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Leamington Letters #74: "We want folksingers here!"

20/3/2014

11 Comments

 
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Yesterday was the 52nd anniversary of the release Dylan’s first album, the eponymous Bob Dylan. Bob was just 20. I was 13. We were both so much older then; we’re younger than that now.

Listening to that album for the first time on an old record player which I shared with thirty other members of the Junior Common Room in my house at school, I was overwhelmed. Brought up on classical music and musicals, listening to pop on Radio Luxembourg (yep, I can spell 
K-e-y-n-s-h-a-m), this was revelatory.

Only two of those songs were original in the sense that they were written by Bob, Song to Woody and Talkin’ New York . The rest were what we we came to know as covers, but we didn’t use that term in those days. This was still a time when lyricists and composers sat in garrets somewhere collectively known as Tin Pan Alley and wrote songs which were subsequently recorded by performers, the ‘talent’. And folkies always stole from each other and from the tradition. Talent borrows, genius steals.

The extraordinary thing about this album was that the voice and the style bore no relationship to the (famously reversed) portrait on the album cover.

The portrait showed a young cherub. The voice was old. Old even by the standards of the folkies that we had heard in other contexts. Old by the standards of the singers we heard on the radio. There was an authenticity, a sense of tradition, an originality,  which impressed us young 13 year olds in a way which few albums have since.

Bob Dylan was, in the mythology of Bob, recorded in a couple of short sessions and cost “around $402”. Yet it is, in the words of Michael Gray, “a brilliant debut, a performer’s tour de force”.

Bob has said that he was hesitant to record any more of his own songs because he didn’t want to give too much of himself away.  But, whether he wished to or not, he gave a great deal away.

He showed himself to be a man with a sense of purpose, an instinctive understanding of “the poetry of the blues”and its place in the musical and American traditions. His producer, John H Hammond, quotes him as refusing to re-record, that he would never do the same song twice – a philosophy which irritated Daniel Lanois 37 years later during the recordings of Oh Mercy.

He wouldn’t learn from his mistakes because, in his view, they were not mistakes. They were authentic performances, each as valid as the other.

Which is pretty much how he has continued to work. Why each album is a new road. Why each gig reveals or hides another element of his music and himself.

Twenty years old, yes. But even then, he knew he was “just headin’ for another joint”.

We may be ecstatic or disappointed, and I have been both too many times to count.

Over the last 52 years, I have measured out of my life, not in coffee spoons, but in Dylan albums and Dylan shows. The last time was a disappointment (my problem in retrospect) but I too am with him on the road, just headin’ for another joint, a new song or a new interpretation of an older one.

On the 19th of March 1962, I would have settled for a hell of a lot less. And could never have imagined that I would be listening with pleasure and delight to that album in my 65th year. 

But I am.

Nevertheless, by the time the album was released, Bob was already headin' for another joint. As you can hear here - also from 1962.

11 Comments
CJ
20/3/2014 10:13:48

Wondered if you had eschewed Dylan when I saw the anniversary yesterday. But you were merely slow off the mark. Worth the read.

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Allan
20/3/2014 11:02:12

Ok but.
Yesterday also an overtly political budget which I would expect to demand your attention and comment.
Bob is fine and understand that it was what Michael Gray would call a 'significant anniversary' but more important things about which I want your views.
This sounds carping. Sorry. I will be even more critical when your baseball season starts!

Reply
Gareth
21/3/2014 00:30:03

No criticism here. The half century plus of Dylan's career and his achievements over that period cannot be overemphasised. An anniversary worthy of note and thank you for noting it.

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RichardT
21/3/2014 00:52:24

An' the very last thing that I'd wanna do
Is to say, I've been hitting some hard travellin' too.

Reply
myers
21/3/2014 03:52:14

"You've got a couple more years on me baby that's all" You have forgotten more of Bob than I know.
Ronnie Drew .."I've been to somewhere and found it was nowhere at all!"

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Hugh
21/3/2014 04:17:40

Not sure what Allan's issue is. Dylan's album will be remembered long after Osborne's electioneering budget is forgotten. I like the way things are moving - more on music, literature and art, less on politics. Although they are, of course, all of a piece.

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Anders
21/3/2014 09:40:54

This is right. They are all of a piece. Dylan has always argued that his work is not political, even when it was overtly so, but all art is political to a greater or lesser extent. And the engagement of Max and hundreds of thousands of others with the song and dance of Dylan is testimony of that. You are missing the point of the blog Allan. It is about personal relationships with the subjects and the subject matter. Is this not true, Max?

Reply
Max
22/3/2014 01:50:24

It is.

DavidD
21/3/2014 13:07:03

Nothing on Syria. Nothing on Ukraine.

Reply
Max
22/3/2014 01:49:35

Hey guys, give me a break. I am by no means exclusively a political animal. Have just read Tony Benn on the lack of nurturing of music, literature, drama, etc in his childhood and what a diminish meant this could have been without Caroline's influence. I like to think that, sometimes, a great piece of music or a great novel is more important than political posturings.

Reply
Sam
22/3/2014 05:05:12

Any life is diminished by this. See The Necessity of Art. Seminal. But your connections are appreciated. Thanks.

Reply



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    Max Smith

    European writer, radical, restaurateur and Red Sox fan. 70-something husband, father, step-father, grandfather and son. Resident in Warwick, England.

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