by Douglas R. Gilbert with text by Dave Marsh
Wolfe announced that the festival "marked the emergence of Phil Ochs as the most important voice in the movement." Ochs had released just one album, All the News That's Fit to Sing, and thirteen of its fifteen tracks were "topical." Ochs had written an essay in praise of "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" in Broadside's previous issue. He loved Dylan's new work and said so to everyone who asked.
Irwin Silber, editor of Sing Out!, decided to dethrone Dylan with a lecture, and wrote him an open letter that appeared in the magazine's November issue. Silber adopted a tone appropriate to a fairly hip father lecturing a wayward child: "You seem to be in a different kind of bag now, Bob--and I'm worried about it. I saw at Newport how you had somehow lost contact with people. It seemed to me that some of the paraphernalia of fame were getting in your way. You travel with an entourage now--with good buddies who are going to laugh when you need laughing and drink wine with you and insure your privacy--and never challenge you to face everyone else's reality again."
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