While some mornings it may feel like it, I am not old enough to have seen Dylan during his Greenwich Village years. A fact that, when my time machine has had all its glitches ironed out, I would remedy right after a trip to the 1980s to have a sharp word with my sixteen year-old self. So – bootlegs aside – this 1962 eponymous LP is the closest we are going to get to hearing what made Dylan stand out from all the other besweatered folkies and mutton whiskered troubadours performing at the Gaslight and other such hipster joints.
It’s because of that – and that this was the first LP that really turned me on to Dylan - that this release, despite all its flaws and limitations, remains unparalleled in my affections. There are better Dylan LPs but it’s the dropped notes and unpolished edges (on Dylan's insistence, most of tracks were done in one take) that makes this such a special recording. It just sounds like a man in a room with a guitar and harmonica and a voice.
What a voice. If it wasn’t for the baby-faced Dylan staring you out on the album’s cover, you’d never place it as coming from a 21 year old. Not the growl of his later years but a rasp that suggests one too many nights on cheap red wine and cigarettes (which is probably somewhere near the truth). It has texture and can switch mood with the setting; mournful (See That My Grave is Kept Clean, In My Time of Dying), world weary (Man of Constant Sorrow, House of the Rising Sun), playful (Pretty Peggy-O, Freight Train Blues), sharp (Highway 51 Blues), full-on belting (Gospel Plow). And, damn it, he can be funny (Talkin’ New York):
“Somebody could freeze right to the bone
I froze right to the bone”
I froze right to the bone”
Ok, so it doesn’t work on the page.
It’s not perfect by a long way. Only two of the songs – Talking New York and the lovely Song to Woody – are Dylan originals; the others are various folk standards and traditional songs. On the upside the choices are mostly good – especially the sublime Baby Let Me Follow You Down – avoiding any of the finger-in-the-ear dirges about long lost lovers from obscure parts of Scotland that must have plagued folk clubs up and down the land. On the downside, for those of us looking to hear that raw Greenwich Village coffeehouse Dylan, is that, by all accounts, very few of the song choices featured in his regular sets and the man himself was never pleased with the recording. And, personally, I would be happy if I didn’t hear anyone’s version of House of the Rising Sun ever again.
The strength of this LP is its charm. I can play this over and over more than most albums without ever tiring. There’s a nice variation of styles and tempos and enough top drawer songs to keep me happy for a long time. The fact that this is just the base camp in Dylan’s recording career make it even more striking. A lovely place to start this journey.
Out of five?
Four.
Favourite track?
Baby Let Me Follow You Down.
Next up?
The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan
"New York Times said it was the coldest winter in seventeen years!...I didn't feel so cold then"
ReplyDeleteAgain, doesn't work as well on the page but one hell of a line when you hear his delivery. The half-beat pause before the down-trodden and cold-fingered rejoinder is pure theatre and must have been honed on many a coffeeshop stage.
What's overlooked a lot on these early acoustic/voice/harp Dylan albums (in my humble opinion) is how good he'd got on the harp in such a short time. Contemporary reports on his abilities are mostly of the 'he couldn't blow harp for shit' varieties and it has been suggested that he was simply a 'huffer'(see...'You're No Good') but to have acheived a level of competancy (brilliance?) reminiscent of the old bluesmen of yore is an enormous leap in his development. Now, I'm a fan of the huffing harmonica style, but the held notes in the harp refrains on 'Baby Let Me Follow..." and "Man Of Constant Sorrow" are simply sublime. In the latter they perfectly match the held notes of the vocal parts.
4 out of 5? Make mine a high five.