Electric Apostasy: The Day Bob Dylan Died

For the 1950s’ generation, “the day the music died” was February 3, 1959—the day when the plane carrying Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and “The Big Bopper” crashed. For the 1960s generation, however, “the day the music died” was July 25, 1965—the day when Bob Dylan crashed the 1965 Newport Folk Festival stage with an electric guitar in front of him and rock band behind him to rip into a loud, raucous version of his new hit, “Like a Rolling Stone.” Bob Dylan the folk figure of the early ‘60s was dead. Bob Dylan the rock voice of the late ‘60s generation was born.  “For many people the story of Newport 1965 is simple,” author-musician Elijah Wald writes in Dylan Goes Electric: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night that Split the Sixties, “Bob Dylan was busy being born, and anyone who did not welcome the change was busy dying.” In Dylan Goes Electric, Wald tells an electrifying story of just how complex the true story of that moment was—a cultural crossroads now mired in mythology but even more fascinating and significant when told with clear eyes and an understanding of both sides of the divide Dylan stood across. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Electric Apostasy: The Day Bob Dylan Died."

Is Bob Dylan a Painting Plagiarist?

How many times will Bob Dylan be accused of plagiarism of one kind or another? The latest accusations blowing in the wind involve not Dylan’s style or songs, but rather his beloved hobby—painting. A Flickr account holder calling him or herself Okinawa Soba claims that Dylan based at least six of his paintings in a new exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery in New York City on vintage photos that Soba posted in his photostream. Is BOB DYLAN: The Asian Series a huge fraud in which a celebrity tries to pass off unimaginative copies of true artists’ work as his own? Or is it wrong to call these paintings plagiarism? Is Dylan the “plagiarist” just Dylan being Dylan? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Is Bob Dylan a Painting Plagiarist?"

[Image: BOB DYLAN: The Asian Series. Gagosian Gallery installation view. Photo by Rob McKeever.]