, and unimpressed by his own fame. In ‘64, he came over to my flat, sat down and played Mr. Tambourine Man, which was just sensational. That was his way of saying hello; he picks up an instrument, sings the song and then you play something, and then you talk.

As he shifted from folk to rock, where was Dylan’s head at?

Occasionally he’d mention his songs but his view was, he’s written them so why talk about them? Writers want to hear what the song’s done to you, not to tell you what to think – that was almost a mantra to him. If he appeared enigmatic, it was either because people didn’t get him - he was a very intelligent person being asked dumb and patronising questions – or they were hero-worshipping him. But he was taking a lot of speed as well as marijuana, and that’s when things get more dislocated and bonkers.

Has Dylan finally mellowed?

You can tell by his radio show that he’s having fun, though he’s always had a ridiculous sense of humour. He’s astonishingly erudite about that music, but there’s also a tongue-in-cheek element, like in the show about dogs, he played How Much is That Doggie in the Window? Maybe those brushes with death have made him a bit chattier – or maybe people are asking him more intelligent questions! That’s the extent to which he’s changed things.

Peter Yarrow

The Peter of ‘60s folk icons Peter, Paul & Mary was also on the Newport folk festival’s board of directors.

What was Dylan’s first impact on you?

His writing put Peter, Paul and Mary on another level. We heard his demos and Albert [Grossman, both Dylan and the trio’s manager) thought the big song was Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright but we went crazy over Blowin’ In The Wind. We instinctively we knew the song carried the moment of its own time. He was rising so fast over anybody else, in the level of poetry and expression, to a shatteringly brilliant level. At Newport, my job was to round up those artists who’d draw the crowds, like Judy Collins, Joan Baez and Dylan. Through the music, they were expressing the articulation of a new consciousness.

As he shifted from folk to rock, where was Dylan’s head at?

People were putting a halo on him, but Bobby’s inherently shy, so that’s a problematic combination. Albert’s management style was based on protecting the artist from any success created by anything other than the legitimate pursuit of art and music. For example, he kept us and Dylan away from television because he felt it wasn’t making a real connection with the audience. But that serious division between performer and audience can give the artist an unhealthy perspective.

Has Dylan finally mellowed?

From some of the things stated in his book and his radio show, that sense of running from contact is no longer something he needs, which I think is terrific. I don’t know what’s going on in his heart but from his actions, incontrovertibly he is a much more social, balanced, comfortable person.

Murray Lerner

Directed both The Other Side of the Mirror and Festival, a document of the Newport Folk Festival between 1963 and 1966.

What was Dylan’s first impact on you?

Filming at Newport in 1963, I suddenly realised more was happening here than performances. I didn’t meet Dylan that first year; he wasn’t easy to meet, at least not for me. But he was incredible. A song like North Country Blues was such a transformation of that form, with real social meaning and such lucidity. You saw his power, both on and off stage. I used to see him and Joan Baez around Newport. He had a bullwhip and would crack it on the street ahead of them as they walked!

As he shifted from folk to rock, where was Dylan’s head at?

He became removed from the folk music phenomenon. It was exciting but frightening too, like a high priest starting a new religion. Electricity is more than volume, if you listen to enough of it; it subliminally puts you in a hypnotic trance, and Dylan brought that to its height. Drugs were an influence too. At the ’65 festival, when he’s singing Mr. Tambourine Man, you can see sweat coming down his face, and a weird look in his eyes.

Has Dylan finally mellowed?

Yes. As people get older, they begin to feel they have to define themselves better and drop a lot of meaningless pretension and negative thoughts. He got ill too which also changes your perspective, and children. He’s devoted to his [six] kids.

Joe Boyd

Production manager at Newport Folk Festival, 1965. He later produced, among many, albums by Pink Floyd and R.E.M.

What was Dylan’s first impact on you?

