NEW YORK — Bob Dylan is releasing a 36-CD box-set of his 1966 world tour, a landmark yet controversial series of concerts that followed the folk great’s shock decision to go electric.

Bob Dylan: The 1966 Live Recordings, the latest massive historical work by the 75-year-old music legend, will come out on November 11 ahead of the holiday shopping season, his label announced on Tuesday.

The collection features restored recordings of concerts by Dylan in the United States and Australia but mostly his extensive tour of Europe, where he played before packed venues but often met a hostile reception.

A year earlier Dylan had switched to an electric guitar and amplifiers when playing the Newport Folk Festival, a seminal moment in music history that symbolised the triumph of rock.

A number of European critics accused Dylan -- who had just enjoyed a two-year burst of creativity in which he put out the classic albums Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde -- of betraying folk.

The box-set includes his May 1966 concerts at the Olympia in Paris, where he clashed verbally with a jeering audience.

On the sidelines in Paris, Dylan held a news conference where he brought a puppet, to which he would sarcastically put his ear as if seeking counsel to reporters’ questions.

Dylan mocked journalists with his succinct answers. When one asked if he wanted to express anything through his singing, he simply replied, "No."

Adam Block, the president of Sony Music’s Legacy Recordings, said the idea of the box-set came during research for the collection released last year of outtakes from Dylan’s 1965-1966 recordings.

"The intensity of Bob’s live performances and his fantastic delivery of these songs in concert add another insightful component in understanding and appreciating the musical revolution Bob Dylan ignited some 50 years ago," Block said in a statement.

Dylan remains active. In May he released a 37th studio album, Fallen Angels, made up mostly of pop standards popularised by Frank Sinatra. AFP