Coffee works wonders: Buy Me A Coffee

– Bob Dylan – Live At Free Trade Hall, Manchester – May 7, 1965 – Soundboard Recording –

Pivotal year, 1965. After the initial wave of bands from Britain had flooded the U.S., and as America jolted itself out of the musical doldrums, the next phase; the “what-do-we-do-now” portion of the program began. As Popular Music started its journey of assimilating, borrowing, deconstructing and experimenting, the field became wide-open. Musical styles were changing and evolving and doing it quickly.

Folk Music was not immune to the transformation. Earlier in 1965 Bob Dylan added electric instruments to his fifth album Bringing It All Back Home. By July of that year he stunned the audience at the Newport Folk Festival by going electric. Amid the storm of controversy the signs were there – Popular Music was getting a jolt of growth hormones and nothing was going to stop it.

But just before that – literally two months before the Newport transformation, Bob Dylan had embarked on a European tour, playing at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester in England, on May 7, 1965.

To fans and purists, you already have this concert – and most likely have had it for a number of years. But if you’re new to Dylan and are interested in that transformational period – this concert puts it somewhere right at the edge and puts you in the witness chair.

Fortunately for everyone, the concert sounds great. One of the problems you often run in to with pivotal and historic moments is that they sometimes sound awful and lead you to remark “I guess you had to be there”. The recording of this concert, done presumably by the mixer at the time, is a great example of an iconic musician in the midst of change.

Turn it up and give it a listen.

Racing through February and Past Daily is still trudging along, looking for support. We don’t run ads so we’re free of clickbait, spam and scams that are gumming up every site, but we need contributors to keep us up and running. Costs even more now than it did this time last year. But we’re still offering you the best of what’s in the archive – yes, this is all from our Collection (except the sessions and concerts – gotta give credit where credit is due – BBC 6 Music and Radio X in London and RNE In Madrid are essential sources of finding new music) but everything is the result of yours truly digging into boxes, climbing over shelves, falling into dumpsters. It’s history, it’s important and it’s yours if you want it. All you have to do, if you’re up for it, is please subscribe via Patreon (that little box at the bottom of this post) – click on it and you’ll be taken to their site where you can subscribe to Past Daily, let them know how much you want to donate – or check us out for free, test drive our site, as it were, and decide to become part of the Past Daily experience. Simple, painless and we’ll love you for it. Do it if you can and you’ll be able to download your own copy of all our posts and new ones as they appear. Kind of cool, don’t you think? But you have to become a Patron in order to do it. Think about it – no pressure – honest – really . . no pressure. But there’s this landlord . . . .