Robert Shelton, born Robert Shapiro (June 28, 1926,
Chicago, Illinois
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
,
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...
– December 11, 1995,
Brighton, England
Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze Ag ...
) was a music and
film
A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...
critic.
Shelton helped to launch the career of a then-unknown 20-year-old
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
. In 1961, Dylan was performing at
Gerdes Folk City
Gerdes Folk City, sometimes spelled Gerde's Folk City, was a music venue in the West Village, part of Greenwich Village, Manhattan, in New York City. Initially opened by owner Mike Porco as a restaurant called Gerdes, it eventually began to presen ...
in the
West Village
The West Village is a neighborhood in the western section of the larger Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City.
The traditional boundaries of the West Village are the Hudson River to the west, West 14th Street to t ...
, one of the best-known folk venues in
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* ...
, opening for the
bluegrass act the
Greenbriar Boys
The Greenbriar Boys were an American northern bluegrass music group. who first got together in jam sessions in New York's Washington Square Park.
Biography
In 1958, guitarist and vocalist John Herald formed The Greenbriar Boys, along with Bob ...
. Shelton's positive review in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' brought crucial publicity to Dylan and led to a
Columbia recording contract.
[ Track 2.] Shelton had previously noted Dylan in a review for ''The New York Times'' of WRVR's live twelve-hour Hootenanny, July 29, 1961, at
Riverside Church
Riverside Church is an interdenominational church in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, on the block bounded by Riverside Drive, Claremont Avenue, 120th Street and 122nd Street near Columbia University's Morning ...
in
Morningside Heights
Morningside Heights is a neighborhood on the West Side of Upper Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Morningside Drive to the east, 125th Street to the north, 110th Street to the south, and Riverside Drive to the west. Morningside ...
, Manhattan. "Among the newer promising talents deserving mention are a 20-year-old latter-day Guthrie disciple named Bob Dylan, with a curiously arresting mumbling, country-steeped manner." This was Dylan's first live radio performance.
Biography
Shelton was born in Chicago in 1926 under the name Robert Shapiro, the son of Joseph and Hannah Shapiro, Russian Jewish immigrants. His father, a research chemist, was born in
Minsk
Minsk ( be, Мінск ; russian: Минск) is the capital and the largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach and the now subterranean Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the adm ...
and came to the US in 1905. Shelton was raised in Chicago, served in the
US Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...
in France during 1944–45, and attended the School of Journalism at
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world.
Chart ...
. He moved to New York in the 1950s, and soon joined the staff of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''. In 1955, Shelton was one of 30 ''New York Times'' staffers subpoenaed by the
Senate Internal Security Subcommittee
The United States Senate's Special Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, 1951–77, known more commonly as the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS) and sometimes the M ...
, who were informed by ''Times'' counsel Louis M. Loeb that they would be fired if they took the
Fifth Amendment. Shelton refused to answer questions from the committee about any affiliation with the
Communist Party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...
or about fellow ''Times'' staffer
Matilda Landsman, and was indicted by a grand jury for contempt. Because he did not plead the Fifth he was allowed to continue working at the ''Times'' but was transferred away from the news department onto the less sensitive entertainment desk, where he became a music critic. Convicted and sentenced to six months in prison, he appealed his conviction and had it reversed on a technicality, only to be indicted, retried, convicted, and have the conviction overturned on a technicality again. After several years of appeals in which he was represented by noted civil liberties lawyer
Joseph L. Rauh, Jr. the case was finally dropped in the mid-1960s.
For a decade (1958–1968), Shelton reviewed music, in particular
folk music
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has be ...
, but also
pop and
country music, becoming a friend of many of the artists and extending his influence beyond the pages of the ''Times''. He reviewed the inaugural
Newport Folk Festival
Newport Folk Festival is an annual American folk-oriented music festival in Newport, Rhode Island, which began in 1959 as a counterpart to the Newport Jazz Festival. It was one of the first modern music festivals in America, and remains a focal ...
