The Narrows is excited to be hosting Rick Massimo, the author of I Got a Song-A History of the Newport Folk Festival. The first-ever book exclusively devoted to the history of the Newport Folk Festival, I Got a Song documents the trajectory of an American musical institution that began more than a half-century ago and continues to influence our understanding of folk music today.Rick Massimo’s research is complemented by extensive interviews with the people who were there and who made it all happen: the festival’s producers, some of its biggest stars, and people who huddled in the fields to witness moments—like Bob Dylan’s famous electric performance in 1965—that live on in musical history. As folk has evolved over the decades, absorbing influences from rock, traditional music and the singer-songwriters of the ‘60s and ‘70s, the Newport Folk Festival has once again become a gathering point for young performers and fans. I Got a Song tells the stories, small and large, of several generations of American folk music enthusiasts.

Rick is the former music writer for the Providence Journal and a long time friend of the Narrows. He will be on hand to discuss the book and how it came together.

We will also be showing the movie The Other Side of the Mirror-Bob Dylan-Live at the Newport Folk Festival 1963-1965.
Few performances in history are as legendary – or as controversial – as Bob Dylan’s 1965 appearance at the Newport Folk Festival. In a single, galvanizing instant, Dylan plugged an entire generation in, forever changing not only the way the music was made, but the way it was heard. By putting you in the audience for Dylan’s Newport performances from 1963 through that pivotal set in 1965, Academy Award®-winning director Murray Lerner’s The Other Side Of The Mirror captures Dylan’s metamorphosis from the folk family’s best-kept secret to rock’s fiercely confrontational poet who would electrify an entire nation and become the voice of his generation.