Newport Folk Festival

Black Crowes at the 2008 festival

The Newport Folk Festival is an annual folk music - festival , which in 1959 for the first time in Newport in Rhode Iceland took place (USA).

history

The festival was founded by Joyce and George Wein , who founded the Newport Jazz Festival back in 1954, and Albert Grossman , who later became Bob Dylan's manager . After a two-year break (1960/1961) it was continued with the support of Pete Seeger and Theodore Bikel .

Many of the greatest blues and folk musicians have performed at the Newport Festival - including John Lee Hooker , Muddy Waters , Howlin 'Wolf and Lightnin' Hopkins . Many other well-known artists made their first major appearances in Newport, such as 1959 Joan Baez , 1963 Bob Dylan, Buffy Sainte-Marie , Phil Ochs , 1965 Donovan , 1967 Arlo Guthrie , Leonard Cohen , 1968 Pentangle and 1969 James Taylor .

On July 25, 1965, Bob Dylan was booed in Newport and denounced as a "traitor" when he performed with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and picked up the electric guitar . He broke off his performance after only 15 minutes; it wasn't until 2002 that Dylan returned to Newport.

After folk rock lost its importance in the international music business at the end of the 1960s, the festival ran into difficulties and was no longer held from 1971. It wasn't revived until 1985 and remains one of the premier folk music events in the States to this day , along with the Philadelphia Folk Festival , which has been held annually without interruption since 1960.