Bob Dylan's Modern Times album has brought new acclaim to the legendary artist, who - 45 years after his first album - returns to the live stage this year. Johnny Black reports (credit Music Week).

 

"Bob Dylan is a large part of the reason I took this job," reveals Columbia (UK) label group MD Mike Smith. "I actually grew up with punk, but Dylan has this way of reaching out across the generations. One day, I just woke up and realised I owned every album he'd ever released."

 

Despite an illustrious, high-profile career spanning just under half a century, Bob Dylan remains essentially an enigma, as does much of his music.

 

Before Dylan, rock fans discussing song lyrics were never heard to utter the immortal phrase, "Yes, man, but what does it really mean?" Fifties rock'n'roll was transparent, but Sixties rock in the wake of Dylan could be as opaque, impenetrable, meaningful or just plain far out as the new breed of songwriters he'd inspired cared to make it.

 

So, although Bob Dylan has lived his life in the spotlight and been the subject of learned treatises, university courses and countless books, he remains essentially unknowable. He changed the course of popular music, was hailed as the spokesman for his generation, derided as a traitor to his folk roots and provided inspiration to everyone from The Beatles to Jimi Hendrix and beyond.

 

And yet, through it all, Dylan has proved the master of disguise and deception, refusing to be pigeon-holed and keeping his private life remarkably free from the intrusions of an intensely curious world, free even from the obsessive fan AJ Weberman, who notoriously scrutinised the contents of Dylan¹s rubbish bins in search of clues to the man and his music.

 

Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman in Duluth, Minnesota, on May 24, 1941. The son of a furniture store owner, he was exposed to music from an early age. "The first thing that turned me on to singing was Odetta," he has said, speaking of one of America¹s greatest early folk singers.

 

He bought himself a Silvertone guitar by the time he was 12 and became immersed in folk music, but, like most Fifties teenagers, he soon found a new place to dwell.

"When I first heard Elvis's voice I just knew that I wasn¹t going to work for anybody; and nobody was going to be my boss." Smitten by rock'n'roll, Hibbing High School student Dylan was in the audience when Buddy Holly played in Duluth on January 31, 1959.

 

"He was incredible," Dylan has recalled. "I'll never forget the image of seeing Buddy Holly up on the bandstand. And he died,­ it must have been a week after that."

 

Almost inevitably, it was with Fifties rock'n'roll that Dylan got his first break in the music business, playing piano for teen crooner Bobby Vee, but, by January 1961, when he re-located to New York's bitterly cold Greenwich Village, a folk music revival was in full swing and he was a folk singer again.

 

Scuffling for gigs in tiny clubs where the only fee was whatever the audience cared to throw into a basket, Dylan slowly made his way up through the massed ranks of acoustic troubadours, securing a regular slot at Gerde's Folk City, supporting folk and blues greats including John Lee Hooker and Lightnin' Hopkins. These live shows drew plaudits from his contemporaries, artists such as Joan Baez and Tom Paxton, but it was a review by influential New York Times critic Robert Shelton that propelled Dylan on to higher realms.

 

After Shelton watched the increasingly proficient and charismatic Dylan upstage the Gerde's headline act, The Greenbriar Boys, his ecstatic review described the newcomer as "a cross between a choirboy and a beatnik" who was "bursting at the seams with talent". In a scenario straight out of a movie musical, Columbia Records legendary A&R man John Hammond showed up at Gerde's the next day and was blown away.

 

Dylan signed with Columbia on October 26, recorded his debut album over three days in November and saw it released in March 1962. Featuring only three Dylan originals, its lack of success led many industry insiders to dub Dylan "Hammond's folly", but the veteran talent finder, who had previously signed such legends as Billie Holiday and Count Basie, knew exactly what he had in his folknik protege.

 

"His guitar playing," recalled Hammond later, "was rudimentary and his harmonica was barely passable, but he had a sound and a point of view and an idea. He was very disenchanted with our social system. I encouraged him to put all his hostility on tape, because I figured this was the way, really, to get to the true Bob Dylan."

