Interesting to see that the film The Complete Unknown covers the same ground as my two books on Dylan (except, of course, my books tell the real story).
Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970 On Track Extract
His act involved Chaplin-esque routines, carefully orchestrated ploys, tuning and fiddling with his guitar and harmonica, all with casual glances and asides, designed to draw the audience in. From the very start, it was apparent that Bob, despite his shyness and boyish looks, possessed a great stage presence. Not only that, but he was already beginning to write his own material and what songs they were!
There were a large number of factors that fed into this burgeoning songwriting. The exposure to a wide range of music – being able to watch, at close hand, experienced musicians applying their stage skills (most of whom recognised his talent and encouraged him), the befriending of Dave Van Ronk, who carried huge clout, and his love affair with Suze Rotolo. This young Dylan was avidly listening to a range of music, reading poetry and literature, ransacking the libraries and record collections of all and sundry.
Suze was hugely instrumental in the development of his social sensitivities and outlook. She came from a dyed-in-the-wool communist family and already, as a young girl, had been involved in the civil rights movement.
The early sixties were the time of civil rights, the bomb, the cold war and the beginnings of the war in Vietnam. This was the McCarthy era with its hounding of communists and unAmerican activities. The Beat generation had instigated dissent and now the folk scene, mainly due to Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, was the seat of left-wing social change, a movement that was going to blossom and shape the whole sixties underground movement. Suze was steeped in it. Bob absorbed it so that it permeated much of his writing.
Between 1961 and 1963, prompted by Suze and the folk scene in general, Dylan wrote many of his most famous socially motivated songs, songs that laid the groundwork for the sixties philosophy. His wordmanship was constantly developing and reaching new heights. Unfortunately, it saddled Dylan with being the voice of a generation, an epithet loaded on him by the media that not only irritated him no end but one which heaped tension on his shoulders.
With his manager – the great behemoth Albert Grossman, a recording contract with Colombia Records, his adoption by Joan Baez and promotion through Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan set off on a meteoric trajectory to become a massive international star and in so doing, boosted folk music and poetic songwriting into another sphere. Inevitably, the result of such fame brought adulation, crowds of screaming fans, hangers-on and a need for safety and security that locked Bob into a bubble, away from his freewheelin’ days around Greenwich Village.
After the breakdown of his relationship with Suze, maybe in response to being saddled with the limiting description of being a ‘protest’ singer, Bob moved away from writing songs of social import into writing songs of a more introspective nature influenced by the French symbolist poets Rimbaud, Baudelaire and Verlaine. Later, Dylan fell under the spell of the Beat poets, principally Allen Ginsberg, and began writing more complex surreal landscapes.
The ‘folk period’ had produced a fine debut album followed by three classic acoustic albums. Ironically, even as his fame peaked he was tiring of the limitations of his acoustic songs, feeling staid and dissatisfied. He felt everything was predictable and was on the verge of completely abandoning his career: ‘I guess I was going to quit singing. I was drained. I was playing a lot of songs I did not want to play.’ ‘I was getting very bored with that.’ ‘It’s very tiring having other people tell you how much they dig you if you yourself don’t dig you.’
In 1964, The Beatles broke big in the USA and then the likes of The Byrds and Manfred Mann took rock ‘n’ roll versions of his songs into the charts. The Animals took the traditional ‘House of the Rising Sun’ to number one. It sparked something in Bob and rekindled his love of rock. He, with the help of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and then The Hawks, later to become The Band, turned electric.
Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970 On Track (Decades) : Opher Goodwin: Amazon.co.uk: Books