Tag Archives: Baby Let Me Follow You Down

April 13: Bob Dylan Sydney, Australia 1966 (audio)

bob dylan sydney 1966

By the time we did the Australia and Europe tours we had discovered whatever this thing was. It was not light, it was not folky. It was very dynamic, very explosive and very violent.
~Robbie Robertson

By this point, Dylan, Robertson, and Co. knew instinctively that what they were doing was right, in every sense of the word. If the Hawks had been a little hesitant in their playing back in the fall of 1965, the music they were producing now was stately, immense, compelling. The sound itself had a thousand precursors, but no precedent. It was, indeed, ‘very explosive and very violent.’
~Clinton Heylin (Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited)

Dylan’s 66 world tour is the best tour ever… by anyone. I know you all agree.

The Bob Dylan World Tour 1966 was a concert tour undertaken by American musician Bob Dylan, from February to May 1966. Dylan’s 1966 World Tour was notable as the first tour where Dylan employed an electric band backing him, following his “going electric” at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. The musicians Dylan employed as his backing band were known as The Hawks; they subsequently became famous as The Band. The 1966 tour was filmed by director D. A. Pennebaker. Pennebaker’s footage was edited by Dylan and Howard Alk to produce a little-seen film, Eat the Document, an anarchic account of the tour. Drummer Mickey Jones also filmed the tour with an 8mm home movie camera. Many of the 1966 tour concerts were recorded by Columbia Records. These recordings produced one official album, the so-called “Royal Albert Hall” concert, and also many unofficial bootleg recordings of the tour.Dylan’s 1966 Tour ended with his motorcycle accident on July 29, 1966. Subsequent to Dylan’s withdrawal to Woodstock, he refrained from undertaking a major tour until 1974.
~Wikipedia

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April 20: Bob Dylan Concert in Melbourne 1966

Bob Dylan - The Childrens Crusade

bob dylan melbourne 1966

 Dylan’s voice is extremely rough, but the performance, if anything, even more intense than the English shows
~Clinton Heylin (A Life In Stolen Moments)

Great 66 Show where Dylan sounds very stoned, and still brilliant.

For this show he uses a borrowed guitar, as his had been broken. When compared to the Sydney show, this performance is more laid back.
~bobsboots.com

Festival Hall
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
20 April 1966
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March 19: Bob Dylan released his debut album in 1962

bob dylan album 1962

..His talent takes many forms. He is one of the most compelling white blues singers ever recorded. He is a songwriter of exceptional facility and cleverness. He is an uncommonly skillful guitar player and harmonica player.
~Stacy Williams (“Bob Dylan” LP. liner notes)

Dylan’s first album can hardly be faulted. It is a brilliant debut, a performer’s tour de force,….
~Michael Gray (BD Encyclopedia)

Talkin’ New York:

Continue reading March 19: Bob Dylan released his debut album in 1962

Today: Bob Dylan released Bob Dylan in 1962 – 51 years ago

Bob Dylan album

..His talent takes many forms. He is one of the most compelling white blues singers ever recorded. He is a songwriter of exceptional facility and cleverness. He is an uncommonly skillful guitar player and harmonica player.
~Stacy Williams (“Bob Dylan” LP. liner notes)

Dylan’s first album can hardly be faulted. It is a brilliant debut, a performer’s tour de force,….
~Michael Gray (BD Encyclopedia)

Talkin’ New York:

Wikipedia:

Released March 19, 1962
Recorded November 20 and 22, 1961,Columbia Recording Studio, New York City, New York, United States
Genre Folk
Length 36:54
Label Columbia
Producer John H. Hammond

Bob Dylan is the debut album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released in March 1962 by Columbia Records. Produced by Columbia’s legendary talent scout John H. Hammond, who signed Dylan to the label, the album features folk standards, plus two original compositions, “Talkin’ New York” and “Song to Woody”.

bob dylan 1961

Man of Constant Sorrow:

Recording sessions

The album was ultimately recorded in three short afternoon sessions on November 20 and 22 (1961). Hammond later joked that Columbia spent “about $402” to record it, and the figure has entered the Dylan legend as its actual cost. Despite the low cost and short amount of time, Dylan was still difficult to record, according to Hammond. “Bobby popped every p, hissed every s, and habitually wandered off mike,” recalls Hammond. “Even more frustrating, he refused to learn from his mistakes. It occurred to me at the time that I’d never worked with anyone so undisciplined before.”

