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.