Judas and the Many ‘Betrayals’ of Bob Dylan

Abstract

In 1998 I heard Bob Dylan’s 1966 ‘Royal Albert Hall’ concert for the first time. Released by Sony as ‘Volume 4’ of the ‘Bootleg Series’, I found the entire performance both affecting and disturbing. For some reason I had never heard the actual ‘bootleg’ recording of this performance — though, of course, I had heard and read references to it for almost 30 years before its eventual ‘official’ release. We know now, as many have always known, that the ‘Albert Hall’ show was in fact a recording of a performance at the Manchester Free Trade Hall on 17 May 1966, several days before Dylan’s UK tour ended with two London appearances. Further, we recognise this as one of the most notorious performances in Dylan’s career because this was the night that one of his abusers was captured on tape issuing perhaps the worst insult of all: ‘Judas!’KeywordsPopular MusicMusic IndustryFolk MusicTraditional MusicAmerican MusicThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.