SEAN WILENTZ
Author & Historian
Today, SW dropped into the NPR West studio for a long-distance conversation with Terry Gross that covered the Tea Party, Bob Dylan in America, and various other topics, including “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues.” It will broadcast tomorrow, Wednesday, October 13; check your local National Public Radio listings for time and station. UPDATE: Here, if [...]
Today’s Madeleine Brand Show on SCPR featured a discussion with SW about his article in the New Yorker on Beck and the Tea Party. You can download it here. One correction: on-air, SW for some reason refers in passing to the author Eustace Mullins as a woman, which he most definitely was not. For a [...]
IN this week’s issue of the New Yorker, SW returns to writing historical commetary on contemporary politics with an essay on the roots of Glenn Beck and the Tea Party in the far right politics of the 1950s and 1960s. [...]
IN 1972, the administration of President Richard M. Nixon launched efforts to deport John Lennon, who had taken up residence in the United States. Nixon feared that Lennon’s radical activities against America’s military engagement in Vietnam might lead to a mass mobilization of young voters that would in turn cost Nixon victory in that year’s [...]
On October 19, in just over two weeks, Sony/Columbia Legacy will release Bootleg: Volume Nine and the Original Mono Collection. Here’s a reprise of an account posted on The Daily Beast back in August: “Apart from the pleasures of the music itself, they are important documents in the history of modern musical culture. Together, they [...]
From SW: The last couple of weeks have involved more coast-to-coast wandering, with some interesting stops along the way. Here’s one. In NYC, mid-September, I was lucky enough to sit in on a rehearsal session involving some old favorites and friends playing some old favorites and originals. Al Kooper on organ, Danny Kalb on guitar. [...]
For those of you with BlackBerry smart phones, Thumbplay is offering streams of 15 tracks from the soon-to-be released Witmark demos bootleg. For the BlackBerry’d, and all the rest of us, here are some all-too-brief but tantalyzing samples of the streams. If nothing else, you get a sense of the intimacy of these recordings. If [...]
Willie Nelson and Family were cooking by the end of their show at the Greek Theater last night, featuring among other numbers a strong and touching tribute to Waylon Jennings and “Good Hearted Woman.” Alas, no YouTube posting appeared today. But in what must have been a recording earlier on, Willie and the troupe performed [...]
From SW: It seems like years and not a little over a week since the Colbert broadcast, all a blur amid the hectic pace of book touring and moving coast-to-coast. My deep thanks, here, to everyone who has had such nice things to say about Bob Dylan in America. With a brief break in the [...]
Sean Wilentz talks to Stephen Colbert about Bob Dylan here Colbert: Explain to me and the young people out there why they should care about Bob Dylan. What’s the big deal? We hear him and we go, EHH?, you know. He’s no Britney. Wilentz: (Laughs) Colbert: OK? Can he pop that coochie? I don’t think [...]
Sean Wilentz will appear on the Colbert Report tonight, September 14, to discuss Bob Dylan in America, 11:30 pm Eastern Time.
From the interview: Q: Allen Ginsberg and Dylan met in ’63, in your uncle’s apartment above the family bookstore. A: Dec. 26, 1963. Q: In the book you write that Dylan and Ginsberg eventually “helped each other complete transitions into new phases of their careers.” A: By the time he comes to record his next [...]
With another weekend arrived — and with a break from interviewing, sifting the reviews, and other attendant book launch clamor — here’s a historic clip from Newport in 1964, my favorite performance of one of my favorite songs. The poetics of a thunderstorm.
Sean Wilentz will be reading from Bob Dylan in America, followed by Q&A and a book signing, at the Barnes and Noble store at 82nd Street and Broadway, New York, NY, at 7 p.m. Info and directions here.
Today, September 7, to mark the official publication of Bob Dylan in America, Sean Wilentz will appear at the estimable Spoonbill & Sugartown Booksellers in Brooklyn for a reading, Q&A, and book signing. Admission is free, but seating is limited. Spoonbill & Sugartown Booksellers, 218 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, telephone: 718-387-7322 7 PM L Train to [...]
An excerpt from Chapter 6. “Many Martyrs Fell: ‘Blind Willie McTell,” New York, NY, May 5, 1983,” has just been posted on The Daily Beast.
An excerpt from Chapter Six, “Many Martyrs Fell: ‘Blind Willie McTell,’ New York, NY, May 5, 1983,” has just been posted at the Daily Beast.
I went to hear the good Doctor John perform on Santa Monica pier last night, and he gave his usual knockout show. Among the tunes he played was the classic “St. James Infirmary.” (Have a look at the Blind Willie McTell post on DYLAN EXTRAS.) Alas, all I could find this morning was some footage [...]
As a kickoff to the Labor Day weekend, here’s Merle Haggard in Austin in 1978, playing “Working Man’s Blues.” Plenty of Merle this weekend, and Muddy and Hank and Little Walter and Levon … and Modern Times, too.
In addition to Chapter 2, the entire introduction to Bob Dylan in America (including a wonderful photograph of the Gaslight Café) is now available in pdf form here.
Following up the New Yorker’s posting of Chapter 2, here are some additional video features on Bob Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, and the Beats, as featured on the Dylan Extras page of www.seanwilentz.com
When Bob Dylan was growing up, it was not unusual to hear great poets read their work in packed auditoriums. Robert Frost, Dylan Thomas (who toured the United States regularly), T.S. Eliot, all could be seen and heard in the flesh — and not just in the great coastal metropolitan centers. They also recorded their [...]
The Greenwich Village where Dylan set down in January 1961 had the magical aura of wonderful things stirring and of even more wonderful things – who knew? – about to stir. The traces of an older bohemia were still there, like the Minetta Tavern, where Joe Gould had held forth. (Gould had died only recently, [...]
