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“I’ve been travellin’ the country, following in Woody Guthrie’s footsteps,” said Bob Dylan, the first time he took to the stage in New York. Ever the recluse and unable to make a home for himself in the place where he was born, he embodied the role of wayfaring stranger, with nothing but a guitar on his back and a creative desire to make music like his heroes.
It didn’t take long for Bob Dylan to be recognised as one of the greatest musical minds in the folk scene. He started his career playing nearly exclusively covers, which people enjoyed, but it was when he began writing his own music that things really took off. There was something about his voice, playing style, and beautiful lyricism that captured people’s hearts worldwide.
He had his big rise to fame in the mid-1960s, around the same time that The Beatles were enjoying their success in the States. The two found themselves in the same conversations and in similar circles, which Bob Dylan was never against, but it’s a push to say that he was ever a huge fan of The Beatles. When they eventually met, he influenced their sound a great deal, to the extent that many people criticise The Beatles’ Rubber Soul album as a poor imitation of Dylan.
None were more frustrated listening to the album than Dylan himself. He still felt like an outcast in the music industry, and found it frustrating that the people who had been widely accepted by the mainstream were trying to sound like him.
“I would like to be accepted by the Hogtown Dispatch literary crowd who wear violets in their crotch and make sure they get all the movie and TV reviews and also write about all the ladies’ auxiliary meetings and the PTA gatherings, you know, all in the same column,” he said, “I would like to be accepted by them people. But I don’t think I’m ever going to be, whereas The Beatles have been.”
He continued, talking specifically about the Rubber Soul album, “What is this? It’s me, Bob. [John’s] doing me! Even Sonny and Cher are doing me, but, fucking hell, I invented it.”
Dylan wasn’t a fan of many of his contemporaries at the time, and the praise was reserved for the artists from whom he had taken influence. He mentioned Woody Guthrie on stage during one of his first performances in New York, and one of the other artists he felt was a big inspiration was Ricky Nelson. Specifically, Dylan was a big fan of his song ‘Lonesome Town’, but with an ear for both good music and music that will resonate with the public, he recognised Nelson’s sound as something that had a strict expiry date. It goes to show that with someone as critical as Dylan, even a compliment can’t be expected without a backhanded critique added on the end.
“His voice was sort of mysterious and made you fall into a certain mood. I had been a big fan of Ricky’s and still liked him,” said Dylan, “But that type of music was on its way out. It had no chance of meaning anything.”
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