(NFF) for ''The New York Times'' and ''
The Nation
''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper th ...
''
and edited the program for the influential 1963 NFF under the pen name 'Stacey Williams'.
He wrote
album notes for several artists, including
Bob Dylan's first album (credited to 'Stacey Williams').
During the early 1960s, Shelton co-edited a magazine, ''Hootenanny'',
at the same time as his friend
Linda Solomon
Linda Solomon (born May 10, 1937, Boston, Massachusetts) is an American music critic and editor. Although she has written about various aspects of popular culture, her main focus has been on folk music, blues, R&B, jazz and country music. Li ...
edited a different magazine titled ''
ABC-TV Hootenanny''.
Shelton spent 20 years writing and rewriting his Dylan biography, ''No Direction Home, The Life and Music of Bob Dylan'' which was finally published in 1986, after years of arguments with publishers about the style and length of the work. Shelton's intention from the outset was to write a serious cultural study, not a showbiz biography; as a result, he later said his life's work had been "abridged over troubled waters". The title is taken from the lyric of Dylan's hit single, "
Like a Rolling Stone
"Like a Rolling Stone" is a song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on July 20, 1965, by Columbia Records. Its confrontational lyrics originated in an extended piece of verse Dylan wrote in June 1965, when he returned exhausted fro ...
". The same title, ''
No Direction Home
''No Direction Home: Bob Dylan'' is a 2005 documentary film by Martin Scorsese that traces the life of Bob Dylan, and his impact on 20th-century American popular music and culture. The film focuses on the period between Dylan's arrival in New ...
'', was used by
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese ( , ; born November 17, 1942) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and actor. Scorsese emerged as one of the major figures of the New Hollywood era. He is the recipient of many major accolades, inclu ...
for his 2005 documentary film about Dylan's career from the beginning to his motorcycle crash in 1966. Other books by Shelton include ''Electric Muse: The Story Of Folk Into Rock'' and ''The Face of Folk Music''. An updated edition of this book, ''The Electric Muse Revisited,'' with new material by Robin Denselow, one of the original quartet of contributors, is scheduled for publication by Omnibus Press in May 2021. The folk music charity Square Roots Productions was midwife to the project.
In the 1969 Shelton had moved to the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Nor ...
, living in Hampstead and Sydenham, and then (from 1982) in the South Coast town of
Brighton
Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...
where he edited the Arts page of the ''
Brighton Evening Argus'' and then wrote, mostly about films, for a number of other publications up to his death. In 1996, Shelton's papers, and his collection of books, records and research material were donated to the Institute of Popular Music at the
University of Liverpool
, mottoeng = These days of peace foster learning
, established = 1881 – University College Liverpool1884 – affiliated to the federal Victoria Universityhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/2004/4 University of Manchester Act 200 ...
.
Books
''No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan'' 1986, Da Capo Press reprint 2003, .
''No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan: Revised and Updated Edition'' 2011, Omnibus Press, A new edition, with some 20,000 words of Shelton's original text restored, published in 2011 to mark Dylan's seventieth birthday.
*''Bob Dylan: No Direction Home.'' Revised Illustrated Edition and with a New Foreword and Afterword by Elizabeth Thomson. 2021 Palazzo Editions UK, Sterling US/Canada, Hardie Grant Australia, Flammarion France, Pangea,Czech Republic
Sources
External links
in 1964]
Robert Sheltonon the
Kingston Trio
The Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to the late 1960s. The group started as a San Francisco Bay Area nightclub act with an original lineup of Dave Guard, Bob Shane, an ...
Rock Book Show interview with Liz Thomson, Co-Editor of Shelton's "No Direction Home" updated re-issue
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shelton, Robert
1926 births
1995 deaths
American film critics
American music critics
American music journalists
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
Bob Dylan
Medill School of Journalism alumni
Writers from Chicago
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
Critics employed by The New York Times
Folk music publications
United States Army soldiers
United States Army personnel of World War II
20th-century American biographers