The Times They Are A-Changin': Time Magazine's Coverage of Bob Dylan
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
The Times They Are A-Changin’: Time magazine’s coverage of Bob Dylan throughout his career Tullia Taylor Senior Thesis Dr. Williams 11 May 2011 2 The Times They Are A-Changin’: Time magazine’s coverage of Bob Dylan throughout his career At the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, Bob Dylan, folk god with a finger on the pulse of his generation, headlined a now iconic event. Anticipation reached fever pitch with the throngs of diehard folk fans. The usually mild-mannered, corduroy- wearing Dylan sauntered onto the stage wearing a slick leather jacket and sunglasses. His backing musicians hooked up to the offensive amplifiers. The crowd grew nervous at the new persona of their heralded prophet. Dylan jumped into a rocking, electric version of “Maggie’s Farm,” a far cry from his mellow, acoustic protest songs that made him a social icon. The stunned crowd erupted into angry “boos” and jeering. Dylan played a total of three songs for a mere 15 minutes and left the angry, dumbfounded crowd behind physically – and mentally – as he stalked off the stage. Dylan biographer Howard Sounes said, “Some say he was cocky, giving the impression he did not care that people had booed; others say he seemed shaken by the reaction of the crowd and depressed in the aftermath of the show. The truth is that he probably went through a gamut of emotions….”i From that moment on Dylan has undergone a number of career changes, leaving his fans and the media scratching their heads. LITERATURE REVIEW Many scholars have studied Dylan as a musician and cultural icon. For example, Devon Powers explored how the Village Voice newspaper handled the rising popularity of folk music in the late 1950s and 1960s, including the increasing 3 star power of a young folkie, Bob Dylan. The publication deemed Dylan a political hero and began to critique folk music as whole and also how it impacted society. Powers said, “The enthusiasm that he [Dylan] inspired suggests that folk had suddenly earned the right to be discussed as music; a major piece of the ‘problem’ was solved, insofar as there were measures to think about in an artistic way, and folk ceremoniously entered the realm of aesthetics.” Powers concluded that Village Voice helped shape the way music was presented and paved the way for the oncoming rock revolution.ii In the height of Dylan’s folk fame during the 1960s, he recorded his apocalyptic ballad “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” for his “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” album. Thomas O. Beebee examined how the song imitates such authors as Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot. However, the song remains uniquely Dylan’s. Beebee said, “In ‘Hard Rain’ Dylan was able to achieve, for the first time and almost the last, the critical balance of elements he needed to create innovative songs.” Beebee concluded that Dylan, in that one particular song, constructed an unprecedented masterpiece balancing politics, apocalypse, and traditional ballad.iii In a different study, Alberto Gonzalez and John J. Makay examined the rhetorical quality of Dylan’s gospel songs. Dylan, raised in a Jewish household, converted to Christianity and tried his hand at gospel in hopes of reaching a new audience while still maintaining his secular fan base. In their study, Gonzalez and Makay pointed out rhythm, cord progression and a focus on love and women that helped Dylan’s gospel music appeal to a wide audience range. These authors found that through connecting similar themes and instrumental styles, Dylan blended his 4 gospel music with his secular songs, appealing to his pre-conversion fans and new Christian fans alike.iv In another study, James Dunlap placed Dylan in a similar category as American idealists Ralph Waldo Emerson and John Steinbeck. Dunlap studied a number of telltale signs linking Dylan to American idealism. Dunlap said that Dylan’s concern for each individual’s feelings and emotions and his usage of nature as symbolism, especially in his earlier works, all point to a certain school of American idealism.v Another scholar, Sean Wilentz, keenly observed Dylan’s career from the early 1960s up to present time. His book worked through Dylan’s repertoire, analyzing different aspects of American culture that influenced Dylan during different periods. Wilentz made the point that Dylan and America are a tightly woven pair, both aiding the other in their development.vi All these studies have examined Dylan from many points of view. Only one, Devon Powers’ study, dealt with media coverage of Dylan in the quite specialized publication of Village