Jon Blake's Blog - Posts Tagged "dylan"
Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan - Channel 4 Gets it Wrong
Among the major tv news programmes in the UK, people might expect Channel 4 News to be most attuned to the legacy of Pete Seeger, but yesterday’s obituary of the great man contained a horrible howler: it claimed that “the infamous Isle of Wight festival” was the occasion when Dylan controversially went electric. They had clearly confused IOW 1969 with the Newport Folk Festival of 1965 – possibly because the present day IOW festival takes place near Newport IOW. As readers of this blog will be well aware, IOW 1969 took place near Ryde, featured a downbeat and rather conservative performance by Dylan, but did not involve widespread booing or Pete Seeger threatening to cut the wires to the sound system.
Channel 4′s error was compounded by a selective quote from Seeger, referring to that threat, but taken completely out of context: Seeger was objecting to the distorted sound and the fact no-one could hear Dylan’s words. He was not opposed to electrification per se and made the point that Howlin Wolf had performed an electric set the day before, without any objections. Certainly there were purists in the folk movement, but they did not include Seeger. He was a man who, despite his middle-class roots, did more than anyone to champion the self-expression of the working-class and the emancipation of the oppressed. He had the guts to stand up to McCarthy’s Un-American Activities Committee and to decisively reject his early admiration for Stalin. I believe he was wrong to also reject revolutionary politics for a belief that fundamental change could be achieved incrementally, and even wronger to celebrate Obama’s presidency as evidence that “this land is our land”. But Dylan could certainly have learned from his steadfastness in devoting his life to the greater good.
"69ers", my (adult) novel about the 1969 IOW festival, has a website which features lots of original archive material.
Channel 4′s error was compounded by a selective quote from Seeger, referring to that threat, but taken completely out of context: Seeger was objecting to the distorted sound and the fact no-one could hear Dylan’s words. He was not opposed to electrification per se and made the point that Howlin Wolf had performed an electric set the day before, without any objections. Certainly there were purists in the folk movement, but they did not include Seeger. He was a man who, despite his middle-class roots, did more than anyone to champion the self-expression of the working-class and the emancipation of the oppressed. He had the guts to stand up to McCarthy’s Un-American Activities Committee and to decisively reject his early admiration for Stalin. I believe he was wrong to also reject revolutionary politics for a belief that fundamental change could be achieved incrementally, and even wronger to celebrate Obama’s presidency as evidence that “this land is our land”. But Dylan could certainly have learned from his steadfastness in devoting his life to the greater good.
"69ers", my (adult) novel about the 1969 IOW festival, has a website which features lots of original archive material.
Amazon Reviews of 69ers/When Dylan Sank The Isle of Wight
Not had much interest on Goodreads for my adult novel 69ers (republished as e-book When Dylan Sank the Isle of Wight earlier this year), so here are a couple of Amazon reviews to hopefully create some interest:
"Jon Blake's new novel is about Scott and about me. I wasn't at the Isle of Wight Festival in 69 and at nine years old that is probably best. My first festival was in 76' but it didn't feel that different. This is a story of music and love and love of music and music being the food of love. It is the story of the forming of the self with all it's absurdities. Scott is in the cauldron of the forming of his young self and we watch him through the very uncomfortable, but wonderful process. The moments and the memories from this part of our lives are often our most intense and remain our most formative and best remembered. There is a great deal of Jon Blake in Scott of course, the cruelest and the tenderest laughter is usually reserved for our past selves, isn't it? Blake gets all this just right. His own knowledge and first hand experience gets the sense of place and time perfectly. The dialogue is wince-making, hilarious and beautifully balanced between acute sympathy for his character and the ironic scalpel of time and greater judgement. When Scott and his friends are mocked, they are also loved. When they are loved, they are also laughed at and with. This is very accomplished fiction.
The narrative builds beautifully to two crescendoes - Scott's first sex(and it's worth the wait) and Dylan's comeback performance. This is a terrific fictional concept and doesn't let down in the realisation. Blake's skill takes us through a moving and hilarious symbiosis of the historical and the personal without a creak or a slip.
The ending of the novel brings us into the present with the ache of loss that is profound.
The novel is a joy, from every music reference, to every political and social reference. I had forgotten the existence of Julie Felix!
Would this make a wonderful British film? It certainly is a wonderful book."
"Jon Blake's novel brilliantly captures the spirit of the time. To many, the 1969 festival was a defining moment in festival culture - bigger than the '68 Godshill one-dayer, but not as huge as the massive 1970 East Afton event that perhaps marked the end of the hippy ideal.
The book weaves a fictional story about a group of festival-goers in with many true occurences. You can certainly tell that Jon had actually been there by the way that he accurately describes the event, the music and the people. The main character, Scott, is superbly portrayed. He is a seething mass of contradictory emotions - desperately wanting to escape his conventional upbringing but at the same time unable to let himself dive into a fully-fledged, hippy lifestyle. His obsession for the hippy-chick Jayne is similarly full of contradictions and conflicting feelings.
The last chapter is remarkably poignant and moving.
Definitely recommennded to anyone was involved in the festival scene in the late sixties or has an interest in the period."
Signed copies available at http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aag/main/r...
"Jon Blake's new novel is about Scott and about me. I wasn't at the Isle of Wight Festival in 69 and at nine years old that is probably best. My first festival was in 76' but it didn't feel that different. This is a story of music and love and love of music and music being the food of love. It is the story of the forming of the self with all it's absurdities. Scott is in the cauldron of the forming of his young self and we watch him through the very uncomfortable, but wonderful process. The moments and the memories from this part of our lives are often our most intense and remain our most formative and best remembered. There is a great deal of Jon Blake in Scott of course, the cruelest and the tenderest laughter is usually reserved for our past selves, isn't it? Blake gets all this just right. His own knowledge and first hand experience gets the sense of place and time perfectly. The dialogue is wince-making, hilarious and beautifully balanced between acute sympathy for his character and the ironic scalpel of time and greater judgement. When Scott and his friends are mocked, they are also loved. When they are loved, they are also laughed at and with. This is very accomplished fiction.
The narrative builds beautifully to two crescendoes - Scott's first sex(and it's worth the wait) and Dylan's comeback performance. This is a terrific fictional concept and doesn't let down in the realisation. Blake's skill takes us through a moving and hilarious symbiosis of the historical and the personal without a creak or a slip.
The ending of the novel brings us into the present with the ache of loss that is profound.
The novel is a joy, from every music reference, to every political and social reference. I had forgotten the existence of Julie Felix!
Would this make a wonderful British film? It certainly is a wonderful book."
"Jon Blake's novel brilliantly captures the spirit of the time. To many, the 1969 festival was a defining moment in festival culture - bigger than the '68 Godshill one-dayer, but not as huge as the massive 1970 East Afton event that perhaps marked the end of the hippy ideal.
The book weaves a fictional story about a group of festival-goers in with many true occurences. You can certainly tell that Jon had actually been there by the way that he accurately describes the event, the music and the people. The main character, Scott, is superbly portrayed. He is a seething mass of contradictory emotions - desperately wanting to escape his conventional upbringing but at the same time unable to let himself dive into a fully-fledged, hippy lifestyle. His obsession for the hippy-chick Jayne is similarly full of contradictions and conflicting feelings.
The last chapter is remarkably poignant and moving.
Definitely recommennded to anyone was involved in the festival scene in the late sixties or has an interest in the period."
Signed copies available at http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aag/main/r...
