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Bob Dylan · S1 E6
Bound for Glory
He reads Woody Guthrie’s autobiography and it rewires his brain. Dylan hitchhikes east toward New York City with a guitar and a harmonica
On a freezing February afternoon in 1963, a young couple walks arm in arm down Jones Street in Greenwich Village while a photographer trails behind them. The girl is Suze Rotolo, and the photo will become the most famous album cover of the decade.
Bob Dylan, Like a Rolling Stone. Six minutes that rewrote the rules of popular music. The song Columbia Records didn't want to release because it was too long for radio. It became his biggest hit.
Like a Rolling Stone -- Bob Dylan
Recorded on June 15, 1965, in a single explosive session at Columbia Studio A. Dylan arrived with six pages of stream-of-consciousness writing and shaped them into four verses of controlled fury. At over six minutes, Columbia initially refused to release it as a single. When a DJ at a New York club played a promotional copy, the phone lines lit up. It reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and Rolling Stone later named it the greatest song ever written.
Suze Rotolo
Suze Rotolo is seventeen when she meets Dylan at a folk concert in July 1961. She is a political activist, an artist, and the daughter of Italian-American communists. She introduces Dylan to Bertolt Brecht, French poetry, and the civil rights movement. Half the songs on Freewheelin' are about her, or about missing her.
TAP TO REVEAL: What's the story behind the Freewheelin' cover photo?
Jones Street, Greenwich Village
The block where Don Hunstein photographed Bob Dylan and Suze Rotolo for the cover of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan on February 10, 1963. Fans still visit to recreate the pose.
Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie -- Bob Dylan
A spoken-word poem performed at Town Hall in New York City on April 12, 1963. Dylan recites a long, rolling piece about searching for meaning, for truth, for hope, and finding it in one place: the songs of Woody Guthrie. Not a song. A prayer.
Who was the woman on the cover of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan?
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan sells 300,000 copies and turns a 22-year-old into the voice of a generation. But Dylan is already restless, already outgrowing the folk scene that made him famous. Season 2 begins with a betrayal: Bob Dylan picks up an electric guitar at Newport, and the world splits in two.
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To be continued
Season 2: Greenwich Village
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