Voice. However, no study has look at how Dylan was portrayed to the general American public through the widespread popularity of Time magazine over four decades. METHODOLOGY This study examined how Dylan was covered in Time magazine starting in 1963 and continuing until 2010. Time was a widely circulated magazine throughout Dylan’s career. The magazine offered its perception of his many career changes to a 5 large audience and, perhaps more importantly, taught a wide range of readers what to believe about Dylan. TIME AND DYLAN’S FOLKLORE America was in a state of turmoil in the 1960s. Young Americans were looking for a voice to speak louder than the resonating social chaos of the Vietnam War, assassination of President Kennedy, and nuclear threats. Twenty-something Greenwich Village folkie Bob Dylan burst onto the music scene and quickly was heralded a leader in the counterculture movement, with his cerebral voice conveying answers louder than the doubt. In the beginning, Time Magazine approved of Dylan’s message. In a May 31, 1963 article, Time lauded Dylan’s early career. An unnamed author wrote: There he stands, and who can believe him? Beardless chin, shaggy sideburns, porcelain pussycat eyes. At 22, he looks 14, and his accent belongs to a jive Nebraskan, or maybe a Brooklyn hillbilly. He is a dime-store philosopher, a drugstore cowboy, and a men’s room conversationalist.vii Although Dylan was the newly minted leader of a controversial movement that intertwined music and politics, Time still acknowledged him as a valid voice for all American citizens. The ideas that he was a dime-store philosopher or men’s room conversationalist made him seem like a man for all people. For the powerhouse publication Time to praise such a new artist involved in a debatable counterculture movement meant Dylan’s name would skyrocket in American households. The author wrote, “There is something faintly ridiculous about such a citybilly, yet Dylan is the newest hero of an art that has made a fetish out of authenticity… He is an advocate of little men, and if he remains one himself, it only enriches the ring of his lyrics.”viii 6 Only a few months later on July 19, 1963, Time reported on the rising power of folk singers in politics. And Bob Dylan stood at the top of the heap, with songs such as “Blowin’ in the Wind.” Time called the song Dylan’s “lyrically honest best. It sounds as country-airy as Turkey in the Straw, but it has a cutting edge. ‘How many roads must a man walk down / Before you call him a man? / How many years can some people exist/ Before they’re allowed to be free?” Time acknowledged folk music was on the rise and Dylan was emerging as a headman. “All over the U.S., folk singers are doing what folk singers are classically supposed to do – singing about current crisis. Not since the Civil War era have they done so in such numbers or with such intensity,” the anonymous author said.ix All folk singers were suddenly compared to the high water mark of Dylan’s early career. Time admired Dylan’s dedication to the issues he sang about: Pete Seeger, Theodore Bikel and Bob Dylan are three of the most sought-after folk singers in the business. But last week they were doing the seeking. At a voter registration rally two miles out of Greenwood, Miss., all three stood on a flatbed truck parked on a dusty field beside Highway 82 and sang the gospel-like “We Shall Overcome.” The audience, 200 Negro dirt farmers, lustily joined in.x Dylan was a killer combination of musical genius and political activism that Time found appealing. Bob Dylan’s music career was in the very early stages when the people of Time made him the apple of their eyes. The unnamed authors of Time’s Dylan articles clearly saw something in Dylan that propelled the publication to bring the young folkie’s career into the home of everyday Americans. While it usually takes years and numerous albums for a musician to break into the mainstream, Dylan seemed to do it with relative ease, thanks in part to Time’s ardent admiration of him. 7 ROCKY TIMES Although Time was wild about Bob Dylan, Dylan was no longer so crazy about Dylan. The voice of a generation and leader of a wildly popular counterculture, Bob Dylan gave up his revered status as a folk icon when he suddenly changed musical genres. The aftermath of his “Bringing It All Back Home” album, which featured rock-type songs,xi and the infamous 1965 Newport Folk Festival, where he played a rock version of a popular folk song, gave fans the heads- up his folk career was dead.xii Dylan’s shift to the shocking rock ‘n’ roll genre left the folk world reeling. Time, which had been such an early and thorough Dylan fan, now had to shift its view of the folkie it had cultivated to success.