The Real Story of The Complete Unknown – Bob Dylan

Posted on by Opher

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

Bob Dylan Bringing It All Back Home: Rock Classics: Amazon.co.uk: Opher Goodwin: 9781789523140: Books

Excerpt – Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970 On Track

Posted on by Opher

I’m eager to get to see the new Dylan film ‘The Complete Unknown’ as it covers exactly the period I cover in the book. It’s getting rave reviews. I hope it’s accurate. I always find that these rock biopics take liberties with the truth.

Excerpt – Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970 On Track

   Bob settled in to life in Minnesota, living hand to mouth, playing the coffee bars where baskets were passed round for change. This was the start of his freewheelin’ days; cadging meals, renting a small apartment, sleeping on friends’ floors, playing music, listening, absorbing and developing fast.

   Minnesota wasn’t big enough. He instinctively craved a bigger canvas and had heard that Woody was still alive but suffering from a chronic illness, the dreadful hereditary disease Huntingdon’s Chorea, and holed up in a sanatorium in New Jersey. There was only one place to be, where the remains of the Beat movement had morphed into a vibrant underground folk scene, and that was Greenwich Village in New York but this young man, pretending to be the wild maverick, still had to persuade his father to allow him to drop out and give it a try. His father grudgingly agreed to allow him a year in which to make it.

   In 1961, at the age of twenty, still looking like a young kid, a nascent Bob Dylan rolled into town, not on a freight, but having secured a lift in an old Buick. Stepping out into the icy blast of a New York winter Bob had little apart from a bag containing all his possessions and a guitar. He had two major aims. The first was to meet his new idol Woody Guthrie. The second was to break into the thriving new Folk scene. He set about finding a café to play in with a warm place to crash down and get out of the cold. He found it at The Café Wha?. He was allowed to back Fred Neil on harmonica and play the odd set which gave him somewhere to escape the cruel wind while earning a dollar or two and filling his stomach with a greasy burger. The Café Wha? Provided him with a base to learn and grow from.

   The Greenwich Village scene was based around a number of small clubs and overrun with a range of musicians all competing for time, money and status. Pretty cutthroat. The musicians ranged from old well-versed blues musicians like John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Reed, Jesse Fuller and Big Bill Broonzy, seasoned folk singers, Woody Guthrie acolytes, like Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Pete Seeger and Cisco Houston, folk groups like the Bluegrass Boys, Clancy Brothers and the new generation of up-and-coming singers Tom Paxton, Mark Spoeltra, Odetta and Richard Farina. The leading light was Dave Van Ronk, a powerful figure, nicknamed ‘The Mayor’ who presided over the whole scene like a brooding grizzly bear.

   No naive middle-class novice was going to stand a chance of breaking through into that environment. Robert Zimmerman from Hibbing morphed into Bob Dylan. He intended to drop the Zimmerman and become Bob Allen, but thought that Dylan sounded better than Allen, so he adapted it – not so much stealing his name from a notorious Welsh poet as simply preferring the sound of Dylan to Allen. Having a new name he set about creating a hard-living mythology – an orphaned past, running away numerous times, life on the road, carnivals, hard times. Bob was constructing a suitable persona and appearance. The black corduroy cap, crumpled shirt, jeans, belt and boots were a carefully choreographed image. There had to be no chink in the armour. From the nasally Woodyesque drawl, to the embroidered back story the whole package had to hang together. Dylan grew into the disguise. What helped was the huge natural talent that Bob was so obviously saturated with.

Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970 On Track (Decades) : Opher Goodwin: Amazon.co.uk: Books

Excerpt – Bob Dylan Bringing It All Back Home: Rock Classics

Posted on by Opher

Excerpt – Bob Dylan Bringing It All Back Home: Rock Classics

Introduction

I can confidently state that Bringing It All Back Home was without doubt one of the most important albums in the entire history of rock music. I will explain why.

   Not only was it ground-breaking in the way it fused elements of blues, folk, rock and poetry, but it was also incredibly influential on the sound and writing of the major acts of the time. Without Bob Dylan and the album Bringing It All Back Home there would not have been the later albums of hugely important bands such as the Beatles, Stones or Beach Boys, or, at least, they would not have been as experimental and adventurous. Neither would we have had the incredible bodies of work of major singer-songwriters like Neil Young, Roy Harper or Bruce Springsteen. The sixties underground scene would not have happened with its explosion of styles from psychedelic and heavy metal to prog rock, country and blues, its anti-war and civil rights protest and complex poetic  songs. This album changed the face of rock music.

