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Chapter 5 Bob Dylan and the New Frontier
MUSH 261
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• This section of rock & roll history includes:
• Civil Rights marches with Martin Luther King Jr. in Birmingham
• President John F. Kennedy announcing plans for a new Frontier
• Bob Dylan singing songs of social protest in New York
Wobblies • IWW: International Workers of the World
• Called Wobblies
• Protest songs for equality for American workers in the 1960s
• Radical Unionists
• Offices were closed by the feds during the red Scare after WWI
Songs of Protest
• Ralph Chaplin wrote: “Solidarity Forever”• Set to the tune of “Battle Hymn of the Republic”
They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn/ But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn/ We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn/ That the Union makes us strong/Solidarity Forever!”
Radical Unionists
Woody Guthrie
• Continued the goal of the IWW
• Born, 1912, in Oklahoma
• Started his career in L.A. reading radical newspapers over the air
• Moved to New York and wrote for communist party newspapers
• Served in WWII
Returned from WWII and wrote songs like, “This land is your land”
Pete Seeger
• Joined the IWW
• Born 1919 in New York
• Founded the Almanac singers with Guthrie
• After serving in WWII he started a musicians union and agency
• Started a group called the Weavers
Popularized folk songs like “Goodnight Irene”
Also popularized the folk song, “On Top of Old Smokey”
Issues for Protest Singers
• Senate censure in late 1954
• Blackballed from networks
• Lost gigs
• Lost Jobs
Folk Revival
• Folk came back in 1960 when college enrollment increased
• College students were searching for an alternative to “pop” music that the “kids” were listening to
Kingston Trio
• Started the Folk Revival
• Trio of College students signed to Capitol records
• Surpassed Frank Sinatra as Capitols #1 money maker
• Invested in 10 different companies including a restaurant
“Tom Dooley”
Return of the Blues
• As Folk came back, so did the blues with artists like: – Muddy Waters– John Lee Hooker– Howlin Wolf
College students were trading records for LP’s (long playing records)
Hootenanny
• Television show on ABC
• Took viewers to Folk concerts on different campuses
• Sold Sweatshirts, pinball games, magazines & made a film called Hootenanny Hoot
Bob Dylan
• Born May 24, 1941 in Hibbing, Minnesota
• Real Name: Robert Allen Zimmerman
• Picked on as a kid for being Jewish
• Felt Isolated
• Didn’t know if he was normal
• Turned to music
Inspirations
• Hank Williams – introduced him to guitar• Muddy Waters • John Lee Hooker & Howlin’ Wolf • Country and R&B • Rock Around The Clock:
– “Hey, that’s our music!”
• Elvis Presley & Little Richard • Buddy Holly
“Rock & Roll was pretty much finished”
• Turned to Folk Music
• Kingston Trio inspired him
• Traded his stuff for a Martin – acoustic guitar
1959 he began to perform traditional folk music
Guthrie Influence
• Dylan studied Woody Guthrie
• Visited Guthrie as he was dying in the hospital in New York
• First album he wrote a song dedicated to Woody
Political Dylan
• Second album: The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan was released in May 1963
• Featured, “Blowin’ in the Wind,” a song based on the melody of an old spiritual
• Became an anthem for the civil rights movement
• Believed, “there’s other things in this world besides love and sex that’re important too”
Battle Cry
• “A Pawn in their Game”: the murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers
• “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll”: 1963 killing of an African American barmaid by a white Maryland tobacco farmer who received only six months in prison and a $500 fine
• Chronicled the plight of African Americans
Standing up
• Refused to perform on the Ed Sullivan Show when CBS banned him from singing “Talkin’ John Birth Society Blues”
• Gave a concert with Pete Seeger to promote A.A. voter registration
• Appeared on local NY television program dealing with “freedom singers.”
• Performed at the March on Washington headed by MLK Jr.
Bob Dylan
At the Center of it all
• Became a focal point for a community of protest singers
• Joan Baez, Bob Dylan’s female counterpart in folk protest
Joan Baez
• Daughter of a Mexican-born physicist and Scotch-Irish mother she was dark skinned
• Faced racial discrimination at an early age
• She composed few of her own songs
• Took a decidedly political stance
Taking a Stand
• Refused to appear on ABC’s Hootenanny when the show blacklisted Pete Seeger
• Rejected more than $100,000 in concerts one year because “if someone desires to make money, I don’t call it folk music”
• Demonstrated in Birmingham for desegregation
• Marched on Washington
Singing her mentors tunes
