Mainstream to margins: Wilentz tracks political music

by Brian Kirk
Legendary performer Bob Dylan and Princeton University have a history that goes back more than three decades. In 1970, the University presented the musician with an honorary degree during a Commence-ment ceremony drowned out by the din of cicadas that had descended on the campus. Dylan later described the event in his song, "Day of the Locusts."

With the release of Dylan's new two-CD set this spring, that connection with Princeton continues. A 52-page booklet accompanying "Live 1964: Concert at Philharmonic Hall -- The Bootleg Series Volume 6" includes a historical and critical essay by Sean Wilentz, the Dayton-Stockton Professor of History and director of Princeton's Program in American Studies. Documenting the historic Halloween concert from the vivid memories of attending it as a 13-year-old, Wilentz illustrates the musical and social importance of that night's performance in New York.

"'Live 1964' brings back a Bob Dylan on the cusp of that turmoil," Wilentz writes. "It brings back a time between his scuffling sets at the downtown clubs and his arena-rock tours of the 1970s and after. It brings back a long gone era of intimacy between performer and audience, and the last strains of a self-aware New York bohemia before bohemia became diluted and mass marketed. It brings back a Dylan moment just before something that Pete Hamill (on the liner notes to 'Blood On the Tracks') called 'the plague' infected so many hopes, and destroyed an older America sung of by Guthrie and, in prose, by Jack Kerouac -- and by Dylan as well, who somehow survived. Above all, it brings back a great concert by an artist performing at the peak of his powers one who would climb many more peaks to come."

Wilentz is the author of several books, including "Chants Democratic," as well as the forthcoming "The Rise of American Democracy" and a book about American ballads, co-edited with Greil Marcus. He also writes regularly for The New Republic, The New York Times and other publications. He spoke with the Princeton Weekly Bulletin about experiencing Dylan's historic concert as well as the larger topic of the intersection of politics and music in the American tradition.

How did your essay on Dylan's Oct. 31, 1964, concert become included in the notes published with this album?

Bob Dylan's management approached me and asked me to write an essay for them. They knew that I was actually at the concert at the Philharmonic, and that I have written a fair amount about Bob Dylan's work, including pieces for his official Web site. They also wanted something historical to be included with the album -- something to put that moment into context, emotional and spiritual as well as historical context. That night was a turning point in his career.

Read the full story in the Weekly Bulletin.