John Cordwell

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John Cordwell (1944 - 11 July 2001) claimed he was responsible for arguably the most famous heckle in rock'n'roll history.

At a Bob Dylan concert in Manchester's Free Trade Hall on 17 May 1966 Cordwell shouted out "Judas!" in protest against Dylan's use of electric guitars in his set, which many saw as a betrayal of his folk roots.

When interviewed by Andy Kershaw about the heckle, Cordwell explained:

"I think most of all I was angry that Dylan... not that he'd played electric, but that he'd played electric with a really poor sound system. It was not like it is on the record [the official album]. It was a wall of mush. That, and it seemed like a cavalier performance, a throwaway performance compared with the intensity of the acoustic set earlier on. There were rumblings all around me and the people I was with were making noises and looking at each other. It was a build-up."^[1]

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