It was almost exactly 62 years ago when Robert Shelton’s N.Y. Times article about Bob Dylan, a then-unknown 20 year-old folk singer who was performing nightly at Gerde’s Folk City (11 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012), appeared in the 9.29.61 edition.
The author of the Times article was a respected chronicler of the folk music scene.
The Chicago-born Shelton was 35 when he wrote the 9.29.61 Dylan review. His Dylan biography, “No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan“, was published in 1986. Shelton died in 1995 at age 69.
From Jon Pareles’ Times obit of Shelton, dated 12.15.95: “During the McCarthy era, Shelton was subpoenaed by a Senate subcommittee that had intended to subpoena a man named Willard Shelton, a nationally known columnist. Even though he was summoned in error, [the music critic] refused to answer any questions and was convicted of contempt of Congress.”
Wiki follow-up: “In 1955, Shelton was one of 30 New York Times staffers subpoenaed by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, who were informed by Times counsel Louis M. Loeb that they would be fired if they took the Fifth Amendment.
“Because he did not plead the Fifth, Shelton 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.”