On 4/16/06, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
> What does the concept of "traitor" mean in connection
> with music? Is it some sort of fundamentalist
> religion or fascist cult demanding absolute loyalty,
> or what?
in the early 1960s, the "folkies" were almost religious in their fervor for "authenticity," i.e., tapping the authentic message of the "folk," either by reviving old songs or by using folk styles. Many (e.g., Irwin Silver, then a music maven, later a Lenin wannabe) also wanted to combine this with a left-wing political message. (The two trends were linked, in a way, by Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, both lefties.) It didn't involve absolute loyalty, but there was "lines that shouldn't be crossed" and Dylan was seen as crossing both. He violated authenticity by going back to electric guitar (which he'd used before he became a Woody Guthrie impersonator) while he began to emphasize the personal over the political.
BY the way, a lot of the Dylan-is-Judas stuff occurred in the UK, not the US. It seems to have been a major indoor sport: people shelled out hard-earned money to boo Dylan because a lot of other people were doing it. -- Jim Devine / "Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood." -- HL Mencken