What people don’t get about Bob Dylan is that he is a rocker. He started out as a folkie, singing the traditional songs of Pete Seeger and his great idol Woody Guthrie. The earnest folk community adopted him as one of their own and he rose to fame as the great archetypal folk minstrel. Acoustic guitar, harmonica on a rack, whining voice proclaiming songs of protest and social comment.
But then he decided he wanted to try his hand at rock and roll. He bought an electric guitar and teamed up with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. At the Newport Folk Festival, he horrified the audience with his new electric sound.
After that he came to England, with an electric band (which became The Band), and appalled the snobbish folk community over here. Famously, at a gig in Manchester, someone called out, “Judas!”. Not the thing to say to a Jew, not that Dylan was worried about that.
“I don’t believe you,” he retorted. “You’re a liar!”
Then he turned to the band and exhorted them to “make it fucking LOUD!” as they launched into his magnum opus Like A Rolling Stone.
While the folkies wept into their jumper sleeves, the emerging rock community embraced him with an adoration rivalled only by that for John Lennon. In fact, Dylan is sometimes credited with introducing John Lennon to LSD and perhaps raising his consciousness of rock music as an art form.
In this period, from about 1964 to 1966, he produced a string of albums that are still seen as pinnacles of rock songwriting, peaking with Blonde On Blonde in 1966. By the time this came out, he had achieved a God-like status, almost literally. He was hailed as a guru, consulted about every issue of the day. He answered all questions with a sly poet’s wit, refusing to be drawn into his own myth. The only time you could get a straight answer out of him was if you asked about the tour. He’d talk happily about the hassles of getting a good sound, challenges with equipment – all the stuff of ordinary rock and roll. Because he’s a rocker.
After Blonde On Blonde, he disappeared. Word was he had a bad motorbike accident, but no one seemed sure. He went into the studio and made another remarkable album with The Band, but then refused to release it (it came out in the 1970s as The Basement Tapes). The plain fact was, he’d reached the ultimate zenith of rock star glory, and just vanished.
Then, finally, in 1967, as rock exploded into Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Traffic, Jeff Beck and the great classic era, Dylan came back. With an album of achingly beautiful simplicity. Gone was the rocking electric band. Here was a songwriter with his acoustic guitar, a bass player and a drummer, playing in the traditional American style, and singing as sweetly and simply as he could.
It was a masterstroke. In a moment, he swept away any preconceptions, or labels, or expectations. He reclaimed his right to his art and distanced himself from the noise of the new rock bizniz.
The album was called John Wesley Harding.

4 thoughts on “I dreamed I saw St Augustine”

  1. I’m in awe of how much you know. I don’t think I have such a cache of knowledge on anything. I’m trying to imagine being five and being into the Beatles – no I think I was dazzled by a new pair of patent plastic shoes at that age. Must catch up on that Debby Harry interview.

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  2. Hi! Sorry, been all over the place as usual. They closed the office at work on Friday as a test run in case we all have to work from home – it actually worked better than going in. Guess the virus must be hanging round your world too, with your tutoring. It’s a weird time.
    “I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine” is a track on the John Wesley Harding album, which probably has all kinds of nuance and meaning that I don’t understand, but it’s a lovely song. Music is the reason I’ve come so late to real writing (I don’t count the day job). I always loved pop and rock – I was a Beatles fan at five, not really now – and it really kicked in as a teenager when our English teacher Mr Woolmer played a track from Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon album and told us to write about it. It was an absolute life-changing moment and music has dominated my expressive world ever since until now. I’ve been in bands since that time. I play keyboards a bit and now I’m mainly a singer and harmonica player (hence Jefferson). But even then a book was central to my musical life: The New Musical Express Book of Rock. It was a brilliant little encyclopedia, chronicling rock music as it had evolved basically from Elvis to the mid 1970s and it opened the whole world of music to me. The writer in me wanted to know the story of the music as well as listening to it so I dug back and discovered blues and jazz and country and everything. I’ve been deep in it for years and it’s still consumes me.
    BUT… I was off playing funk and disco when punk and the New York thing happened and Debbie Harry and Blondie and that whole scene passed me by and I’ve never caught up. I mean, obviously I know their stuff and I know SHE is an amazing human being – did you hear her on Desert Island Discs? Kirsty Young was in awe, it was great. Pretty sure Debbie Harry would just swat me out of the way, she’s so REAL.
    These days, I’m a big heavy metal fan – always was but lost touch when I went deep into blues – and my son Max, who is a drummer, introduced me to the modern scene. It was like Pink Floyd all over again, some fantastic music and I’ve been to more gigs in the past five years than I’ve ever been to, apart from ones where I was playing. I was never a great gig-goer as a teenager. Long story. But I commend to you Elder, Bongripper, Lo-Pan, Slabdragger (just discovered them, insane), Meshuggah, Weedeater and, above all, Max’s Band Mountain Caller. It might just be the names that get me, there’s a band called Giraffes? Giraffes! out there who I haven’t heard, but don’t you wonder what the hell they do?! It’s a whole different world, let me tell you. I really shouldn’t at my age.

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  4. Hello Stuart. Just catching up on some of your blog. How do you know so much about this? Did you study History of Rock at university? I’m in awe of your knowledge. My sister used to like Dylan but he was on my periphery, as was most music apart from Blondie – how I wanted to be Debbie Harry, sigh.

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