Phil Ochs book out on the 18th October

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Ten days to go! Place your advance order now!

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 – Paperback – Out Friday 27th

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Talkin’ Cuban Crisis (Phil Ochs)

After a sombre warning of tyrannical control we need a light-hearted interlude; what better than a little skit about a nuclear holocaust?

   This is a standard talking blues a la Woody Guthrie. The guitars strike out a cheerful pace with Danny embellishing Phil’s strumming with picked runs to create a light and breezy feel. Phil sings over the top in a chirpy manner, oozing with cheer. After all it’s only the end of civilisation.

   This is a classic example of how to take the most serious situation, such as a potential nuclear exchange and the start of World War 3, and turn it into a jolly, comical skit while making a series of profound observations.

   In October 1962, during the height of the Cold War, the USA and Russia went to the very brink. Surveillance showed that Cuba had been building sites for nuclear missiles that could destroy the USA. The Russians were about to bring their missiles. The threat was obvious. The Republicans wanted to blow Cuba to bits, invade and drive the communists out, thus removing the threat. Kennedy chose to blockade Cuba and prevent the Russians bring their missiles. The Russian fleet, bringing the missiles, were warned that if they crossed the blockade it would be an act of war and they would be sunk. The Russians declared that the blockade was an act of war and that the US had missiles in Turkey on the Russian border. There was no difference.

   I remember being in school with our transistor radios on. We really thought that we would not return home and that the world would be destroyed in a nuclear conflict. The tension rose as the Russian ships continued to steam towards Cuba and looked as if they would not heed the warning. In the even the hotline between Russia and America must have nearly melted and a last minute deal was reached. The Cuban missile bases would be taken down and the US would remove its missiles from Turkey. The Russian ships turned back. We started breathing again.

   The song is full of hilarious observations, the advert for pepsodent toothpaste in the middle of a crisis being one; a knock at the shallowness of culture and the greed that underpins it. It highlighted the long-standing differing attitudes between the Republicans and Democrats. The Republicans take a tough frontiers-like no nonsense stance; if something offends – blow it up! The Democrats take a more nuanced view and are not so gung-ho. The end line with Kruschev saying: ‘better red than dead’ was a reversal of the US attitude to communism of; ‘better dead than red.’

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

Phil Ochs On Track: Every Album, Every Song Paperback – Out This Friday – Intro

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   At school Phil had to pick an instrument. He first picked the trumpet but there were too many trumpeters, the same with the saxophone. He reluctantly settled for the clarinet and discovered he had a great ability with the instrument. So much so that he became a soloist with the Capital University Conservancy of Music at the age of fifteen.

   This love of music took him down an even stranger route. At sixteen he did not like the school selected for him and choose a school for himself. He’d seen a poster with a great marching band and decided on that. Another weird choice. The Staunton Military Academy in rural Virginia hardly seemed the setting for the nurturing of one of the biggest rebels on the planet and avowed anti-war protester. Yet that’s where he went. Not only that but he seemed to love it. He liked the uniform, the regime and discipline and even got into weight-lifting and became more gregarious. Who could imagine? In the course of his two years in Staunton (1956-1958) he developed a love of country and western. His heroes were Hank Williams, Ernest Tubb, Johnny Cash and Faron Young. During the latter part rock ‘n’ roll had burst onto the scene and Phil became swept up in that too. He was smitten by Buddy Holly and idolised Elvis Presley.

   In 1958 he signed up to Ohio State University. The course he was originally signed up to remains a mystery. He’d only been there a short while before deciding that it wasn’t for him. He fled to Florida and was living rough. He was bust by the police for sleeping rough on a park bench and while in the police cell had an epiphany. He decided that what he really needed to do was to become a writer and settled on journalism. He went back to Ohio State and changed courses.

   While studying journalism he was listening to rock and pop music and started studying politics with a particular interest in the situation in Cuba with Fidel Castro, Russia and the American government. This was quite a departure and eye-opener for Phil. He’d come from a very unreligious and unpolitical background not used to discussing real issues in depth. He took to politics with zeal and became obsessed like all new acolytes.

   According to his brother Michael, they used to have long debates about music and politics. Phil was still into his country singers and Michael was more into rock ‘n’ roll. The one person they both agreed was Elvis Presley; he was god.

   It was while at Ohio that the final link in the chain was established. It was here that he met the guy who was going to change his life – Jim Glover. Jim was a left-wing folkie and introduced Phil to the mighty musical tomes of the great Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and the Weavers. He also taught Phil how to play the guitar.

