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Dylan continues to re-invent himself
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and l think that's a real talent.
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You know, most people
in the music business,
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they come up to bat once,
twice, if they're lucky.
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Dylan doesn't do that.
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Dylan takes different things
and creates something new out of it.
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He absorbs,
not just from the world of music
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but from the world of literature.
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When he puts those two worlds together...
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And he was really pretty much
the first guy in commercial pop music
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to have great success
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that put together commercial music,
commercial rock and roll,
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with any kind of world of literature.
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He inspired...
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everybody.
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Yet he's still a link in the chain
to Clarence Ashley
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and Charlie Poole
and Uncle Dave Macon
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and all those people from the past.
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Dylan is a crossroads
of American literature,
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he's a crossroads of American musics,
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he's a crossroads
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of all sorts of American culture.
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He conquered the world of folk music.
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He moves into electric music.
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He's considered...
lt's a role he didn't want.
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He's considered the voice
of the counter culture. He moves into...
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He dethrones himself. He resigns.
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Then he moves into
country and western music,
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which is considered
the music of the right wing
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or the enemy or those that are pro-military.
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Then he abdicates again
and takes a certain amount of time off.
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He comes back with Blood On The Tracks.
Then he goes into gypsy music.
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Then he becomes
a bit of a big-band entertainer,
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a more broad entertainer
who does between-song patter
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with the Street Legal
and Live At Budokan years.
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Why does he do this?
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He's a restless guy.
He's gotta change, he's gotta adapt.
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We can see the Jack Elliott,
Woody Guthrie stance,
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of their early folk years.
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We witness the young rock and roller
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remembering how great Little Richard
and Chuck Berry were, come 1965.
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But he's also a fan of the Beat poets.
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He's also a fan
of Freewheelin' Frank Reynolds
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and Gregory Corso and Allen Ginsberg.
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When he does Chuck Berry
and Little Richard,
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he does it with sort of Beat-poetic lyrics.
He does something new there.
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Dylan's journey had a humble origin.
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He was born Robert Allen Zimmerman
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in Duluth, Northern Minnesota, in 1941 ,
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and grew up in the largest
of the lron Range towns, Hibbing.
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When Bob Dylan was growing up
in Hibbing, Minnesota,
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he was restless.
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He entered his teen years
wanting to do something with his life
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and he had an uncle
that owned four local movie theatres
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where Dylan was allowed
to attend any time he wanted.
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So he had quite an appetite for cinema
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and absorbed a lot of dialogue
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and witnessed that
there was a great, wide world out there.
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Although his first love was rock and roll
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and he wrote
in his high school yearbook under ambition,
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''To join Little Richard''...
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Before he even left Hibbing
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he had already encountered something else.
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And that was a series of Leadbelly 78s
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that had been given to him,
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l think as a Bar Mitzvah present.
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And he rang up his friend
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and fellow rock and roll amateur
across town
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and he said, ''This is the real thing.
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''You've gotta hear this''.
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ln the summer of 1959,
at the age of 18, Dylan left Hibbing
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and enrolled
at the University of Minneapolis,
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where he found himself
in the bohemian district of Dinkytown.
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Dinkytown was like
a kind of Greenwich Village to come.
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lt was a sort of early training
in coffee houses and sleeping on floors
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and swapping
his original electric guitar for an acoustic.
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lt was in Dinkytown
that he first heard Woody Guthrie on record.
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lt was too late
for him to hear Woody Guthrie live.
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Finally, he starts
touching down in Chicago
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and in Chicago in January of '61
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he hitches a ride in an lmpala
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and goes all the way
to New York City with two friends.
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And he comes to New York
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and particularly to Greenwich Village
and Lower Manhattan,
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which is in a sense the capital of bohemia,
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The capital of non-conformist America.
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Every tendency, whether aesthetic
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or political or philosophical or social,
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that was in any way non-conformist
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or challenging
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finds itself down there
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and down there has the freedom
to experiment and explore.
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He arrived in New York
with his usual, immaculate timing,
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at absolutely the right moment
to catch the excitement,
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the full force
and excitement of the folk revival,
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which was, of course,
in part a blues revival.
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And at the same time,
there were these old blues guys
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who had been rediscovered-
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the great Son House, Skip James,
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00:07:08,703 --> 00:07:12,491
Sleepy John Estes, Mississippi John Hurt.
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There was a whole tranche of great figures.
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And suddenly,
they were plucked from their obscurity
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and plonked onto coffee-house stages.
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And young guys
like Bob Dylan could sit at their feet
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and watch their hands actually on the guitar
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and learn a great deal from them.
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And Dylan was mopping up everything,
absolutely like a sponge.
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What he finds in Greenwich Village
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is all kinds of loose threads.
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The political threads he picks up
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are first of all the threads
of what was called ''the old left''.
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The communists dominated,
though they weren't all party members,
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but influenced by the Communist Party
movement of the '30s and '40s,
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famously called the Popular Front,
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which was a cultural movement in America.
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The Village is a kind of laboratory
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of political, social
and sexual experimentation.
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So he also meets anarchists.
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lzzy Young, who ran the folk centre,
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and was one of the first sponsors of Dylan,
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was a committed anarchist
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and there weren't
too many public anarchists in New York
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or anywhere else
in the United States in 1961 .
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He stays with Dave Van Ronk,
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the great folk singer and blues revivalist,
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who has a huge influence on him
as a person.
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And Van Ronk was a Trotskyist,
a hardline Marxist,
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but also a wonderfully sensitive
interpreter of the blues.
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He also gets involved in...
The very first protest song he writes
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is about Emmett Till,
who was the young, black man
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who had been murdered by a lynch mob
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in Mississippi some years earlier.
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And he writes that for a benefit rally
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to be held for an organisation called CORE,
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the Congress of Racial Equality.
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The Congress of Racial Equality
was a Gandhian socialist organisation
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which, about a year
after Dylan wrote the song for them,
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became the principal organisation
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to organise the freedom rides
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which broke apartheid
in public transport in the South.
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00:10:01,023 --> 00:10:02,581
He also meets the young people
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from the Student Non-Violent
Co-ordinating Committee, SNCC,
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00:10:06,143 --> 00:10:07,656
which was always called Snic,
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which was the major
grass-roots organisation
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of young, black and white college kids,
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which from 1960 on, they launched
the sit-ins in the Deep South
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to smash Jim Crow, which was
the American system of apartheid.
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lt's important to remember
that the America Bob Dylan grew up in
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was, in many respects,
like South Africa under apartheid.
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Black and white were
de facto and de jure kept separate.
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Black people,
in large parts of the United States
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were denied the right to vote.
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When Dylan was growing up,
over one third of the United States
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legally prohibited
sex between black people and white.
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That's the kind of society
that Dylan is rebelling against.
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And one of the most important
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and vital and exciting electric currents
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that was in the air of Greenwich Village
when Dylan was there
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was the sense of self-confidence
that young people were getting
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from the fact
that their counterparts in the Deep South
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had done something,
broken through a barrier
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that, for generations, people thought
in America would just be there forever.
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So, suddenly, what's impossible
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seems possible, not only for black people,
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not only for American politics,
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but also for young people personally.
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And so this gives Dylan
the confidence to break barriers,
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which he does consistently
throughout the 1960s,
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and ironically, and very importantly also,
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it gives him an audience
willing to go with him.
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When he came, his influences were
starting to be the older blues players,
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but the already-existing influence,
without a doubt, was Woody Guthrie.
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l mean, that was the influence.
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Dylan had already discovered
both Guthrie's music
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and Guthrie's wonderful autobiography,
Bound For Glory
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when he was back in Minnesota.
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lt was listening to that music
and reading that autobiography
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that inspired Dylan, compelled Dylan,
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to get on the road,
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to get out of the background
that he had been given,
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but which meant nothing to him,
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and find his own America,
find his own influences,
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and go and find and visit Woody himself,
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who was very ill in hospital at the time.
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For Dylan and others
in the folk community,
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Guthrie's songs,
especially the Dust Bowl Ballads,
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were seen as the authentic voice
of the American working man
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and Woody himself as a hero straight out
of the pages of John Steinbeck.
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But he was not Tom Joad.
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He was not this travelling saint,
casting bread upon the waters.
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00:12:58,743 --> 00:13:00,938
He was Woody Guthrie...
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a flawed man,
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an impossibly flawed man in some ways.
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But a genuine human being
and a creative genius.
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Guthrie's legacy
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is one of showing
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generations of later singers
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that they can write meaningful songs
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that document social problems,
social conditions...
200
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and make a statement.
201
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His other achievement, of course,
202
00:13:41,783 --> 00:13:45,822
is that he gave us
a group of marvellous songs to sing,
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which may or may not
have political relevance today,
204
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but certainly are gambling songs.
205
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One of Woody Guthrie's contemporaries,
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00:14:01,663 --> 00:14:05,258
a guitarist who's been cited
as an influence by Bob Dylan himself,
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00:14:05,303 --> 00:14:08,898
was Tom Paley, one of the original
New Lost City Ramblers.
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00:14:08,943 --> 00:14:14,461
l think of Woody mainly
as being a songwriter and singer.
209
00:14:15,383 --> 00:14:17,658
He thought of himself that way, as well.
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He could play a little fancier
than he would usually do on his records
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00:14:22,183 --> 00:14:24,822
or in public performances.
212
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But he was not a great star as a guitarist.
213
00:14:30,063 --> 00:14:32,133
But he played a number of instruments.
214
00:14:32,183 --> 00:14:35,016
He also played
a little bit of mandolin, a bit of fiddle.
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00:14:35,063 --> 00:14:37,293
But he was a good performer
216
00:14:37,343 --> 00:14:41,336
and he wrote some remarkably good songs.
217
00:14:44,303 --> 00:14:47,056
Woody Guthrie was
first and foremost a lyricist.
218
00:14:47,103 --> 00:14:50,140
He rarely, if ever, wrote an original tune.
219
00:14:50,183 --> 00:14:53,016
That wasn't his strong point,
writing new tunes.
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00:14:53,063 --> 00:14:58,899
But he would write
complete new songs, using an old tune
221
00:14:58,943 --> 00:15:03,095
or sometimes blending
a couple of old tunes, l suppose.
222
00:15:04,183 --> 00:15:08,381
Or doing an old tune
and altering it slightly.
223
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But it was his texts
that were the main thing.
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lt's interesting, when Dylan
did arrive in New York in January 1961 ,
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one of the first things he did
was go out to Greystone Hospital,
226
00:15:28,303 --> 00:15:31,579
which is situated on ten acres
of a very bucolic, rural,
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00:15:31,623 --> 00:15:33,773
north-central New Jersey plot of land,
228
00:15:33,823 --> 00:15:37,452
went to Guthrie, you know,
just went right in, banged right on in,
229
00:15:37,503 --> 00:15:41,337
sat at the great man's bedside
and sang to him.
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Sang a lot of Guthrie songs
cos Guthrie couldn't perform any more.
231
00:15:45,063 --> 00:15:49,181
He could barely function,
he could barely sit up in the bed.
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00:15:49,223 --> 00:15:51,862
Probably the most important
of Guthrie's followers
233
00:15:51,903 --> 00:15:53,700
was Dylan's mentor, Pete Seeger.
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00:15:53,743 --> 00:15:56,132
Arguably, more than any other performer,
235
00:15:56,183 --> 00:15:59,858
Seeger was responsible
for continuing to keep Woody's music alive
236
00:15:59,903 --> 00:16:03,896
after he was hospitalised with
the nervous ailment, Huntington's Chorea.
237
00:16:03,943 --> 00:16:07,572
And he had, you realise,
such a short creative life.
238
00:16:07,623 --> 00:16:12,743
He started making up songs
when he was in his early 20s, l guess.
239
00:16:14,343 --> 00:16:18,302
The dust storm came when he was 23.
240
00:16:18,343 --> 00:16:20,777
And he probably
had been making up songs early...
241
00:16:20,823 --> 00:16:22,859
Maybe he made them up as a teenager.
242
00:16:22,903 --> 00:16:27,499
And then, in his late 30s,
he kept having these dizzy spells.
243
00:16:27,543 --> 00:16:30,421
His wife thought he was drinking too much.
244
00:16:30,463 --> 00:16:33,455
And by the time he was 40,
245
00:16:33,503 --> 00:16:38,702
the doctors told him
he had this incurable, hereditary disease.
246
00:16:38,743 --> 00:16:43,021
His mother died of it.
She'd died in a mental hospital.
247
00:16:43,063 --> 00:16:46,100
And he went off to a mental hospital
248
00:16:46,143 --> 00:16:51,695
and only got out on weekends,
occasionally, to see his family.
249
00:16:59,063 --> 00:17:03,102
And then when Dylan heard his voice
and heard these sounds...
250
00:17:03,143 --> 00:17:07,534
He says somewhere... l think
he was interviewed in '84 in Dublin,
251
00:17:07,583 --> 00:17:09,733
outside Dublin, at Slane,
252
00:17:09,783 --> 00:17:11,933
and he talks a lot about Guthrie then.
253
00:17:11,983 --> 00:17:14,941
And he says the first thing is the sound.
254
00:17:14,983 --> 00:17:18,373
Whatever you want to do,
you've got to have a sound.
255
00:17:18,423 --> 00:17:20,220
He didn't see it as unique.
256
00:17:20,263 --> 00:17:24,973
He saw it as not too dissimilar
from the sound of the Carter Family.
257
00:18:02,223 --> 00:18:04,020
When Dylan started out singing,
258
00:18:04,063 --> 00:18:06,736
particularly in Minneapolis St Paul,
in Dinkytown -
259
00:18:06,783 --> 00:18:08,933
he was living above a pizza parlour -
260
00:18:08,983 --> 00:18:14,216
a lot of his crowd then said
before his great discovery of Woody Guthrie
261
00:18:14,263 --> 00:18:17,619
he sang in something like
the smoother, almost crooning vocals
262
00:18:17,663 --> 00:18:19,654
of Nashville Skyline.
263
00:18:21,783 --> 00:18:24,217
That's the way Merle Travis would do it.
264
00:18:29,103 --> 00:18:31,458
Sing that line one more time.
265
00:18:39,583 --> 00:18:41,574
Just like me.
266
00:18:43,983 --> 00:18:47,578
When he discovered Woody Guthrie,
he lost that voice.
267
00:18:47,623 --> 00:18:49,898
He consciously got rid of that voice.
268
00:18:49,943 --> 00:18:51,899
He became more of a plainsman.
269
00:18:51,943 --> 00:18:55,822
He became more
of the rough-hewn Minnesotean.
270
00:18:55,863 --> 00:18:58,218
He started singing in a Guthrie-esque style
271
00:18:58,263 --> 00:19:01,539
and playing guitar
in a rougher, Guthrie-esque fashion.
272
00:19:02,863 --> 00:19:06,333
And it's a guy called John Pankake,
again up in Dinkytown,
273
00:19:06,383 --> 00:19:11,138
who takes him aside and says,
''lt's no good trying to be Woody Guthrie.