 

Hammond was, of course, exactly right. A month after releasing the album, Dylan wrote his first classic, Blowin' In The Wind, which appeared on his second album, The Freewheelin', in May 1963, alongside other originals including Don't Think Twice It's All Right, Masters Of War and A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall. This was the album that confirmed Hammond's faith and rocketed Dylan past the competition to become America's number one folk singer.

 

Bruce Johnson of The Beach Boys was just one of many rock artists who were turned on to Dylan by that album. "It wasn't his voice, it was his songs," explained Johnson. "He moved songwriting away from the traditional ‘moon-June’ rhymes.†Meanwhile, Dylan made his live debut in England, playing his first gig almost unheralded in London’s Pindar Of Wakefield pub, then securing free entrance to The Troubadour on condition that he play.

 

“Half the audience loved it,†remembered the club’s Anthea Joseph subsequently, “but the other half hated it.â€

 

Dylan’s burgeoning career received a huge boost when Peter, Paul & Mary took their version of Blowin’ In The Wind to number two in America during August 1963 and, for a while, it looked as if Dylan’s biggest successes might come as a songwriter rather than a performer. Johnny Cash, Marianne Faithfull, The Turtles, Manfred Mann and countless others rushed to record his material, but, by the time The Byrds hit number one in America with their folk-rock interpretation of Mr Tambourine Man in June 1965, Dylan could see that the writing was on the wall and the wall was made of rock.

 

In fact, he’d known it from the moment he first heard The Beatles. “I knew they were pointing in the direction where music had to go,†he said later. “In my head, The Beatles were it.â€

 

But, as the golden boy of America’s folk movement, Dylan’s decision to go electric unleashed a barrage of scorn, derision and ridicule against him. The move brought him the chart success he wanted, with the record-breakingly long Like A Rolling Stone entering the top five on both sides of the Atlantic, but it also exposed him to extraordinarily hostile audiences at high-profile gigs including the Newport Folk Festival and Forest Hills Tennis Stadium, with the final insult coming with the legendary cry of “Judas!†at Manchester’s Free Trade Hall.

 

Once he’d endured the onslaught, however, critics and public alike were won over by epochal electric albums like Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde, in which Dylan set the international bench-marks for years to come in terms of musical inspiration, lyrical perception and gutsy performances. Highway 61 has been singled out by some critics as the first “rock†as opposed to “rock’n’roll†album, while Blonde On Blonde wins hands down as the all-time Dylan fans’ favourite.

 

When Blonde On Blonde’s raucously sardonic Rainy Day Women Nos 12 & 35 rocketed to number two in America, the world appeared to be Dylan’s oyster until the fateful moment on July 25, 1966, when he crashed his Triumph 500 motorcycle near his home in Woodstock. Serious neck injuries kept him out of circulation for almost 18 months, but the legend grew in his absence.

 

Although typically reticent about the crash, he has commented, “When I had that motorcycle accident ... I woke up and caught my senses, I realised that I was just workin’ for all these leeches. And I really didn’t want to do that.â€

 

During his recuperation, Dylan and his backing musicians, now known as The Band, focused on recording much more earthy, rootsy material including The Mighty Quinn and This Wheel’s On Fire. Although not officially released until 1975 (as The Basement Tapes) these sessions formed the basis of the first widely distributed bootleg album, Great White Wonder, and also provided hits for artists including Manfred Mann and Julie Driscoll/Brian Auger.

 

It was 1968 before Dylan returned officially with the country-flavoured John Wesley Harding. Superficially it seemed a simpler affair than his rock albums, but, as always, Dylan’s inscrutable lyrics lent themselves to a multitude of interpretations and the album’s many biblical references foreshadowed a dramatic change that would not fully manifest itself for another decade. As well as restoring Dylan to the upper reaches of the international album charts, John Wesley Harding would, in due course, provide major hits for Jimi Hendrix (All Along The Watchtower) and Robert Palmer (I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight).

