The Goo 1
Regular CONOR FARRELL Celebrating memorable anniv
ersary’s in music: THE GRAPE VINYL The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan (1963) 60TH ANNIVERSARY YEAR In May 1963, Bob Dylan's second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan was released on Columbia Records to immediate success and acclaim. Dylan's rise to stardom following this release was swift, and yet only months earlier, executives at Columbia Records were calling for him to be dropped from the label. Luckily Dylan had legendary record producer John Hammond in his corner, without whom he may not have had a second album. John Hammond had built up quite a reputation since the 1930s, having discovered and signed up artists such as Billie Holiday, Count Basie, and Benny Goodman, to name a few. But when he signed up a young Bob Dylan in 1961, he turned heads at Columbia Records and mostly for the wrong reasons. So the following year, when Dylan's eponymous debut album failed to sell, he became known around the record company as "Hammond's Folly". Hammond was convinced, however, that his artist had a lot more to give, and he fought hard to keep him on the label. This would pay off as Dylan's next album would not only be an artistic triumph but would also propel him into stardom. The style and presentation between the first and second albums were similar. Dylan performed in a real down-home style with mostly uncomplicated guitar and harmonica. His voice was crude and rough-edged. But the depth and resonance of his voice and the words that they carried defied his 21 years. When he sang, a river of knowledge seemed to flow through him. His songs were like sermons. His delivery, at times reverent, simple, and searching. Once he started singing, it was as if God had sent a stable boy down from Mount Sinai. WITH THE FREEWHEELIN', DYLAN HAD CAPTURED THE ZEITGEIST LIKE NO OTHER ARTIST AT THAT TIME "How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man," he sang on 'Blowin' in the Wind'. Dylan sounded humbled by his own words, as if he was just the messenger and not the writer. 'Girl from the North Country' was a most timeless piece of writing. It was written in a tradition, and as with all the best emissaries of tradition Dylan had something fresh to add to the table. 'Masters of War' was a brutal calling out of those dark shady characters behind the military industrial complex. A most fitting and stark warning after the recent Cuban Missile Crisis. He spat the words out venomously, pulling no punches and fighting fire with a fire that only youth can bring. And then there was the astonishing 'A Hard Rain is Gonna Fall'. A song that seemed to come from a higher place and confounds to this day. It was as if he had uncovered a lost sacred text. Dylan would reflect in later years that the inspiration for some of the songs from that period were as much a mystery to him as anyone else and that the songs just came through him. That statement was perhaps never truer than on Hard Rain. He also famously said that each line of Hard Rain was the first line of a song that he didn't have time to write. Dylan's debut could not help but be overshadowed by The Freewheelin'. It was a seismic leap forward that must have silenced his detractors at Columbia very quickly. With The Freewheelin', Dylan had captured the Zeitgeist like no other artist at that time. The album's cover art rounded it all off perfectly. The now iconic sleeve featured Dylan and his then-girlfriend, activist and artist Suze Rotolo, walking down a snowy street in New York City. Dylan looks cold and illequipped for the weather. Part struggling troubadour, part James Dean. The casualness of the shot is perfect and perfectly belies one of the greatest enigmas of the era. PAGE 42