Opher Goodwin – Captain Beefheart On Track; Every Album, Every Song

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  by Nicky Crewe

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Opher Goodwin - Captain Beefheart On Track; Every Album, Every Song

intro

Longtime Beefheart enthusiast Opher Goodwin has researched and written an essential reference work for fans old and new. Nicky Crewe takes us through the pages

It could be argued that we can now expect the internet to provide the answers to our curious questions on any topic, but sometimes it’s important to know what questions to ask, and whose information to believe. That’s where the ‘Every Album, Every Song’ series from Sonicbond Publishing steps in. The series is a great resource for those who want to know more about the music and musicians they admire and love. Written by fans who dig deep into the archives and their own experiences, these slim volumes pack a huge amount between the covers. In this one, Opher Goodwin shares some of his own life-changing encounters with Captain Beefheart and his music, coming right up to date with the Magic Band tours of 2014 and 2017. He sets Beefheart’s music and legacy into context, socially and culturally – in his case, John Peel’s radio programme and a significant 1967 London gig at Middle Earth meant he never looked back. Goodwin doesn’t avoid the difficult aspects of Beefheart’s behaviour towards members of his band, especially during the ‘Trout Mask Replica’ era. Some of the stories are as discordant and disturbing as the music they produced. Credit is also given to the roles played by John French, Ry Cooder and Frank Zappa in building Beefheart’s success and lasting reputation and relevance. He both researches and reviews this music that continues to inspire and influence, setting it in context, unpicking some of the stories and myths that have built up around the man and his chosen musicians. As the author his task is to listen with attention to every track: what an amazing opportunity. My own love of Beefheart’s music followed a similar trajectory. I first heard ‘Electricity ‘on the jukebox at the Magic Village, Roger Eagle’s cellar club in Manchester in 1968, and was blown away. I was then introduced to ‘Trout Mask Replica’ and ‘Safe As Milk’. Beefheart’s music may have been an acquired taste, but it was one I acquired quickly. I saw the band at the Bickershaw Festival in 1972, as I was working in a wholefood catering tent right next to the stage. No sleep possible! Roll on another year and I was in a band managed by Roger Eagle (later responsible for Eric’s in Liverpool). Not only did he promote Beefheart’s tours in the UK, but the two of them became close friends, sharing a love of blues music and a similar stature and approach to life. Through Roger, I was invited on the tour bus whenever I was free and got to see much of the ‘Clear Spot ‘tour. I took this opportunity for granted at the time. Many of my friends were musicians, in bands with varying degrees of success. I still have my gifted copies of ‘Spotlight Kid’ and ‘Clear Spot’ from those days, and over the years I have come to realise how privileged and fortunate I was to have had such an adventure. I followed Beefheart’s new releases for many years, but for me those two albums stand out. They contained songs that were unexpectedly tender and poetic, as well as harking back to the delta blues that Beefheart was so influenced by, and they are forever associated too with that particular period of my young life. Sometimes when I walk in to a cafe, club or shop, I unexpectedly hear one of Beefheart’s songs. My heart leaps: it’s a little piece of magic for the day. It happened to me last week with ‘Too Much Time’, which led to a conversation with a young barista, about the same age now as I was when I met Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band. It’s fantastic that people are still discovering him, still sharing his music, as his legacy continues to grow. Opher Goodwin’s book covers the official albums, the compilations, rarities and bootlegs and the live albums. There’s information about the offshoot band Mallard, and the reformed Magic Band, and the solo projects of all those who passed through that legendary band. There’s even a section on tributes and covers. Sometimes I wonder if you can know too much: when I was 16 I didn’t need to know the hows and whys to respond to the music, the voice, the presence and the genius, but now I find those back stories fascinating, and I owe Opher Goodwin my thanks.

Phil Ochs On Track: Every Album, Every Song Paperback – Due out – 27 Sept. 2024

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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!

Roy Harper – On Track – Every Album, Every Song

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Introduction

Roy Harper is a unique individual and an innovative songwriter who took his first uncharacteristically tentative steps into the London folk scene during the mid-1960s. He was born on 12 June 1941 into the middle of World War II, his mother sadly dying a few days later from mastitis: a common breast infection, nowadays easily treatable. The loss of his mother, naturally, had a lifelong impact on Roy’s personality. His father married again, but his stepmother was a strict, religious woman, and Roy’s life of rebellion began.

