Dylan Goes Electric: From New York to Newport
Part of Folk City: New York and the Folk Music Revival
at the Museum of the City of New York

Fifty years ago this month, Bob Dylan “went electric” at the Newport Folk Festival, startling the audience and setting off a firestorm in the music industry. Dylan’s artistic evolution within the New York folk music community in the 1960s from “protest singer” to introspective songwriter was nothing short of remarkable. His lyrics captured the mood of the times and stopped Americans in their tracks.

Join a panel of Dylan experts to reflect on Dylan’s transformation in New York and Newport during the tumultuous 1960s. Read about “When Bob Dylan Went Electric” in The Wall Street Journal.

David Hajdu, music critic for The Nation and a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, is author of Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña and Richard Fariña (2001).

Terri Thal managed a number of folk singers and groups, including Dave Van Ronk, Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton, the Holy Modal Rounders, and Maggie and Terre Roche.

Elijah Wald, an American folk blues guitarist and music historian, is author of Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night that Split the Sixties (2015).

Stephen Petrus (moderator), urban historian, is curator of Folk City at the Museum of the City of New York and co-author of the exhibition’s accompanying book.