Tom Piazza wrote the liner notes for the new DVD release, “The Other Side Of The Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at the Newport Folk Festival, 1963-1965.” He begins by saying, “So much has been written about the early days of Bob Dylan, and about his first appearance with an electric band at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, that it seems futile to add to it.” But of-course he does; he has no choice. He also observes that the “endless interpretation can make it harder to hear the songs,” and that’s certainly true — and not only about this segment of Bob Dylan’s career.

The beauty of this collection of performances, filmed by Murray Lerner, is that they are left largely to speak for themselves. As such, they tell much the same story as was told in Martin Scorsese’s “No Direction Home,” (minus 1966 of-course) without the necessity of chatter. It is the same story told by listening to Dylan’s original albums from that period, of-course, but here it is compressed, and made all the more dramatic by seeing how Dylan’s appearance and bearing on stage developed in those two amazing years.

I’m not going to go on and on about it here, but in a world arguably experiencing something of a glut of “Bob Dylan product,” this release is something which is unquestionably essential to any fan with a DVD player. I’ll only say I was struck on first viewing by the way in which you can see how Dylan mastered a songwriting form before moving beyond it. That is, his later liberation was a genuine one because it came after having learned the rules and practised the discipline necessary to write songs like North Country Blues, Who Killed Davey Moore? andOnly A Pawn In Their Game. It reminded me of how many popular singer-songwriters who have emerged post-Dylan have seemingly arrived fully-formed: they have their style, their personal thing — whatever it is — and it’s there on their first album and remains recognizably their trademark for their whole career. You simply don’t see them mastering a form and moving on; their form is, in effect, whatever their own idiosyncratic gift happens to be. They’re not standing on top of anything. This doesn’t apply to everyone, but it applies a great deal.

Anyhow, this footage, in gorgeous quality and with great sound, being released after all this time, has the feeling for me of nothing so much as found money. One just has to thank heaven that the cameras were rolling.

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