From: aruss@oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu (Andrew Russ)
Newsgroups: rec.music.dylan
Subject: Dylan at Mariposa Folk Festival, 65, 72, (documentary about)
Summary: film from 1965, statement about 1972 made in Canadian documentary.
Keywords: also Daniel Lanois
Date: 13 Aug 92 17:37:49 GMT
Organization: Ohio University CS Dept,. Athens




    Last night on TLC (The Learning Channel), i stumbled into a 
documentary called "Under a Stormy Sky, The Mariposa Folk Festival, 
Canada's Woodstock".  "Canada's Woodstock" is what TLC called the show, 
though i'd say Mariposa is more like Canada's Newport Folk Festival.  
"Under a Stormy Sky" is a Daniel Lanois aong, which he performed the year 
the fest was filmed for the documentary, and also refers to the weather 
that year.  

    Anyway, there was some footage and info on Bob Dylan.  In the first 
part, a history of the festical, there was a film snippet, about a verse 
or so, of Bob performing "The Times They Are a-Changin'".  The film 
soundtrack switched to the album version as they showed stock 60s footage 
with stock "the 60s were changing times" narration.  Then they showed 
Pete Seeger singing for the first verse of "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall".  
Then there was a shot of Bob Dylan wearing dark sunglasses riding in a 
train.  So the upshot so far is that there was a Bob Dylan performance at 
the 1965 Mariposa festival and it was filmed (for at least one verse of 
"Times.." :-).  The Mariposa is an annual folk festival somewhere outside 
Toronto, but the film doesn't indicate exactly when each year it occurs 
or if it occurs the same time each year -- perhaps the Nov. 14-15 
appearances in Massey Hall, Toronto, are the Mariposa festival (kind of 
cold to be outdoors that time of year in Canada, though, eh?).  The 
outfit Bob wears in the first clip looks more like early 65 rather than 
later 65, though.  
     Later in the film, the show mentions that at the 1972 festival 
there were several unannounced guest superstar appearances, including one 
by Bob Dylan.  The people in charge were so afraid of getting too many 
people there if word got out that they denied he appeared.  The 
documentary showed footage of the festival director mentioning, in a very 
tense and evasive way, that Joni Mitchell and and and um and Neil Young 
had both appeared.  Well what about Bob Dylan?  Then the official denied 
it.  But the narrator of the documentary stated unequivocally that Dylan 
had made a surprise appearance.  Anybody know any more about this story?  

    Otherwise, there's some footage of Joan Baez, including a statement 
from 1969 on the inverted priorities of the US government and Joni Mitchell 
singing "Both Sides Now" at two different festivals.  And a band called 
The Travellers sang some Woody Guthrie numbers at the 63 festival.  

    There's also lots of footage from the year the documentary was made 
(probably 1989 or 1990), featuring three _Acadie_ songs by Daniel Lanois, 
"Under a Stormy Sky" (opening), "Marie Claire" and "The Maker" (closing 
credits; nice guitar at end), and an interview bit where Daniel says that 
Mariposa is sort of an annual reunion between himself, his brother, and 
his father (who plays violin).  
    Other footage from that year's festival includes The Violent Femmes, 
Emmylou Harris (the only complete song aired), Fat Man Waving (sort of a 
4AD-style folk band with female singer and violinist), the Leslie Spit 
Treeo (sort of a down-home Patti Smith act), a couple of bands from 
Soweto, Zydecajun, and so on.  

    I don't know who put out or produced the documentary, but i bet 
either the CBC or the Canada Film Board had something to do with it.  

                                   andrew