A letter from Pete Seeger to Bob Dylan was issued as an apology for the controversial Newport Folk Festival performance.
The folk festival had expected an acoustic performance from Dylan, who would dare to dream and perform an electrified set. The crowd were dismayed and it was believed Seeger had tried to pull the plug on the performance. This, according to Seeger in a letter written to Dylan, is not true. The influential folk singer would write a postcard to Dylan to share what had happened at the set. Seeger would claim it was not the performance he was annoyed by, but the sound quality. He would also suggest the crowd were not yelling at his performance of Maggie’s Farm but was in fact protesting the poor sound quality of the performance, which had been “distorted” for those in the crowd.
Seeger wrote: “Bob! Someone just told me that you too think I didn’t like your ‘going electric’ in 1965. I’ve denied that so many times – I was furious at the distorted sound – no one could understand the words of Maggie’s Farm and [I] dashed over to the people controlling the PA system.
“‘No this is the way they want it,’ they said. I shouted, ‘If I had an axe I’d cut the cable’ and I guess that is what got quoted. My big mistake was in not challenging from the stage the foolish few who booed. I shoulda said, ‘Howling Wolf goes electric, why can’t Bob?’ In any case, you keep on.”
The postcard is reportedly dated to the 1990s, with the Bob Dylan Centre in Tulsa now in possession of the card. Fans of the songwriter and Dylan believe it “changes the history” of the fateful night Dylan turned electric. One person took to the r/BobDylan subreddit wrote: “Man what the hell, that changes the history so much. Always knew Seeger was badass, but this just confirms it.”
Another added: “I remember hearing specifically that Pete was upset that the volume was hurting an elderly relative’s ears more than anything else.” A third added: “That’s absolutely amazing! Good old Pete!”
Others were not as convinced by Seeger’s desire to cut the cable, suggesting that would have been even worse for the performance. They wrote: “It didn’t sound that bad, even compared to the other musicians that were there.
“I’m probably gonna get downvoted, but when you take an axe and cut the cable, you’re not helping unmuddy the sound. You are basically fucking over whoever is performing. It’s like turning the lights off during a play. And he’s admitting he hated the sound so much he’d risk electrocution to stop it.”
Another suggested: “Glad you said it. It’s right there, clear as day. Seeger was being a petulant, gatekeeper ass. Grow up. Reading about this in the mid-80s as I was getting into Dylan annoyed the piss out of me.”