274
00:19:11,183 --> 00:19:13,253
''Not only will you never be Woody Guthrie
275
00:19:13,303 --> 00:19:17,216
''but Ramblin' Jack Elliott
has already done it, thanks very much.
276
00:19:17,263 --> 00:19:19,254
''You'll have to do something else''.
277
00:19:19,303 --> 00:19:22,215
No, l would say
278
00:19:22,263 --> 00:19:26,415
Jack Elliott is the exception
that proves the rule.
279
00:19:27,223 --> 00:19:29,532
No one tried to imitate Woody that closely.
280
00:19:29,583 --> 00:19:32,256
We might like to learn from him,
281
00:19:32,303 --> 00:19:36,740
his style of song-writing,
282
00:19:36,783 --> 00:19:38,614
no, but we didn't try and imitate.
283
00:19:38,663 --> 00:19:41,860
And even Bob Dylan
didn't try and imitate him.
284
00:19:41,903 --> 00:19:44,212
l don't think he ever heard Woody sing
285
00:19:44,263 --> 00:19:47,778
because when Bob came to New York
286
00:19:47,823 --> 00:19:50,383
Woody could no longer talk clearly
287
00:19:50,423 --> 00:19:52,175
or play the guitar.
288
00:19:52,223 --> 00:19:55,977
But it was not only Guthrie's sound
and his records that influenced Dylan
289
00:19:56,023 --> 00:19:57,615
but also his writings.
290
00:19:58,343 --> 00:20:00,618
He had been introduced
to Guthrie's Bound For Glory,
291
00:20:00,663 --> 00:20:06,454
his seminal 1940s autobiography
way back in Dinkytown, Minneapolis.
292
00:20:09,423 --> 00:20:13,211
One of the things that l find
really noticeable in Guthrie's book
293
00:20:13,263 --> 00:20:16,175
is that he talks about
294
00:20:16,223 --> 00:20:18,418
hobos and tramps
295
00:20:18,463 --> 00:20:19,942
and the dispossessed
296
00:20:20,703 --> 00:20:24,332
really so much from the inside
and with so much warmth.
297
00:20:24,383 --> 00:20:27,420
And without
the kind of political finger-waving
298
00:20:27,463 --> 00:20:30,421
that Dylan was very easily put off by.
299
00:20:30,463 --> 00:20:32,294
lt's so freeform.
300
00:20:32,343 --> 00:20:36,302
lt is like On The Road
a generation earlier.
301
00:20:36,343 --> 00:20:40,131
Even though Guthrie only met Dylan
on relatively few occasions,
302
00:20:40,183 --> 00:20:44,779
it is reported that Woody
recognised Dylan's talent and his potential.
303
00:20:44,823 --> 00:20:48,099
He prizes the fact that Guthrie himself
304
00:20:48,143 --> 00:20:51,215
is quoted as saying, you know,
305
00:20:51,263 --> 00:20:54,858
''Ramblin' Jack Elliott sounds like me
306
00:20:54,903 --> 00:20:58,020
''and Pete Seeger sings folk songs
307
00:20:58,063 --> 00:21:02,261
''but that Bobby Dylan, he's a folk singer''.
308
00:21:03,103 --> 00:21:05,776
So, you know, he achieves almost...
309
00:21:05,823 --> 00:21:09,054
almost through imitation and mimicry,
310
00:21:09,103 --> 00:21:12,539
but by bringing his own soul into it
311
00:21:12,583 --> 00:21:15,700
he achieves this position of being looked at
312
00:21:15,743 --> 00:21:17,893
as a kind of new Guthrie.
313
00:21:18,503 --> 00:21:20,573
And l think the folk scene was desperate
314
00:21:20,623 --> 00:21:26,061
for a young, hungry, sexy, iconic figure
315
00:21:26,103 --> 00:21:28,094
to take Woody's place.
316
00:21:28,143 --> 00:21:31,852
Seeger, as talented as he is,
as dramatic as he is,
317
00:21:31,903 --> 00:21:34,178
as politically courageous as he is,
318
00:21:34,223 --> 00:21:39,251
is not the iconic - in media terms -
sexy figure that Guthrie was.
319
00:21:39,303 --> 00:21:41,612
He's never gonna be, he never has been.
320
00:21:41,663 --> 00:21:44,177
Dylan could have worn those clothes.
321
00:21:44,223 --> 00:21:47,818
But it's apparent as we look back
on Dylan, hindsight being 20/20,
322
00:21:47,863 --> 00:21:51,139
that he didn't wanna wear
that particular suit of clothes.
323
00:21:51,183 --> 00:21:54,937
lf Pete Seeger wasn't the ideal frontman
for the American left,
324
00:21:54,983 --> 00:21:59,135
he was still a huge influence
and a mentor to Bob Dylan in the early '60s.
325
00:21:59,183 --> 00:22:02,300
Seeger's the major carrier,
from the '30s and '40s,
326
00:22:02,343 --> 00:22:05,972
of the popular-front,
communist-influenced folk tradition
327
00:22:06,023 --> 00:22:09,811
into what came to be known
as the folk revival of the late '50s and '60s,
328
00:22:09,863 --> 00:22:12,331
which is the door that opens for Dylan,
329
00:22:12,383 --> 00:22:15,341
gives him an audience, gives him a format
330
00:22:15,383 --> 00:22:17,692
within which he can express himself.
331
00:22:17,743 --> 00:22:21,019
A man identified
in this publication as a communist
332
00:22:21,063 --> 00:22:24,499
is the same Pete Seeger
333
00:22:24,543 --> 00:22:28,218
who is the associate editor
of these various folk-singing songs
334
00:22:28,263 --> 00:22:31,335
that are available
throughout the United States,
335
00:22:31,383 --> 00:22:33,817
specifically aimed at young people.
336
00:22:33,863 --> 00:22:35,774
lt was very politically motivated
337
00:22:35,823 --> 00:22:38,337
and you have to look at Pete's background.
338
00:22:38,383 --> 00:22:40,943
Pete's father
was one of the great musicologists
339
00:22:40,983 --> 00:22:42,814
that this country's ever produced.
340
00:22:42,863 --> 00:22:46,014
His mother was a composer
and a musicologist.
341
00:22:46,063 --> 00:22:48,736
He came from
a very, very liberal background
342
00:22:48,783 --> 00:22:52,935
so he was always
very, very politically oriented
343
00:22:52,983 --> 00:22:55,577
and politically motivated.
344
00:22:55,623 --> 00:23:00,174
And now we are concerned that
the communists are moving into this field
345
00:23:00,223 --> 00:23:01,941
and that they're going to pervert
346
00:23:01,983 --> 00:23:04,417
this wonderful form of entertainment
347
00:23:04,463 --> 00:23:07,023
so it will satisfy their own needs.
348
00:23:07,063 --> 00:23:09,497
So we're calling on the House Committee
349
00:23:09,543 --> 00:23:11,773
to make an investigation in this field,
350
00:23:11,823 --> 00:23:15,213
to determine whether or not
our concern is well founded
351
00:23:15,263 --> 00:23:17,458
and, if it is, then to expose it
352
00:23:17,503 --> 00:23:20,893
so the American people,
and particularly our young people,
353
00:23:20,943 --> 00:23:24,458
can be alert and aware
of what is happening.
354
00:23:25,543 --> 00:23:29,058
Anybody who thinks there's
anything subversive about these songs
355
00:23:29,103 --> 00:23:30,456
ought to listen to them.
356
00:23:30,503 --> 00:23:33,063
This is the craziest kind of charge
l've ever heard.
357
00:23:34,063 --> 00:23:36,054
The American Constitution, God bless it,
358
00:23:36,103 --> 00:23:38,571
says that you have a right to your opinion
359
00:23:38,623 --> 00:23:40,818
and you can keep it to yourself
if you want to.
360
00:23:40,863 --> 00:23:43,423
And l was finally acquitted
by the courts of the USA
361
00:23:43,463 --> 00:23:47,172
and vindicated, l believe, in this opinion.
362
00:23:47,223 --> 00:23:49,737
So if somebody comes up
and asks me am l a communist,
363
00:23:49,783 --> 00:23:53,856
l say, ''You can ask me any old question,
you can call me all names,
364
00:23:53,903 --> 00:23:57,691
''now you call me a traitor to my country,
l'll sue you''.
365
00:23:57,743 --> 00:24:01,497
But you can call me any kind
of a communist, socialist, anarchist
366
00:24:01,543 --> 00:24:05,502
upside-down, right-side-up,
nudist, vegetarian
367
00:24:05,543 --> 00:24:09,456
and l say you got a right to your opinions,
l've got a right to my opinions.
368
00:24:09,503 --> 00:24:11,573
About the songs, l'll tell you.
369
00:24:11,623 --> 00:24:14,660
lf there's any song l sing
that you think is wrong,
370
00:24:14,703 --> 00:24:17,297
you ask me,
cos l'll be glad to talk about them.
371
00:24:17,343 --> 00:24:19,299
That's my public life, singing songs.
372
00:24:19,343 --> 00:24:21,652
The influence of Pete Seeger
373
00:24:21,703 --> 00:24:24,012
cannot be underestimated
in this whole thing.
374
00:24:24,063 --> 00:24:28,181
Pete Seeger is the guy
that kept the whole scene going.
375
00:24:28,223 --> 00:24:30,817
ln British terms,
he was the governor of the scene.
376
00:24:30,863 --> 00:24:33,855
Guthrie spent
the last 15, 16 years of his life,
377
00:24:33,903 --> 00:24:36,053
dying in his early '50s,
378
00:24:36,103 --> 00:24:39,095
unable to do anything
but lie in a hospital bed.
379
00:24:39,143 --> 00:24:40,974
Pete Seeger, on the other hand,
380
00:24:41,023 --> 00:24:44,015
continued doing the benefits,
doing the concerts,
381
00:24:44,063 --> 00:24:46,497
did the famous world tour in the early 1960s
382
00:24:46,543 --> 00:24:49,899
where he went around the world
playing American folk music,
383
00:24:49,943 --> 00:24:52,332
coming back with a song or two
from each country.
384
00:24:52,383 --> 00:24:55,932
One can argue he not only kept
the American folk tradition alive,
385
00:24:55,983 --> 00:24:59,134
that he started the world music tradition
in the United States.
386
00:24:59,183 --> 00:25:04,735
Well, Pete was very important
in the New York folk scene,
387
00:25:04,783 --> 00:25:08,378
in that Pete and Woody
388
00:25:08,423 --> 00:25:11,733
and Brownie McGhee
389
00:25:11,783 --> 00:25:15,571
and Sonny Terry and Leadbelly,
390
00:25:15,623 --> 00:25:20,299
they were somehow the ones
we regarded as the real thing.
391
00:25:20,343 --> 00:25:26,179
Well, l mean, l was also aware of,
in a sense, the realer thing -
392
00:25:26,223 --> 00:25:28,737
people like Clarence Ashley
393
00:25:28,783 --> 00:25:31,900
and Charlie Poole and the Carter Family.
394
00:25:31,943 --> 00:25:35,492
And we were trying to learn,
395
00:25:35,543 --> 00:25:37,932
to some extent, to play like they did.
396
00:25:39,583 --> 00:25:42,143
Well, l remember when l first started...
397
00:25:42,183 --> 00:25:45,334
l started in January '45,
398
00:25:45,383 --> 00:25:48,295
two months before l turned 1 7.
399
00:25:49,183 --> 00:25:51,538
And l remember doing things, playing...
400
00:25:55,223 --> 00:25:58,659
And when l discovered
something Woody did was this...
401
00:25:58,703 --> 00:26:01,058
this hammer on, then l started...
402
00:26:05,383 --> 00:26:10,298
And l would use that
at every possible place.
403
00:26:10,343 --> 00:26:14,336
lt got to the point where l was overloading
everything l did with that.
404
00:26:30,783 --> 00:26:33,820
Till it was coming out of my ears.
405
00:26:33,863 --> 00:26:37,981
And then, eventually,
l learned, ''l'm sort of overdoing it
406
00:26:38,023 --> 00:26:40,821
''and they don't overdo it like that''.
407
00:26:40,863 --> 00:26:43,696
But it was a way of learning the new trick.
408
00:26:45,903 --> 00:26:49,100
lf Woody Guthrie was lionised
by Dylan and the folk-music scene
409
00:26:49,143 --> 00:26:51,020
as being the real thing,
410
00:26:51,063 --> 00:26:54,021
this also applied to another outsider,
Huddie Ledbetter,
411
00:26:54,063 --> 00:26:56,577
more commonly known as Leadbelly.
412
00:26:56,623 --> 00:27:00,138
Leadbelly's history, in brief,
was he was a musical prodigy
413
00:27:00,183 --> 00:27:06,861
who was in jails in Texas
and Louisiana for murder.
414
00:27:07,903 --> 00:27:10,133
Both times, self-defence.
415
00:27:10,183 --> 00:27:14,415
A typical, you know, artistic temperament
and that kind of thing.
416
00:27:14,463 --> 00:27:18,012
But anyway,
he eventually sang his way out.
417
00:27:18,863 --> 00:27:22,458
ln Louisiana's State Penitentiary
goes John A. Lomax,
418
00:27:22,503 --> 00:27:24,221
Library of Congress curator,
419
00:27:24,263 --> 00:27:26,333
collector of American folk songs.
420
00:27:30,543 --> 00:27:34,741
They were on field trips for the Library
of Congress, John and Alan Lomax.
421
00:27:34,783 --> 00:27:37,695
When they got to Texas and Louisiana,
422
00:27:37,743 --> 00:27:41,338
they were finding
all these wonderful singers
423
00:27:41,383 --> 00:27:43,692
who knew spirituals
and blues and songsters
424
00:27:43,743 --> 00:27:46,940
and everyone pointed him...
425
00:27:46,983 --> 00:27:50,419
pointed the Lomaxes to Leadbelly
426
00:27:50,463 --> 00:27:54,456
as being the really primo songster,
427
00:27:54,503 --> 00:27:57,734
you know, repertoire of 500 songs
and instant recall.
428
00:27:57,783 --> 00:28:00,092
Just once more, Leadbelly.
429
00:28:17,463 --> 00:28:21,012
That's fine, Leadbelly.
You're a fine songster.
430
00:28:21,063 --> 00:28:23,941
l never heard so many good Negro songs.
431
00:28:23,983 --> 00:28:26,622
Thank you. l sure hope
you send Governor O.K. Allen
432
00:28:26,663 --> 00:28:30,702
a record of that song l made up about him
cos l believe he'll turn me loose.
433
00:28:30,743 --> 00:28:34,895
Leadbelly, l don't know this governor.
You mustn't expect too much of me.
434
00:28:34,943 --> 00:28:37,503
Governor Pat Neff of Texas,
he turned me loose
435
00:28:37,543 --> 00:28:39,773
when he heard the song
l made up about him.
