Bob Dylan (album)

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[2]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[3]
Entertainment Weekly	B[4]
MusicHound	[6]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[5]
Tom Hull	B+[7]

Bob Dylan is the debut studio album by American singer-songwriter

Dylan met John Hammond at a rehearsal session for Carolyn Hester on September 14, 1961, at the apartment shared by Hester and her then-husband, Richard Fariña. Hester had invited Dylan to the session as a harmonica player, and Hammond approved him as a session player after hearing him rehearse, with recommendations from his son, musician John P. Hammond, and from Liam Clancy.

Hammond later told Robert Shelton that he decided to sign Dylan "on the spot" and invited him to the Columbia offices for a more formal audition recording. No record of that recording has turned up in Columbia's files, but Hammond, Dylan, and Columbia's A&R director Mitch Miller have all confirmed that an audition occurred.

On September 26, Dylan began a two-week run at Gerde's Folk City, second on the bill to The Greenbriar Boys. On September 29, an exceptionally favorable review of Dylan's performance appeared in the New York Times. The same day, Dylan played harmonica at Hester's recording session at Columbia's Manhattan studio. After the session, Hammond brought Dylan to his offices and presented him with Columbia's standard five-year contract for previously unrecorded artists, and Dylan signed immediately.

That night at Gerdes, Dylan told Shelton about Hammond's offer but asked him to "keep it quiet" until the contract's final approval had worked through the Columbia hierarchy. The label's official approvals came quickly.

Studio time was scheduled for late November. During the weeks leading up to those sessions, Dylan began searching for new material even though he was already familiar with many songs. According to Dylan's friend Carla Rotolo (sister of his girlfriend Suze Rotolo), "He spent most of his time listening to my records, days and nights. He studied the Folkways Anthology of American Folk Music, the singing of Ewan MacColl and A. L. Lloyd, Rabbit Brown's guitar, Guthrie, of course, and blues … his record was in the planning stages. We were all concerned about what songs Dylan was going to do. I remember clearly talking about it."

The album was ultimately recorded in three short afternoon sessions on November 20 and 22 at Columbia's 7th Avenue studio. Hammond later joked that Columbia spent "about $402" to record it, and the figure has entered the Dylan legend as its actual cost. Despite the low cost and short amount of time, Dylan was still difficult to record, according to Hammond. "Bobby popped every p, hissed every s, and habitually wandered off mike," recalls Hammond. "Even more frustrating, he refused to learn from his mistakes. It occurred to me at the time that I'd never worked with anyone so undisciplined before."^[9]

Seventeen songs were recorded, and five of the album's chosen tracks were actually cut in single takes ("Baby Let Me Follow You Down", "

By the time sessions were held for his debut album, Dylan was absorbing an enormous amount of folk material from sitting and listening to contemporaries performing in New York's clubs and coffeehouses. Many of these individuals were also close friends who performed with Dylan, often inviting him to their apartments where they would introduce him to more folk songs. At the same time, Dylan was borrowing and listening to many folk, blues, and country records, many of which were hard to find at the time. Dylan claimed in the documentary No Direction Home that he needed to hear a song only once or twice to learn it.

The final album sequence of Bob Dylan features only two original compositions; the other eleven tracks are folk standards and traditional songs. Few of these were staples of his club/coffeehouse repertoire. Only two of the covers and both originals were in his club set in September 1961. Dylan stated in a 2000 interview that he was hesitant to reveal too much of himself at first.^{[citation needed]}

Of the two original songs, "Song to Woody" is the better known. According to Clinton Heylin, the original handwritten manuscript to "Song to Woody" bears the following inscription at the bottom of the sheet: "Written by Bob Dylan in Mills Bar on Bleecker Street in New York City on the 14th day of February, for Woody Guthrie." Melodically, the song is based on one of Guthrie's own compositions, "1913 Massacre", but it is possible Guthrie fashioned "1913 Massacre" from an even earlier melody; like many folk singers, including Dylan, Guthrie would often adapt familiar folk melodies into new compositions. Guthrie was Dylan's main musical influence at the time of Bob Dylan's release, and indeed on several of the songs, Dylan is apparently imitating Guthrie's vocal mannerisms. "Talkin' New York" is closely based on Guthrie's song "Talking Dustbowl Blues" and also references "The Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd".

Dylan takes an arranger's credit on many of the traditional songs, but a number of them can be traced to his contemporaries. For example, the arrangement of "

Dylan would leave most of these songs behind when he moved to the concert stage in 1962, but he performed "Man of Constant Sorrow" during his first national television appearance in mid-1963 (a performance included on the 2005 retrospective No Direction Home). "Baby Let Me Follow You Down" would later return in a driving electric arrangement during his 1965 and 1966 tours with the Hawks; a live recording was included on Live 1966.

After 1966, Dylan performed only five songs from his debut album in concert, and only "Song to Woody" and "Pretty Peggy-O" would be heard with any frequency.

Outtakes

Three additional songs recorded during the Bob Dylan sessions were included on