Hi-Fi Choice - May

MUSIC LEGENDS
BOB DYLAN
Picture credits: Dylan with dartboard: Daniel Kramer. Graffiti: Shutterstock/Steve Lagreca
preach a born-again Christian agenda. Some
could not get beyond his voice, which David
Bowie described as sounding “like sand and
glue” and which grew croakier and more
uncertain in its ability to hold a tune as the
years went on.
But if you want to know the extent of his
influence as both a performer and a writer,
ask the other great singer-songwriters of the
age. Leonard Cohen, Neil Young and Bruce
Springsteen will all tell you that Dylan is the
master and they are merely disciples.
His music has drawn liberally on the rich
vernacular traditions of folk, country and
blues. But he dramatically extended the
cultural, political and social remit of popular
music and broke new ground in the subject
matter it might cover. As Paul McCartney
noted, after Dylan it became possible to
write about almost anything in a pop song.
His greatest compositions have operated as
anthems for our times, from The Times They
Are A-Changin’, Blowin’ In The Wind and A
Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall to Mr Tambourine
Man, Subterranean Homesick Blues and Like A
Rolling Stone.
Sixties shaper
It is often said that along with The Beatles,
Dylan invented the sixties and certainly
the decade might have been very
different without him. But his artistry
cannot be confined to the era that
spawned him and over half
a century and more he has
remained restlessly creative,
consistently surprising his
audience and often swimming
against the tide.
His songs and utterances
have been forensically dissected
for hidden meaning by a school
of ‘Dylanologists’, obsessive fans
who have generated a scholarly
industry of books, lectures, papers,
symposiums, dissertations and
doctoral theses, analysing every
aspect of his work.
Yet despite his ubiquitous influence,
Dylan has remained an enigmatic
figure who shuns celebrity, the JD
Salinger of popular music who seems to be
saying to his public: “You know my songs, but
you don’t know me”.
He gives little away in his rare interviews,
which he conducts as metaphysical jousting
sessions. Those who have worked with him
attest to a highly developed sense of humour
and an enjoyment of practical jokes. But the
jealousy with which he has guarded his
privacy means we still know surprisingly little
about his true character beyond his music.
His 2004 autobiography, Chronicles Volume
One, was a vivid and fascinating read, but
Between 1989 and 2015
he played more than
2,700 shows averaging
100+ concerts per year
ultimately a perplexing one, which posed
more questions than it answered.
This, of course, has all contributed to his
mystique, perhaps deliberately so, for evasion
and self-mythologising have always been an
integral part of the face Dylan has presented
to the world. Born Robert Allen Zimmerman
in 1941 into a middle-class Jewish family, he
grew up in the dull conformity of middle
America and like millions of other teens
in the fifties found escape from his
monochrome surroundings in rock ’n’ roll.
After he enrolled at university in
Minneapolis in 1959, he added an
interest in American folk music
to his love of Elvis and Little
Richard and became obsessed
with Woody Guthrie.
By early 1961 he had made
his way to New York, where he
began singing in the folk clubs of
Greenwich Village, and made regular
visits to the bedside of the dying
Guthrie, who gave him his blessing.
He changed his name and fabricated
an improbable backstory, claiming to
have been an orphan from New Mexico
who had hoboed around America and
spent years travelling with a carnival.
Playing an acoustic guitar and blowing a
harmonica, his early recordings were
derivative of Guthrie. But he was learning
fast and by his second album in 1963 he was
already the smartest, sharpest songwriter on
the block, leaving the likes of Phil Ochs, Tom
Paxton et al trailing in his wake.
An affair with Joan Baez, who was already a
star, boosted his career and for a brief while
they became folk music’s king and queen.
It was the civil rights era and Dylan swiftly
became a youthful spokesman for the cause,
the ‘voice of his generation’, penning some of
those most potent and effective protest songs
written and sitting at Martin Luther King’s
feet as he made his “I have a dream” speech.
But he soon left Baez, the protest movement
and folk music behind. Tired of all the
responsibilities that came with being a
spokesman, he set about crafting a more
abstruse and personal form of poetry. And
when he added a rock ’n’ roll backbeat, he
John Wesley Harding (1967)
The Old West meets the Old
Testament on a collection of
austere and allegorical songs
that are about as far removed
from Blonde On Blonde as it
was possible to get.
Blonde On Blonde (1966)
Rock music’s first double
album and the climax
of Dylan’s hipster phase
and the swirling electricity
which he dubbed “the wild
mercury sound”.
Self Portrait (1970)
A deliberate act to subvert
his own celebrity or an
honest homage to the music
that influenced him? Either
way, this collection of
slushily arranged covers left
many fans perplexed.
Nashville Skyline (1969)
Dylan invents country-rock on
an album of heartfelt songs
such as Lay Lady Lay and I
Threw It All Away full of
simple but timeless verities.
Pat Garrett & Billy
The Kid (1973)
An evocative soundtrack for
Peckinpah’s movie in which
Dylan also starred, featuring
Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
as the main highlight.
New Morning (1970)
Shocked by the anger that had
greeted Self Portrait, Dylan
hastily put out this collection
of a dozen new compositions
to prove that he was still a
creative force.
1966 1967 1969 1970 1970 1973
MAY 2016 103