50 Years After Dylan Played Forest Hills, Al Kooper Recalls 1965's Electric Summer


"Not quite what you expect to hear from a man recalling the part he played in one of the most controversial moments in rock 'n' roll history, but this is how Al Kooper remembers the moment when Bob Dylan went electric. On July 25, 1965, Dylan and his band faced a grimacing audience when they deviated from their anticipated program and played an electric set at the Newport Folk Festival. Backed by the Butterfield Blues Band, keyboardist Barry Goldberg, and 21-year-old organist Kooper — the man responsible for the organ lick that soars throughout 'Like a Rolling Stone,' which had been released as a single less than a week prior to the Newport show — Dylan raced through a seventeen-minute set. ... Fifty years later, Kooper has spent a significant portion of the past few months reliving that set and the album — Highway 61 Revisited — that followed it, in both New York (at Lincoln Center Out of Doors) and Newport. ..."
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