Influences, References, Homage to Origins and Personal Views. This is how Bob Dylan's first record can be described, which was released today 60 years ago and contained only two of his own tracks. All the others were reruns of his favorite creations.
His only compositions were Talking New York, Song for Woody, while all the others were covers, including The House of the Rising Sun.
It is characteristic that the self-titled first album of the then 20-year-old Dylan barely sold 5,000 copies. Subsequently, Columbia executives asked to terminate his contract, but were persuaded by John Hammond, who had produced it, and Johnny Cash, whose name carried special weight. The track Song for Woody, dedicated to Woody Guthrie, confused the critics more, although from Dylan's point of view it was a hymn to the legendary American communist songwriter who was also his idol.
Hammond's persistence, which had brought out Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin and later Stevie Ray Vaughan among others, was the reason Dylan finally stayed at Columbia. After all, Hammond had heard the young Dylan in New York, where he settled in 1961 trying to start his career, playing music for Harry Belafonte.
What seemed counterintuitive was how a kid who, according to Robert Shelton of the New York Times, was the most "absurd and multifaceted talent in American folk," would present a debut album inspired by the Anthology Of American Folk Music. " by Harry Smith which contained mostly "old generation" compositions. However, the record, which features Dylan alone with his guitar and harmonica, functioned more as a "safety vehicle" for the composer, who seems reluctant to present all his own work with his label's "good morning" presence. It was as if he was walking a little more timidly in his first steps.
According to music critic Dave Marsh, Dylan's debut charted the singer's interest in death and the subject matter surrounding it, as evidenced by song choices such as Blind Lemon Jefferson's "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" and " Fixin' To Die" by Bukka White, as well as "Man Of Constant Sorrow" and "In My Time Of Dyin".
After all, he also presented these pieces in the cafes of Dinkytown in Minneapolis, where from 1959 he adopted the surname Dylan, from the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, of whom he was a fan (in Dinkytown he also created his first fan base).
Thus, the album, Bob Dylan, ultimately functions as a representative kaleidoscope of the singer's favorite sounds and themes, although compositionally it is noticeably restrained.
The review of the record by critics was much warmer, as over the years they detected in him "a young man who wanted more than anything to sound like an aging troubadour towards the end of his life". Which contrasted with his stage appearances, where he used to do humor and stand like Charlie Chaplin, who was also his main reference, as he stated in interviews at the time.
Such was his mood to pay tribute to his heroes, that in many places he plays his guitar with the "back" of a kitchen knife or even a metal lipstick case, just like the first blues players did. His harmonica on the other hand, sounds like that of Little Walter, or Sonny Terry.
It is worth noting that on Dylan's first album, there is Highway 51 Blues, by Curtis Jones, a piece about the legendary road that gave his name and on the composer's sixth album, "Highway 61 Revisited". Dylan himself wrote in his memoirs, Chronicles:Volume One:"I always felt like I was born on this road. That I always walked on it and that it could take me anywhere, even down deep in the Delta countryside. He was always the the same road, filled with the same contrasts, the same deserted cities, the same spiritual ancestors. It was my place in the universe, and I always felt that I had it in my blood."
In 1963, Dylan's second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, was released, which also contained the very popular song Blowin' in the wind. It was the album that began to establish his reputation, beyond the narrow confines of the New York folk community, while from '65 onwards he also included the electric guitar in his repertoire, displeasing many "fanatics" of the '60s folk scene. .
Unlike his first album, the second contained 11 of his own tracks and only two covers. Standout songs, in addition to "Blowin' in the Wind," were "Girl from the North Country," "Masters of War," "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" and "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right".
It is noted that Dylan is the only songwriter to have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016, "for creating new poetic expressions within the great tradition of American song".
The tracklist of the first disc:
1. You're No Good
2. Talkin' New York
3. In My Time of Dyin'
4. Man of Constant Sorrow
5. Fixin’ to Die
6. Pretty Peggy- O's
7. Highway 51
8. Gospel Plow's
9. Baby, Let Me Follow You Down
10. House of the Risin’ Sun
11. Freight Train Blues
12. Song to Woody
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