The 1960s were a period of dramatic change from what seemed the simplistic 1950s. You could sense that when John Kennedy, the leader of Camelot and all that it represented, was assassinated in Dallas that an age of innocence in the United States (USA) was ending. However, while the tragic demise of Kennedy and his replacement by Johnson who appeared a throwback to an earlier era seemed to signal changing times, the issues were emerging before this. The first baby boomers were now teenagers and they seemed alienated from the conservative world of their parents. The Civil Rights movement was well underway and the Cold War seemed to be without end. A far away place called Vietnam was starting to impose itself on the consciousness of a nation and a generation. A thread of popular music evolved that was dramatically different from the contemporary music scene of three chord guitar songs centered on the problems of high school life and young love.
Rizières inondées à la frontière entre le Viet...
English: Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C. cl...
English: Bob Dylan at Lida Festival in Stockholm, ...The new music was concerned with the social issues of the day and played a huge role in the culture of the era by helping to rally support to the emerging protest movements and to help keep up the spirit of the youthful protestors.
One of the musicians who played a defining role in the music of the 1960s was Bob Dylan. Dylan was perhaps an unlikely person to assume such a role as he was raised as Robert Allen Zimmerman in the small city of Hibbing in Northern Minnesota.# This city was a mining town and was far removed from the mainstream of American life and American music. After finishing high school in 1959, Dylan left Hibbing for Minneapolis and the University of Minnesota. His time in Minneapolis seemed more focussed on folk music than school and...