   His first memory is of being held in someone’s arms, looking towards a red glow on the horizon, and being told, ‘Manchester’s really copping it tonight’. As a wayward child, his younger years were marked by constant trouble, both at home and school. On one occasion, he was found many miles from home, pedalling his trike towards Liverpool. His dislike of the religion his stepmother imposed, led to him performing pagan ceremonies and burying effigies in his back garden.

   As a child, Harper lived in the genteel town of Lytham St Annes: a place he once described as a cemetery with a bus stop. The tedium of life in the drowsy town portrayed a conservative ethos he fought against. Moving into his teenage years, minor incidents progressed into more serious crimes. He and a small group of friends alternated between running free in the countryside and conducting shoplifting and vandalism sprees. These activities ranged from stealing chocolates in Woolworths to breaking into Lytham’s cricket pavilion. They drank the booze they found inside, then burnt the building to the ground.

   On one occasion, Roy and a friend rampaged through the town, pulling up freshly planted roadside saplings, then hoisting a weighing machine through the public toilets’ window. Exhausted, they searched for somewhere to put their heads down and broke into a garage. Falling asleep in a car, they were discovered the following morning: by the owner, who, unfortunately, happened to be a policeman.

   Continued rebellion and a string of minor offences culminated in Roy’s arrest. He was found guilty of daubing swastikas and a hammer and sickle on the town hall – the act ostensibly a protest aimed at the councillors (who he considered to be a bunch of Nazis) and against the Russian invasion of Hungary. It was sufficient to produce a double-spread article with photos in the Daily Mirror.

   This was just the beginning.

   At fifteen – in order to escape from his stepmother and the mayhem he had created – Roy signed up to the Royal Air Force for five years, with dreams of becoming a pilot. But life in the RAF was not how he imagined. He tried boxing, which provided some respite, but the unremitting discipline and tedium of life as a serviceman became unbearable. After two years, he knew he had to get out. Without the cash to buy his discharge, Roy decided to feign madness – not too difficult a task in his case. He successfully convinced the military doctors, and the RAF discharged him, but only as far as RAF Princess Mary’s mental institution, where he was assessed and treated. There being sectioned, he was forcibly medicated with lithium and largactyl, and even subjected to electric shock therapy. Eventually transferred to Lancaster Moor Hospital, Roy decided that in order to keep his ‘insanity’, he had to escape. Being of slight build, he was able to squeeze through a fanlight window and flee. I have a mental image of him, wearing one of those gowns that tie at the back, racing across the grass and scaling the wall – although I’m sure it probably wasn’t quite like that.

   Now on the run, Roy headed for Blackpool, where he became immersed in the bohemian subculture. As a self-proclaimed hashish-smoking beatnik, he discovered the world of Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs and began to write poetry.

   However, he continued with his reckless ways. Undeterred by the risk of being caught and sent back to the institution, Roy resumed his rampage through life. On one evening – at a party that was running out of booze – he climbed onto shop roofs, intending to break into an off-licence. Crashing through a skylight, he found himself miraculously unscathed but on the floor of a chemist. Unable to open the dangerous drugs cupboard, he settled for a bottle of amphetamines and a jar of pennies, proceeding to sit on the seashore, swallowing a handful of the pills and throwing pennies into the water.

Captain Beefheart – Every Album, Every Song

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Introduction

Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band are probably the weirdest band that ever existed, and possibly the best. Many people have described a gig they attended as life-changing. Few would’ve been as life-changing as my first Captain Beefheart gig.

   In 1967 I was 18 years old, supposedly studying for A-levels, but actually undergoing a more serious study of girls, music, Kerouac and the burgeoning underground scene. I was working long shifts through Friday nights at a Lyons bakery, where I met another crazy longhair called Mike. Mike was a little older than me and was seriously into underground music: particularly psychedelia and acid rock. He was a student of English Literature at York University and had the longest hair around: a major credential at the time. He never brushed or combed his hair (believing that it caused split ends), but he ran his fingers through to rid his hair of major tangles. Mike enthused about going to UFO and Middle Earth in London to drop acid and dance all night to bands like Pink Floyd. He was into the West Coast acid rock scene and knew about every band in the Los Angeles/San Francisco area before they’d even released an album. We spent many happy hours sitting in his room, where Mike would fascinate me with the debut albums of The Doors, Country Joe and the Fish, Love and Quicksilver Messenger Service. We were in a world of our own.

