the rix mix

Bob Dylan's first album was released 50 years ago today. Recorded on a budget of next-to-nothing, my oldest brother Joe was one of less than 3000 consumers to purchase it in its initial release. Bob was a buzz in Greenwich Village, but the record didn't expand his reputation much. I heard the record through Joe's closed bedroom door, didn't like it. I didn't like folk music anyway (I was a kid, I liked what I liked, I didn't think about it), & this was pretty raw stuff. A year later, Joe bought The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, which made Dylan famous & opened with "Blowin' In the Wind." I didn't like that album, either. But Joe announced Dylan had "sold out," & that was the last Bob Dylan album to enter our house until I came home with Highway 61 Revisited.*

When Dylan claimed he had always been "rock & roll," I  gave his first LP a listen, concluded there was some truth to Dylan's statement. He wasn't all rock & roll, but it was  present in some of the music & certainly in attitude. By then I could also recognize how much the album had gone against the slick pop-folk of its era.  Of course it didn't sell.  Its modesty is a ruse.   Dylan's version of "Pretty Peggy-O" became a favorite.

* Joe's judgment made no sense. He wasn't a folk music purist & neither was Dylan.  Joe was a contrarian. Which is fine if you hook up with some contrarian girls.  Me, I wanted to go to a prom.

Labels: music