 

Going deeper up country, 1969’s Nashville Skyline spent four weeks at number one in the UK and included a duet with Johnny Cash on Girl From The North Country which reached number three in the USA. Also from Nashville Skyline, Lay Lady Lay brought Dylan his final US and UK Top 10 hit single. That August, fully restored to his position as the world’s pre-eminent singer-songwriter, he headlined the Isle of Wight Festival, earning £35,000 for an hour’s performance, with The Beatles cross-legged in the audience.

 

The early Seventies, by contrast, were relatively low-key, with albums such as Self-Portrait, New Morning and the soundtrack to Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid (in which Dylan had an amusing cameo) completing his Columbia contract respectably, but finding significantly less critical acclaim. Even from such lean times, however, his best material, such as the gospel-tinged Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door, would prove timeless in hit versions by Eric Clapton and Guns N’Roses.

 

Although his stock as a recording artist was low, demand for Dylan in concert soared to an all-time high; 660,000 tickets were available for 1974’s 39-date US tour, but over 5m applications flooded in.

 

A move to Asylum Records (Island in the UK) proved a mis-step. Even though his first Asylum album, Planet Waves, was also his first US chart-topper, it suffered a lukewarm reception from the critics and the live double-album Before The Flood held no great surprises.

 

But, just as he had done after the motorcycle crash, Dylan confounded his critics and rose again. Returning to Columbia, he released Blood On The Tracks in 1975, a vital and fiery depiction of the break-up of his marriage to Sara Lownds. Still regarded as an essential Dylan artefact, it found favour with critics and public alike, returning him to number one in the US and number four in the UK.

 

This was also the album where Columbia’s Mike Smith climbed aboard. “I’d heard it when I was about 12, but didn’t manage to buy a copy ‘til I was 18. I know you’re supposed to start with Highway 61 or Blonde On Blonde, but there was something darker and more biting about that album which really excited me.†Dylan’s next move, The Rolling Thunder Revue, was an ambitious and now legendary tour with regular guest-appearances by artists including Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Roger McGuinn and Roberta Flack, climaxing its 1975 outing with a benefit show in Madison Square Garden for convicted murderer Rubin “Hurricane†Carter. Dylan’s first 1976 album, Desire, was another chart-topper, racking up five weeks at number one in America and securing his first platinum disc, without the boost of any significant hit singles.

 

The rest of the decade, however, found Dylan in the doldrums. His appearance at The Band’s lavish Last Waltz farewell concert in San Francisco was a highlight of that star-studded gathering, but his over-long semi-autobiographical movie Renaldo & Clara left audiences more puzzled than entertained, his live set At The Budokan was received with rather less rapture than his actual live shows (which continued from strength to strength) and his final album of the decade, 1979’s Slow Train Coming, though delivering a second platinum disc and a Grammy Award for his vocals, was too blatantly steeped in born-again Christian sentiments for some critics.

 

Dylan’s songs had long been enriched by judicious religious symbolism, but the evangelistic expressions of faith in this album and its 1980 follow-up, Saved, disturbed many fans, including John Lennon who responded to Dylan’s Gotta Serve Somebody with the humanist-oriented Serve Yourself.

 

Dylan, however, is a law unto himself and all the more fascinating because of it. Even though 1981’s Shot Of Love continued the born-again themes and resulted in his lowest US chart placing since 1964, respect for his achievements brought his long-overdue induction into the Songwriters Hall Of Fame in 1982 and his 1983 album Infidels, produced by Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits, was noticeably better-received than anything since his mid-Seventies renaissance.

 

A liaison with Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers for 1985’s Empire Burlesque curried yet more favour, but a ramshackle, under-rehearsed closing set at Live Aid, with Rolling Stones’ guitarists Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood, left many wondering if the spokesman for his generation had finally run out of useful things to say.

