| Page 1 2 TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE HIS UNCLE by Adam D. MillerWhen I first developed an affinity for Bob Dylan and his music in high school, practically everyone would say to me “Yeah, he’s a decent songwriter, but his voice is horrible.” I’ve always banked on the fact that Bob Dylan is probably the most influential solo artist of all time when trying to build his case. Recently I’ve realized that I’m not the only obsessive one. Martin Scorsese’s documentary No Direction Home has put the critical and public eye on Bob Dylan once again. His influence on music as a whole is obvious, though still not always appreciated. This month, in 3000 words or less, I will try to explain just how influential Bob Dylan was, even in the early stages of his career. I will first look at his contemporaries. The Beatles and Bob Dylan may be the only musicians capable of influencing musicians of their own generation, and the fact that the two so greatly influenced each other is quite impressive. At the same time, one cannot doubt that Dylan influenced the Beatles more than the other way around. His Contemporaries “The early material was directly relating to our fans, saying, ‘Please buy this record,’ but now we’d come to a point where we thought, ‘We’ve done that. Now we can branch out into songs that are more surreal, a little more entertaining.’ And other people were starting to arrive on the scene who were influential. Dylan was influencing us quite heavily at that point.” - Paul McCartney on Rubber Soul “One of the most memorable things of the trip for me was that we had a copy of Bob Dylan’s Freewheelin’ album, which we played constantly.” – George Harrison, on the Beatles’ French tour in 1964. It’s relatively common for musicians to influence the next generation of songwriters and performers, but Dylan’s music was so fresh and innovative that he even had an effect on those around him. In his own folk scene, he had given people like Joan Baez and The Clancy Brothers the confidence that original material had a place in the new generation of folk singers, and For The Beatles, he was one of the key ingredients in their shift from mainstream pop music to more sophisticated songwriting that dealt with serious subject matter. This culminated with Rubber Soul, but could be heard earlier in songs like “I’m A Loser” and “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away,” on which John Lennon practically emulated Dylan. Lennon recollected, “I’d started thinking about my own emotions. I don’t know when exactly it started, like ‘I’m A Loser’ or ‘Hide Your Love Away,’ those kind of things. Instead of projecting myself into a situation, I would try to express what I felt about myself, which I’d done in my books. I think it was Dylan who helped me realize that – not by any discussion or anything, but by hearing his work.” Bob Dylan introduced The Beatles to marijuana, indirectly contributing to something else that would have a profound effect on their music: drug use. Later on, George Harrison would become a close friend and collaborator of Dylan’s, and his influence rang true on his solo material in particular. The opening track (“I’d Have You Anytime”) on Harrison’s first proper solo album, All Things Must Pass, was written by Harrison & Dylan, and in the early 1970s, Dylan made a rare live appearance at George’s Concert for Bangladesh. In the late 1980s, Harrison and Dylan formed The Traveling Wilburys along with Roy Orbison, Jeff Lynne, and Tom Petty. Dylan’s influence had an impact on other British groups as well. The Hollies were one of the first groups to record an entire album of Dylan material and Manfred Mann also adapted Dylan’s songs into British Invasion-styled pop. But it was in 1960s America that he experienced his strongest influence. Even R&B acts like The Staple Singers and Stevie Wonder were covering songs like “Blowin’ In The Wind.” But it was likely the folk-rock reworkings by The Byrds that influenced these other groups in Britain and of other genres to cover Dylan’s songs in the first place. In forming the Byrds, Roger McGuinn hoped to combine the musical influence of The Byrds with the lyrical/social influence of Bob Dylan into a hybrid musical style. It worked, and in 1965 the group had their first hit with a radically different “Mr. Tambourine Man” than the one Dylan had included on his Bringing It All Back Home album. It went from a sparse acoustic folk song to a jangly Beatles-influenced pop number, complete with electric 12-string guitar and vocal harmonies. Of the twelve songs on their first album, four were Bob Dylan covers, and the group would continue to record his songs, even as they became competent songwriters in their own right. By the late 1960s, Dylan had retreated into a relatively quiet lifestyle and a hiatus from performing, but even more artists clearly showed his influence in their music. In 1966, Ronnie Hawkins loaned out his backing band The Hawks to Dylan for his world tour. Featuring Robbie Robertson, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel, and Rick Danko, by 1968 the group had become The Band and released their brilliant first album, Music From Big Pink. When Robertson & Co. had first joined Dylan they were used to playing blistering rock ‘n’ roll, but clearly Dylan’s Americana had started to have a profound affect on Robbie Robertson’s songwriting. It is hard to imagine many of the songs on Music From The Big Pink and its even stronger follow-up, The Band, could have been written without the experience of touring with Dylan and recording The Basement Tapes, which was made in a very-laid back fashion while Dylan was recovering from a motorcycle accident in upstate New York in 1967. Other late 1960s artists that wore Dylan’s influence on their sleeve included The Grateful Dead and Jimi Hendrix. Jimi Hendrix had a musical style distantly-removed from Dylan’s, but lyrically he considered Dylan a pivotal influence. Hendrix included a rousing rendition of “All Along The Watchtower” on his Electric Ladyland album, but also performed “Like A Rolling Stone” at the Monterey Pop Festival. In an interview with Cameron Crowe, Dylan said “I liked Jimi Hendrix’s record of (“Watchtower”) and ever since he died I’ve been doing it that way. Funny though, his way of doing it and my way of doing it weren’t that dissimilar. I mean the meaning of the song doesn’t change when some artists do other artists’ songs. Strange though how when I sing it I always feel like it’s a tribute to him in some kind of way.” Dylan’s influence may be more obvious in what started to become a whole new generation of singer-songwriters, including Joni Mitchell, David Bowie, Neil Young, and Van Morrison. But in the 70s, this only continued with artists like Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty. But it was Tom Waits who put it best when he eloquently told Uncut in 2002, “Dylan is really a planet to be explored – for a songwriter, he’s like a hammer and saw is for a carpenter.” Even more importantly, Dylan proved that you didn’t have to be a good singer to express yourself in song. Like many of his folk and blues influences, he wasn’t concerned with sounding overly melodic and operatic. If it weren’t for that, one might argue that people like Lou Reed and Waits would have never made it. Page 1 2 |
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