Before the 1969 Woodstock Music and Art Fair existed, the Newport Jazz and Folk Festivals of the early 1960s set the blueprint for a developing festival industry. As the crowds grew in the aristocratic seaport town of Newport, RI, impresario producer George Wein scrambled to accommodate the pressing need for quality sound, stage, lighting and suitable locations. Wein succeeded with the help of pioneer sound engineer Bill Hanley and his company, Hanley Sound of Medford, MA.
Although Hanley and his talented engineers supported many historic festivals, demonstrations, and venue installations, no event had been as controversial as Bob Dylan’s transformative plugged-in Newport performance on July 25, 1965. The repercussions of this 60-year-old happening have since shaped popular music culture and audio technology. For Hanley, Dylan’s “Going Electric” was as impressionable as Woodstock, another Hanley Sound Production.
If you lived through the 1960s and saw James Mangold’s 2024 Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown starring Timothée Chalamet, it most likely sparked a nostalgic reminder of this tumultuous decade. After the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the brewing war in Vietnam, and massive marches in Washington, the folk music revival became a spot-lit soapbox for the futile civil rights movement, intended to unite a fractured society. This movement grew out of Greenwich Village in New York, Harvard Square in Boston and other social circles, finally landing on the Newport Folk Festival Stage. The film’s musical and political narrative also explains when folk pioneer troubadours Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger attempt to pass the torch to a new and emerging voice of the movement — Bob Dylan. Oddly, to this day, the artist takes little ownership of any political intent embedded in his early lyrics.
However, Dylan’s body of work delivers his famously complex personality characteristics, which he is famous for, reminding us of his vast influence on popular music. Most scholars would agree that Mangold’s treatment remains a romanticized Hollywood depiction of the Newport-Greenwich Village-Dylan-Goes-Electric experience. Specifically, it fails with some of its technological accuracy. For Hanley, who witnessed this pivotal moment, it harkened back to a period when sound system technologies could not support the distortion of electric instruments.
Fortunately for historians like me, there is much archival footage of Dylan and Hanley to reference, such as D.A. Pennebaker’s Don’t Look Back and Murray Lerner’s Festival (both released in 1967). In Lerner’s treatment, a visibly concerned Bill Hanley appears on the 1965 Newport stage (during a presumed earlier sound check) with Bob Dylan and Peter Yarrow. Donning a cabana shirt and capped with a fedora, the 28-year-old sound engineer had no idea that the times were a-changin’ for the future of the folk music genre.
Back to the Future: Newport 2015
On July 25, 2015, I was backstage with Bill Hanley at the Newport Folk Festival, waiting patiently for an interview with George Wein. It was the 50th anniversary of Dylan’s transformative performance, and the place was buzzing. Killing time, Hanley and I reminisced about his Newport days, George Wein, Bob Dylan and distortion. Reflecting on that infamous night, Hanley said, “I was in shock. It was like Dylan plugged into Niagara Falls! I don’t remember the booing and cheering too much. I was trying to keep the system from going into overdrive. I soon realized that distortion became an extension of the artist’s expression.” For the time, Newport was the perfect setting for the diverse and misunderstood artist. Yet, years before the folk hero arrived, quality sound at Newport faced a flurry of struggles.
Eventually, Wein and his driver spun up to the front of the trailer where we were sitting. As the golf cart kicked up a cloud of dissipating dust, it revealed a hand-lettered sign that read, “The Wein Mobile.” Hanley’s old boss greeted and escorted us into his mobile office. Later that day, we joined a panel with author Elijah Wald, who was presenting his newly arrived book Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties. That book inspired Mangold’s 2024 film.
From the inaugural 1954 Jazz Festival hosted at the Newport Casino Athletic Center, leading to the 1959 Folk Festival at Freebody Park, very few were successful with the application of sound at Newport. At the time, local P.A. rental equipment companies did not have a handle on the sonic complexities (and fidelity) required for an expanding festival industry. Sound companies that could sufficiently deliver quality sound, replete with intelligibility for outdoor (or indoor) settings, were limited. Someone needed to step in with new ideas. That person was Bill Hanley. According to Wein, getting the sound right in the early days was challenging. “There were few options for sound then. You couldn’t find anyone, other than a few small sound companies who knew little about live sound,” adds Wein.
