6 - 1 - Dylan as the New American Songwriter (1153)

7/21/2019 6 - 1 - Dylan as the New American Songwriter (1153)

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Welcome to Week 5 of the History of Rock,Part One.this week we're going to talk about theAmerican response to the Britishinvasion.Just to review our story up to this pointwe [UNKNOWN], we've already talked aboutthat first wave of Rock and Roll between1955 and 59.All those folks like Elvis and BuddyHolly, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, and theway in which much of the energy of thatsort of dissipated by the time we get tothe end of the 1950s into 1959.You know, February 1959 being the daythat Buddy Holly went down in the planecrash and often called [UNKNOWN] the day,the day that music died.Then we talked about that period betweenthe end of the 1950's, the first half ofthe 1960s up to 1964 when The Beatlesarrived and asked the question was thiswas this a great period for pop music or

was this, in fact, a kind of a dark agesbetween Elvis and The Beatles.Then, The Beatles arrived in February of1964 and in, with, with the rise of theBritish invasion, the impression isalways given that it, it changed rockmusic considerably, especially changedthe American market because, you know,that period between 60 and 63 had beenall about trying to find the next Elvis.And it turned out that none of the thingsthey did during 60 through 63 wereactually the next Elvis.

It turned out the next Elvis were theBeatles.Of course, the Beatles coming fromEngland, that's the first time an Englishgroup, a British group, had ever reallybroken through in America in, in the waythe Beatles did.So, in many ways, the, the two sort of,big figures in our history so far areElvis and the Beatles.When this British invasion occurs, as Isaid it, it, it doesn't disrupt as muchas many historians or, or music

journalists will often say, but it diddisrupt, disrupt the American musicbusiness a lot.And a lot of American musicians felt likethese British musicians were, were reallytaking part of the business away fromthem.And so what we want to talk about thisweek is the response that Americanartists had during this period, roughly



from the, the 63, 64 period, up throughabout 67, 68.Although by that time we get done thisweek we'll push some parts of ourdiscussion up to the early 1970.So lets, let's start now talking aboutthe American response.Start with probably the most importantAmerican figure, arguably the mostimportant American figure in our historyfor the 1960s.And that's Bob Dylan.Bob Dylan's importance here is that heestablishes a kind of a new model of whatit is to be a songwriter in popularmusic.up to now, out, our model has really beenthe Brill Building kind of songwriters.You know, the professional songwriterswho, who who wrote songs almost by orderin a, in a kind of craftsmanly kind oftalk, a kind of way.And when we talk about The Beatles, wetalk about how they move from that model

in 64 63, 64 to something more like anartist's model, Tomorrow Never Knows from19 66 Strawberry Fields and Penny Lanefrom early 1967.There's a real change from the craftsmanmodel to the artist model.Well, Dylan is right in the center of allthat too, and there's a lot ofinteraction really between The Beatlesand Dylan.And a lot of influence going both ways.So, let's, let's talk a little bit aboutDylan.

Dylan began his career in New York'sGreenwich Village in the early 60s, butas I've pointed out before, did not havehis first hits as a performer reallyuntil the summer of 1965.So really those first few Dylan albumswere really only known to people whounderstood what the sort of purist folkmovement was.Not even the folk revival.I mean, the folk revival was really aboutPeter, Paul, and Mary, it was about theKingston Trio, the New Chrinsty, New

Christy Minstrels, groups like that.Not people like, so much like Bob Dylanand even Joan Baez.Dylan, born in Duluth, Minnesota, raisedin Hibbing.his his given name is Robert AllenZimmerman.By changing his name to Bob Dylan, theDylan part coming from the influence of,of the poet Dylan Thomas.



in 1959, he enrolls in the University ofMinnesota.And his first musical interests were inrock and roll.I mean a kid growing up, 1955 to 1957,you're going to be listening to ChuckBerry and, and later Buddy Holly andElvis.So that's kind of what Dylan was doing,playing some guitar piano in differentgroups.But with the rise, rise of the folkrevival Dylan got increasingly interestedin folk and, and fash-, fashioned himselfas a kind of of, of a folk singer andvery much in the, in the under theinfluence of Woody Guthrie.So he starts to play the, the folkcircuit around the University ofMinnesota and that region.And eventually, he moves to New YorkCity, to Greenich Village where that'sreally where things are happening.as I said his early image, his early act

really based on, on, on Woody Gutherie.Woody Guthrie, by that time was reallyquite ill with Huntington's Disease andwas in a hospital there.Dylan, as the story goes, would visitWoody Guthrie quite often and in manyways according to the, the, the storiesand the accounts that come from the folkcommunities, almost sort of pass themantle from Woody Guthrie to Bob Dylan.And it's sort of Dylan that became sortof the new star, or over a certain periodof time, became the new star of this,

this folk movement.so, Dylan comes to Greenwich Village, hestarts to play around in different clubs.He sees what the other more experiencedguys are doing and starts to imitatethat.it's interesting that people don't thinkabout this too much, but early in Dylan'scareer a lot of his stage show his, hisperforming had to do with his rapportwith the audience and almost a kind of akind of a comedy thing that he would dosometimes.