   Apart from John Peel, who played these jewels on his wonderful late-night radio show Perfumed Garden, no one else seemed to have heard of this treasure trove of music. John Peel championed Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, claiming they were the best band on the planet. He not only played them on his show but ferried Don and the band around to gigs and introduced them onstage. Peel carried a lot of weight in the underground scene, which is probably why Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band were better known and had more of a following here in Britain, than their native USA.

   I first heard Beefheart’s Safe As Milk at Mike’s on the day of its release. To say I was bowled over is an understatement. I was into both the blues and psychedelia, but this seemed to combine the two in a way that blasted your mind and body into atoms. It shook me, and I was hooked. I’d never heard anything like it. By this time I was also going to London underground clubs Middle Earth, UFO, The Roundhouse, The Marquee and Les Cousins. For me it was to see mainly Pink Floyd, Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, Jimi Hendrix and Roy Harper. When I heard that Captain Beefheart was going to play at Middle Earth, I was ecstatic. There was only one problem: I was in the midst of my A-level exams. I had been offered a provisional place at university, and needed the grades, but music was more important to me, and besides, my biology exam was a week away. Surely I could afford a night off. High on adrenalin, I drove to London on my trusty motorbike, only to discover that the gig had been postponed. Beefheart’s bassist Jerry Handley was ill, and they’d been replaced by the Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation. Now, I quite liked Aynsley Dunbar, but he was no substitute for Captain Beefheart, who was rescheduled for the following week as a double bill with John Mayall (another favourite of mine). That made it an absolute must.

   The gig was now going to be the night before my A-level biology exam. If I went, I wouldn’t be home until 3:00 a.m., and my exam started at 9:00 a.m.. I would have no last-minute revision, and I’d be knackered. Still, needs must. No choice! It was truly one of the best gigs I have ever been to. I can’t remember anything about John Mayall that night, but Beefheart just blew me away! Needless to say, I didn’t get the required grade, and the course of my life changed. However, I’d seen Captain Beefheart in all his glory! I wouldn’t change that even if I could.

   The 1960s were a time of liberal views and creativity. Following World War II and the 1950s austerity, a generation of rebellious teenagers emerged. Fired with optimism, confidence and naivety, they sought to throw off the shackles of conformity and break out from the conservatism of their parents’ generation. This was the new age, and young people saw a world of new possibilities, with waves of creativity in fashion, art, writing, dance, architecture and, most of all, music. Social norms were being rejected. There were protests against the Vietnam war, marches for civil rights, a burgeoning spirit of environmentalism, feminism and equality, coupled with a rejection of the establishment. These sparked great social and political change. Young people had a voice, and they wanted to be heard. Minds were opened. Clothes were colourful. Hair was long. Music was loud. The hair, clothes, attitudes and protest weren’t a fashion, they were symbols of a new way of living; an alternative to the establishment.

   The underground movement had an impact on the mainstream. Young people were dropping out, departing on adventures to exotic third-world countries and delving into new religions and cultures. They were appreciating the world’s beauty without needing lots of money. At that time of great social change, many young people were convinced there was a better way to live. They were experimenting with communal living, getting back to nature, dropping out of the rat race, opposing the whole money-driven greed and warmongering attitudes. These were attempts at a simpler, better way of life.

Neil Young – 1963 – 1970 Every Album, Every Song

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Introduction

Neil Young is the vagabond chameleon, easily bored and always searching for something new. His wild, maverick spirit and surging creative energies have always been given free rein, his commitment always total. For Neil, ever since his childhood, when he found himself moving house so many times, change has been the norm. But whatever it is he’s doing, it’s always 100%.

   Neil is the rock ‘n’ roll gypsy, always on the move, never parking his caravan long in any one spot. As Neil said in his autobiography Waging Heavy Peace: ‘I have a thing for transportation, cars, boats, trains. Travelling. I like moving’.

   Fame and fortune were rarely his motivation, as he worshipped his art, the music always came first. There was never any compromise. Friendships, lovers and relationships were sacrificed on the altar of his obsessive music.

   Whereas most rock musicians went into music to pull the chicks (Jimmy McDonough quotes Graham Nash in his biography Shakey: ‘anyone who tells you that they didn’t get into rock ‘n’ roll to get laid is lying’), that was not the case with Neil, he was the exception – Neil went into it for the music. Indeed, in the early days, there was no time for girls. Jimmy quotes Neil’s mother Rassy: ‘Neil didn’t have any girlfriends. He was too busy playing music’.