Hanley to the (Audio) Rescue
Between 1954 and 1956, the Newport Jazz Festival was getting panned in the newspapers for its lackluster sound quality, leaving Wein extremely frustrated. Most local media outlet headlines reported the sound at Newport as –– disconcerting. It wasn’t long before this news traveled to Medford, MA, in the ear of a sound engineer named Bill Hanley. “A friend of my father caught wind that Wein was having issues. I couldn’t wait to get down there to help,” adds Hanley.
When Hanley arrived during preparations for the Jazz Festival in the summer of 1957, he met public address operator Myles Rosenthal. Wein had discovered Rosenthal at Forest Hills Stadium in New York, where he was running the PA. Eager and anxious, Hanley offered his services for free (which Wein liked) and volunteered his time. Luckily for him, Rosenthal preferred to schmooze with the talent instead of mixing, leaving Hanley in control of the Altec sound system,
“When I arrived, I said I could mix, so Myles and Wein said, ‘Here…go mix!’ And I did from a small enclosure off to the side of the stage,” recalls Hanley. Wein recalled that Hanley was the right choice. “He was a jazz fan and came to my club, Storyville. Hey, you go with who you know! Hanley was the pioneer.”
After the success of his popular Jazz Festival, Wein realized it was time to think about a folk counterpart. And in 1959, he did just that with the Newport Folk Festival at Freebody Park, a mid-sized municipal ball field tucked away in a crowded seaport neighborhood. Myles Rosenthal eventually left, and by 1960, Hanley Sound became the official contracted sound company for the Newport Festivals. “I had finally proven myself to George,” adds the engineer. Moving into the mid-1960s, Hanley, his younger brother Terry and his crew were front and center for many incredible jazz and folk artists and performances. This legacy includes the historic “folk revival” led by music pioneer and activist Pete Seeger. As a result, Hanley’s technological applications and advancements in sound allowed folk heroes like Seeger, Peter, Paul & Mary, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and others to captivate and entertain enthusiastic audiences during these formative years.
The System
After testing the equipment before it left the shop, the sound company typically arrived a day or two before the Folk Festival to set up. Using a rented crane, Hanley stacked three (six total) 15-inch Altec Lansing woofers and tweeters with multicellular horns positioned high on both sides of the scaffolding, powered by four 150-watt McIntosh MA 275 amplifiers. A stack of RCA mixers controlled several modified Shure 545 microphones. There were no stage monitors. Pioneer lighting designer Chip Monck had built George Wein a new stage that year and controlled the lights from a small booth. According to Monck, his layout consisted of “41 circuits, 71 separate instruments, and over 9,000 feet of cable.”
The myth and lore of Dylan abandoning the traditional folk format of the day has grown over the years. Although his controversial performance was unexpected, electric instruments were played at Newport, but nothing like what happened in 1965. Yet there were signs of this transformation. If you listened closely, that year, Dylan’s fifth studio album, Bringing It All Back Home, was marked with indicators of this abrupt stylistic change. And if Hanley had tuned into the radio the week of the festival, he might have heard his heavy, electrified, newly released rock single “Like a Rolling Stone.” As Al Kooper’s Hammond B2 screams throughout the tune, Dylan asks, “How Does it Feel?” perhaps professing oncoming change. Although radio stations (and his record company) were skeptical, “Like a Rolling Stone” became a massive hit, climbing the Cashbox and Billboard charts. And in one fell swoop with one song, the folk legend transformed into a rock icon.