A dry kind of comedy, for sure.Nothing sort of slap stick or loungyabout it.But there was an element of him you knowclowning and fooling with the, with thecrowd a little bit.We tend to think about Bob Dylan as beingsort of deadly earnest so much the timeor maybe just a little bit sort ofsarcastic or ironic but, in this case he,



he, he, he really did try to connect and,and, the in a minute I'll talk about someof the tunes were you can sort of seethis in their early stuff.So anyway Dylan makes a great impressionaround New York and is signed to ColumbiaRecords by a fella by the name of JohnHammond in the fall of 1961.And remember this is all way beforeanybody really knows who Bob Dylan isgoing to to be.he releases this album, his first albumcalled Bob Dylan in March of 1962 and itsold really poorly.some, some reports are that it maybe onlysold 5,000 copies in the first year.I mean, this is Bob Dylan we're talkingabout here.so, so much so that around ColumbiaRecords since John Hammond had signed himDylan was sort of referred to asHammond's Folly, right?In other words, he, he sort of made made[UNKNOWN] a real misstep, with signing

Bob Dylan.But Bob Dylan ended up signing with amanager by the name of Albert Grossman inAugust of 62.And, this guy Grossman really knew how tomanage Bob Dylan's career.Not unlike Elvis signing with Colonel TomParker back in in the mid 1950s and whatGrossman was able to do was to helpedsort of reshape Dylan, reshape the word,the, the, the ideas around him the, the,the press on him.And there was, there was some friction

between Albert Grossman and John Hammond.And so Hammond stopped producing Dylan.And another guy came in, Tom Wilson.I wouldn't normally mention that, thatseems like a small detail, but Tom Wilsonproducing Dylan is going to play a biggerrole in our story than, than, than justthe Dylan early albums.that early The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan,his second album from May of 1963 isproduced by Tom Wilson.and again, Dylan is getting a reputationinside the folk community but is not very

well known.He's more what, he's more known as as asongwriter.his tune Blowin' in the Wind becomes abig hit for Peter, Paul, and Mary in thesummer of 1963.Dylan also recorded his version ofBlowin' in the Wind.But his version of it, even though it'smaybe more popular and better known to



people now back in the day that, thatwould have been seen as not suitable forradio play.Dylan's voice being, not sounding veryprofessional or very trained and theharmonica playing to go with it that,that just, it just wouldn't really have,have cut it by professional standards.So a smoother sounding group like PeterPaul and Mary were able to have a hitwith one of his songs.that album, The Times They Are a-Changin'comes from January of 1964.another side of Bob Dylan from August of1964, all these albums I've mentionedwere essentially not really big hitalbums for Bob Dylan.It didn't turn him into a performingstar.They were more sort of catalogs of hissongs.Well, the, the idea of folk performer, wetalked about this when we talked aboutthe period between 60 and 63, is that

they, they engage more serious issuesthan maybe your average teen idol or girlgroup does.And so Dylan was very much working inthat tradition and meant that he wasplaying a lot of traditional songs,traditional folk songs that, that wentback to the nineteenth century and evenfurther back than, that dealt with socialissues.Issues of, you know social equality andjustice and this kind of thing.But as he continued to develop, Dylan

began to develop as a song writerhimself.Now the idea of writing your own songsdeveloping your own sort of language, ismaybe a little bit, and becameincreasingly at odds, with the idea ofwriting songs about the collective orbeing part of a kind of of a tradition inthe sense of, of, of giving new meaningto traditional tunes.So, in many ways, one of the criticismsthat's brought against Dylan as he beginsto sort of not only developed as a

songwriter but begin to expand past theidea of the traditional folk singer isthat he took the we in folk music andturned it into a me.And that move from the we to the me is,is, is in doing so, he's really creatingthe singer songwriter model, which somany were going to follow after him.think about the different kinds of songsthat he did early in his career.



Blowin' in the Wind, for example is akind of social and political kind ofmessage but for the sort of comic kind ofstuff, this talking blues thing he woulddo or he would kind of josh and, and,and, and make jokes and stuff like that.a great example of that is a track calledMotoPsycho Nitemare from one of the earlyalbums.And then there were romantic sort ofalmost kind of love songs like a Girlfrom the North Country.If you really want to hear a tune thatreally I think sets the, sets thestandard of what the singers songwritersthing is going to be, it would be, Don'tThink Twice, It's All Right is, is agreat tune sort of shows the craftedDylan's songwriting and really starts tobecome what we're going to start toexpect from singer-songwriters.And that's a long wave from Don't Think,there's a big difference between Don'tThink Twice It's All Right and Blowin' in

the Wind in terms of the focus.Don't Think Twice It's All, Its All Rightis all about Dylan talking about arelationship that's gone bad w-, w-, withhis, with his girlfriend.And Blowin' in the Wind is all aboutsocial change and justice and thiskind of thing.And it's this trajectory away from thefolk toward the singer-songwriter, whichis going to be Dylan's importantcontribution.In the next video, we'll talk a little

bit more in depth about how folk rock wasborn and how Dylan's change during thisperiod, leading up to the summer of 1965and, and his, his, his change towardsbeing more of a singer-songwriter and histurn to electric instruments reallybecame an important part of the Americanresponse to the British invasion.[BLANK_AUDIO]

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6 - 1 - Dylan as the New American Songwriter (1153)