Seventeen songs were recorded, and five of the album’s chosen tracks were actually cut in single takes (“Baby Let Me Follow You Down,” “In My Time of Dyin’,” “Gospel Plow,” “Highway 51 Blues,” and “Freight Train Blues”) while the master take of “Song to Woody” was recorded after one false start. The album’s four outtakes were also cut in single takes. During the sessions, Dylan refused requests to do second takes. “I said no. I can’t see myself singing the same song twice in a row. That’s terrible.”

The album cover features a reversed photo of Dylan holding his acoustic guitar. It is unknown as to why the photo was flipped.

bob dylan 1961 recording sessions

In My Time of Dyin: 

In less than one year in New York, Bob Dylan has thrown the folk crowd into an uproar. Ardent fans have been shouting his praises. Devotees have found in him the image of a singing rebel, a musical Chaplin tramp, a young Woody Guthrie, or a composite of some of the best country blues singers.
~Stacy Williams (“Bob Dylan” LP. liner notes)

Track Listing:

Side one

  1. “You’re No Good” – Jesse Fuller 1:40
  2. “Talkin’ New York” – Bob Dylan 3:20
  3. “In My Time of Dyin'” – trad. arr. Dylan 2:40
  4. “Man of Constant Sorrow” – trad. arr. Dylan 3:10
  5. “Fixin’ to Die” – Bukka White 2:22
  6. “Pretty Peggy-O” – trad. arr. Dylan 3:23
  7. “Highway 51” – Curtis Jones 2:52

Side two

  1. “Gospel Plow”  – trad. arr. Dylan 1:47
  2. “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down” – trad. arr. Eric von Schmidt 2:37
  3. “House of the Risin’ Sun” – trad. arr. Dave Van Ronk 5:20
  4. “Freight Train Blues” – trad., Roy Acuff 2:18
  5. “Song to Woody” – Bob Dylan 2:42
  6. “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean” – Blind Lemon Jefferson 2:43

Personnel:

  • Bob Dylan – vocals, acoustic guitar, harmonica

Technical personnel

  • John H. Hammond – production

bob-dylan-studion 1961

Baby, Let Me Follow You Down:

The Songs:

By the time sessions were held for his debut album, Dylan was absorbing an enormous amount of folk material from sitting and listening to contemporaries performing in New York’s clubs and coffeehouses. Many of these individuals were also close friends who performed with Dylan, often inviting him to their apartments where they would introduce him to more folk songs. At the same time, Dylan was borrowing and listening to a large number of folk, blues, and country records, many of which were hard to find at the time. Dylan revealed in an interview in the documentary No Direction Home that he needed to hear a song only once or twice to learn it.

The final album sequence of Bob Dylan features only two original compositions; the other eleven tracks are folk standards and traditional songs. Few of these were staples of his club/coffeehouse repertoire. Only two of the covers and both originals were in his club set in September 1961.

Dylan stated in a 2000 interview that he was hesitant to reveal too much of himself at first.

bob dylan 1961 2

See That My Grave is Kept Clean:

Aftermath

Bob Dylan did not receive much acclaim until years later. “These debut songs are essayed with differing degrees of conviction,” writes music critic Tim Riley, “[but] even when his reach exceeds his grasp, he never sounds like he knows he’s in over his head, or gushily patronizing… Like Elvis Presley, what Dylan can sing, he quickly masters; what he can’t, he twists to his own devices. And as with the Presley Sun sessions, the voice that leaps from Dylan’s first album is its most striking feature, a determined, iconoclastic baying that chews up influences, and spits out the odd mixed signal without half trying.”

However, at the time of its release, Bob Dylan received little notice, and both Hammond and Dylan were soon dismissive of the first album’s results.

Bob Dylan’s first album is a lot like the debut albums by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones — a sterling effort, outclassing most, if not all, of what came before it in the genre, but similarly eclipsed by the artist’s own subsequent efforts. The difference was that not very many people heard Bob Dylan on its original release (originals on the early-’60s Columbia label are choice collectibles) because it was recorded with a much smaller audience and musical arena in mind.
~Bruce Eder (allmusic.com)

Spotify:

Check out -> Bob Dylan albums @ JV

Other Mar-19:

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