 

Hell, no. Dylan, naturally, had another ace in the hole ­ the five-album retrospective box-set, Biograph, released in January 1986. This platinum-selling 53-song set included 18 unreleased recordings, reminding everyone of exactly why Dylan, despite his ups and downs, had been held in the highest regard for the previous 20 years.

 

Closing out the Eighties was another ambitious tour venture, in which Dylan partnered with the Grateful Dead and he found time to appear in the movie Hearts Of Fire, while also releasing two albums, Knocked Out Loaded and the star-studded Down In The Groove. These were perhaps not his finest moments, but they kept the vast phalanx of the faithful perfectly content and paved the way for Dylan’s next re-birth with his zesty contributions to the mega-star combo The Travelling Wilburys alongside George Harrison, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne.

 

This high point was followed with his induction, by Bruce Springsteen, into the Rock’n’Roll Hall Of Fame and yet another acclaimed solo album, Oh Mercy, nicely rounding off the decade.

 

Despite guest appearances from George Harrison, Elton John and others, 1990’s Under The Red Sky saw Dylan’s rollercoaster taking another dip. It would be seven years before his next self-written studio album, but Dylan was far from inactive. His Lifetime Achievement Grammy kicked 1991 off with a bang, The Bootleg Series Vols 1-3 provided more stimulating glimpses into his huge vault of rare and unreleased recordings and, following record-breaking crowds for his Mexican dates, he launched into what has become known as the Never Ending Tour. Most artists slow down as they age, but Dylan still performs around 100 gigs a year. Asked why by his long-time promoter Barry Dickins of ITB, Dylan succinctly replied, “It’s my job.â€

 

George Harrison, Eric Clapton and Neil Young were among the galaxy of stars who assembled in Madison Square Garden on October 16, 1992, for the Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Celebration and, despite featuring no new Dylan material, that year’s Good As I Been To You, was well-received, as was its follow-up, the Grammy-winning World Gone Wrong. The 1995 MTV Unplugged, a live hits set, was another big seller, but doubts were cast on Dylan’s future when he was hospitalised with the potentially fatal heart ailment pericarditis in 1997. Once restored to health, however, he quipped, “I thought I’d be seeing Elvis soon†and promptly bounced back to peak form with Time Out Of Mind, a platinum-selling, Grammy-winning Album Of The Year which also brought him a host of new younger listeners.

 

The decade saw him move into territory largely uncharted by rock stars, becoming feted not only by the music industry and its artists, but by world leaders. There was an audience with Pope John Paul II, a lifetime achievement award presented by US President Bill Clinton and Oscar-shaped recognition in 2000 for his song Things Have Changed in the film The Wonder Boys.

 

The unexpectedly eclectic Love And Theft, in 2001, found Dylan still restlessly exploring new directions, touching on Western swing, rockabilly and jazz, but despite his resurgent vitality, few would have predicted that its follow-up, Modern Times, would enter the Billboard albums chart at number one in September 2006, making him the oldest living artist to achieve the feat.

 

“We knew this was a great album,†observes Mike Smith, “but the way it took off still surprised us. If somebody had told me at the start of last year that the new Dylan album would go platinum and be his biggest hit in 20 years, I’d have had my reservations.†That said, Columbia wasn’t backward about pushing Modern Times forward.

 

“We see Dylan as a front-line artist, not a heritage act,†asserts Smith, “so the same people that work on Kasabian or The View were working on Dylan and they did a great job, backed up by the iTunes commercial, which placed him in a very contemporary context.†The album’s impact was reaffirmed last week, as it secured two Brit Award nominations.

 

Might Columbia be tempted to promote him with a Las Vegas spectacular and an accompanying re-mix album? Smith laughs.

 

“The Beatles’ Love show, like the Abba and Queen musicals, is a brilliant way to bring an artist who is no longer around to a new generation. But Dylan is very much here and now... and you can go and see him in April.â€

 

 

 

do you like Dylan then? think bryan ferry can vocalise his songs?