Chart entered : 25 March 1965
Chart peak : 9
Number of hits : 21
Ironic that Bob and Donovan should make their singles chart debuts in the same week !
To take young Robert's story up from where we left off, after failing to secure a place in Bobby Vee's band he enrolled at Minnesota University where his interest turned from rock and roll to folk music and he began performing at coffee houses. He dropped out at the end of his first year and six months later he moved to New York City where he visited the ailing Woody Guthrie and befriended Ramblin' Jack Elliott. He started performing around Greenwich Village and making appearances on other people's records. He played harmonica on an album by Carolyn Hester and her producer John Hammond took up his cause and got him a deal with Columbia in October 1961.
His first album "Bob Dylan" was released in March 1962, a cover heavy set with only two Dylan originals although he gave himself an arranging credit on some of the others. It barely recouped its costs initially and became known in certain circles as "Hammond's folly". In August he acquired a manager, the confrontational Albert Grossman. In December he put out his first single in the US. "Mixed Up Confusion". Recorded with a full band including trad jazz pianist Dick Wellstood it's as much skiffle as it is folk which sort of fits with the lyric of general frustration. It was supposedly composed in a taxi on the way to the session and you can believe that. With no chorus and precious little melody it didn't trouble the charts and in fact was quickly withdrawn. It was also the last recording with Hammond producing as Grossman clashed with him and hired Tom Wilson to produce the second album.
Early in 1963 he toured the UK and rubbed shoulders with English folkies like Martin Carthy. He returned to New York and in May 1963 released "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" which changed everything with instant classics like "Blowing In The Wind", "Masters Of War" and "Don't Think Twice It's All Right". Grossman immediately gave "Blowing In The Wind" to Peter Paul and Mary who were also his clients and the single soared to number two in the US charts. Columbia finally got round to releasing Bob's version as a single in August ; unsurprisingly it didn't sell much so late in the day but Bob was now hot property.
He appeared at The Monterey Jazz Festival with Joan Baez and then accompanied her on the "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August 1963. In the meantime the album went to number one in the UK although CBS didn't see Bob as a singles artist and didn't release any hence his rather belated appearance here.
This song is the title track of his third album which was actually released at the beginning of 1964. In fact his fourth album "Another Side of Bob Dylan" had been released by the time CBS decided to make this his first UK single and Peter Paul and Mary had had a minor hit with it in October 1964. Maybe it was the release of another cover by the Ian Campbell Folk Group ( Campbell's sons will feature later in the story ) that prompted it. Bob based the song's structure on Irish and Scottish ballads and wrote an instant anthem for the "baby boom" generation. It applauds change without being too specific and the song is full of threat for those who resist it- "get out of the new one ( road ) if you can't lend your hand". Bob doesn't like the interpretation that it's a celebration of the generation gap and was backing away from that implication as early as 1964. Musically it's hard to recommend it over the Peter Paul and Mary version ; the minimalist acoustic strum is oppressively monotonous and Bob's harmonica blasts are even harsher and more abrasive than his singing voice.
Ol' Bobby Zimm here is one of those artists I've little interest in, at least in terms of his own recordings. I think he's written numerous classics, but you identified what I can't stand about him - that voice and those horrendous harmonic screams. I'll take the cover versions of his songs pretty much every time.
ReplyDelete