436
00:28:39,823 --> 00:28:42,735
So, you were
in the Texas Penitentiary, too, Leadbelly?
437
00:28:42,783 --> 00:28:46,458
Yeah, l started 35 years for murder,
but it wasn't my fault.
438
00:28:46,503 --> 00:28:48,619
A man was trying to cut my head off.
439
00:28:48,663 --> 00:28:50,494
That's mighty bad, Leadbelly.
440
00:28:50,543 --> 00:28:54,218
l believe Governor O.K. Allen,
if you send him a record of that song,
441
00:28:54,263 --> 00:28:56,174
l believe he'll turn me loose.
442
00:28:56,223 --> 00:28:58,578
Leadbelly, l'll try.
443
00:28:58,623 --> 00:29:01,535
Thank you, sir, thank you, sir. Thank you.
444
00:29:01,583 --> 00:29:03,335
Leadbelly was paroled
445
00:29:03,383 --> 00:29:06,500
and he was paroled
in the custody of John Lomax.
446
00:29:06,543 --> 00:29:09,694
And for the next few years
he was a chauffeur
447
00:29:09,743 --> 00:29:11,893
for John Lomax
448
00:29:11,943 --> 00:29:15,299
and really had to toe the line
449
00:29:15,343 --> 00:29:17,698
and it was a real massa relationship.
450
00:29:19,303 --> 00:29:21,533
Yes, Mr John Lomax is staying here.
451
00:29:21,583 --> 00:29:23,414
He's in room 109.
452
00:29:23,463 --> 00:29:25,374
ls that on the first floor?
453
00:29:25,423 --> 00:29:27,015
Yep.
454
00:29:27,063 --> 00:29:29,133
Hey, hold on a minute.
455
00:29:36,423 --> 00:29:38,015
Come in.
456
00:29:41,703 --> 00:29:42,692
Boss, here l am.
457
00:29:42,743 --> 00:29:45,576
Leadbelly. What are you doing here?
458
00:29:46,343 --> 00:29:48,698
No use you trying to run away, Boss.
459
00:29:48,743 --> 00:29:50,335
l came here to be your man.
460
00:29:50,383 --> 00:29:52,533
l'd like to work with you the rest of my life.
461
00:29:52,583 --> 00:29:54,460
You got me out of that Louisiana Pen.
462
00:29:54,503 --> 00:29:56,698
You can't work for me.
463
00:29:56,743 --> 00:29:59,303
You're a mean boy. You killed two men.
464
00:29:59,343 --> 00:30:01,937
Please don't talk that way, Boss.
465
00:30:01,983 --> 00:30:04,781
- Have you got a pistol?
- No, but l got a knife.
466
00:30:04,823 --> 00:30:07,257
Let me see it.
467
00:30:09,903 --> 00:30:11,256
What do you do with that?
468
00:30:11,303 --> 00:30:13,578
l'll use it on somebody
that bother you, Boss.
469
00:30:13,623 --> 00:30:15,454
Please, Boss, take me with you.
470
00:30:15,503 --> 00:30:18,097
You'll never have to tie
your shoe-strings any more
471
00:30:18,143 --> 00:30:20,213
if you keep me with you.
472
00:30:20,263 --> 00:30:23,255
All right, Leadbelly. l'll try you.
473
00:30:23,303 --> 00:30:26,613
Thank you. l'll drive you
all over the United States
474
00:30:26,663 --> 00:30:28,415
and l'll sing all the songs for you.
475
00:30:28,463 --> 00:30:31,853
You be my big boss and l'll be your man.
Thank you, sir.
476
00:30:31,903 --> 00:30:34,019
That lasted for, l guess, a year or two
477
00:30:34,063 --> 00:30:37,100
and then he was pretty much
on his own, you know.
478
00:30:37,143 --> 00:30:38,940
The Lomaxes tried to promote him.
479
00:30:38,983 --> 00:30:42,692
John Lomax does take the Louisiana
Negro convict to be his man.
480
00:30:42,743 --> 00:30:44,893
Takes him to his home in Connecticut,
481
00:30:44,943 --> 00:30:47,935
where Leadbelly's longtime sweetheart,
Martha Promise,
482
00:30:47,983 --> 00:30:50,895
is brought up from the South
for a jubilant wedding.
483
00:30:54,023 --> 00:30:57,060
Then hailed by the Library
of Congress's music division
484
00:30:57,103 --> 00:31:00,379
as its greatest folk-song find in 25 years,
485
00:31:00,423 --> 00:31:04,496
Leadbelly's songs go into the archives
of the great national institution.
486
00:31:04,543 --> 00:31:07,216
ln liberal circles he was hailed
487
00:31:07,263 --> 00:31:11,415
because they realised
that he was a songster of the people
488
00:31:11,463 --> 00:31:13,738
and sang topical songs
and that kind of thing.
489
00:31:13,783 --> 00:31:16,695
And to a lot of people he was a freak.
490
00:31:16,743 --> 00:31:19,655
l mean, he was held up
for exhibition, you know.
491
00:31:19,703 --> 00:31:23,252
''Here's this guy
that killed people and he sings songs''.
492
00:31:23,303 --> 00:31:25,180
Tremendously influential guy.
493
00:31:25,223 --> 00:31:27,817
You couldn't characterise him
as a blues singer
494
00:31:27,863 --> 00:31:29,501
or a gospel singer.
495
00:31:29,543 --> 00:31:33,616
He did everything. He was a songster
in the truest sense of the word.
496
00:31:33,663 --> 00:31:38,214
And an all-pervasive influence on Woody,
497
00:31:38,263 --> 00:31:40,777
who played and sang with him.
498
00:31:40,823 --> 00:31:42,302
As far as Dylan is concerned,
499
00:31:42,343 --> 00:31:45,938
the connection,
however remote, really is linear
500
00:31:45,983 --> 00:31:48,451
because you have Leadbelly,
501
00:31:48,503 --> 00:31:50,061
Pete Seeger, the Weavers,
502
00:31:50,103 --> 00:31:53,334
Oscar Brand -
you know, the people who were active,
503
00:31:53,383 --> 00:31:56,102
the political singer-songwriters,
504
00:31:56,143 --> 00:31:59,419
and then filtering down to the '60s,
505
00:31:59,463 --> 00:32:01,579
where we have the newer people coming,
506
00:32:01,623 --> 00:32:04,421
like Dylan and, after him, Springsteen
507
00:32:04,463 --> 00:32:07,421
and some of the others
from Greenwich Village.
508
00:32:10,103 --> 00:32:13,061
Another blues artist
championed by Alan Lomax
509
00:32:13,103 --> 00:32:14,661
was Blind Willie McTell,
510
00:32:14,703 --> 00:32:18,696
the subject of a Dylan song
recorded on the lnfidels sessions.
511
00:32:33,463 --> 00:32:36,421
Famously, Dylan finally writes a song
512
00:32:36,463 --> 00:32:40,217
naming one of these old, blues guys
that he's been influenced by.
513
00:32:40,263 --> 00:32:44,620
ln 1983, he records Blind Willie McTell.
514
00:32:44,663 --> 00:32:46,654
That's the title of the song.
515
00:32:46,703 --> 00:32:50,901
Every stanza ends with ''No one''
or ''Nobody'', depending which stanza.
516
00:32:50,943 --> 00:32:53,935
''No one can sing the blues
like Blind Willie McTell''.
517
00:33:00,223 --> 00:33:04,375
As a teenager, l mean,
l was enthralled by his guitar playing
518
00:33:04,423 --> 00:33:08,974
and by his...
the poetry of his songs, you know,
519
00:33:09,023 --> 00:33:13,175
and the odd cadence of his voice,
that kind of thing.
520
00:33:13,223 --> 00:33:14,497
He was very mysterious.
521
00:33:14,543 --> 00:33:17,899
He is one of those voices
you can recognise immediately.
522
00:33:17,943 --> 00:33:20,377
And Dylan will have heard him first
523
00:33:20,423 --> 00:33:24,575
on the Sam Charters compilation LP,
The Country Blues,
524
00:33:24,623 --> 00:33:28,901
which was issued to accompany
Charters' book of the same name
525
00:33:28,943 --> 00:33:30,740
in late 1959.
526
00:33:30,783 --> 00:33:32,739
And one of the shining tracks
527
00:33:32,783 --> 00:33:35,775
on that album is McTell's Statesboro Blues.
528
00:33:36,543 --> 00:33:39,899
And it's singing about
the town that he grew up in.
529
00:33:39,943 --> 00:33:44,221
Wasn't born there.
He was born elsewhere in Georgia.
530
00:33:44,263 --> 00:33:47,096
What interested me
was McTell's unique voice,
531
00:33:47,143 --> 00:33:50,055
but also the fact
that he's from Georgia, not Mississippi,
532
00:33:50,103 --> 00:33:53,334
which is what most people write about.
533
00:33:53,383 --> 00:33:57,092
And he challenges every sort of stereotype
534
00:33:57,143 --> 00:34:00,772
that people have in their heads
about old blues singers.
535
00:34:00,823 --> 00:34:03,860
l think a lot of Dylan fans
were surprised when Dylan sang
536
00:34:03,903 --> 00:34:06,576
''No one can sing the blues
like Blind Willie McTell''
537
00:34:06,623 --> 00:34:09,183
because when they then
went and listened to McTell,
538
00:34:09,223 --> 00:34:13,341
they found this
almost Roy Orbison-ian tenor voice,
539
00:34:13,383 --> 00:34:16,420
this sweet, clear, light voice.
540
00:34:16,463 --> 00:34:21,742
He wasn't one bit
the sort of pleasingly primitive,
541
00:34:21,783 --> 00:34:25,742
rasping, Howlin' Wolf,
Charley Patton figure
542
00:34:25,783 --> 00:34:28,775
that people are so fond of regarding as...
543
00:34:28,823 --> 00:34:32,498
You know, the more primitive the better,
544
00:34:32,543 --> 00:34:34,932
the more authentic the better.
545
00:34:34,983 --> 00:34:39,534
So, for many people, McTell
was actually a bit on the lightweight side.
546
00:34:39,583 --> 00:34:42,620
And then l heard Blind Willie McTell
547
00:34:42,663 --> 00:34:45,018
and it was like...
548
00:34:46,503 --> 00:34:49,097
getting a crush on his sound.
549
00:34:49,143 --> 00:34:52,135
lt was like,
l used to get crushes on these poets
550
00:34:52,183 --> 00:34:54,981
and be all into their words and everything,
551
00:34:55,023 --> 00:34:58,299
and then Blind Willie McTell
completely blew me away.
552
00:34:58,343 --> 00:35:02,336
Blind Willie McTell
has a voice that's like pure sex.
553
00:35:04,023 --> 00:35:05,900
No, it is so awesome.
554
00:35:05,943 --> 00:35:08,662
So then, basically,
l think my biggest influence,
555
00:35:08,703 --> 00:35:12,059
my realest influence,
is Blind Willie McTell.
556
00:35:12,103 --> 00:35:15,140
And l just sewed this on my hoodie.
557
00:35:15,183 --> 00:35:18,858
The hoodie's not worth it,
it's a crappy hoodie, but l...
558
00:35:21,743 --> 00:35:25,736
When Dylan comes to recording
material by McTell
559
00:35:25,783 --> 00:35:27,774
on the World Gone Wrong album,
560
00:35:27,823 --> 00:35:32,772
he sings an old ballad
that McTell does, Delia,
561
00:35:32,823 --> 00:35:38,375
and he also sings one of McTell's
early 1930s masterpieces,
562
00:35:38,423 --> 00:35:40,653
Broke Down Engine Blues.
563
00:35:40,703 --> 00:35:43,581
Above all, McTell is an interesting man
564
00:35:43,623 --> 00:35:46,376
in an interesting time and place.
565
00:35:46,423 --> 00:35:49,460
An under-attended place, Georgia,
566
00:35:49,503 --> 00:35:51,698
and an under-attended time still.
567
00:35:51,743 --> 00:35:54,860
He was born in 1903, he died in '59...
568
00:35:56,023 --> 00:35:58,412
literally about ten weeks
569
00:35:58,463 --> 00:36:00,931
before he might have been rediscovered
570
00:36:00,983 --> 00:36:04,532
and plonked up onto
one of those coffee-house stages,
571
00:36:04,583 --> 00:36:06,938
where he would have had
no trouble whatever
572
00:36:06,983 --> 00:36:09,816
coping with a young, white audience.
573
00:36:20,223 --> 00:36:23,021
The reasons for the rise of blues
and old-time music,
574
00:36:23,063 --> 00:36:25,975
especially for those like Dylan
with left-wing sympathies,
575
00:36:26,023 --> 00:36:30,460
are various and complex,
both aesthetic and political.
576
00:36:30,503 --> 00:36:33,939
After a brutal Great Depression
in the 1930s in America
577
00:36:33,983 --> 00:36:36,417
and brutal depression
elsewhere in the world,
578
00:36:36,463 --> 00:36:39,660
the Left in America
witnessed its problems,
579
00:36:39,703 --> 00:36:41,614
and the way to confront its problems.
580
00:36:41,663 --> 00:36:44,131
One of those problems
was not just that they had
581
00:36:44,183 --> 00:36:46,458
a political agenda
they wanted to get across,
582
00:36:46,503 --> 00:36:48,812
as they didn't know how to get it across.
583
00:36:48,863 --> 00:36:53,061
They had adapted from the Wobblies
in the 1880s, 1890s,
584
00:36:53,103 --> 00:36:56,015
the idea of sing-alongs at their meetings,
585
00:36:56,063 --> 00:36:59,214
to sort of get the crowd
that was assembled excited
586
00:36:59,263 --> 00:37:01,140
and sort of create a family feel
587
00:37:01,183 --> 00:37:03,492
and make a large auditorium
feel more intimate.
588
00:37:03,543 --> 00:37:07,900
Once upon a time, we had
a group of union people in America.
589
00:37:07,943 --> 00:37:10,537
There were many of them
on the west coast.
590
00:37:10,583 --> 00:37:13,700
They used to call them
the Wobblies, lWWs.
591
00:37:13,743 --> 00:37:18,055
And they had a little songbook
they used to put out.
592
00:37:18,103 --> 00:37:23,177
They were frankly in favour
of changing the economic system.
593
00:37:23,223 --> 00:37:27,375
Seeger and Guthrie, at a sing-along
in Seattle in the early 1940s,
594
00:37:27,423 --> 00:37:31,211
coined the word ''hootenanny''
and got that word around.
595
00:37:37,183 --> 00:37:39,936
And they somehow
stumbled across, in the '40s,
596
00:37:39,983 --> 00:37:43,100
''lf we'd use these sing-alongs
and use folk music
597
00:37:43,143 --> 00:37:47,216
''and use American songs
that most people know or should know,
598
00:37:47,263 --> 00:37:50,573
''we will create a patriotic, American,
599
00:37:50,623 --> 00:37:53,979
''wholesome feel for what we're doing.
