▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube
9. Chambers Brothers: “I Got It”
Before the Chambers Brothers found psychedelic soul glory on “Time Has Come Today,” they channeled their gospel education into guttural, raspy call-and-response harmonies straight from the Baptist church. He was showing off what he had received. “I Got It” is an unwavering affirmation of faith, propelled by handclaps and a Newport-distorted electric guitar.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube
10. Odetta: “I’m in trouble.”
With her deep contralto and hard-strumming guitar, Odetta could sing just about anything from spirituals to pop to jazz to blues to gospel to opera when she first appeared in the 1950s. She brought the power and dignity of her voice to the civil rights movement, and Dylan acknowledged her as a source of inspiration. “Troubled” appears on the 1964 album “Odetta Sings of Many Things.” It is an appeal presented with steely resolve.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube
11. Spoke Mashiyane: “Jika Spoke”
In his memoir, Myself Among Others, festival producer George Wine recalls that South African pennywhistle player Spokes Mashiyane became an unexpected sensation at the 1965 festival. In South Africa, Masiyane was a hitmaker who coined a light, whistle-topped style called kuwela. In Newport, they received improvised (and perhaps less swingy) backup from Pete Seeger on banjo and Wein on piano. This is one of his South African hits, “Jika Spokes”.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube
12. Ed Young: “Hen Duck”
Colonial drum and fife corps were given an African makeover by Mississippi plantation workers. At large outdoor picnics, we made music with fifes cut from sugar cane, piercing melodies, and drumbeats far more syncopated than “Yankee Doodle.” Ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax, a festival director, recorded this drum corps piece during a trip to Mississippi in 1959, and in 1965 Pfeiffer's Ed Young's group performed in Newport. did. Here's a lively and fascinating snippet of their 1967 performance. Newport documentary “Festival.''
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube
13. Cousin Emmy and the New Lost City Ramblers: “Ruby, are you mad at your man?”
Who was in the enviable spot right before Dylan at the 1965 festival? With true folkie egalitarianism, it was my cousin Emmy, Cynthia Mae Carver, born in Kentucky in 1903, who wrote songs, played banjo and other instruments, and sang with bright Appalachian tones. did. Her first successful career was in the 1940s and 1950s, when she performed mostly on radio rather than on records. Most of those shows will be lost. She was rediscovered by the New Lost City Ramblers. The New Lost City Ramblers were urban fans of old string band music who became accomplished, research-oriented revivalists. They made an album with her and supported her in Newport in 1965. This Cousin Emmy song was given a second life by the Osborne Brothers when it became a bluegrass standard, with her peppy, almost yodeling melody.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube
14. Eck Robertson: “Sally Gooden”
Back in 1921, Eck Robertson (Alexander Campbell Robertson, an Arkansas-born fiddle player who settled in Texas) recorded what would become recognized as the first country single. Festival folklorists tracked him down when he performed in 1965, and his recorded performance at Newport was energetic. But here we have Victor Records' first single released in 1922, a solo version of the traditional song “Sally Gooden.” Robertson spins out more than a dozen variations on the drone note, giving the track a timeless and mysterious sound.
