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Bob Dylan · S1 E5
Dinkytown
The University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Bobby Zimmerman drops out of classes, picks up a guitar, starts calling himself Bob Dylan, and never looks back
Columbia Records executive John Hammond sits in a studio at 799 Seventh Avenue and watches a 20-year-old kid with a harmonica rack record an entire album in two afternoons. Hammond turns to the engineer and says: sign him.
Bob Dylan, Mr. Tambourine Man. The song that sounds like following a melody into a world you have never seen. For a kid who arrived in New York with seventeen dollars, this is what happens when the doors finally open.
Mr. Tambourine Man -- Bob Dylan
Written during a road trip in early 1964 and first performed at the Newport Folk Festival that summer. The swirling imagery and hypnotic melody made it one of Dylan's most covered tracks. The Byrds turned it into a number-one hit, but Dylan's acoustic original captures pure yearning. Dylan has said the tambourine man was inspired by Bruce Langhorne, a session guitarist who brought a giant Turkish frame drum to recording sessions. Listen for how the acoustic guitar creates a circular, trance-like pattern that mirrors the lyric's sense of endless searching.
Hammond's Folly
John Hammond signed Billie Holiday, Count Basie, and Aretha Franklin. When he signed Bob Dylan in October 1961, the rest of Columbia Records thought he had lost his mind. Dylan's debut album sold 5,000 copies. Staffers nicknamed it 'Hammond's Folly.' Hammond never flinched.
TAP TO REVEAL: How fast was Bob Dylan's debut album recorded?
Columbia Recording Studio A, New York
The studio at 799 Seventh Avenue where Bob Dylan recorded his debut album in two afternoons for $402. The same building where Miles Davis recorded Kind of Blue.
Bob Dylan's Dream -- Bob Dylan
From The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963). A wistful song about sitting in a room full of friends, everyone young and certain they know everything. The most direct thing Dylan ever wrote about those early days: the coffeehouses, the late nights, the feeling of being on the edge of something enormous before anyone knew what it was.
What book inspired Bob Dylan to leave Minnesota for New York City?
The debut album barely sells, but Dylan is already writing songs that will change everything. Next: a girlfriend named Suze Rotolo, a walk down Jones Street in winter, and the album cover that will define the 1960s.
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