600
00:37:54,023 --> 00:37:58,494
''And that will help play down
and placate and pacify
601
00:37:58,543 --> 00:38:02,661
''those that feel we're too close
to the Communist Party''.
602
00:38:02,703 --> 00:38:06,218
The communists found that folk singing
achieved their purpose
603
00:38:06,263 --> 00:38:09,335
and they were able to use
very specific propaganda lines
604
00:38:09,383 --> 00:38:11,260
of which l'm going to give examples.
605
00:38:11,303 --> 00:38:15,182
Many people would never
willingly listen to a communist speak
606
00:38:15,223 --> 00:38:18,295
or perhaps even read a book
written by a known communist,
607
00:38:18,343 --> 00:38:21,858
but the communists knew
how to use the softening-up process
608
00:38:21,903 --> 00:38:25,134
to prepare the fertile minds of youth
for their propaganda.
609
00:38:25,183 --> 00:38:29,415
Well, l'm thinking of my own feelings.
610
00:38:29,463 --> 00:38:35,220
l mean, l came from
a reasonably educated family...
611
00:38:37,703 --> 00:38:41,742
and a left-wing family
612
00:38:41,783 --> 00:38:46,777
and l had the feeling,
''This is the music of the people''.
613
00:38:46,823 --> 00:38:51,419
And that was an important concept
for someone on the left, somehow,
614
00:38:51,463 --> 00:38:55,820
rather than, ''This is the music
of the big corporations''.
615
00:38:55,863 --> 00:38:58,058
We're not singing songs
about pie in the sky.
616
00:38:58,103 --> 00:39:00,219
We're listening to one person with a banjo
617
00:39:00,263 --> 00:39:02,413
or four people with stringed instruments.
618
00:39:02,463 --> 00:39:04,852
We're singing
about a railroad coming through,
619
00:39:04,903 --> 00:39:07,463
we're singing about jobs coming through,
620
00:39:07,503 --> 00:39:09,653
we're singing cowboy songs from the west,
621
00:39:09,703 --> 00:39:12,342
we're singing
She'll Be Comin' Around The Mountain,
622
00:39:12,383 --> 00:39:13,611
Wildwood Flower.
623
00:39:13,663 --> 00:39:18,293
We're singing songs that are
as American as apple pie or as baseball.
624
00:39:18,343 --> 00:39:20,538
And when they discovered that folk music
625
00:39:20,583 --> 00:39:23,177
could be this vehicle to assemble the troops
626
00:39:23,223 --> 00:39:25,373
and a vehicle to bring everybody together
627
00:39:25,423 --> 00:39:28,221
while getting across a political message,
they hit paydirt.
628
00:39:30,663 --> 00:39:31,857
But for Dylan and others,
629
00:39:31,903 --> 00:39:34,576
the attraction of the music
was not just political.
630
00:39:34,623 --> 00:39:37,774
lt appealed on a far deeper
and more profound level.
631
00:39:37,823 --> 00:39:40,656
The America
that's sort of handed on a plate to Dylan
632
00:39:40,703 --> 00:39:43,934
seems so bland and pre-packaged
633
00:39:43,983 --> 00:39:46,895
that he needs an antidote to it.
634
00:39:46,943 --> 00:39:49,980
He needs something
that feels more real and more urgent.
635
00:39:50,023 --> 00:39:53,379
And like many other people,
artists of the time,
636
00:39:53,423 --> 00:39:55,414
including many people on the left,
637
00:39:55,463 --> 00:39:57,772
they went back to Americana,
638
00:39:57,823 --> 00:40:00,496
to what we now call
American roots music -
639
00:40:00,543 --> 00:40:02,579
it wasn't called that at the time -
640
00:40:02,623 --> 00:40:06,332
because they see in that
something more authentic
641
00:40:06,383 --> 00:40:09,898
than, if you like,
airbrushed, Hollywood America
642
00:40:09,943 --> 00:40:12,138
or Broadway musical America.
643
00:40:12,183 --> 00:40:14,492
There's all these American murder ballads.
644
00:40:14,543 --> 00:40:16,181
that have inexplicable violence.
645
00:40:16,223 --> 00:40:18,134
One minute they're saying ''l love you''
646
00:40:18,183 --> 00:40:20,822
and then the man's
hitting the woman over the head.
647
00:40:20,863 --> 00:40:23,661
Yeah, like Knoxville Girl,
which is based on...
648
00:40:23,703 --> 00:40:25,580
The Banks Of The Ohio is a good one.
649
00:40:25,623 --> 00:40:27,579
Banks Of The Ohio is the same way.
650
00:40:27,623 --> 00:40:28,976
l mean, he's...
651
00:40:29,023 --> 00:40:32,299
Man and woman walk by the river,
man picks up stick, hits woman...
652
00:40:32,343 --> 00:40:34,652
He says, ''Will you marry me?''.
She says, ''Yes''.
653
00:40:34,703 --> 00:40:36,694
He throws her in the river and kills her.
654
00:40:36,743 --> 00:40:40,975
Knoxville Girl, they go for a walk
and he just throws her in the water.
655
00:40:41,023 --> 00:40:43,139
There's no motivation whatsoever,
656
00:40:43,183 --> 00:40:45,981
but in the antecedents -
657
00:40:46,023 --> 00:40:48,901
they come from England or lreland -
658
00:40:48,943 --> 00:40:54,620
there's always some kind of, you know, hint
about the fact that she's pregnant or...
659
00:40:54,663 --> 00:40:56,893
People go in the woods
to have sex in Europe.
660
00:40:56,943 --> 00:40:59,377
ln America they go in the woods
to kill each other.
661
00:42:00,383 --> 00:42:04,695
What Dylan finds in the language
of Guthrie's Bound For Glory
662
00:42:04,743 --> 00:42:08,861
and then, soon after,
in the language of the old blues masters
663
00:42:08,903 --> 00:42:12,418
and the great country singers
and all of the artists collected on
664
00:42:12,463 --> 00:42:15,819
Harry Smith's wonderful
Anthology Of American Folk Music,
665
00:42:15,863 --> 00:42:19,060
is a language that seems more idiomatic,
666
00:42:19,103 --> 00:42:21,856
more democratic, more rough-hewn,
667
00:42:21,903 --> 00:42:25,259
truer to the realities of life.
668
00:42:25,303 --> 00:42:27,294
Less polished, less slick.
669
00:42:27,343 --> 00:42:29,937
lt's not the language of Hollywood,
670
00:42:29,983 --> 00:42:32,451
it's not the language
of Broadway musicals.
671
00:42:32,503 --> 00:42:35,301
lt seems to him to have
a greater authenticity
672
00:42:35,343 --> 00:42:37,334
and a deeper truth.
673
00:42:37,383 --> 00:42:40,455
And he imbibes all that,
he takes all that influence,
674
00:42:40,503 --> 00:42:43,939
and in a sense,
he personalises it and he modernises it.
675
00:43:13,863 --> 00:43:16,821
ln Chronicles,
Dylan writes beautifully about this.
676
00:43:16,863 --> 00:43:19,297
The point he keeps coming back to
677
00:43:19,343 --> 00:43:22,460
is almost that he can't explain the appeal,
678
00:43:22,503 --> 00:43:25,859
but that the attraction operates
on such a deep level
679
00:43:25,903 --> 00:43:27,894
that you don't know for sure
680
00:43:27,943 --> 00:43:30,776
what these strange images mean
681
00:43:30,823 --> 00:43:35,897
but they unleash emotions,
deep emotions, inside you.
682
00:43:35,943 --> 00:43:37,934
And the format, which is essentially
683
00:43:37,983 --> 00:43:40,941
a simple format of repeated verses,
684
00:43:40,983 --> 00:43:44,373
which you can also find
in the Bible, of course,
685
00:43:44,423 --> 00:43:47,893
it does two things.
One is it makes it easier to memorise
686
00:43:47,943 --> 00:43:49,934
and easier to popularise
687
00:43:49,983 --> 00:43:52,019
and that's not a bad thing.
688
00:43:52,063 --> 00:43:54,133
l think that, with very few exceptions,
689
00:43:54,183 --> 00:43:59,132
when Dylan has departed
from the basic format of popular folk music -
690
00:43:59,183 --> 00:44:01,936
verse, chorus - he's rarely been so good.
691
00:45:06,143 --> 00:45:08,020
To understand this old-time music,
692
00:45:08,063 --> 00:45:10,338
it is necessary
to trace it back to the source,
693
00:45:10,383 --> 00:45:14,695
either to the blues or to the old
English, lrish and Scottish folk songs.
694
00:45:14,743 --> 00:45:18,736
ln America, these ballads seem
to have been preserved almost intact
695
00:45:18,783 --> 00:45:22,776
from when they first came over
with the original settlers.
696
00:45:22,823 --> 00:45:25,337
A lot of people today are very aware
697
00:45:25,383 --> 00:45:27,374
that a song like The House Carpenter
698
00:45:27,423 --> 00:45:29,414
comes from the song
The Daemon Lover,
699
00:45:29,463 --> 00:45:32,102
which is from around 1660 or so forth.
700
00:46:00,303 --> 00:46:03,978
And they wonder, how did it survive
701
00:46:04,023 --> 00:46:07,538
in the United States of America
for hundreds of years.
702
00:46:07,583 --> 00:46:11,895
lt mutated a bit, but it's identifiable
as The Daemon Lover.
703
00:46:11,943 --> 00:46:14,980
Doc Watson sings it, you can say,
''That is The Daemon Lover''.
704
00:46:15,023 --> 00:46:18,299
lf you've heard or read the
Child ballad lyric of The Daemon Lover,
705
00:46:18,343 --> 00:46:20,061
it's the same song.
706
00:46:20,103 --> 00:46:24,096
How could that have happened
to that song and so many songs?
707
00:46:30,503 --> 00:46:32,858
We know that when the ships came over
708
00:46:32,903 --> 00:46:36,532
they don't just bring immigrants,
they bring the immigrants' culture.
709
00:46:36,583 --> 00:46:39,655
On those ships, what was brought over
710
00:46:39,703 --> 00:46:44,094
would have been mobile, light,
easy-to-move instruments.
711
00:46:44,143 --> 00:46:46,577
The key one, not the only one,
712
00:46:46,623 --> 00:46:48,932
but the key one is the fiddle,
713
00:46:48,983 --> 00:46:53,215
which is the primary,
dominant instrument
714
00:46:53,263 --> 00:46:55,652
in country and western music.
715
00:47:18,823 --> 00:47:22,054
And when the fiddle
went into the Appalachian mountains,
716
00:47:22,103 --> 00:47:23,536
it stayed there.
717
00:47:23,583 --> 00:47:27,019
What happened in America,
if you can follow me here,
718
00:47:27,063 --> 00:47:28,974
is those early immigrants,
719
00:47:29,023 --> 00:47:31,821
and their songs, music, food,
dress and culture,
720
00:47:31,863 --> 00:47:33,694
clung to the Eastern Seaboard.
721
00:47:33,743 --> 00:47:37,622
The Appalachians
were the first great barrier.
722
00:47:37,663 --> 00:47:41,895
They never really conquered
the Appalachians
723
00:47:41,943 --> 00:47:43,979
as a mountain range, in getting over it.
724
00:47:44,023 --> 00:47:46,093
People went into the Appalachians,
725
00:47:46,143 --> 00:47:48,099
as in western North Carolina,
726
00:47:48,143 --> 00:47:51,374
one of the great repositories
for American folk music,
727
00:47:51,423 --> 00:47:55,416
but they couldn't
get much through the Appalachians.
728
00:48:12,743 --> 00:48:14,734
Not only were they left there,
729
00:48:14,783 --> 00:48:17,900
when electricity came in,
in the teens and the '20s
730
00:48:17,943 --> 00:48:20,138
of the 20th century,
731
00:48:20,183 --> 00:48:23,061
they were the last people
to get electricity.
732
00:48:23,103 --> 00:48:28,939
Which means until Roosevelt started
having his obviously socialistic,
733
00:48:28,983 --> 00:48:31,213
rural, electric power co-operatives,
734
00:48:31,263 --> 00:48:35,142
nobody wanted to bring electricity
to Appalachia.
735
00:48:35,183 --> 00:48:39,540
So those people had,
for the last 150, 1 75 years,
736
00:48:39,583 --> 00:48:42,051
the exact same songs
over and over and over,
737
00:48:42,103 --> 00:48:46,096
like The Daemon Lover
mutating into The House Carpenter.
738
00:48:52,303 --> 00:48:54,498
They didn't get electric lights,
739
00:48:54,543 --> 00:48:57,615
they didn't get the Grand Ole Opry
on the airwaves,
740
00:48:57,663 --> 00:49:00,814
they didn't get this or get that.
They got it last.
741
00:49:00,863 --> 00:49:06,142
Funnily enough, when Appalachia
was explored or exploited,
742
00:49:06,183 --> 00:49:07,855
whatever phrase you wanna use,
743
00:49:07,903 --> 00:49:10,258
what did they come down
from those hills with?
744
00:49:10,303 --> 00:49:14,342
The banjo from West Africa,
that they'd had for 1 75 years.
745
00:49:14,383 --> 00:49:16,977
The fiddle that they'd had for 1 75 years.
746
00:49:17,023 --> 00:49:20,777
The mandolin which they'd had
for, say, 100-and-something years.
747
00:49:20,823 --> 00:49:23,212
Those are the three key instruments
748
00:49:23,263 --> 00:49:26,335
of folk music, of bluegrass music,
of country and western.
749
00:49:26,383 --> 00:49:30,820
ln the Appalachians, not only the song
750
00:49:30,863 --> 00:49:34,458
but forms of speaking English
were preserved.
751
00:49:35,343 --> 00:49:40,292
Cecil Sharp famously
went roving round the Appalachians
752
00:49:40,343 --> 00:49:42,220
early in the 20th century
753
00:49:42,263 --> 00:49:48,213
and found intact
an incredible, a rich variety of song
754
00:49:48,263 --> 00:49:52,734
from a couple of hundred years earlier.
Yeah.
755
00:49:53,703 --> 00:49:56,456
But the real staying power of this material
756
00:49:56,503 --> 00:49:59,654
is its magical quality,
757
00:49:59,703 --> 00:50:01,898
which is something
Bob Dylan talks about,
758
00:50:01,943 --> 00:50:06,175
specifically when he's differentiating
between traditional song
759
00:50:06,223 --> 00:50:10,182
and the kind of protest material...
760
00:50:11,583 --> 00:50:14,893
and Tin Pan Alley material
that he found so boring.
761
00:50:14,943 --> 00:50:18,379
He says this
in the Playboy interview in '66,
762
00:50:18,423 --> 00:50:22,735
when he is at his most,
you know, druggy and hip
763
00:50:22,783 --> 00:50:26,014
and unstraightforward.
