Watch Bob Dylan Make His Debut at the Newport Folk Festival in Colorized 1963 Footage

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In July 1963, Bob Dylan made his first appear­ance at the New­port Folk Fes­ti­val. On open­ing night, he cap­ti­vat­ed a crowd of 13,000 with a per­for­mance of “Blowin’ in the Wind,” accom­pa­nied by Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, and Peter, Paul, and Mary. Then, the fol­low­ing day, Dylan deliv­ered a ren­di­tion of “With God On Our Side” (a duet with Joan Baez) and per­formed “North Coun­try Blues” solo, a song that would lat­er appear on The Times They Are a‑Changin’ in 1964. You can watch these his­toric per­for­mances in orig­i­nal black-and-white footage. (Sim­ply click the links in the text.) Or, thanks to the YouTube chan­nel Toca o Dis­co, you can expe­ri­ence the moment in col­or. As a 22-year-old Bob Dylan sings, the audi­ence lis­tens in rapt atten­tion, tak­ing in his pow­er­ful folk song about the harsh real­i­ties of min­ing and indus­tri­al­iza­tion. Take note above.

Relat­ed Con­tent

Bob Dylan Explains Why Music Has Been Get­ting Worse

Com­pare the “It Ain’t Me Babe” Scene from A Com­plete Unknown to the Real Bob Dylan & Joan Baez Per­for­mance at the New­port Folk Fes­ti­val

Watch Bob Dylan Per­form “Only A Pawn In Their Game,” His Damn­ing Song About the Mur­der of Medgar Evers, at the 1963 March on Wash­ing­ton

How Bob Dylan Cre­at­ed a Musi­cal & Lit­er­ary World All His Own: Four Video Essays


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Comments (13)
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  • John Pendleton says:

    I think the most remark­able thing in this remark­able clip is how Judy Collins does­n’t even blink as a pipe-chomp­ing pho­tog abrupt­ly plops into the chair on front of her. And Doc Wat­son’s rapt lis­ten­ing says vol­umes.

  • VMacMillan says:

    Sit­ting right next to Bob is Doc Wat­son.
    How he did­n’t get men­tioned is mind bog­gling.

  • Degeer says:

    Real­ly? Does it bog­gle your mind so much? The video is of a per­for­mance of some­one else so why should he be men­tioned for sit­ting in a chair? Your com­ment is mind bog­gling.

  • Degeer says:

    Real­ly? Does it bog­gle your mind so much? The video is of a per­for­mance of some­one else so why should he be men­tioned for sit­ting in a chair? Your com­ment is mind bog­gling.

  • Justwaitin says:

    Great video, good com­ments , I was won­der­ing who some of those folks were sit­ting in the back­ground, com­pared to the video of Maggie’s Farm cou­ple years lat­er there’s quite a bit of growth but still can’t imag­ine boo­ing

  • Jeff says:

    Yeah, I thought that was inter­est­ing as well. I think his recep­tion at this New­port is what cat­alyzed his career. He did­n’t start play­ing pro­fes­sion­al­ly until the ear­ly 60’s, at least that’s what he told Mer­le Travis, on the record­ings of Will the Cir­cle Be Unbro­ken. For me those engage­ments between those leg­ends were almost as enjoy­able as the music.

  • Jeff says:

    Clarence Ash­ley, Bob Shane, Judy Collins I think that’s Row­land Scher­man who pops in front of her snap­ping pic­tures, Doc Wat­son.

    Not sure hope­ful­ly some can add infor­ma­tion.

    Thanks!

  • Tony2stack says:

    I’m absolute­ly aston­ished that they didn’t make men­tion of Lit­tle Weasel Slim Jimkins and the Frog Toad Kid!!! They opened up for lit­tle Bob­by and pre­formed their smash hit-mom­ma burned my toast again. I am not going to get any sleep tonight.

  • George Castro says:

    I think those gath­ered there that day, knew that he was some­one spe­cial. They knew that folk music was in good hands.

  • Ray says:

    Dylan is so damn good, an Icon of Amer­i­ca a word­smith and poet w sin­cere feel­ings.
    My back pages, Tan­gled up.in blue idiot wind a mas­ter­piece in sto­ries, the sto­ries of human suf­fer­ing in des­o­la­tion row, the sweet romance ’ To Ramona’

  • Rudolph Pierce says:

    Pow­er­ful my Broth­er Pow­er­ful indeed 🙏

  • Blythe Williams says:

    I was there in the audi­ence. Ear­li­er in the day we were going around to the work­shops and who do we see but Bob Dylan walk­ing alone with his gui­tar head­ed toward the stage area. No pic­ture, sor­ry. I attend­ed the New­port Folk Fes­ti­val for many years. And, yes, I was there when he “went elec­tric”. I con­sid­ered myself a folkie but I loved it. I was cheer­ing my heart out when all around me were boo­ing.

  • Lee Budesheim says:

    An amaz­ing per­for­mance of a song that is sad­ly as rel­e­vant today as it was 60 years ago.

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