Personnel:
Bob Dylan: acoustic guitar, vocals and harmonica
John Hammond: producer
Label: Colombia
Recorded at Colombia Studio A
Release date: March 1962
Highest chart position: UK: 13, USA: -
From the moment he arrived in Greenwich Village, Bob was a human dynamo, into everything, bursting with energy and manically throwing himself into the scene. He’d play anywhere, passing the basket round for small change, living hand to mouth, partying and jamming to all hours, crashing on couches and floors, talking incessantly, copying, pinching and exchanging chords, tales and songs. Greenwich Village was a melting pot. He was soaking it all up.
Bob was carefully cultivating his image as a rough-living, experienced roustabout in the Guthrie mould. He copied Guthrie’s style, played a lot of his songs and even based his image on Woody’s casual working clothes – an image that looked thrown together but was, in fact, agonised over. Part of the mystique he was studiously creating was the mythology of his earlier life, all carefully designed to put distance between his present incarnation and the ordinary middle-class upbringing he had experienced. Small-town middle class was not cool, not the image he wished to project. Bob Dylan was a construct, complete with an exciting, mythologised past.
There is some doubt as to when he completely left his former life behind. I had a friend (also called Bob) who was hitch-hiking around the States at the time and scrounging jobs wherever he could. In 1960, he ended up in Greenwich Village and managed to get a gig, because of his English accent, introducing acts in Gerdes Folk City. There was no pay, but Mike Porco supplied him with beer and food. That suited him fine. He remembered introducing Dylan onto the stage as Robert Zimmerman. Bob gave him a very dark look for his troubles. His recollection of Bob was of a very self-assured young man, with a brash, arrogant manner. He wasn’t impressed with him or his music, finding the music too raw and abrasive and Bob’s attitude rather aloof – my friend Bob was more a lover of traditional folk music – but he was taken with Bob’s girlfriend (who would have been Suze Rotolo) and attempted to chat her up while Bob was playing (to no avail). Maybe the construction of his image was still a work in progress? Suze Rotolo claimed in her memoir not to have known him as Zimmerman, that only slipping out by accident when she stumbled across his draft card. Maybe my friend Bob’s memory was playing tricks with him?
One of the consequences of Bob’s lifestyle was that he soon began to play with a number of other people and was often found on stage supporting other acts, mainly playing harmonica, on which he was very proficient, or as a second guitar and supporting vocal. He was rapidly making a name for himself. These interactions led to other work and recording sessions. The first of these recording sessions was to play harmonica on Harry Belafonte’s recording of ‘Midnight Special’. Following that, he was used for a Caroline Hester recording session. This was incredibly fortuitous. Caroline recorded for Colombia Records and her producer was John Hammond. John was intrigued by this young man who was making such an impact in Greenwich Village and had fortuitously just received a favourable review in the Ne
