His protest songs made him the figurehead of the anti-establishment movement that defined America during the 1960s. But yesterday Bob Dylan was facing accusations of selling out after it emerged the singer had agreed an exclusive deal to sell some of his rarest tracks at Starbucks, the coffee shop chain targeted by anti-globalisation protesters as a symbol of American cultural dominance.
Bob Dylan: Live at the Gaslight 1962 features the much sought-after material recorded at the Gaslight Cafe in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, a focal point of the folk revival in the early 1960s. Tracks include rare versions of A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall and Don't Think Twice It's Alright, as well as folk standards Barbara Allen and The Cuckoo.
Bootleg versions of the album, which will be released on August 30 and will only be available in Starbucks outlets across the US and Canada, have been touted among Dylan fans for years but this is the first to be professionally produced and remastered.
By yesterday afternoon fans on Dylan discussion boards were already venting their fury. "This sucks," wrote one doleful fan on the website Expectingrain.com. "He's belittling his music." Another disgruntled fan opined: "He certainly doesn't need the money. Maybe he's doing it to directly discredit the public's view of him as an anti-establishment protest singer?"
The Starbucks deal coincides with the release of director Martin Scorsese's feature-length film about the legendary singer, No Direction Home.
Starbucks has sold several exclusive albums, including an acoustic version of Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill. The Seattle-based chain was responsible for a quarter of all sales of Ray Charles' duets album Genius Loves Company, which sold 3m copies in the US.