Bob Dylan performed three acoustic numbers on July 24 — however, his last-minute decision to play amplified the following night confused his loyal fans. Word has it that there was a rehearsal with Dylan’s newly formed band the night before, yet no one had been informed, including Hanley. The artist had assembled members of The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, which included musicians Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield. Hanley claims that the decision to play electric was not discussed beforehand. “I was used to Dylan playing acoustic at previous festivals. And sound checks for bands were mostly nonexistent then. People think Dylan’s electric performance was planned. It was not — not to my knowledge.” This last-minute change was a giant blow to the folk purist community and Hanley’s sound system.
As Dylan and his newly formed group stampeded into “Maggie’s Farm,” the night of July 25, 1965, cheering and booing echoed throughout the salty, cool air. While Hanley and others scrambled at the board, folk artist / activist Peter Yarrow frantically tried to keep Hanley’s system from blowing. In an interview, Yarrow recalled that Dylan’s performance that night was an actual “physical assault of sound.” According to Hanley, it was pure chaos. “All of a sudden, it was a situation entirely different from traditional folk music. The distortion was part of his material, and no one was prepared for that. I was worried that he would overdrive my amplifier. Luckily, I brought a scope with me!”
As Hanley and others tried to contain the situation, bellowing screams of disgust (and joy) escalated. “I was afraid that Dylan would increase the sound of his guitar because of the crowd noise. Monck’s stage design was raked, somewhat slanting toward the audience, which pushed the loudness of the amplifiers into the upfront audience. If you were sitting close to the stage, you couldn’t hear a thing Dylan was saying,” adds Hanley. Backstage, members of the Newport Board were freaking out. These individuals included (a non-axe-wielding) Pete Seeger, Albert Grossman, Alan Lomax and Theodore Bikel, to name a few. As Dylan pounced through his raucously loud set, a few of them hustled down to Hanley’s front-of-house position, pleading with him to turn the whole thing down. After Dylan’s upheaval, backstage, he was urged to perform one last folk song on his acoustic guitar. Reluctantly, he appeased the hyped-up audience with renditions of “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” and “Mr. Tambourine Man.”
A Changing World
This would be Dylan’s final performance at Newport for many years. For Hanley, large tours with The Beatles and The Beach Boys were on the horizon. The engineer was newly settled in NYC, supporting the small to mid-sized club circuit. All roads thereafter led Hanley Sound to larger rock ‘n’ roll shows at Madison Square Garden and massive pop festivals, including Woodstock in 1969. Hanley’s last year with the Newport Festivals was in 1967.
These Newport years prepared the young sound engineer for what was coming in the music industry. From the Beatles to Grand Funk Railroad, Newport taught and prepared Hanley for many things. It was his laboratory. A space where he could experiment and execute new ideas in sound application. Dylan’s transition into folk rock sparked a new generation of artists crying to be heard through the loudness of their amplifiers, evolving into an expression and response to a difficult decade. When the music changed, so did Hanley’s approach, and the evening that split the 1960s inevitably pushed the engineer into the developing rock ‘n’ roll scene. What happened at Newport is a phenomenon that scholars and historians have discussed for decades — and will never be forgotten. Yet for Hanley, who remains humble, this defining moment in music history was just another gig.
Postscript
Sixty years later, in January of 2025, Bill Hanley and I attended a screening of A Complete Unknown. As actor Timothée Chalamet depicted that electrifyingly transformative moment on screen, I felt a sharp nudge. Looking confused and frustrated, the 88-year-old sound engineer leaned into me and said, “We didn’t have monitors on stage then!” I replied, “It’s Hollywood, Bill. It makes a better story.” Hanley proceeded to mutter something under his breath. But I get it. He wanted to provide the best sound possible, and he did. Yet it wasn’t just about Bob Dylan plugging in and defying the loyal Newport Folk purist audience. More so, about the expressively powerful sonic impact this had on an entire music culture. And we can thank Bill Hanley for giving it a voice.
John Kane is the author of Pilgrims of Woodstock (Indiana University Press, 2019), The Last Seat in the House: The Story of Hanley Sound (University Press of Mississippi 2020), and A Search for Something Sacred: The Rise and Fall of the American Rock Festival (University Press of Mississippi 2025). He is also the director and producer of the documentary, The Last Seat in the House.
