History has a funny way of losing (or, perhaps, misplacing) critical facts, depending on who gets to tell the story. But this much is true: The axis-tilting act of Bob Dylan plugging his guitar into an amplifier and helping birth folk rock was the brainchild of producer Tom Wilson, who oversaw recording of “Like a Rolling Stone.” As if to prove it wasn’t an accident, two months later, Wilson transformed a year-old acoustic folk song by Simon & Garfunkel, “The Sound of Silence,” shooting it up with electric instruments and drums, and sending it to the top of the charts. Tom Wilson was African American, working during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, which makes his story—and the music he produced—even more remarkable. In the span of a few short years, he helmed some of Dylan’s most important albums, the first two releases by The Velvet Underground, The Mothers of Invention’s legendary Freak Out!, and so much more. All of which says nothing of his jazz label, Transition Records, for which he produced the debuts of Sun Ra, Donald Byrd, and Cecil Taylor. By the time he died at 47 in 1978, Tom Wilson had laid the groundwork not only for folk rock, but also prog and punk.