American folk music revival the UK, protesting the British testing of the H-bomb in 1958, as well as by the ever-proliferating arms race and the increasingly unpopular Vietnam War. Young singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, playing acoustic guitar and harmonica, had been signed and recorded for Columbia by producer John Hammond in 1961. Dylan's record enjoyed some popularity among Greenwich Village folk-music enthusiasts, but he was "discovered" by an immensely larger audience when a pop-folk-music group, Peter, Paul & Mary had a hit with a cover of his song "Blowin' in the Wind". Peter, Paul & Mary also brought Pete Seeger and the Weavers' "If I
Ain't Too Proud to Beg Wonder's cover of Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind". The Temptations had been on tour during all of the office politics involving the release of "Ain't Too Proud to Beg", and only learned about the record being a hit when they were contacted by Motown an hour before an August 20, 1966, performance on "American Bandstand" and ordered to perform it. Temptation Paul Williams quickly devised a dance routine for the song, and the group lip-synched the song for the "American Bandstand" viewing audience. Much of the song's success, according to the Temptations themselves, is due to Whitfield's production, which