Bob Dylan: How the Isle of Wight festival managed to steal the voice of a generation from Woodstock

The day the Woodstock festival opened was an epoch-defining moment in pop. Yet an even more extraordinary event was taking place less than 100 miles away on Friday, 15 August, 1969.

In a journey every bit as unlikely as that of the tin can that had taken men to the Moon less than a month earlier, Bob Dylan and his family were boarding the QE2 in New York to sail to a little island off the south coast of England, snubbing the festival that had been set up in Dylan’s backyard in order to tempt him out of three years’ retirement. In one of the greatest coups, naïve but earnest youngsters were unwittingly stealing the planet’s biggest rock star from the most famous festival in rock history.

One of those youngsters was Ray Foulk, now a bubbling but unassuming chap with an air of eternal optimism who doesn’t look anything near the 70 years he has spent on the planet. The full story, which he is revealing only now, complete with never-before-seen photographs, sheds new light on a mysterious period in the life of rock’s greatest songwriter, and has a supporting cast of Beatles and other rock gods.

By: Simon Hardeman

Source: The Independent

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