On July 25, 1965, Bob Dylan began his electric set at the Newport Folk Festival with “Maggie’s Farm.” It was the first time he’d ever played electric guitar on stage and “traditionalist” folkies were audibly not happy, although organist Al Kooper, who was on stage, says he thinks the audience was booing because the set was too short. “Very Bob.”
The day before, on Saturday, July 24, Dylan had participated in a festival workshop performing three acoustic numbers “All I Really Want to Do,” “If You Gotta Go, Go Now” and “Love Minus Zero/No Limit.”
That night he rehearsed with “The Band” and the next night they played the electric set of “Maggie’s Farm,” “Like A Rolling Stone” and “Phantom Engineer,” an early version of the song “It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry.”
Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties by Elijah Wald.
The Photographer Who Captured Bob Dylan’s Electric Transition
