out over the lights of Newport

"...Each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation."


> Bobby Kennedy





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"I think it's hopeless, but I may be wrong."


> Pete Seeger





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Dylan Goes Electric!


- Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties


Author:  Elijah Wald
2015 - HarperCollins





-------------------- [excerpt] ----------------- Seeger came to the microphone and, after thanking Butterfield, set the scene for the weekend's final celebration: 


As those of you who've been around for four days know, we've had more variety of music here than probably in any festival anywhere in these states.  We've had axe-choppers from Texas;





we've had people singing in Gaelic from Cape Breton Island, up in Nova Scotia; we've had people from California and Georgia, from city and country; we've had people who play the shouting blues and people who sing the low, sad, quiet songs; we've had young, we've had old. 


And why have we done this?  Because we -- and when I say "we," I mean the whole board of directors of the Newport Folk Festival -- believe in the idea that the average man and woman can make his own music in this machine age.  It doesn't all have to come out of a loudspeaker. 


And you can make it yourself, whether you want to shout or croon, sing sweet or rough.  And it can be your own music -- and when I say "your own," it's the music of your own kind, whether it's your family or your town or your region, your race or your place, your religion, or wherever it is.


Now here you are, all seated out in the open, looking out over the lights of Newport.  You see the big smokestack over there, you see the naval base here, and if it was a little bit clearer, not so foggy, you could see the ocean beyond. 


And we, as musicians, are always looking out beyond.  We like to look beyond some of the sordid things up close, to see the beauties a little bit beyond.


------------------- [end excerpt] -------------------








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"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not."





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