   That love of the seminal excitement of rock music never diminished. In later years, following the advent of digital sounds and the MP3, he set off on a musical crusade to take digital music back to the quality of the analogue sounds that first gave him that transcendental spiritual experience he had felt as a youth. He wants future generations to experience the delight and rapture that so moved him when he was young. He thinks they are being short-changed.

   Like his lurching, rhythmic movements when straining notes out of his guitar during a performance (maybe a nod to that polio he suffered as a child?), his career has constantly lurched from one thing to another. He’s burnt his way through various styles and genres with wildly different moods, as his muse latched on to a variety of obsessive interests – never predictable or safe, never with a thought for commercial impact, always giving everything, striving to connect with the muse that had infected him as a boy. If something caught his attention, he went into it full pelt. Nothing held back.

   It was that constant striving that drove him to become one of the greatest songwriters and performers of the rock ‘n’ roll era, and certainly one of the most prolific.

   He’s rampaged through styles, bands and musicians like a raging comet, always looking for the next project, something he could lose himself in and become fixated on. It’s a thirst that has never ceased.

Bob Dylan – On Track – 1962 to 1970 every album, every song

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This is the start of the introduction:

Introduction  

I was fortunate to be introduced to Bob Dylan’s music at the young age of thirteen, though I did not fully appreciate that at the time.

    A good friend of mine by the name of Charlie Mutton had purchased Bob’s debut album shortly after it was released and he was smitten. That was peculiar. Up to that time we had been listening to chart material and old rock ‘n’ roll.  Heaven knows where Mutt picked up on Dylan’s first album. I don’t remember it being either popular or available in my neck of the woods. We weren’t big on ‘folk’ music. However, my ears weren’t tuned in to the raw, nasally sound of Bob’s folk-blues and, although I listened all the way through and even appreciated a number of the tracks, I was not greatly impressed. Mutt was more clued up and assured me that Dylan was going to be huge and if he’d only release a single it would be a top ten hit. I remained quietly sceptical.

   Mutt was incredibly prophetic. Subsequent albums and the ‘Times They Are A Changin’’ single did just as he had predicted. Bob Dylan went on to become one of the most important figures in the history of rock music. Not only did he change the face of rock music but he also had a profound effect on the direction of youth culture. Once I’d ‘got it’, and my ears became more accustomed, I too was utterly smitten.

   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, great 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?

 The Early Life of Bob Dylan (An extract from my Bob Dylan On Track book) 

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 The Early Life of Bob Dylan (An extract from my Bob Dylan On Track book) 

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

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 several 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 Gunn. Despite his naked enthusiasm, the bands didn’t take off – they had nowhere to go – but they did bring him some local notoriety and attract the girls. He was very much into girls and rock music was both a magnet and an 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 several bands, and absorbed a huge range of musical styles and traditions from rock ‘n’ roll, r&b, 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 must begin 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 absconded from home seven times (at the age of ten, twelve, thirteen, fifteen, fifteen and a half, seventeen and eighteen). 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 a rather 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, he persuaded his mother to help him out. 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. Upon 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 focused 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 studying and he soon dropped out.

   As soon as he reached Minnesota, he left behind the image of Elston Gunnn, abandoned rock ‘n’ roll, took up the acoustic guitar and came under the spell of a new genre. His introduction to folk was Odetta: ‘The first thing that turned me on to folk was Odetta – something vital and personal.’ Later hediscovered a new master; Woody Guthrie loomed like a giant on the scene. He was introduced to Woody by Flo Castner, a wacky actress and waitress. On first hearing the songs, his head was spinning: ‘It was like the land parted’. The young eighteen-year-old Bobby was completely blown away. He hadn’t heard anything like it before. Woody songs were ‘All I wanted to sing’. Years later, he wrote in his biography Chronicles: ‘I had been in the dark and someone turned on the main switch of a lightning conductor.’Zimmerman immersed himself in the burgeoning folk-blues scene and the social commentary of Woody Guthrie.

   Bob settled into life in Minnesota, living hand to mouth, playing the coffee bars where baskets were passed around 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. However, 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 20, 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: to meet his new idol Woody Guthrie and 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.

   The Greenwich Village scene was based around several 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, and 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 Woody-esque 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.

   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!