Bob Dylan (album)

Bob Dylan is the first album of Bob Dylan, left in 1962 on Columbia Records. Recorded in three meetings in November 1961, it appears on March 19th 1962, with low costs: $402. As it was the use at the time, the disc contains primarily resumptions of traditional songs Folk: only 2 songs were written by Dylan. Certain recoveries are personal adaptations, in particular at the musical level, but of others are copied from interpretations of others folksingers, often without their agreement, as it is the case of his/her friend Dave Van Ronk, who had shown him his arrangement of The House off the Rising Sun . This one testifies some in the film No Direction Home to Martin Scorsese)

However, this album does not miss interest: initially because it makes it possible to have an outline of the Dylan young person at one time when it was yet only a folksinger among others, living with difficulty by singing antiques folk songs which it venerated more than all. He will affirm besides in his autobiography, Chronicles Part. 1 , to have started to write its own pieces because it did not manage to sing the true folk songs as well as they deserved it.

Then because even in 1962, Dylan is not any folksinger: it already developed its own style, in particular vocal, seeking the rough expressivity more “the beautiful” song. One finds even some surprises on this disc, like his imitation of bluesman black on Fixin' To Die Blues .

Lastly, because the two single compositions of Dylan are far from being banal: in Talkin' New York , he tells with humor his own adventures, lost in a New York devastated by the Third World war. In addition to echoing the apocalyptic psychoses of the beginning of the the Sixties, the song conceals already pearls of symbolism and humor dylanien which are as many promises for the continuation.

As for Song to Woody , it is about a homage to its mentor, the folksinger gauchist Woody Guthrie, which fails at the hospital of New York. Dylan further pushes there still symbolism and the predictions from apocalypse, and seems to dedicate to Woody all its work to come.

During meetings of recording, Dylan interprets four songs which are not reproduced on the album: The House Carpenter , He Has Friend off Mine , Ramblin' Blues and Man off the Street .

Robert Shelton, journalist with the NewYork Times, writes the notes of small pockets under the pseudonym of Stacey Williams.

List pieces

  1. You' Re No Good (Jesse Fuller)

  2. Talkin' New York (Bob Dylan)
  3. In My Time off Dyin' (traditional)
  4. Man off Constant Sorrow (traditional)
  5. Fixin' to Die Blues (Bukka White)
  6. Pretty Peggy-O (traditional)
  7. Highway 51 Blues (Curtis Jones)
  8. Gospel Plow (traditional)
  9. Baby Let Me Follow You Down (traditional)
  10. House off the Risin' Sun (traditional)
  11. Freight Train Blues (traditional)
  12. Song to Woody (Bob Dylan)
  13. See That My Serious Is Kept Clean (Blind Lemon Jefferson)

Production

  • John H. Hammond

Bibliographical resources

  • Robert Shelton (transl. Vassal Jacques), No Direction Home: The Life And Music Off Bob Dylan Bob Dylan its life and its music: Like has Rolling Stone”, Albin Michel, 12-03-1987

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