In 1965, Bob Dylan, the leading songwriter of the American folk music revival, began recording and performing with electric instruments, generating controversy in the folk music community.

The response to his albums The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan and The Times They Are a-Changin' led the media to label him the "spokesman of a generation". In March 1965, Dylan released his fifth album, Bringing It All Back Home. Side one features him backed by a rock band, while side two features him accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. On July 20, 1965, he released his single "Like a Rolling Stone" featuring a more fully integrated folk rock sound. On July 25, 1965, he performed his first concert with electric instruments at the Newport Folk Festival, joined on piano/organ by Barry Goldberg and three members of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band: guitarist Mike Bloomfield, bassist Jerome Arnold and drummer Sam Lay, and also with Al Kooper playing organ or bass—he played bass on "Like a Rolling Stone" while Goldberg played organ. Some sections of the audience booed the performance. Members of the folk movement, including Irwin Silber and Ewan MacColl, criticized him for moving away from political songwriting and for performing with a rock band. Dylan continued his trend towards rock music on his next two albums, Highway 61 Revisited (1965) and Blonde on Blonde (1966).

On subsequent tours throughout 1965 and 1966, his electric sets (now backed by the Hawks) were often met with derision from the audience. Crowds became particularly acrimonious during a British tour, including an oft-cited incident in Manchester, where a member of the crowd shouted "Judas!" at Dylan. Shows from this tour have been documented in several Dylan documentaries, including 2005's No Direction Home. Over time, Dylan continued to evolve musically, turning to country music on Nashville Skyline (1969), and drifting through numerous styles throughout the rest of his career. Retrospectively, his electric period has come to be recognized by critics and fans as producing some of his best music, and his controversial performance at Newport has been considered a pivotal moment in the development of folk rock. The incident was featured in the 2024 film A Complete Unknown.

At the 1963 Newport Folk Festival, Dylan had been received enthusiastically when he performed "Blowin' in the Wind" with Joan Baez; Peter, Paul and Mary; and other performers. At the 1964 Newport Folk Festival, Dylan performed "With God on Our Side" and "Mr. Tambourine Man". Positive reviews of Dylan's 1964 performance were accompanied by criticisms of his antics and dismissive nature; one critic wrote that "being stoned had rarely prevented his giving winning performances, but he was clearly out of control". During the same festival, Johnny Cash had played an electric set. Cash, who held major influence over Dylan, also motivated Dylan's break with standard protest-themed folk music with a letter Cash wrote to the editor of Broadside in March 1964, where Cash demanded that people at the Newport Music Festival "shut up and let him sing." At the time of Cash's death in 2003, Dylan stated that "Johnny wrote the magazine saying to shut up and let me sing, that I knew what I was doing. This was before I had ever met him, and the letter meant the world to me. I’ve kept the magazine to this day."

On Saturday, July 24, 1965, Dylan performed three acoustic songs, "All I Really Want to Do", "If You Gotta Go, Go Now", and "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" at a Newport workshop. According to Jonathan Taplin, a roadie at Newport (and later a road manager for the acts of Dylan's manager Albert Grossman), Dylan decided on Saturday he would challenge the Festival by performing with a fully amplified band the following night. Taplin said Dylan had been irritated by what he considered condescending remarks festival organizer Alan Lomax had made introducing the Paul Butterfield Blues Band for an earlier set. Dylan's attitude, according to Taplin, was, "'Well, fuck them if they think they can keep electricity out of here, I'll do it.' On a whim, he said he wanted to play electric." Dylan assembled a band and rehearsed that night at a mansion being used by festival organizer George Wein.

On the night of Sunday, July 25, Dylan's appearance was between Cousin Emmy and the Sea Island singers, two traditional acts. Dylan's band included two musicians who had played on his recently released single "Like a Rolling Stone": Mike Bloomfield on lead guitar and Al Kooper on organ. Two of Bloomfield's bandmates from the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, bassist Jerome Arnold and drummer Sam Lay, also appeared at Newport, as well as Barry Goldberg on piano and organ. The live organ on "Like a Rolling Stone" at Newport was played by Barry Goldberg. Although Al Kooper played organ on the studio recording of this song, at Newport he switched to bass replacing Jerome Arnold.

Footage of the Newport performance appears in the documentary films Festival (1967), No Direction Home (2005) and The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at the Newport Folk Festival 1963–1965 (2007). Both boos and cheers are heard a few bars into Dylan's first song, "Maggie's Farm" and continue throughout his second, "Like a Rolling Stone". Dylan and his band then performed "Phantom Engineer", an early version of "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry". Dylan was said to have "electrified one half of his audience, and electrocuted the other".

After "Phantom Engineer", Dylan and the band left the stage. Booing and clapping are in the background. When emcee Peter Yarrow returned to the microphone, he begged Dylan to continue performing. According to Robert Shelton, when Dylan returned to the stage, he discovered he did not have the right harmonica and said to Yarrow, "What are you doing to me?" Dylan then asked the audience for "an E harmonica". Within a few moments, a clatter of harmonicas hit the stage. Dylan performed two songs on acoustic guitar for the audience: "Mr Tambourine Man" followed by "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue." The crowd exploded with applause, calling for more. Dylan did not return to the Newport festival for 37 years. In an enigmatic gesture, Dylan performed at Newport in 2002 sporting a wig and fake beard.