   The album came out at a crucial point in time. This was 1965; the midpoint of the sixties, a turning point, and Bob Dylan was the fulcrum on which rock music turned. Before Bringing It All Back Home we had rock, r&b and blues-based beat music (as with the Beatles and Stones) and lyrically more sophisticated folk music. After Bringing It All Back Home we had a new world of possibilities.

   Bringing It All Back Home opened up a theatre of opportunity by melding together the two distinctly different genres and in the process creating an entirely unique style of music, a different way of song writing, a different structure to popular music. New sounds, new ideas, new attitude; nothing would ever be the same.

Bob Dylan Bringing It All Back Home: Rock Classics: Amazon.co.uk: Opher Goodwin: 9781789523140: Books

Extract: Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970 On Track 

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   He did not exactly run away from home as seek out an excuse to leave. No, he hadn’t already absconded from home seven times (at the age of 10, 12, 13, 15, 15 and a half, 17 and 18). No, he hadn’t spent six years with a travelling carnival. No, he hadn’t ridden the freights as a hobo from Gallop New Mexico to New Orleans. No, he wasn’t an orphan. It was all much less colourful than that. He’d been brought up in a Jewish family with a middle-class upbringing and led rather an uneventful life in a small town, but he was obsessed with music and determined to have a life in music. Apart from girls it was all he cared about.

Remarkably, as a young kid, he managed to secure a gig or three backing Bobby Vee on the piano when he’d appeared in the local area. That must have been a real buzz. In 1959, looking for a way of getting into the music business.

Using a course at Minnesota University as an excuse to leave Hibbing he gained the help of his mother (his relationship with his more conservative father being difficult). She arranged for him to go to Minnesota by organising with his cousin Chucky to put him up. Chucky sorted him a room in the frat house at the university where he could stay for free in the summer. Not exactly as exciting as riding freights and touring with carnivals, but it did set him on the road.

On arriving on the greyhound bus he immediately swapped his electric guitar for an acoustic Martin Double O so that he could set about playing in the local coffee houses. It was the start. What he did next was to seek out like-minded people, hang out with musicians, and have the time to develop, learn and evolve. 

The liberal arts course at the University of Minnesota was not scintillating enough. Bob focussed more on his music, staying up late to play, listen, drink and party. For the young Robert girls, dope and booze were more interesting than study and he soon dropped out.

Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970 On Track (Decades) : Opher Goodwin: Amazon.co.uk: Books

Extract: Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970 On Track

Posted on by Opher

Extract: Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970 On Track

   As with Dylan, I was caught up in the zeitgeist of the time. These were the days of great divisions in society: a rising rebellious youth, the threat of instant annihilation from nuclear war and dramatic changes in attitudes. The traumas of the second world war were still fresh, but the economy and world were opening up. Change was in the air. Our parents represented something we did not want to be. Bob was riding that wave of change.

   The 1950s Beats may have cracked the façade of the rigid conformity and strict hypocritical morality of the prevailing post-war 1950s culture. Rock ‘n’ roll and r&b may have liberated youth into a temporary hedonistic frenzy, but it was the 1960s generation who blew the whole structure to smithereens.

Peculiarly, Robert Zimmerman found himself, sometimes unwillingly, right at the forefront of those shifts in the tectonic plates of society. Who could have predicted that? Who could have known that this young middle-class Jewish kid from a decaying nondescript town in the middle of nowhere would create a persona and develop the skills to take the whole world by storm?   

That early Dylan was a chameleon, a sponge, a mirror, a driven force, who was searching for identity, acceptance and fame. He absorbed everything around him with an unquenchable thirst, then reflected it back a hundred times brighter. He took on his surroundings and magnified them. For that young Dylan, integrity was all that counted. Authenticity and cool were the only important things. Robert Zimmerman was an empty vessel into which he poured the ingredients that created Bob Dylan.

Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970 On Track (Decades) : Opher Goodwin: Amazon.co.uk: Books

Extract from Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970 On Track

Posted on by Opher

Extract from Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970 On Track

Looking back to the early John Bucklen tapes, recorded in 1958 on a portable reel to reel tape recorder, of a young Robert Zimmerman, seventeen years old, still at school, pounding out his homage to his idol Little Richard, there was no inkling of the folk legend he was shortly to become. He wanted to become a rock star. That teenage Dylan was a rebel, assuming an image based on James Dean and Marlon Brando. He formed a number of loud rock ’n’ roll bands, the Golden Chords and Shadow Blasters being two, in which he pounded the piano oblivious to audience response. In the first of his chameleonic changes he assumed the name and wild persona of Elston Gunnn. Despite his naked enthusiasm the bands didn’t take off, indeed, had nowhere to go, but they did bring him some local notoriety and attract the girls. He was very into girls and rock music was both a magnet and aphrodisiac. A big motivator. This increasing rebelliousness led to fractious relationships with school, the tight-knit Jewish community and his father.