764
00:50:26,063 --> 00:50:31,262
At the height of that period,
he talks in that delightful interview.
765
00:50:31,303 --> 00:50:35,182
He says traditional music
won't die, can't die.
766
00:50:35,223 --> 00:50:40,502
These songs about
roses growing out of people's brains
767
00:50:40,543 --> 00:50:42,977
and people who turn into swans,
768
00:50:43,023 --> 00:50:45,059
they're not going to die.
769
00:50:45,103 --> 00:50:47,059
lt's political music -
770
00:50:47,103 --> 00:50:50,857
those are the songs that are going to die.
They're already dead.
771
00:50:50,903 --> 00:50:54,896
And he talks elsewhere about
the mystery of traditional song.
772
00:51:06,743 --> 00:51:09,257
And that's what preserves it, really.
773
00:51:09,303 --> 00:51:11,942
Because there isn't
any authentic version.
774
00:51:11,983 --> 00:51:16,056
A song that Dylan uses
on World Gone Wrong in 1993,
775
00:51:16,103 --> 00:51:21,097
which he says in the notes
that he gets from Tom Paley -
776
00:51:21,143 --> 00:51:24,499
Love Henry, this very ancient ballad.
777
00:51:24,543 --> 00:51:27,501
But you can find a version in Arkansas
778
00:51:27,543 --> 00:51:32,742
that's completely different from
the version you can find in Middle England.
779
00:51:32,783 --> 00:51:34,375
And so on.
780
00:51:34,423 --> 00:51:38,575
lt's not as if there's one,
preserved Appalachian version.
781
00:51:38,623 --> 00:51:42,411
There's always
these different variants everywhere.
782
00:52:18,743 --> 00:52:20,574
That was a version called Henry Lee
783
00:52:20,623 --> 00:52:24,582
and here's the Love Henry,
784
00:52:24,623 --> 00:52:27,854
the one that l got from
the Alabama folk songs book,
785
00:52:27,903 --> 00:52:31,054
and that Dylan apparently got from me.
786
00:52:59,743 --> 00:53:02,780
And so on.
Very different sound from the...
787
00:53:13,343 --> 00:53:16,699
One of the earliest things
that happens to Dylan
788
00:53:16,743 --> 00:53:20,452
in terms of discovering repertoire
789
00:53:20,503 --> 00:53:25,213
and the breadth of
the musical world that he can inherit,
790
00:53:25,263 --> 00:53:29,222
is the Harry Smith anthology,
American Folk Song.
791
00:53:34,703 --> 00:53:38,093
He was an avant-garde film-maker.
792
00:53:38,143 --> 00:53:41,180
He made very, very strange
kinds of stuff,
793
00:53:41,223 --> 00:53:44,613
going back to Daliesque stuff from -
and Jean Cocteau -
794
00:53:44,663 --> 00:53:47,416
you know, around 1930,
that kind of stuff.
795
00:53:47,463 --> 00:53:49,693
And also a poet.
796
00:53:49,743 --> 00:53:54,339
And he was a guy
whose musical breadth
797
00:53:54,383 --> 00:53:57,455
of traditional roots music
was unbelievable.
798
00:54:02,703 --> 00:54:05,092
Harry Smith was a west coast artist,
799
00:54:05,143 --> 00:54:09,341
the archetypal American misfit/bohemian,
800
00:54:09,383 --> 00:54:12,295
who dabbled in almost everything.
801
00:54:12,343 --> 00:54:17,053
He was a big collector and archivist
802
00:54:17,103 --> 00:54:20,618
of Native American lndian artefacts,
803
00:54:20,663 --> 00:54:22,255
music and artwork.
804
00:54:22,303 --> 00:54:26,137
His anthology,
the Harry Smith anthology,
805
00:54:26,183 --> 00:54:29,095
took three and a half or four years
806
00:54:29,143 --> 00:54:33,659
of commercially released 78s
just from this one intense period.
807
00:54:33,703 --> 00:54:37,457
And he put out this set
around 1950, thereabouts,
808
00:54:37,503 --> 00:54:39,937
four Folkways, with six LPs.
809
00:54:39,983 --> 00:54:42,975
And there was everything.
There was Cajun music,
810
00:54:43,023 --> 00:54:45,821
there was Blind Willie Johnson,
there was blues,
811
00:54:45,863 --> 00:54:48,741
it was white string bands,
country string bands,
812
00:54:48,783 --> 00:54:51,934
white solo banjo players,
all that kind of stuff.
813
00:54:51,983 --> 00:54:56,534
lt was the very first time
that white and black, old records
814
00:54:56,583 --> 00:54:58,619
had been compiled together,
815
00:54:58,663 --> 00:55:02,133
cheek by jowl, on the same compilation.
816
00:55:02,183 --> 00:55:07,211
Everything in the Anthology Of American
Folk Music, Harry Smith's thing,
817
00:55:07,263 --> 00:55:11,859
all those were commercial,
high-selling records, you know.
818
00:55:11,903 --> 00:55:15,179
They were not little pieces of weirdness
or Americana...
819
00:55:15,223 --> 00:55:17,691
These aren't field recordings,
by any means.
820
00:55:17,743 --> 00:55:19,893
Yeah, they were professional recordings,
821
00:55:19,943 --> 00:55:22,457
like Robert Johnson's recordings.
822
00:55:22,503 --> 00:55:26,576
That wasn't a field recording, that wasn't
some kind of academic exercise.
823
00:55:26,623 --> 00:55:28,978
Those were records
that were made for money.
824
00:55:29,023 --> 00:55:33,539
They were good records
by the standards of the time.
825
00:55:33,583 --> 00:55:37,542
Harry's knowledge of music
was absolutely astonishing.
826
00:55:37,583 --> 00:55:43,135
His sleeve notes for that
particular anthology were wonderful.
827
00:55:43,183 --> 00:55:48,655
He did a succinct description
of each song, for instance.
828
00:55:48,703 --> 00:55:51,342
l mean, Froggy Would A-Wooing Go
829
00:55:51,383 --> 00:55:55,535
was summarised as sort of,
830
00:55:55,583 --> 00:56:00,099
''Frog...'' What was it? ''Frog, mouse
nuptials nixed by parents'' or something.
831
00:56:00,143 --> 00:56:03,101
lt was one of those... Astonishing stuff.
832
00:56:03,143 --> 00:56:08,263
Certainly, everybody in the Village
who was a musician, had it.
833
00:56:08,303 --> 00:56:10,578
lf they didn't necessarily own a copy,
834
00:56:10,623 --> 00:56:14,457
they had a reel-to-reel tape recording.
835
00:56:14,503 --> 00:56:18,781
And until Sam Charters' 1959 collection,
836
00:56:18,823 --> 00:56:20,620
The Country Blues,
837
00:56:20,663 --> 00:56:24,576
on which Dylan would have
for the first time heard, for instance,
838
00:56:24,623 --> 00:56:27,137
Statesboro Blues by Blind Willie McTell...
839
00:56:27,183 --> 00:56:31,654
Until the Sam Charters,
Harry Smith was absolutely it.
840
00:56:31,703 --> 00:56:35,218
He was a key to, you know,
841
00:56:35,263 --> 00:56:37,936
all this old music on record.
842
00:56:38,743 --> 00:56:41,257
Many, many years later,
843
00:56:41,303 --> 00:56:46,252
Harry Smith was living in the spare room
at Allen Ginsberg's apartment
844
00:56:46,303 --> 00:56:50,057
and Allen brought Dylan round
to meet Harry for the first time.
845
00:56:50,103 --> 00:56:53,220
Harry, typically,
refused to leave his room
846
00:56:53,263 --> 00:56:56,573
so Dylan never did get to meet him.
847
00:56:56,623 --> 00:56:58,341
lt's absolutely classic.
848
00:56:58,383 --> 00:57:01,580
lf he could possibly
do something to damage his career
849
00:57:01,623 --> 00:57:05,696
or generally make people pissed off,
Harry was your man.
850
00:57:12,023 --> 00:57:14,173
On the back of
the Harry Smith collection,
851
00:57:14,223 --> 00:57:17,181
a lot of artists from
the '20s and '30s were rediscovered
852
00:57:17,223 --> 00:57:20,056
and brought to the folk clubs
of Greenwich Village.
853
00:57:20,103 --> 00:57:24,381
lt was the first time that we had heard
a lot of these musical forms
854
00:57:24,423 --> 00:57:26,732
and it really set us to start
855
00:57:26,783 --> 00:57:31,413
not only exploring
from a recordings point of view,
856
00:57:31,463 --> 00:57:34,375
but going out into the field
and finding these people.
857
00:57:34,423 --> 00:57:36,254
Look at the people we rediscovered.
858
00:57:36,303 --> 00:57:39,613
When l say ''we''
l'm talking in a generic sense.
859
00:57:39,663 --> 00:57:42,735
Son House, Skip James,
Mississippi John Hurt.
860
00:57:42,783 --> 00:57:47,493
l once was talking to Hurt
about his rediscovery
861
00:57:47,543 --> 00:57:49,773
and he said, ''What kind of rediscovery?
862
00:57:49,823 --> 00:57:53,452
''l recorded for Okeh in 1928, '29
863
00:57:53,503 --> 00:57:56,017
''and l went back to Mississippi
and l never moved.
864
00:57:56,063 --> 00:57:57,701
''No one ever came after me''.
865
00:58:14,303 --> 00:58:19,457
Mississippi John Hurt was a guy
who made recordings in the '20s
866
00:58:19,503 --> 00:58:21,892
which everybody found
absolutely wonderful.
867
00:58:21,943 --> 00:58:25,936
They're not really blues.
They're songs from the 19th century
868
00:58:25,983 --> 00:58:29,373
played in this intricate guitar style.
869
00:59:06,383 --> 00:59:10,581
Collectors,
people who collected these old 78s,
870
00:59:10,623 --> 00:59:13,262
decoded them. They listened so carefully
871
00:59:13,303 --> 00:59:16,375
and heard references
to this town called Avalon.
872
00:59:16,423 --> 00:59:20,257
They looked on a map and there's
a tiny town in Mississippi called Avalon.
873
00:59:20,303 --> 00:59:22,339
So they went to Avalon.
874
00:59:22,383 --> 00:59:25,614
And there he was,
sitting on his front doorstep,
875
00:59:25,663 --> 00:59:29,576
where he was when the scout from the
record company in the '20s found him.
876
00:59:29,623 --> 00:59:31,898
They brought him
to the Newport Folk Festival,
877
00:59:31,943 --> 00:59:34,582
took him round to coffee houses
and he had a fantastic time.
878
00:59:34,623 --> 00:59:36,341
He loved every minute.
879
00:59:36,383 --> 00:59:39,534
He made money, he gave some money
to his wife and his kids
880
00:59:39,583 --> 00:59:42,575
and then died of old age.
881
00:59:42,623 --> 00:59:45,740
And it was a wonderful saga.
882
01:00:30,303 --> 01:00:33,818
Mississippi John Hurt was
only one of the performers from the '20s
883
01:00:33,863 --> 01:00:35,262
who inspired Bob Dylan
884
01:00:35,303 --> 01:00:39,057
and whose careers were reborn
in the early '60s.
885
01:00:39,103 --> 01:00:42,778
We had an organisation in New York
called Friends of Old Time Music.
886
01:00:42,823 --> 01:00:46,736
We brought some people up,
some of the genuine country musicians,
887
01:00:46,783 --> 01:00:49,377
the old-time country musicians,
up to New York.
888
01:00:49,423 --> 01:00:51,414
One of the first groups we had up
889
01:00:51,463 --> 01:00:53,931
was Clarence Ashley and his group,
890
01:00:53,983 --> 01:00:58,340
which consisted of
Clarence Ashley, Doc Watson,
891
01:00:58,383 --> 01:01:01,693
Clint Howard, Fred Price
and Gaither Carlton.
892
01:01:01,743 --> 01:01:07,215
Now, some of us there
were familiar with Ashley
893
01:01:07,263 --> 01:01:10,699
and had heard a lot of this music before.
894
01:01:11,983 --> 01:01:16,852
But for most of the public,
Ashley was an almost unknown name.
895
01:01:16,903 --> 01:01:22,739
And so, in order to get people to come in,
we had to be on the bill, too.
896
01:01:22,783 --> 01:01:26,571
So it was New Lost City Ramblers
and Ashley's group.
897
01:01:28,103 --> 01:01:30,298
Ashley's adaptation of traditional songs
898
01:01:30,343 --> 01:01:32,811
such as The House Carpenter,
with Coo-Coo Bird,
899
01:01:32,863 --> 01:01:34,979
were amongst
the repertoire of Bob Dylan
900
01:01:35,023 --> 01:01:38,015
and many of the '60s folk club circuit.
901
01:01:44,223 --> 01:01:47,579
Ashley's one of those -
there's so many in this genre -
902
01:01:47,623 --> 01:01:50,137
that had great success, briefly,
903
01:01:50,183 --> 01:01:53,300
great success but briefly,
in the late 1920s.
904
01:01:53,343 --> 01:01:54,822
When the '30s rolled around -
905
01:01:54,863 --> 01:01:57,502
you had the stock market crash
in October 1929 -
906
01:01:58,063 --> 01:02:02,181
the record industry, it's comparable
today, was doing extremely well.
907
01:02:02,223 --> 01:02:04,259
A lot of people were getting Victrolas,
908
01:02:04,303 --> 01:02:05,452
which you cranked up,
909
01:02:05,503 --> 01:02:09,860
put this nail-like looking stylus
down upon a vinyl record
910
01:02:09,903 --> 01:02:12,178
and played a 78rpm recording.
911
01:02:12,223 --> 01:02:14,293
A lot of Americans had that.
912
01:02:14,343 --> 01:02:18,859
But after the stock market crash
of October 1929,
913
01:02:18,903 --> 01:02:20,894
record sales went in the tank.
914
01:02:20,943 --> 01:02:24,902
But Ashley, he's one of those guys
that had his big splash,
915
01:02:24,943 --> 01:02:28,174
recorded these 78s
and then the lights went out.
916
01:02:28,223 --> 01:02:31,772
And it remained dark for 30, 40 years,
917
01:02:31,823 --> 01:02:36,101
until Tom Paley or John Cohen
918
01:02:36,143 --> 01:02:38,862
or Joe Boyd or whoever,
919
01:02:38,903 --> 01:02:41,861
Paul Nelson,
went and rediscovered these guys.
920
01:02:43,983 --> 01:02:47,976
ln New York, Dylan improved
as a stage performer to such an extent
921
01:02:48,023 --> 01:02:50,776
that a review of one of his concerts
in the New York Times
922
01:02:50,823 --> 01:02:53,291
led to a record contract with Columbia.
923
01:02:53,343 --> 01:02:57,495
The interesting thing about what
Dylan says about making his first album
924
01:02:57,543 --> 01:03:00,774
is he didn't want
to put his best stuff on there.
