"Bob Dylan’s guitar fetches record price" by Ula ILNYTZKY | Associated Press, December 07, 2013
NEW YORK — Like Elvis’s no-hips-allowed appearance on ‘‘The Ed Sullivan Show,’’ the Beatles’ arrival in America, or Woodstock, it is considered one of the milestone moments in rock history: Bob Dylan going electric at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.
On Friday, the Fender Stratocaster Dylan plugged in at the festival sold for nearly $1 million — the highest price ever paid for a guitar at auction.
A buyer identified only as a private individual agreed to pay $965,000 at Christie’s, including the auction house’s fees, for the sunburst-finish electric guitar.
Dylan’s legendary performance at the festival in Rhode Island 48 years ago marked his rupture with the folk movement’s old guard and solidified his shift away from acoustic music, like ‘‘Blowin’ in the Wind,’’ toward amplified rock, such as ‘‘Like a Rolling Stone.’’
The three-song set was booed by some in the crowd, and folk purists saw Dylan as a sellout.
But ‘‘his going electric changed the structure of folk music,’’ said Newport Folk Festival founder George Wein, 88. ‘‘The minute Dylan went electric, all these young people said, ‘Bobby’s going electric. We’re going electric, too.’ ”
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Related: Rockwell art sells for record $46M at NY auction
Some people seem to have plenty of disposable cash as the rest of us scrimp and suffer.
What the hell ever happened to Dylan anyway?
