On Tuesday, Bob Dylan is going to celebrate his 70th birthday. What better excuse could there be for the next Punch Table themed week?
Despite having released 34 studio albums, as well as many live albums and compilations, his officially recorded and released material tells nowhere near the full story. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of commercially released bootlegs available around the world, documenting live shows and studio outtakes from throughout his 50-year career. For the next 7 days, all the SOTDs will be taken from Dylan bootlegs, and I'll throw in a bit of extra information about that period in Dylan's career. There is so much to get through that I don't think we'll get much beyond the first part of his career, but that will leave us plenty of material of future Dylan features! I wouldn't necessarily recommend these tracks as the best way into Dylan if you've not really heard much before. Before you listen to any of these, you should probably make sure you've listened to 'Blonde on Blonde', 'Blood On The Tracks' and 'The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan' - between them, these albums cover most of the important directions Dylan's music headed in over the first (and best) 15 years of his career.
The first song featured is from the very early stages of Dylan's career. Originally from Duluth, Minnesota, Dylan move to New York in 1961 to learn his trade from the variety of folk musicians that then inhabited the cafes of Greenwich Village, most notable among them the invalid Woody Guthrie, who Dylan had idolised ever since his days in high school rock'n'roll bands. Playing mostly covers of old folk and blues standards, his style quickly evolved over the course of the year between his arrival there and the release of his debut album in March 1962. By the time it was released, 6 months after the recordings had been completed, he was effectively a completely different person to that captured on the record. A bootleg recorded in a Minnesota hotel room that I reviewed a few months ago contains some the best performances I have heard by Dylan from this period. I have chosen 'I Was Young When I Left Home' to represent this early stage, both due to the apt title and because it was exactly what Dylan was about at this stage of his career - a lovely fingerpicked folk song, adapted from the traditional '900 Miles', a favourite of Woody Guthrie.
Bob Dylan - I Was Young When I Left Home
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