Dylan Goes Electric!: The Inspiration for the Major Motion Picture A Complete Unknown Paperback – June 14, 2016

Fans of the new movie “A Complete Unknown” would do well to dive into Wald’s exposition on the scene itself. This was a great read: highly informative, fun, and compelling. Looking into more from Wald.

Since "Dylan Goes Electric" by Elijah Wald is listed as the source material for the movie "A Complete Unknown", and since I enjoyed the movie more than any that I've seen in a long while, I had to read it. It is a readable and thorough history of the two folk music giants of the 60s, Pete Seeger and BobDylan. Although the narrative is sometimes shrouded in "too many words" and "too many details", it seems to give an accurate history of those men and those times. Having been in college during those tumultuous years, I walked back through memory lane and had those memories both validated and sometimes corrected.This book is not for the faint of heart, but it is definitely for the diehard Dylan fan. I recommend Wald's book for those folks.

Fantastic book. I love Dylan, but this book is more than just a Dylan bio. I learned so much about the folk music movement of the early 60s.

Never was a big Dylan fan....but after seeing the movie I had to get more info and book fills in the gaps and good background for me.

Elijah Wald’s history of the folk revival of the early 60s gets to the heart of folk music through its “Rashomon”-esque approach to the story. Folk tradition is about celebrating voices and heroes. This book does both, providing the (often conflicting) perspectives of those who experienced the period while also building the stories of our heroes Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan.Through contrasting these two men, Wald gives us not only insight into the movement and why Dylan’s shift in 1965 was so significant, but also how that conflict continued to play out in popular music. There’s a deep truth in here, shown in Seeger’s frustration with Dylan’s change: that one day all of the young rebels become someone else’s fascist.

After I saw the movies, decided to read the book. So far it's a great history of Dylan. He has been one of my favorites since I was a teenager.

The movie "A Complete Unknown" differs a lot from this book, which it is supposedly based on. While Timothy and Monica do a great job imitating the voices and sounds of Dylan and Joan Baez and the sound is outstanding, Dylan comes off as too much of a hero in the movie. After all, he didn't have to bring his new electric sound forward at the Newport Folk Festival and humiliate his benefactor Pete Seeger who had been treated badly for many years by the government. And his electric performance was actually horrible even though it sounded great in the movie. Dylan turned a folk festival into a modern rock festival and all that entails, killing an event that Seeger and others had created and nurtured for years. He could have played his acoustic guitar one last time before going electric at his next event. The movie also indicates that Woody Guthrie, who Seeger visited regularly, approved of what Dylan did when he probably had no idea what happened. I think Baez understood Dylan perfectly. Her music seems to be out of fashion now which is a shame.

Interesting to a point, but far too detailed for my taste. Also, the last two chapters are like groundhog's day, he just keeps saying the same thing over and over again. Ok, I heard you the first time, I know what you think the meaning of that night was, there is no need to restate it 30 times.