I didn’t like his first album [Bob Dylan, 1962]; his originals weren’t interesting and the cover versions were too derivative. But in the spring of 1963, I heard him from two foot away at a party in Cambridge [Massachusetts], singing A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, and he was just incredible. I saw him again at Newport that year and then in 1965 when I was working there. Everyone felt the tension - would he be the old acoustic Bob or the new electric Bob? There was some booing after his set, but most of the noise was people shouting for more because he’d played such a short set.  Afterwards, the mood backstage was very sombre. The old guard felt deflated and the young also realised it was the end of an era, even though they’d been gloating about it as it was happening.

As he shifted from folk to rock, where was Dylan’s head at?

I never got to know him well enough to make any judgement. He was friendly enough but he wasn’t about the chew the fat with anyone he didn’t know. At Newport, we only talked about technical stuff. I stopped listening to him after I saw his Earls Court show in ‘78, when he tried to avoid singing the melodies to all of his old tunes. I like his more recent albums though his book is magnificent, the best thing he’s put out in years.

Has Dylan finally mellowed?

I don’t know about mellowed. But the radio shows are entertaining, even though some of the stuff he plays has been chosen for its quirky conceptual value rather than just musical excellence.

Todd Haynes

Director of I’m Not There.

What was Dylan’s first impact on you?

I heard a Greatest Hits as a high school teenager in the mid-70s and promptly became an ardent admirer of his mid-60s, Blonde On Blonde period. It was wild mercury sound and the irreverent authority he takes, even at just the level of his voice. There is a work, fearlessness to Dylan even when you don’t understand what he’s saying. I didn’t listen to him again until the very end of the 90s, when I was going through changes in my own life and I needed his voice again - I associate him with positive adolescent energy, looking forward to change, which we don’t always do as we age. I started reading everything about him and kept confronting this definition of Dylan, as this person of radical and constant change. He never honours identity as a stable property, which is part and parcel of the new way that freedom was defined for his era. He’s given my film his blessing because he probably found the concept of amusing and irreverent.

As he shifted from folk to rock, where was Dylan’s head at?

He was always about three years ahead of his time. The early ‘60s had a real sense of hope and clarity about moral positions and civil rights, but by ’68, the world had erupted into unsolvable conflicts that I don’t think we recovered from. Dylan saw the complexity and irreconcilability within doctrines and political agendas, but he was under pressure to keep producing the party line deliver the answer that America wanted. His motorbike crash in 1966 saved his life as it delivered him out of the public eye and ever since, he can disappear and reappear as he wants.

Has Dylan finally mellowed?

I think he’s matured, in that his recent work is the result of having seen and reflected a lot, but his work is too rich and resilient to consider it mellow. To me, the book and radio show aren’t necessarily Dylan opening himself up to the scrutiny and analysis that’s always tailed him, but they’re generous expressions of his love of American music, in all of its forms, that continues to get him moving. We’re so lucky to still have him.

Tony Russell

Writer; blues, folk and country music expert.

What was Dylan’s first impact on you?

Watching him in Madhouse on Castle Street, I’d never heard anything like him before. I was keen on anything far away from cardigan-wearing Radio 2 light programming, which was contemporary British pop at that time. Dylan was singing blues and songs rooted in the ballad singers of the ‘20s and ‘30s. His work felt so natural and unfiltered.

As he shifted from folk to rock, where was Dylan’s head at?

I think he had fun dealing with the press, pulling people’s legs, but the same questions from journalists would come back to him, and he got bored. He refused to play the folk hero and good for him. Otherwise he would have been painted into a corner. He unwittingly became a spokesman for a generation and you can’t work with a burden like that. Serious artists that have something to say find it spiritually essential to find new ways of saying it.

Has Dylan finally mellowed?

After a long period of not buying his records, I got interested again when he released two solo folk covers albums in the early ‘90s. He was looking back to his first records, which also proved to be the launching pad for some excellent, bluesier albums like Love & Theft, and his radio show. For me, there’s a real sense of Dylan returning to his roots for refreshment rather than relaxation, which is a sign of maturity. It’s a kind of mellowing but it’s by no means sedate.

ENDS