   By the age of eighteen, he’d wrung the little Minnesotan iron ore town of Hibbing dry. He’d learnt the rudiments of guitar and piano, formed a number of bands, and absorbed a huge range of musical styles and traditions from rock ‘n’ roll, r&b to country music and standards – the mainstay of the local radio station, all of which were going to contribute and inform his progressions over the course of the ensuing years. Groundwork was being laid. Bob’s tastes were eclectic – his first musical heroes being Hank Williams and Little Richard.

   Here we have to start to unravel the man from the myth. Robert Zimmerman was already outgrowing the little mining town of Hibbing in Minnesota. As soon as he was able, he looked for a way out of there. A fresh-faced boy, looking younger than his years, not yet needing to shave, set off on the start of his adventure.

Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970 On Track (Decades) : Opher Goodwin: Amazon.co.uk: Books

Now Out! – Phil Ochs On Track: Every Album, Every Song Paperback

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Phil Ochs On Track: Every Album, Every Song Paperback

Phil Ochs was the ‘The Prince of Protest’ in the sixties. The only real rival to Bob Dylan, he was the archetypal Greenwich Village topical songwriter. Whether protesting the Vietnam War or campaigning for civil rights, workers’ rights and social justice, Phil was always there. Phil was the man to take up causes, write songs, play at rallies and even risk his life. His clear voice and sense of melody, linked with his incisive lyrics, created songs of beauty and power. As his career progressed, with lyrics and music becoming more highly poetic and sophisticated, he still never lost sight of his cause. Towards the end of the sixties he joined with the YIPPIES in protest against the Vietnam War. But idealism became Phil’s downfall. He was an idealist who could see no point in continuing if he was unable to make the world a better place. Phil lost all hope and descended into depression, which, along with excessive alcohol consumption, led to his suicide in 1976. Shortly before he took his life, Phil asked his brother if he thought anyone would listen to his songs in the future. Well here we are; sixty years later, still listening. The songs of Phil Ochs are every bit as relevant as they ever were and they are making the world a better place!

Phil Ochs On Track: Every Album, Every Song: Amazon.co.uk: Opher Goodwin: 9781789523263: Books

Extract – Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970 On Track 

Posted on by Opher

Extract – Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970 On Track 

   Everything about Bob Dylan was false, a construct, apart from his natural talent. His persona was nothing more than a vehicle to transport him to where he wanted to go.

   Young Bob Dylan was ruthless. He drained everyone around him dry, wringing out their songs, their chords, their tunes, friendships and love. I’m not implying that this was intentional or in any way mean, merely necessary. In order to get to where he needed to be he had to grow, blossom and change. Nothing was more important. Bob was helplessly riding a tsunami that he himself created. At times, for the people involved – Suze Rotolo, Joan Baez, Phil Ochs, Martin Carthy and Dave Van Ronk, to name a few – it must have felt as if they were being used and abused.

   That fledgling Dylan (Robert Allen Zimmerman) was on a roller-coaster that kept changing tracks. Seemingly, he had no compunctions about leaving people and whole movements behind. Parents, lovers, friends and fellow musicians bit the dust. He moved on when the need arose, without scruples and ne’er a backward glance. The chameleon had to grow and move. That was his nature, all he knew.

   The biographies are numerous, the details mauled over, magnified, twisted, sensationalised and made to fit the required template. Hard to disentangle reality from myth. There lived a legend largely generated by Bob himself in his quest to create credibility and breakthrough.

   Life for a musician was cutthroat. Most fell by the wayside. Talent was not the only criterion necessary. Having the correct image, credentials, friends, disposition, drive and luck were also a necessity. What Robert Allan Zimmerman lacked he created for himself out of thin air.

Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970 On Track (Decades) : Opher Goodwin: Amazon.co.uk: Books

Phil Ochs: Every Album, Every Song – Paperback – Finally out in the USA on 29th November!!

