In 1964, America was standing on the brink of war and widespread cultural revolutions, the fear of buttoned-up conservatives and the reckless rise of young voices. At the age of 23, Bob Dylan was about to experience a sea change of his own. A few months after Live 1964: Concert At Philharmonic Hall was recorded, the precocious folk hero headed into the studio to record his first “plugged-in” album, Bringing It All Back Home, incensing folk traditionalists and astounding everybody else. It’s been almost 40 years since this time of gathering clouds and imminent social upheaval, and the recording of Dylan’s incredible Halloween performance documents the turbulence and excitement of the day with more poignancy and immediacy than any textbook I’ve ever read.
After decades of fame as a must-have bootleg for Dylan fanatics, this live album is being properly released for the very first time, presented on two beautifully mastered discs. Live 1964 is the sixth installment of Columbia/Legacy’s Dylan Bootleg Series, and it captures the artist at the peak of his creative powers. The singer/songwriter’s instincts must have been severe – after hearing these masterful renditions of the incendiary folk gems that littered his early records, it’s clear that the artist had done everything he could as a solitary troubadour. Plus, the sound quality is impeccable, capturing everything from the audience’s jubilant requests to the scraping of Dylan’s pick on the strings.
The concert opens with “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” the song that cemented him as a hero amongst activists. While it proved to be an albatross when Dylan began expanding his horizons, he convincingly delivers its resilient themes of hope and revolution, to the audible delight of the 2,000-plus in attendance. Live 1964 features many more examples of Dylan’s snarling social commentary, from the biting McCarthyist critique “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues” to the earth-shaking “Gates Of Eden,” which the singer introduces as “A Sacriligeous Lullaby In D Minor.”
These songs, jammed with brilliant wordplay, desperate anger and slicing humor, may be his most enduring, if only as symbols of the rebellious nature of the time, but they’re not what separates Bob Dylan from fellow protest singers like Phil Ochs or Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. Early in his career, Dylan hid his love of The Beatles and their ability to craft ingenious, catchy love songs – it wasn’t received well on the anti-establishment Grenwich Village scene. He didn’t hide it well enough on his records, however, as the joyful spirit of the Fab Four can be felt in his meditations on relationships. Along with his rabid sense of humor, Dylan’s love songs were underappreciated early on, and when looking back, they’re a crucial aspect of his catalog and a vivacious point of difference from the doom and gloom of “serious” singer/songwriters. Live 1964 contains moments of true romance and uninhibited glee, where the artist is clearly having fun (when an audience member jokingly requests “Mary Had A Little Lamb,” Dylan responds by saying, “Did I record that? Is that a protest song?”). These lighthearted reprieves get listeners closer to Bob Dylan the person, and round out a complete, kaleidoscopic idea of life in America.
Five years after this performance, Dylan was lambasted for putting out Nashville Skyline, a record full of cheerful love songs and country sing-a-longs. This iconic figure didn’t shock by being confrontational or brash, but by being sensitive and silly, writing odes to lovers and ditties about country pie. For all of his invaluable contributions to popular music, the most memorable and touching are the songs laced with his special brand of sweet, hopeless romanticism. Live 1964 would be an inaccurate portrayal of an artist in transition without the cleansing humor of “If You Gotta Go, Go Now,” and the rollicking, euphoric number that was Dylan’s encore that night – “All I Really Wanna Do.” His enthusiastic yodels on the song’s chorus incite a celebration in the crowd, and because of this album’s incredible production, listeners can feel like they were there too, singing their guts out along with a legend, feeling the electricity of a year filled with anticipatory wonder, like the gorgeous, quiet minute that precedes the most tumultuous storms.
Appeared in Issue Eight of Traffic East.