Bob Dylan, the #29 Artist of the Rock Era, Part One

"One of the greatest poets of our lifetimes."

"One of the greatest songwriters of all-time."

"Pure genius."

"Dylan is a lyrical master."

"I have spent a lifetime deriving so much pleasure from Dylan's wonderful music."

"This awesome, beautiful, complex, deep, electric, brilliant, artistic genius of a man is an inspiration."

"Master writer with a gift."

"This man was real and sang with life and truth."

"He's a living legend."

"He's a poet. An intellectual. A genius. An original. A unique, true, pure musical spirit"

"He is one that comes along once in a century."

"Bob Dylan has written so many life changing songs and influenced more musicians than anybody in the history of music."

"He is transportative."

"One of the all-time greats in the music industry."

"His lyrics and song are heart wrenching!"

"He has given us so many memories.

Robert Zimmerman was born May 24, 1942 in Duluth, Minnesota and was raised in Hibbing.  While attending Hibbing High School, Robert formed several bands, playing covers at school functions.  After graduating, Robert moved to Minneapolis and enrolled at the University of Minnesota.

Zimmerman began playing Folk music at the coffeehouse named Ten O'Clock Scholar.  Soon, he took poet Dylan Thomas's first name and changed his stage name to Bob Dylan.  Bob's love of music led to him dropping out of school to go to Manhattan, New York, where he played at clubs in Greenwich Village.  

Dylan soon met several other Folk singers, and played harmonica for an album by Carolyn Hester.  Bob signed a management deal with Roy Silver.  Producer John Hammond was in the studio and was impressed by Bob.  Hammond was instrumental in signing Dylan to Columbia Records.

Dylan released his self-titled debut album in 1962, but it sold a mere 5,000 copies.  However, Bob's work was recognized by his peers in the form of a Grammy nomination for Best Folk Recording.

He changed his legal name to Robert Dylan and signed a new management contract with Albert Grossman.  Grossman was unhappy with Hammond and replaced him with Tom Wilson.

Dylan toured the U.K. in late 1962 and early 1963, including stops in London Folk clubs.  In 1963, Dylan released the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, which elevated Bob to a protest singer without peer.  "Blowin' In The Wind" was a protest song about the social injustices in society, and, although it didn't make the Hot 100 for Dylan, it became a #1 classic for Peter, Paul & Mary.  

Although Dylan is unquestionably an amazing lyricist and a poet of the highest magnitude, and occasionally was able to put together a nice melody, he unfortunately did not possess an outstanding voice to execute what he put down on paper.  Thus, several of his greatest compositions were hits for other artists, but not for him. 

 

The seven-minute anti-war anthem "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna' Fall" is just one of several standouts and one of three protest songs on the groundbreaking album.  

It is based on the folk ballad variously called "Lord Randall" or "Lord Ronald", in which a mother questioning her son again and again (beginning with "Where have you been?"), leading the son to reveal he has been poisoned.  The song ends when he falls dead to the ground.

Folk musicians began playing the song, which became "Jimmy Randall".  Authors Leonard Roberts and Calvin Buell Agey say in the book In the Pine that there are about 100 known references to the song in the United States.  

Freewheelin' Bob Dylan has sold over one million copies.  Dylan earned a nomination for Best Documentary, Spoken Word or Drama Recording (Other than Comedy) at the Grammy Awards for his work with Pete Seeger on Seeger's album We Shall Overcome.  "Masters Of War" (written over the winter of 1962-63) is an amazing track, with the melody adapted from the traditional song "Nottamun Town".  Dylan's lyrics are a protest against the nuclear arms build-up in the Cold War during the early 1960's.

 

During Dylan's tour of the U.K., he met Folk singer Martin Carthy, who introduced Bob to several traditional English Folk songs, including "Scarborough Fair".  Dylan took the line "Remember me to one who lives there/She once was a true love of mine" for the song for "Girl From The North Country", another Top Track*.  

 

Dylan wrote this song after his girlfriend Suze Rotolo (seen walking with Bob on the cover of the album) moved to Italy to study, leaving him in New York City.  Dylan rewrote the separation in the song as him leaving her.  "A lot of people make it sort of a love song - slow and easygoing," Dylan said of "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right".  "But it's a statement that maybe you can say something to make yourself feel better.  It's as if you were talking to yourself."

"Corinna, Corinna" is remarkably similar to several songs, including "She Belongs To Me", "It Takes A Lot To Laugh" and "Alberta".  Blind Lemon Jefferson in the 1920's wasn't the first to sing the slightly different title "Corrine, Corrina" but his version was well known when Dylan wrote it.  There is a 1932 copyright of the song by Armenter Chatmon that starts 

"Corrine, Corrina, where you been so long? 

Corrine, Corrina, where you been so long?

I ain't had no lovin', since you've been gone."

Not only did Joan Baez record several of Dylan's songs--she became his girlfriend as well.  Baez invited Dylan on stage during many of her concerts.   Other artists, such as the Association, the Turtles, the Byrds and Sonny & Cher, also recorded Bob's songs.

 

Dylan and Baez sang together at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963.  Dylan continued to sing about the wrongs of the world on the album The Times They Are-a-Changin'.   The title song did much better in the U.K. (#9) than it did in the United States, where it didn't make the Hot 100, but it is one of Bob's most significant songs.  "The Times They Are-a-Changin'" became a youth anthem to inspire them in the civil rights movement and later Vietnam War protests.

"The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll" is generally a factual account of a 1963 killing of a 51-year-old black barmaid, Hattie Carroll, by a young white man from a wealthy farming family in Charles County, Maryland.  The killer got a sentence of six months in a county jail.

The album has sold 500,000 copies and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Folk Recording.  Bob released the album Another Side of Bob Dylan in 1964.  Recorded in a single all-night session, it too was certified Gold. 

"Spanish Harlem Incident" is one of Dylan's best but little-known songs.  Bob writes that he is homeless and expressing irrational love for a "gypsy gal".  Smitten by the woman, the real beauty of the song is the last line--

"I got to know, babe, will you surround me?

So I can tell if I'm really real".  

It is an ironic twist that this man so attracted to the woman puts the power in the woman to tell the future of him (and her as well) with a reading of his palms.

"Chimes Of Freedom" was influenced by poet Arthur Rimbaud.  As written in Songfacts, the protagonist talks about the tragic treatment that poor people get, implying that the rumbling thunder cries for them and that flashes of lightning are like flashing bells ringing out for the oppressed everywhere.

Dylan later played the song in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. for the 1993 Presidential Inauguration of Bill Clinton.

 

"It Ain't Me Babe" is an answer to two songs--the line "Go away from my window" is an acknowledgement to Folk singer John Jacob Niles (one of Dylan's influences) and his song "Go 'Way From My Window", while Bob's line "No, no, no, it ain't me babe" is his reply to the Beatles "She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah" from "She Loves You".  The song became a Top 10 hit for the Turtles.

This master lyricist has given us much over the decades.  Join us for Part Two!