Posted on by Opher

Phil Ochs was the ‘The Prince of Protest’ in the sixties. The only real rival to Bob Dylan, he was the archetypal Greenwich Village topical songwriter. Whether protesting the Vietnam War or campaigning for civil rights, workers’ rights and social justice, Phil was always there. Phil was the man to take up causes, write songs, play at rallies and even risk his life. His clear voice and sense of melody, linked with his incisive lyrics, created songs of beauty and power. As his career progressed, with lyrics and music becoming more highly poetic and sophisticated, he still never lost sight of his cause. Towards the end of the sixties he joined with the YIPPIES in protest against the Vietnam War. But idealism became Phil’s downfall. He was an idealist who could see no point in continuing if he was unable to make the world a better place. Phil lost all hope and descended into depression, which, along with excessive alcohol consumption, led to his suicide in 1976. Shortly before he took his life, Phil asked his brother if he thought anyone would listen to his songs in the future. Well here we are; sixty years later, still listening. The songs of Phil Ochs are every bit as relevant as they ever were and they are making the world a better place!

Excerpt from – Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970 On Track (Decades) – Paperback

Posted on by Opher

  Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970 On Track (Decades) Paperback

Life for a musician was cutthroat. Most fell by the wayside. Talent was not the only criterion necessary. Having the correct image, credentials, friends, disposition, drive and luck were also a necessity. What Robert Allan Zimmerman lacked he created for himself out of thin air.

   Looking back to the early John Bucklen tapes, recorded in 1958 on a portable reel to reel tape recorder, of a young Robert Zimmerman, seventeen years old, still at school pounding out his homage to his idol Little Richard, there was no inkling of the folk legend he was shortly to become. He wanted to become a rock star. That teenage Dylan was a rebel, assuming an image based on James Dean and Marlon Brando. He formed a number of loud rock ’n’ roll bands, the Golden Chords and Shadow Blasters being two, in which he pounded the piano oblivious to audience response. In the first of his chameleonic changes he assumed the name and wild persona of Elston Gunnn. Despite the enthusiasm the bands didn’t take off, indeed, had nowhere to go, but they did bring him some local notoriety and attract the girls. This increasing rebellious led to increasing fractious relationships with school, the tight-knit Jewish community and his father.

   By the age of eighteen, he’d wrung the little Minnesotan iron ore town of Hibbing dry. He’d learnt the rudiments of guitar and piano, formed a number of bands, and absorbed a huge range of musical styles and traditions from rock ‘n’ roll, r&b to country music and standards – the mainstay of the local radio station, all of which were going to contribute and inform his progressions over the course of the ensuing years. Groundwork was being laid. His first musical heroes being Hank Williams and Little Richard.

   Here we have to start to unravel the man from the myth. Robert Zimmerman was already outgrowing the little mining town of Hibbing in Minnesota. As soon as he was able, he looked for a way out of there. A fresh-faced boy, looking younger than his years, not yet needing to shave, set off on the start of his adventure.

   He did not exactly run away from home as seek out an excuse to leave. No, he hadn’t already run away from home seven times (at the age of 10, 12, 13, 15, 15 and a half, 17 and 18). No, he hadn’t spent six years with a travelling carnival. No, he hadn’t ridden the freights as a hobo from Gallop New Mexico to New Orleans. No, he wasn’t an orphan. It was all much less colourful than that. He’d been brought up in a Jewish family with a middle-class upbringing and led rather an uneventful life in a small town. But he was obsessed with music and determined to have a life in music. It was all he cared about. He had managed to secure a gig or three backing Bobby Vee on the piano when he’d appeared in the local area. That must have been a real buzz for a young kid. In 1959, looking for a way of getting into the music business, he persuaded his mother to help him out. Using a course at Minnesota University as an excuse to leave he gained the help of his mother (his relationship with his more conservative father being difficult). She arranged for him to go to Minnesota by organising with his cousin Chucky to put him up. Chucky sorted him a room in the frat house at the university where he could stay for free in the summer. Not exactly as exciting as riding freights and touring with carnivals, but it did set him on the road. On arriving on the greyhound bus he immediately swapped his electric guitar for an acoustic Martin Double O so that he could set about playing in the local coffee houses. It was the start. What he did next was to seek out like-minded people, hang out with musicians, and have the time to develop, learn and evolve. The liberal arts course at the University of Minnesota was not scintillating enough. Bob focussed more on his music, staying up late to play, listen, drink and party. For the young Robert girls, dope and booze were more interesting than study and he soon dropped out.