BACKGROUND: So here’s our boy at age twenty. He’s been in New York City since the previous winter. Less than two months ago Robert Shelton’s fabled rave review of his set at Gerde’s Folk City ran in the New York Times. On this day he’s recording his first album. It’s a Monday. Outside the studio Americans are looking forward to Thanksgiving. The turkeys on their holiday tables three days hence will cost less than 30 cents a pound. This evening they are likely to tune into episodes of Surfside Six, Ben Casey, The Andy Griffith Show, Pete and Gladys, 87th Precinct and The Price is Right after watching the day's news digested into a half-hour run down by Walter Cronkite on CBS or Chet Huntley and David Brinkley on NBC. Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, in her syndicated My Day column, is concerned with the recent death of House Speaker Sam Rayburn. John F. Kennedy is in the tenth month of his already remarkable presidency.
The studio is sparsely furnished: moveable partitions/sound baffles, two microphones—one for Dylan, one for his guitar, a table with a stainless water pitcher, a glass tumbler and an ashtray. Dylan’s open guitar case is on the floor. Visionary record producer John Hammond surveys the scene of what his colleagues will soon call “Hammond’s Folly”. Photographer Don Hunstein is ostensibly on hand to capture the event for posterity.
THE RECORDING: Listening to the CD, it’s impossible to miss Dylan’s desire—need—to perform. Each song of the thirteen songs has a unique personality, a unique sound that Dylan melded from the performances he’s heard and studied with nearly religious fervor. At the time, Woody Guthrie, Robert Johnson, Dave VanRonk were probably among the strongest influences. Yet, there’s a distinctive quality that permeates them all. If I could only use one word to define that quality, I’d probably choose ‘exuberance’. It’s in his voice, his breath, his harmonica, his guitar. But there’s more: humour—most definitely humour—and there’s joy and there’s the sound of a singer who is captivated by each song’s story.
All of that said, I must admit that I’ve tried to imagine what recorded music consumers in the early 60’s would have thought when they first heard this thirty-seven minute grab bag of styles and moods that was about to launch a musical Sputnik, particularly those who trusted the red Columbia label to bring them the likes of honey-throated Johnny Mathis, etc. From that perspective I would guess that many of the tunes would have been too rough and grating for their delicate ears. Still, I don’t think even those listeners would have missed the sincere, heartfelt offering in Song to Woody, the fun-poking of Talkin’ New York Blues, the humble introduction to and sing-along quality of Baby, Let Me Follow You Down or the counterpoint of vocal/harmonica melody with guitar-picking rhythm in Man of Constant Sorrow.
CONCLUSION: There's much here—some endearing, some enduring, and some fueled as much by nervous energy as talent. If this were the first Dylan album I heard, as it would have been in the early sixties, I would be cautiously on the look-out for a follow-up, wanting to see what this youngster will offer in the future, but not surprised if Columbia soon found a way to homogenize his sound.
The studio is sparsely furnished: moveable partitions/sound baffles, two microphones—one for Dylan, one for his guitar, a table with a stainless water pitcher, a glass tumbler and an ashtray. Dylan’s open guitar case is on the floor. Visionary record producer John Hammond surveys the scene of what his colleagues will soon call “Hammond’s Folly”. Photographer Don Hunstein is ostensibly on hand to capture the event for posterity.
THE RECORDING: Listening to the CD, it’s impossible to miss Dylan’s desire—need—to perform. Each song of the thirteen songs has a unique personality, a unique sound that Dylan melded from the performances he’s heard and studied with nearly religious fervor. At the time, Woody Guthrie, Robert Johnson, Dave VanRonk were probably among the strongest influences. Yet, there’s a distinctive quality that permeates them all. If I could only use one word to define that quality, I’d probably choose ‘exuberance’. It’s in his voice, his breath, his harmonica, his guitar. But there’s more: humour—most definitely humour—and there’s joy and there’s the sound of a singer who is captivated by each song’s story.
All of that said, I must admit that I’ve tried to imagine what recorded music consumers in the early 60’s would have thought when they first heard this thirty-seven minute grab bag of styles and moods that was about to launch a musical Sputnik, particularly those who trusted the red Columbia label to bring them the likes of honey-throated Johnny Mathis, etc. From that perspective I would guess that many of the tunes would have been too rough and grating for their delicate ears. Still, I don’t think even those listeners would have missed the sincere, heartfelt offering in Song to Woody, the fun-poking of Talkin’ New York Blues, the humble introduction to and sing-along quality of Baby, Let Me Follow You Down or the counterpoint of vocal/harmonica melody with guitar-picking rhythm in Man of Constant Sorrow.
CONCLUSION: There's much here—some endearing, some enduring, and some fueled as much by nervous energy as talent. If this were the first Dylan album I heard, as it would have been in the early sixties, I would be cautiously on the look-out for a follow-up, wanting to see what this youngster will offer in the future, but not surprised if Columbia soon found a way to homogenize his sound.