925
01:03:00,823 --> 01:03:03,940
He didn't want
to sort of make the first album
926
01:03:03,983 --> 01:03:06,053
a display of all his talents,
927
01:03:06,103 --> 01:03:08,173
a revealing of all he could do.
928
01:03:08,223 --> 01:03:11,613
He always wanted
to keep something in reserve.
929
01:03:11,663 --> 01:03:13,858
And so, if you like,
930
01:03:13,903 --> 01:03:17,179
there are surprising things
on that first album,
931
01:03:17,223 --> 01:03:21,341
things that he wasn't singing
every night in the folk clubs.
932
01:03:21,383 --> 01:03:23,374
Baby, Let Me Follow You Down
933
01:03:23,423 --> 01:03:26,938
is a song with many
different versions and roots,
934
01:03:26,983 --> 01:03:30,293
going back to Memphis Minnie
and Joe McCoy.
935
01:03:30,343 --> 01:03:33,255
Can l Do lt For You, Parts 1 and 2,
936
01:03:33,303 --> 01:03:38,377
hundreds of people do it and Dylan takes
it specifically from Eric von Schmidt,
937
01:03:38,423 --> 01:03:41,495
who's one of the Cambridge crowd,
if you like.
938
01:03:41,543 --> 01:03:44,262
And he says he takes it from him,
939
01:03:44,303 --> 01:03:47,978
in a very attractive
intro to the song on that album,
940
01:03:48,023 --> 01:03:51,777
in which he gives Rick von Schmidt,
941
01:03:51,823 --> 01:03:56,294
as he mischievously calls him there,
a namecheck.
942
01:03:56,343 --> 01:04:00,541
l say mischievously because no one
ever called him Rick von Schmidt.
943
01:04:00,583 --> 01:04:02,539
He's always Eric von Schmidt.
944
01:04:02,583 --> 01:04:05,416
So, a sideways tribute, if you like,
945
01:04:05,463 --> 01:04:08,580
and in that sense,
very typical of Dylan, maybe, too.
946
01:04:09,583 --> 01:04:12,655
One of the many performers who recorded
Baby, Let Me Follow You Down,
947
01:04:12,703 --> 01:04:15,171
and an artist Dylan would have
learnt from first-hand,
948
01:04:15,223 --> 01:04:17,020
was Reverend Gary Davis.
949
01:04:17,063 --> 01:04:19,623
This song come to me
when l was waking up
950
01:04:19,663 --> 01:04:22,780
in Lake George, New York.
951
01:04:30,263 --> 01:04:36,862
Reverend Gary Davis
was the master of an old-fashioned style,
952
01:04:36,903 --> 01:04:41,533
kind of ragtime guitar mixed with gospel.
953
01:04:41,583 --> 01:04:45,542
He was from South Carolina, where there
was a great tradition along the east coast
954
01:04:45,583 --> 01:04:49,496
of these finger-picking, arpeggio-based,
955
01:04:49,543 --> 01:04:51,261
sort of blues guitar styles.
956
01:04:51,303 --> 01:04:55,216
Very, very different from Mississippi,
from Delta blues,
957
01:04:55,263 --> 01:04:58,494
which is much darker
and more abstract, in a way.
958
01:04:58,543 --> 01:05:03,094
And Gary was part of that school.
959
01:05:32,023 --> 01:05:36,619
And a nephew or something, l think,
brought him up to the Bronx
960
01:05:36,663 --> 01:05:39,257
in the '40s, the late '40s, l think...
961
01:05:40,383 --> 01:05:43,773
when he was too old
to make it along the back roads,
962
01:05:43,823 --> 01:05:48,738
sort of as an itinerant preacher
and singer in South Carolina.
963
01:05:48,783 --> 01:05:54,892
And somehow, he connected
with some of the young kids
964
01:05:54,943 --> 01:05:58,174
who were starting to learn
how to play folk guitar.
965
01:05:58,223 --> 01:06:00,453
And he became a teacher
966
01:06:00,503 --> 01:06:05,577
and a lot of young musicians
that Dylan would have known,
967
01:06:05,623 --> 01:06:07,614
Stefan Grossman being one,
968
01:06:07,663 --> 01:06:11,576
who sort of absorbed everything
he possibly could from Reverend Gary
969
01:06:11,623 --> 01:06:15,172
and then he himself became
a teacher of guitar
970
01:06:15,223 --> 01:06:20,013
and you can find Stefan Grossman's
guitar lessons on DVD.
971
01:06:20,063 --> 01:06:23,692
And that all started with lessons
from Reverend Gary Davis
972
01:06:23,743 --> 01:06:26,780
and a lot of the New York folkies were...
973
01:06:26,823 --> 01:06:31,021
To the degree that
they had real skill on the guitar,
974
01:06:31,063 --> 01:06:35,056
very often it was because
they'd taken lessons from Gary.
975
01:06:42,303 --> 01:06:49,539
Now, l had two
slightly damaged 78rpm, ten-inch records
976
01:06:49,583 --> 01:06:51,733
of someone called Blind Gary,
977
01:06:51,783 --> 01:06:54,092
who sang religious songs.
978
01:06:54,143 --> 01:06:57,852
An absolutely, spectacularly
marvellous guitarist.
979
01:06:59,223 --> 01:07:02,659
And one of the people they brought up
during that concert
980
01:07:02,703 --> 01:07:06,696
was someone they introduced as
Reverend Gary Davis.
981
01:07:06,743 --> 01:07:10,418
And l'd never heard of anyone
under that name.
982
01:07:10,463 --> 01:07:12,454
But they led a blind man out on stage.
983
01:07:12,503 --> 01:07:14,733
''A blind man with a guitar,
984
01:07:14,783 --> 01:07:19,538
''and religious, Reverend,
and the name is Gary.
985
01:07:19,583 --> 01:07:22,017
''Could it be Blind Gary, whose...?''
986
01:07:22,063 --> 01:07:24,623
And it was! l was so excited about that.
987
01:07:24,663 --> 01:07:26,972
Now, he was spectacular.
988
01:07:38,863 --> 01:07:41,536
He and Blind Blake
989
01:07:41,583 --> 01:07:44,859
must have been
about the two best guitarists ever
990
01:07:44,903 --> 01:07:48,498
in the American folk and blues range.
991
01:07:49,623 --> 01:07:53,411
lt's interesting for somebody
that's known primarily, not exclusively,
992
01:07:53,463 --> 01:07:55,294
as a songwriter -
993
01:07:55,343 --> 01:07:59,461
the first album of Bob Dylan
only has two original songs on it.
994
01:07:59,503 --> 01:08:02,336
He touches on Woody Guthrie, certainly,
995
01:08:02,383 --> 01:08:04,180
he touches on Leadbelly.
996
01:08:04,223 --> 01:08:08,262
He does the Josh White arrangement
of House Of The Rising Sun.
997
01:08:08,303 --> 01:08:12,137
He does some
Jesse Lonecat Fuller type stuff.
998
01:08:12,183 --> 01:08:15,619
And it's odd that
you think John Hammond Senior
999
01:08:15,663 --> 01:08:17,381
signed this guy
1000
01:08:17,423 --> 01:08:22,577
because of how he interpreted folk songs
and the image that he gave across.
1001
01:08:22,623 --> 01:08:25,501
He did not sign
Bob Dylan as a songwriter
1002
01:08:25,543 --> 01:08:29,855
cos, as l said, the first album
only has two original numbers.
1003
01:08:29,903 --> 01:08:33,020
He signed Dylan
obviously because he feels
1004
01:08:33,063 --> 01:08:35,213
Dylan is a link
in the traditional music chain.
1005
01:08:36,463 --> 01:08:39,421
One of the key tracks - in fact, the last -
on Dylan's first album,
1006
01:08:39,463 --> 01:08:42,899
is Blind Lemon Jefferson's
See That My Grave ls Kept Clean.
1007
01:09:12,783 --> 01:09:15,695
Jefferson wasn't
the first male blues singer to record.
1008
01:09:15,743 --> 01:09:19,019
But he was the most successful,
the first superstar
1009
01:09:19,063 --> 01:09:22,942
in 1920s blues vocal-and-guitar music.
1010
01:09:22,983 --> 01:09:25,417
His See That My Grave ls Kept Clean
1011
01:09:25,463 --> 01:09:30,014
was, interestingly,
issued both as a blues song
1012
01:09:30,063 --> 01:09:32,736
and as a religious song
1013
01:09:32,783 --> 01:09:35,456
on different couplings by Paramount.
1014
01:09:36,303 --> 01:09:39,340
But while it's difficult to actually tie down
1015
01:09:39,383 --> 01:09:43,661
exactly where the origination of this,
who actually composed this...
1016
01:09:43,703 --> 01:09:48,140
Copyright control will hold that
Blind Lemon Jefferson holds the rights,
1017
01:09:48,183 --> 01:09:53,576
but the song was about, was known
to have been a familiar song
1018
01:09:53,623 --> 01:09:56,421
under different titles
throughout Texas at the time -
1019
01:09:56,463 --> 01:09:59,182
One Kind Favor, Two White Horses -
1020
01:09:59,223 --> 01:10:00,895
there was all variations of it.
1021
01:10:00,943 --> 01:10:05,937
Jefferson's version was
probably a little bit of a wry mis-type
1022
01:10:05,983 --> 01:10:11,057
of Gus Williams's
See That My Grave ls Kept Green.
1023
01:10:11,103 --> 01:10:14,812
This was recorded
by various country artists -
1024
01:10:14,863 --> 01:10:17,423
The Carter Family and Bela Lam.
1025
01:10:21,703 --> 01:10:24,740
But following in the footsteps
of his idol, Woody Guthrie,
1026
01:10:24,783 --> 01:10:28,173
many of Bob Dylan's songs,
especially those from the second album,
1027
01:10:28,223 --> 01:10:30,214
Freewheelin' Bob Dylan onwards,
1028
01:10:30,263 --> 01:10:34,415
are based on older melodies,
either in a blues or ballad form.
1029
01:10:34,463 --> 01:10:38,092
But in the folk world, this is seen
as part of the ongoing tradition.
1030
01:10:42,663 --> 01:10:44,062
lt was part of the process.
1031
01:10:44,103 --> 01:10:47,061
Martin Carthy, the English folk singer.
He, if you like,
1032
01:10:47,103 --> 01:10:51,813
taught Dylan a couple of songs,
which Dylan rushed off and rewrote.
1033
01:10:51,863 --> 01:10:55,936
Martin Carthy doesn't feel
that he was used by Bob Dylan.
1034
01:10:55,983 --> 01:10:59,942
He does feel that it was part of
the folk process, if you like.
1035
01:10:59,983 --> 01:11:02,338
Dylan was mopping up everything.
1036
01:11:04,023 --> 01:11:06,139
The songs Dylan learnt
from Martin Carthy
1037
01:11:06,183 --> 01:11:10,381
were Lord Franklin's Lament,
the basis for Bob Dylan's Dream,
1038
01:11:10,423 --> 01:11:12,459
and Scarborough Fair, which Dylan used
1039
01:11:12,503 --> 01:11:16,291
as the foundation for
Girl From The North Country.
1040
01:11:53,063 --> 01:11:57,136
ln 1964, with the
Another Side Of Bob Dylan album,
1041
01:11:57,183 --> 01:11:59,253
Dylan openly declared
that he was moving away
1042
01:11:59,303 --> 01:12:02,215
from the political, traditional folk, arena
1043
01:12:02,263 --> 01:12:04,015
and, along with the finger-pointing lyrics,
1044
01:12:04,063 --> 01:12:08,056
he lost the acoustic sound
and embraced electric rock and roll.
1045
01:12:08,983 --> 01:12:12,100
When he hears the Beatles -
and he also hears the Byrds
1046
01:12:12,143 --> 01:12:16,500
doing the first electric versions
of his own, earlier folk songs -
1047
01:12:16,543 --> 01:12:18,056
he says, ''l can do that''.
1048
01:12:18,103 --> 01:12:20,936
Many people said,
''You're just going commercial, Bob''.
1049
01:12:20,983 --> 01:12:23,213
''lt's just that he wants
to make more money''.
1050
01:12:23,263 --> 01:12:27,017
The problems come when major artists
seek bigger audiences
1051
01:12:27,063 --> 01:12:29,099
and then dumb down their work.
1052
01:12:29,143 --> 01:12:30,815
That's not what Dylan does.
1053
01:12:30,863 --> 01:12:34,538
What's his first big rock hit?
Like A Rolling Stone.
1054
01:12:34,583 --> 01:12:37,051
lt's six minutes long,
1055
01:12:37,103 --> 01:12:42,257
it has a whole series
of incredibly obscure verses
1056
01:12:42,303 --> 01:12:46,262
of the sort that
you never found in Beatles music
1057
01:12:46,303 --> 01:12:48,419
or in any rock and roll.
1058
01:12:48,463 --> 01:12:52,172
The tone of it is vituperative and vicious.
1059
01:12:52,223 --> 01:12:55,215
lt's six minutes of anger.
1060
01:12:55,263 --> 01:12:58,414
He brings a completely novel,
hard-edged
1061
01:12:58,463 --> 01:13:02,536
and decidedly uncommercial spirit
1062
01:13:02,583 --> 01:13:04,733
to the rock and roll format
1063
01:13:04,783 --> 01:13:06,739
and it becomes a huge hit.
1064
01:13:06,783 --> 01:13:08,933
ln fact, the music that Dylan makes
1065
01:13:08,983 --> 01:13:10,575
from '65 on...
1066
01:13:10,623 --> 01:13:13,615
l would say the three albums,
Bringing lt All Back Home,
1067
01:13:13,663 --> 01:13:16,382
Highway 61 Revisited
and Blonde On Blonde,
1068
01:13:16,423 --> 01:13:18,937
represent the acme of his work
1069
01:13:18,983 --> 01:13:22,100
and, for me,
the acme of popular culture...
1070
01:13:23,023 --> 01:13:24,820
in the 20th century.
1071
01:13:24,863 --> 01:13:28,299
And they're among the great works of art
in any medium,
1072
01:13:28,343 --> 01:13:32,097
high culture or low culture,
of the 20th century.
1073
01:13:32,143 --> 01:13:33,861
They've stood the test of time.
1074
01:13:34,783 --> 01:13:37,138
After Blonde On Blonde,
Dylan turned once more
1075
01:13:37,183 --> 01:13:39,060
to his roots and simpler forms -
1076
01:13:39,103 --> 01:13:41,412
not the blues or the ballad tradition
1077
01:13:41,463 --> 01:13:44,580
but his other great love, country music.
1078
01:13:48,743 --> 01:13:50,222
His interest in this form
1079
01:13:50,263 --> 01:13:53,539
dated back to Jimmie Rodgers
and the Carter Family in the '30s
1080
01:13:53,583 --> 01:13:57,371
up to Hank Williams
and, more recently, Johnny Cash.
