Читать книгу I Got a Song - Rick Massimo - Страница 7

PREFACE

The Newport Folk Festival was an American musical institution almost as soon as it began in 1959, and it’s been a touchstone for more than fifty years, even given a pair of interruptions during its history. This book examines how the festival came to be in the beginning, how it came to be what it is today and how it came to be what it was at each distinct stage of its history in between. At every point, the story both drives and reflects changes in individuals and the collective musical world in which they work.

In July 2009, I was planning coverage of the fiftieth-anniversary Newport Folk Festival for the Providence Journal. I had already written about the fiftieth-anniversary Newport Jazz Festival in 2004, so I knew there would be a lot of history to cover. I also knew that George Wein was stepping back in to take the reins of both festivals after having sold his operation to a startup that had since failed.

My editors at the Journal sent me to New York to spend a day with Wein; we spoke for about two hours, went to a jazz festival–related event, returned to Wein’s home and spoke for about two more hours. On the train ride back that night, I plotted out a series of stories on the history of the Newport Folk Festival; by the time I got back to Providence, I knew the subject deserved a book.

Those interviews yielded valuable historical insights as well as a picture of what it was like to be in the driver’s seat to one of American music’s landmark events, and these are sprinkled throughout. The portion of that day recounted in chapter 11, however, comprises the heart of the interviews, and in many ways it is the heart of this book: the festival’s original sense of purpose, which has been refracted but never distorted over the decades.

The festival has meant many things to many people at many times. The real meaning of individual performances, and the festival as a whole, in many ways resides in the minds of those who witnessed it live. Some aspects of this history can only be fully understood by reading books; some can only be grasped by delving into unpublished primary sources such as board minutes and sometimes-angry letters; some of it requires face-to-face talks with the people who were there in the early days and are still involved; some of it can only be learned by listening to the music. A lot of people helped with each of these aspects.

Elijah Wald’s book on Bob Dylan’s electric performance at Newport is loaded with important information and analysis, and he was consistently willing to help. And Benjamin Filene was not only happy to discuss his work with me but found my interpretations of it not totally laughable.

Many thanks to my old Journal colleagues, including Alan Rosenberg and Phil Kukielski during the reporting and writing of the original stories, and G. Wayne Miller, Mark Patinkin, Mike Stanton and especially Bill Reynolds in the early stages of this project.

I’d also like to thank all who shared their stories of Newport and the festival over the decades. I appreciate the time and attention paid by dozens of people, whom you’ll find in these pages, but special mention has to be made of George Wein, who was particularly generous with his time, and Murray Lerner, who provided valuable contact information for other sources. Similarly, Carolyn McClair smoothed the way for many interviews.

Jeff Place, Cecilia Peterson, Stephanie Smith and the staff at the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections at the Smithsonian Institution provided a wealth of photos, as well as access to Rinzler’s papers regarding Newport, including board minutes, financial records and personal correspondence. Likewise, Todd Harvey, Jennifer Cutting and the staff at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress provided access to tapes from the early Newport Folk Festivals, as well as Alan Lomax’s papers, which included illuminating correspondence as well.

The documents in those archives, as well as other resources in the Smithsonian Institution and the Library of Congress (particularly the American Folklife Center), were invaluable in piecing together the events of the history of the Newport Folk Festival, particularly in its early days. So too were the memories of the people who created that history.

Inevitably, however, these sources sometimes clashed. Every effort has been made to reconcile people’s years- and decades-old memories with accounts from primary documents and recordings. In probably one of life’s more predictable ironies, some of the most confidently expressed memories were among those proven incorrect.

At other junctures in the history of the Newport Folk Festival, there’s no clear-cut answer as to what actually happened, and in that case the differences of opinion and of recollection stand as testimony to the size of the event and the many angles it could be viewed from.

This appears most obviously in the structure and form of chapter 7: the recently available tapes in the Jackson/Christian Collection at the American Folklife Center settle pretty much all questions as to what happened on the stage. That’s not, however, the full answer to the question “What actually happened at Bob Dylan’s electric performance on July 25, 1965?” That answer lies in the minds and memories of the people who were there and in their thoughts, analyses, arguments and actions thereafter. In this context, it’s not a matter of weeding through the many responses in order to find the answer; the fact that the community to and in which the performance was delivered could generate such responses is in fact the answer itself.

More people’s efforts need to be mentioned and appreciated. Carole Sargent and Marcia Chatelain at Georgetown University were instrumental in putting me in touch with Wesleyan University, and thanks of course to the past and present staff of the Wesleyan University Press, including Suzanna Tamminen, Marla Zubel, Dan Cavicchi and Parker Smathers. Thanks also to John Spangler, who helped with interview transcription, and Aaron Winslow for the index.

Large portions of this book were written while tagging along on my wife’s residencies at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Residency Program and the Bogliasco Foundation. While I wasn’t the official resident, the hospitality, time and (especially) respect that both these institutions afforded me were instrumental in the development of this work.

Finally, special acknowledgment must go to my wife, Christine Evans, who not only was endlessly morally and emotionally supportive through the entire process but was a sharp and perceptive reader and editor throughout.