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Folkie Silber Dies at 84

Condemned Dylan for plugging in

by
Marc Tracy
September 13, 2010

Irwin Silber, the folk music impresario who founded and for a while edited the enormously influential Sing Out! magazine, died last week at 84.

Though Silber is credited with an integral role in the folk music revival of the ’50s and 60s—many classic folk songs, for example, including “This Land is Your Land,” were first published in his magazine—he did make one colossal error of judgment: He was among those voices most loudly chastising folk hero Bob Dylan when he decided to plug in his guitar and play rock music at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.

Like to think that Silber realized the error of his reaction. Anyway, and also because it’s Monday, here that is.


Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.