1081
01:14:01,063 --> 01:14:05,022
The Carter Family featured on
Harry Smith's groundbreaking anthology,
1082
01:14:05,063 --> 01:14:07,623
and Bob Dylan used their song,
Wayworn Traveller,
1083
01:14:07,663 --> 01:14:09,255
as the basis for Paths Of Glory
1084
01:14:09,303 --> 01:14:12,693
and, arguably,
The Times They Are A-Changin'.
1085
01:14:13,743 --> 01:14:16,018
But the Carter Family's
most enduring legacy
1086
01:14:16,063 --> 01:14:19,499
was Maybelle Carter's
scratch-style, finger-picking guitar.
1087
01:14:19,543 --> 01:14:22,899
lt was a singing style,
a sort of family singing style
1088
01:14:22,943 --> 01:14:25,332
with a couple of instruments.
1089
01:14:25,383 --> 01:14:31,731
And particularly,
Maybelle's style on the guitar got to be...
1090
01:14:31,783 --> 01:14:37,733
Boy, it was the fundament
of a lot of modern country playing
1091
01:14:37,783 --> 01:14:40,013
and, with a bit of elaboration,
1092
01:14:40,063 --> 01:14:42,941
became the kind of flat-picking style
1093
01:14:42,983 --> 01:14:46,020
that's used in bluegrass, too.
1094
01:14:46,063 --> 01:14:50,341
l'll try something
in the style of the Carter Family.
1095
01:14:50,383 --> 01:14:52,453
Something like Maybelle's picking.
1096
01:14:52,503 --> 01:14:54,892
A strange thing about this song,
1097
01:14:54,943 --> 01:14:56,979
well, about a lot of their stuff,
1098
01:14:57,023 --> 01:15:01,778
was that there'd be
odd irregularities in rhythm in it.
1099
01:15:01,823 --> 01:15:04,053
lt wasn't all straightforward and square.
1100
01:15:04,103 --> 01:15:06,697
You'll hear some strange things in this.
1101
01:15:51,703 --> 01:15:54,342
That's just a bit of it, a burst of it.
1102
01:15:54,383 --> 01:15:57,102
A.P. Carter heard people
singing these songs
1103
01:15:57,143 --> 01:15:58,974
in different towns all around
1104
01:15:59,023 --> 01:16:03,062
and he knew these were gems
and he knew they were worth recording,
1105
01:16:03,103 --> 01:16:05,094
worth saving and worth writing down,
1106
01:16:05,143 --> 01:16:07,737
albeit he didn't need
to put them down in his name,
1107
01:16:07,783 --> 01:16:10,297
but that's just the way
things were done back then.
1108
01:16:10,343 --> 01:16:13,653
But he, too, was searching
for some kind of authenticity,
1109
01:16:13,703 --> 01:16:18,493
something real, some kind of
meaningful song-line to hang on.
1110
01:16:18,543 --> 01:16:21,103
l think it's just Americans, in general,
1111
01:16:21,143 --> 01:16:25,295
are rootless people with
no sense of home, no sense of place.
1112
01:16:25,343 --> 01:16:28,335
And maybe these songs make you feel
like you have a place
1113
01:16:28,383 --> 01:16:31,341
that has a history, that has a tradition
1114
01:16:31,383 --> 01:16:36,503
and you're not just swimming
in a vacuum of scary commodities.
1115
01:16:48,623 --> 01:16:50,818
Another country pioneer
that Dylan admired
1116
01:16:50,863 --> 01:16:53,536
was the Singing Brakeman,
Jimmie Rodgers.
1117
01:17:04,983 --> 01:17:08,862
l think he influenced
the whole country genre
1118
01:17:08,903 --> 01:17:12,452
by showing white people
that it was really OK
1119
01:17:12,503 --> 01:17:14,459
to work within the black tradition,
1120
01:17:14,503 --> 01:17:16,573
the white version of the black tradition.
1121
01:17:16,623 --> 01:17:19,581
Contrary to popular perception,
1122
01:17:19,623 --> 01:17:23,218
there was tremendous interplay
between white and black musicians
1123
01:17:23,263 --> 01:17:25,572
in the '20s and '30s.
1124
01:17:25,623 --> 01:17:28,456
The popular mythology is
the blacks were on the one side,
1125
01:17:28,503 --> 01:17:31,336
the whites on the other side,
never the twain shall meet.
1126
01:17:31,383 --> 01:17:32,896
That was not the truth then.
1127
01:17:32,943 --> 01:17:36,174
When you spoke to, you know,
1128
01:17:36,223 --> 01:17:40,011
like l have, Mississippi John Hurt
and a lot of other musicians
1129
01:17:40,063 --> 01:17:42,531
and they would tell you
how they would play dates
1130
01:17:42,583 --> 01:17:44,778
with the white guys in the area.
1131
01:17:44,823 --> 01:17:48,020
This was nothing unusual.
1132
01:17:48,063 --> 01:17:51,533
From an early age,
Dylan was a big fan of country music
1133
01:17:51,583 --> 01:17:53,539
and he talks about this in Chronicles.
1134
01:17:53,583 --> 01:17:58,498
ln particular, he talks about the influence
of a number of major country artists -
1135
01:17:58,543 --> 01:18:02,741
Jimmie Rodgers and Johnny Cash,
but especially Hank Williams.
1136
01:18:03,583 --> 01:18:08,293
lt's important for people whose idea
about American country music
1137
01:18:08,343 --> 01:18:11,892
is that it's all rather slushy
and sentimental
1138
01:18:11,943 --> 01:18:15,982
to understand that there is another
tradition of American country music,
1139
01:18:16,023 --> 01:18:17,661
which is tragic and desperate
1140
01:18:17,703 --> 01:18:21,059
and is the music of struggle
and poverty and loneliness.
1141
01:18:21,103 --> 01:18:22,934
And no one expresses that
1142
01:18:22,983 --> 01:18:26,180
more vividly and poignantly
than Hank Williams.
1143
01:18:26,223 --> 01:18:29,021
Williams was a great songwriter.
1144
01:18:30,263 --> 01:18:32,140
ln common with Woody Guthrie,
1145
01:18:32,183 --> 01:18:35,698
the other major lyrical influence
on the early Dylan,
1146
01:18:35,743 --> 01:18:37,540
he was an absolute master
1147
01:18:37,583 --> 01:18:44,739
of the economy of telling
a short, tragic story with no waste
1148
01:18:44,783 --> 01:18:46,694
and making each word count.
1149
01:19:13,063 --> 01:19:16,453
There's a fascinating moment
in the documentary, Don't Look Back,
1150
01:19:16,503 --> 01:19:20,257
in which Dylan, in a hotel room,
picks up a guitar
1151
01:19:20,303 --> 01:19:23,693
and sings Hank Williams' masterpiece,
Lost Highway,
1152
01:19:23,743 --> 01:19:28,180
which is a song about
how the individual finds himself
1153
01:19:28,223 --> 01:19:31,898
completely alienated from
and unable to communicate with
1154
01:19:31,943 --> 01:19:33,979
all kinds of other people.
1155
01:19:34,023 --> 01:19:36,821
The ethical mores that society gives him
1156
01:19:36,863 --> 01:19:39,138
just somehow don't fit him
1157
01:19:39,183 --> 01:19:41,743
but nor can he find true love.
1158
01:19:41,783 --> 01:19:43,774
And of course, in that song,
1159
01:19:43,823 --> 01:19:47,372
he uses the image ''like a rolling stone'',
1160
01:19:47,423 --> 01:19:51,894
the image of an individual rolling along,
1161
01:19:51,943 --> 01:19:55,094
free-rolling, not really
in control of his destiny.
1162
01:19:55,143 --> 01:19:57,611
And at the time that
Dylan sings that song -
1163
01:19:57,663 --> 01:20:01,451
he sings it beautifully, it's one of
the high points of Don't Look Back -
1164
01:20:01,503 --> 01:20:05,212
within about a couple of months of that,
he writes his own song,
1165
01:20:05,263 --> 01:20:07,060
Like A Rolling Stone.
1166
01:20:07,103 --> 01:20:10,539
So l think Williams is
one of the major influences on Dylan.
1167
01:20:10,583 --> 01:20:12,778
But it's a little ironic
1168
01:20:12,823 --> 01:20:15,656
that when Dylan
comes to make his own country record,
1169
01:20:15,703 --> 01:20:17,295
Nashville Skyline,
1170
01:20:17,343 --> 01:20:20,062
there's almost not a hint of Williams in it.
1171
01:20:20,103 --> 01:20:23,732
lnstead, it's the schlockier,
domesticated,
1172
01:20:23,783 --> 01:20:27,014
more sentimental side of country music
1173
01:20:27,063 --> 01:20:30,578
that he echoes there,
and not that iciness.
1174
01:20:30,623 --> 01:20:34,662
ln Williams sometimes, you really can
feel the touch of the devil in it.
1175
01:20:34,703 --> 01:20:38,252
You can feel what it's like
to be way out there,
1176
01:20:38,303 --> 01:20:40,259
all alone, with no hope at all.
1177
01:20:40,303 --> 01:20:42,453
He's one of the great artists of despair.
1178
01:20:42,503 --> 01:20:45,575
Even more than the rather saccharine
Nashville Skyline,
1179
01:20:45,623 --> 01:20:47,898
The Basement Tapes
and John Wesley Harding
1180
01:20:47,943 --> 01:20:51,094
were testament
to Dylan's love of country music.
1181
01:20:51,143 --> 01:20:53,816
When you look at
John Wesley Harding, those songs,
1182
01:20:53,863 --> 01:20:56,582
this is someone who's spent the year
1183
01:20:56,623 --> 01:20:58,659
focusing on great new originals
1184
01:20:58,703 --> 01:21:02,378
in a prolific songwriting period,
but songs from where?
1185
01:21:02,423 --> 01:21:04,539
The Basement Tapes,
which went before it,
1186
01:21:04,583 --> 01:21:08,178
are Dylan doing...
l think he does four Johnny Cash songs.
1187
01:21:08,223 --> 01:21:11,613
He does songs, originals of his own,
fooling around the basement,
1188
01:21:11,663 --> 01:21:15,212
with a very Hank Williams,
Luke the Drifter, tenor to them.
1189
01:21:15,263 --> 01:21:19,654
Country and western really played
a big part for our Bob in '67,
1190
01:21:19,703 --> 01:21:22,171
l am gonna guess
as a reaction to psychedelia.
1191
01:21:22,223 --> 01:21:23,941
He never felt comfortable with
1192
01:21:23,983 --> 01:21:26,451
the big production values of psychedelia.
1193
01:21:26,503 --> 01:21:28,733
So, of course,
when you get later in the year
1194
01:21:28,783 --> 01:21:31,092
and he's gonna record
his first new record
1195
01:21:31,143 --> 01:21:34,135
of Bob Dylan material in 18 months,
1196
01:21:34,183 --> 01:21:37,573
what is John Wesley Harding
reminiscent of?
1197
01:21:37,623 --> 01:21:40,933
A young Hank Williams.
A young Hank Snow.
1198
01:21:40,983 --> 01:21:43,451
That kind of stark feel,
1199
01:21:43,503 --> 01:21:46,097
that would have
appeared on Sun Records,
1200
01:21:46,143 --> 01:21:48,703
is obvious on John Wesley Harding.
1201
01:21:48,743 --> 01:21:52,258
You have Johnny Cash's
strummed rhythm guitar,
1202
01:21:52,303 --> 01:21:54,294
a primitive but heartfelt vocal,
1203
01:21:54,343 --> 01:21:56,299
muted bass, muted drums.
1204
01:21:56,343 --> 01:21:59,380
That's the sound
of John Wesley Harding, as well.
1205
01:21:59,423 --> 01:22:02,972
lt's a little more contemporary
because Bob Dylan's Bob Dylan,
1206
01:22:03,023 --> 01:22:07,699
but he's been listening to these
rootsy, country and western artists,
1207
01:22:07,743 --> 01:22:09,335
the Cashes, the Snows.
1208
01:22:09,383 --> 01:22:11,977
On Basement Tapes,
they do a wonderful version
1209
01:22:12,023 --> 01:22:13,854
of several Carter Family songs.
1210
01:22:13,903 --> 01:22:16,371
He does a wonderful Wildwood Flower,
1211
01:22:16,423 --> 01:22:19,495
where Bob plays autoharp.
Hard to believe, but he does.
1212
01:22:27,863 --> 01:22:31,060
But you cannot discuss what has shaped
Bob Dylan's life and work
1213
01:22:31,103 --> 01:22:33,253
without digressing from the musical field
1214
01:22:33,303 --> 01:22:37,581
and examining his greatest literary
and aesthetic influence, the Beats.
1215
01:22:37,623 --> 01:22:41,138
Dylan makes it clear in Chronicles
that reading Kerouac, Ginsberg,
1216
01:22:41,183 --> 01:22:44,380
Burroughs and the other Beats
was a huge influence on him.
1217
01:22:44,423 --> 01:22:47,017
lt's important to remember
that the Beat movement
1218
01:22:47,063 --> 01:22:50,373
is intimately associated
with the folk revival.
1219
01:22:50,423 --> 01:22:53,256
What you would have
in the coffee houses
1220
01:22:53,303 --> 01:22:54,895
in the late '50s and early '60s
1221
01:22:54,943 --> 01:22:56,854
was a guy who'd stand up
1222
01:22:56,903 --> 01:23:00,532
or a woman who'd stand up with a guitar
and play a couple of songs
1223
01:23:00,583 --> 01:23:04,019
and then a poet, or would-be poet,
would stand up and declaim verses
1224
01:23:04,063 --> 01:23:06,736
which might be great
and might be absolute rubbish,
1225
01:23:06,783 --> 01:23:09,013
but everyone had their chance.
1226
01:23:09,063 --> 01:23:13,215
There was a democratic spirit
1227
01:23:13,263 --> 01:23:16,096
in both the folk revival
and the Beats, at their best,
1228
01:23:16,143 --> 01:23:19,613
that gave the confidence to Dylan
and millions of others
1229
01:23:19,663 --> 01:23:23,656
to say ''l can be a poet.
Oh, that's what writing poetry is''.
1230
01:23:29,823 --> 01:23:31,973
The big one for Bob Dylan
is the Beat poets.
1231
01:23:32,023 --> 01:23:34,662
And like his desire
to meet Woody Guthrie,
1232
01:23:34,703 --> 01:23:39,094
and the thrill he had when he became
friends with Ramblin' Jack Elliott,
1233
01:23:39,143 --> 01:23:41,737
there's a reflection of that
with the Beat poets.
1234
01:23:41,783 --> 01:23:43,933
He became buddies, dear buddies,
1235
01:23:43,983 --> 01:23:46,099
with Allen Ginsberg, as we all know.
1236
01:23:46,143 --> 01:23:50,500
And, as many people don't know, he was
also close to guys like Michael McClure.
1237
01:23:50,543 --> 01:23:52,693
lf someone like that
has something to say,
1238
01:23:52,743 --> 01:23:56,179
Dylan has a tendency
to go moth-to-a-flame.
1239
01:23:56,223 --> 01:23:58,737
''l gotta get as close as l can
to these people
1240
01:23:58,783 --> 01:24:02,219
''and learn as much as l can
as quickly as l can''.
1241
01:24:03,943 --> 01:24:06,332
That's where
part of Dylan's whole attitude,
1242
01:24:06,383 --> 01:24:10,456
his whole stance as an artist, is Beat.
1243
01:24:10,503 --> 01:24:13,779
lt's that refusal to rehearse properly,
1244
01:24:13,823 --> 01:24:18,453
it's a contempt for a certain kind
of polished professionalism.
1245
01:24:18,503 --> 01:24:21,654
lt's a belief in
the spontaneity of the moment.
1246
01:24:21,703 --> 01:24:27,221
Dylan's entire live-performance oeuvre,
1247
01:24:27,263 --> 01:24:29,254
right down the decades,
1248
01:24:29,303 --> 01:24:32,978
is a testament to the power of
living in the moment, to trusting that.
1249
01:24:33,023 --> 01:24:36,459
Some of the things he gets from
the Beats are the spontaneity,
1250
01:24:36,503 --> 01:24:38,619
the free association,
1251
01:24:38,663 --> 01:24:45,011
the contempt for the established
parameters of high culture,
1252
01:24:45,063 --> 01:24:47,418
for the notion of
what makes a great poem,
1253
01:24:47,463 --> 01:24:50,500
a perfectly formed artefact.
1254
01:24:50,543 --> 01:24:53,819
Ginsberg and the rest are saying,
''No, that's not what makes a great poem.
1255
01:24:53,863 --> 01:24:57,378
''What makes a great poem is spirit
and rhythm and vision''.
1256
01:24:58,023 --> 01:25:00,059
ln other words, the Beat movement
1257
01:25:00,103 --> 01:25:02,776
is a challenge to high culture.
1258
01:25:02,823 --> 01:25:05,132
And a whole strand of Dylan
1259
01:25:05,183 --> 01:25:07,538
is about the fact that
he sees what he's doing
1260
01:25:07,583 --> 01:25:12,896
as of equal value to anything
in the great cultural tradition of the West
1261
01:25:12,943 --> 01:25:16,015
but he also sees it
as being somehow more authentic
1262
01:25:16,063 --> 01:25:18,896
because it has an intimate relationship,
1263
01:25:18,943 --> 01:25:22,174
if you like, a democratic relationship
with popular culture.
1264
01:25:22,223 --> 01:25:25,374
What he also gets from the Beats
is this wonderful combination
1265
01:25:25,423 --> 01:25:27,698
of the language of the street
1266
01:25:27,743 --> 01:25:29,893
with the language of vision,
1267
01:25:29,943 --> 01:25:32,332
of visionary poetry,
1268
01:25:32,383 --> 01:25:34,658
whereas prior to that
in American literature
1269
01:25:34,703 --> 01:25:37,058
you had naturalistic literature -
1270
01:25:37,103 --> 01:25:39,697
Theodore Dreiser, Nathanael West
and so forth.
1271
01:25:39,743 --> 01:25:42,337
And you add the high-falutin',
visionary stuff -
1272
01:25:42,383 --> 01:25:44,578
Hart Crane, T.S. Eliot.
1273
01:25:44,623 --> 01:25:47,012
The Beats say,
''No, we want it both ways.
1274
01:25:47,063 --> 01:25:49,372
''And what's more, we want it both ways
1275
01:25:49,423 --> 01:25:52,301
''because in academia
you can't have it both ways''.
1276
01:25:52,343 --> 01:25:55,653
So they're anti-academic
and Dylan is always anti-academic.
1277
01:25:56,383 --> 01:26:00,615
Dylan wasn't just influenced
by the Beat poets as poets,
1278
01:26:00,663 --> 01:26:02,096
and as literature.
1279
01:26:02,143 --> 01:26:05,135
He was influenced by the Beat poets
1280
01:26:05,183 --> 01:26:09,096
as men and women,
in the way they lived their lives.
1281
01:26:10,143 --> 01:26:12,418
People have talked of
Bob Dylan sessions
1282
01:26:12,463 --> 01:26:15,023
where there's 1 7 people in the studio,
1283
01:26:15,063 --> 01:26:17,736
on the floor as the tape rolls.
1284
01:26:17,783 --> 01:26:19,853
Sometimes there's two bass players.
1285
01:26:19,903 --> 01:26:21,461
Think about that.
1286
01:26:21,503 --> 01:26:24,700
Everyone from Eric Clapton
1287
01:26:24,743 --> 01:26:27,735
to Scarlet Rivera to Bob Neuwirth
1288
01:26:27,783 --> 01:26:29,774
has talked about Dylan sessions.
1289
01:26:29,823 --> 01:26:33,975
And there's an accordion player,
a pedal-steel player and a drummer.
1290
01:26:34,023 --> 01:26:36,491
And there's
the aforementioned two bass players
1291
01:26:36,543 --> 01:26:38,898
and four guitar players
and this and that.
1292
01:26:38,943 --> 01:26:41,411
Blood On The Tracks
was a lot of that at first.
1293
01:26:41,463 --> 01:26:44,580
And you think,
''How can someone record that way?''
1294
01:26:44,623 --> 01:26:47,217
And l think it comes from the Beat poets.
1295
01:26:47,263 --> 01:26:49,936
What is in the moment
and is of the moment
1296
01:26:49,983 --> 01:26:51,974
best represents the moment.
1297
01:26:52,023 --> 01:26:56,016
That's why Dylan has these
extraordinary recording sessions
1298
01:26:56,063 --> 01:27:00,295
where he goes in, not having
shown the band the song before.
1299
01:27:00,343 --> 01:27:02,334
They don't know what they're gonna play
1300
01:27:02,383 --> 01:27:05,295
and they maybe get two passes at it,
just a couple of passes.
1301
01:27:05,343 --> 01:27:08,255
He may have his guitar
in a different tuning
1302
01:27:08,303 --> 01:27:11,056
from the standard
A440 Spanish tuning, as we call it.
1303
01:27:11,103 --> 01:27:14,891
He has a dropped-D tuning
or open-G tuning or what have you.
1304
01:27:14,943 --> 01:27:17,059
So most of the musicians,
1305
01:27:17,103 --> 01:27:19,822
who can read certain chords
if it's in Spanish tuning,
1306
01:27:19,863 --> 01:27:23,333
are now looking at a guy making
weird chords that they don't know.
1307
01:27:23,383 --> 01:27:25,533
This is his modus operandi.
1308
01:27:25,583 --> 01:27:29,371
Where did he get such an off-kilter,
if you'll allow me,
1309
01:27:29,423 --> 01:27:31,539
such a bizarre modus operandi?
1310
01:27:31,583 --> 01:27:34,620
From the Beat poets.
From the City Lights bookstore.
1311
01:27:35,783 --> 01:27:39,173
lf the Beats were arguably
the major poetic influence on Dylan,
1312
01:27:39,223 --> 01:27:42,738
you can also easily trace
other seminal figures in his work.
1313
01:27:42,783 --> 01:27:46,492
ln one way, of course,
he's a Beat poet with a guitar.
1314
01:27:47,623 --> 01:27:49,773
But at the same time,
1315
01:27:49,823 --> 01:27:53,020
you can hear Blake and the Bible in...
1316
01:27:54,103 --> 01:27:56,094
And you hear the Bible in Blake,
1317
01:27:56,143 --> 01:27:58,293
you hear the Bible in the blues.
1318
01:27:58,343 --> 01:28:02,256
All this stuff fuses together in Dylan.
1319
01:28:02,303 --> 01:28:05,375
l think, you know,
that Robert Browning is there,
1320
01:28:05,423 --> 01:28:08,620
the dramatic monologue.
1321
01:28:08,663 --> 01:28:10,654
But whether Robert Browning
1322
01:28:10,703 --> 01:28:16,061
is as important as Robert Johnson
is an open question.
1323
01:28:17,703 --> 01:28:19,534
But Dylan, as we've examined,
1324
01:28:19,583 --> 01:28:22,416
has always taken
an anti-intellectual stance.
1325
01:28:22,463 --> 01:28:26,172
Dave Van Ronk has this conversation
where he says,
1326
01:28:26,223 --> 01:28:29,772
''You know that song of yours,
Hard Rain's Gonna Fall?
1327
01:28:29,823 --> 01:28:34,339
''That's really like Rimbaud or someone.
D'you know the work of Rimbaud?''
1328
01:28:34,383 --> 01:28:36,214
And Dylan says, ''Who?''
1329
01:28:36,263 --> 01:28:40,097
And when Van Ronk goes round
to his apartment a few months later
1330
01:28:40,143 --> 01:28:44,341
there's a compilation,
an anthology of French Symbolist poetry,
1331
01:28:44,383 --> 01:28:49,013
which Dylan has obviously very heavily
thumbed through and worked on.
1332
01:28:49,063 --> 01:28:52,692
And what he gets out of
the Symbolist poetry he reads
1333
01:28:52,743 --> 01:28:57,942
is the idea that
song lyrics don't have to be explicit.
1334
01:28:58,783 --> 01:29:03,618
That the meaning doesn't have to be
reducible to a newspaper story.
1335
01:29:04,143 --> 01:29:08,056
That condensed and intense images
1336
01:29:08,103 --> 01:29:11,095
are themselves carriers of meanings
1337
01:29:11,143 --> 01:29:14,055
which cannot, need not be interpreted.
1338
01:29:14,103 --> 01:29:16,901
The other great influence
on Dylan's work is religion,
1339
01:29:16,943 --> 01:29:21,653
specifically the Bible, and the depth
and intensity of its language.
1340
01:29:52,103 --> 01:29:54,856
l think the origins
of Dylan's interest in the Bible
1341
01:29:54,903 --> 01:29:57,212
are essentially linguistic.
1342
01:29:57,263 --> 01:30:00,335
lt's true that later on,
much later on in his career
1343
01:30:00,383 --> 01:30:03,659
he says that he found
some sort of spiritual truth in it
1344
01:30:03,703 --> 01:30:05,898
and l wouldn't gainsay that.
1345
01:30:05,943 --> 01:30:09,936
But initially, when he's writing
his great music of the '60s,
1346
01:30:09,983 --> 01:30:12,258
in which there are
many biblical references,
1347
01:30:12,303 --> 01:30:16,660
both in the folk
and in the rock and roll period,
1348
01:30:16,703 --> 01:30:19,456
it is the same fascination
1349
01:30:19,503 --> 01:30:22,063
that he has
for the language in Hank Williams
1350
01:30:22,103 --> 01:30:24,742
or the language in Robert Johnson.
1351
01:30:24,783 --> 01:30:26,853
lt is that it is a language
1352
01:30:26,903 --> 01:30:30,213
that seems to have a deeper mystery,
1353
01:30:30,263 --> 01:30:34,051
that is less smug and superficial
1354
01:30:34,103 --> 01:30:38,142
than the common language
of newspapers and television screens.
1355
01:30:38,183 --> 01:30:40,333
l think what first attracts him
to the Bible
1356
01:30:40,383 --> 01:30:44,171
is just the sheer, weird intensity
of the language.
1357
01:30:44,223 --> 01:30:47,533
He enjoys that
and it filters right into his music.
1358
01:31:14,183 --> 01:31:17,414
lf we continue to describe
Bob Dylan's career as a journey,
1359
01:31:17,463 --> 01:31:19,294
at this point in time it is safe to say
1360
01:31:19,343 --> 01:31:21,732
that, as far as his recordings
are concerned,
1361
01:31:21,783 --> 01:31:24,172
he has come full circle.
1362
01:31:32,463 --> 01:31:35,580
Dylan's last two records,
which were Love And Theft,
1363
01:31:35,623 --> 01:31:37,898
which came out around 9/1 1 ,
1364
01:31:37,943 --> 01:31:41,697
and Modern Times, which was a
number one album in the United States,
1365
01:31:41,743 --> 01:31:46,055
which is pretty darn good
for a guy who's had a 40-year career...
1366
01:31:46,103 --> 01:31:49,061
He's now gone back to the wellspring
where he gets his mail.
1367
01:31:49,103 --> 01:31:53,619
He's what we nominally call
plain roots music.
1368
01:31:53,663 --> 01:31:56,939
He's doing songs
that wouldn't be out of place
1369
01:31:56,983 --> 01:32:02,182
on the Charley Patton 78
like High Water Everywhere.
1370
01:32:02,223 --> 01:32:04,453
He's doing songs
like Workingman's Blues #2,
1371
01:32:04,503 --> 01:32:06,937
which wouldn't be out of place
on a Merle Haggard record.
1372
01:32:06,983 --> 01:32:10,100
He's apparently, and l think obviously,
1373
01:32:10,143 --> 01:32:13,374
looked in the mirror
and thought, ''What is it that l do?
1374
01:32:13,423 --> 01:32:15,414
''Who am l and where do l get my mail?''
1375
01:32:15,463 --> 01:32:18,933
He's taken a step back
and gone back in once again
1376
01:32:18,983 --> 01:32:22,419
to the roots music
that inspired him so much on his first album.
1377
01:32:22,463 --> 01:32:24,738
And playing that music again,
1378
01:32:24,783 --> 01:32:28,219
playing it in a very honest,
straightforward,
1379
01:32:28,263 --> 01:32:31,812
not primitive but yet elemental way.
And look what's happened.
1380
01:32:31,863 --> 01:32:34,502
He's had two great
aesthetic successes in a row
1381
01:32:34,543 --> 01:32:36,613
and two great commercial successes.
1382
01:32:40,183 --> 01:32:43,061
To summarise
Bob Dylan's songs and career,
1383
01:32:43,103 --> 01:32:46,334
to neatly label and categorise them,
is impossible,
1384
01:32:46,383 --> 01:32:50,058
and against all the instincts
and the philosophy of his work.
1385
01:32:50,103 --> 01:32:51,855
From the early '60s onwards,
1386
01:32:51,903 --> 01:32:54,463
he has always rejected
being packaged and defined
1387
01:32:54,503 --> 01:32:58,132
by either journalists,
his fans or the record business.
1388
01:32:58,183 --> 01:32:59,980
But if, as we have seen,
1389
01:33:00,023 --> 01:33:04,335
Dylan's work has been inspired
and shaped by those that had gone before,
1390
01:33:04,383 --> 01:33:07,375
it is safe to say that
he also equally inspired and shaped
1391
01:33:07,423 --> 01:33:09,653
those who followed in his footsteps.
1392
01:33:11,943 --> 01:33:13,774
After Dylan, the popular song
1393
01:33:13,823 --> 01:33:15,779
and the role of the singer-songwriter
1394
01:33:15,823 --> 01:33:18,291
would never be the same again.
118979
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