Album: John Wesley Harding
Artist: Bob Dylan
Born: Duluth, Minnesota
Released: December 1967
Genre: Americana
Influenced: The Band, The Byrds, Neko Case, Bright Eyes, Fleet Foxes
"At that time psychedelic rock was overtaking the universe and we were singing these homespun ballads" – Dylan, '78
Dylan showed he was always at least two steps ahead of the competition by moving away from psychedelia to a more roots-based music steeped in folk & country, now more widely known as Americana. This would inspire bands like his greatest followers The Byrds to move in a similar direction. Part of the inspiration for the album was the death in October '67 of his great hero, Woody Guthrie; just a few weeks later, Dylan would be in the studio in Nashville recording three songs, including I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine, partly a tribute to Woody's song, Ludlow Massacre. Like many of the songs on the album, the atmosphere is austere and religious and the songs are stripped down and esoteric. Apparently, there are 61 biblical allusions in JWH (according to Bert Cartwright), but it's not just Christian references that give the album a religious feel, there's a deeper spirituality about it, partly influenced by the Sufi mysticism and Buddhism of the Bauls of Bengal (two of whom appear on the front cover). This is an album about outlaws, misfits, minstrels, outsiders and morality, and contains some of Dylan's best songwriting.
One factor in the specialness of the album is that all but two of the songs were written without accompanying music, something Dylan had never done before, nor after. The two, Down Along The Cove and I'll Be Your Baby Tonight, point forward to the country rock revolution. While on many of the album's songs you get a sense of a man on the run who is dealing with his demons, on these two there's a more positive feel. The only hint of surrealism that characterised his '66 albums can be found in the sleeve notes. In the songs, "the imagery was to be functional rather than ornamental", designed to "advance the story" not seek to rhyme. Dylan sounds like a preacher moralising on The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest, one of my favourite songs on the album, while Dear Landlord is similar to Maggie's Farm in that it shows his frustration with the music industry / scene, expressing his distaste about managers and promoters "putting a price on his head". All Along The Watchtower is about the fall of Babylon, and inspired Jimi Hendrix to produce one of his best musical performances, a fitting soundtrack to the Babylonian morality of late '60s America. This album stands testament to Dylan's genius, his poetry and his capacity for metamorphosis.
Artist: Bob Dylan
Born: Duluth, Minnesota
Released: December 1967
Genre: Americana
Influenced: The Band, The Byrds, Neko Case, Bright Eyes, Fleet Foxes
Re-reading Dylan's supreme autobiography Chronicles earlier this month, I came across the best explanation of his state of mind at the time this album was released, "the events of the day, all the cultural mumbo jumbo were imprisoning my soul – nauseating me ... the free love, the anti-money system ... I was determined to put myself beyond the reach of it all. I was a family man now, didn't want to be in that group portrait." After his motorcycle accident in '66, Dylan appears to have reassessed his priorities, saying "truth was that I wanted to get out of the rat race." Though this meant a stop to touring, this time also appears to have been Dylan's most prolific period of songwriting. In the first half of '67, he began recording what would become known as the Basement Tapes at Big Pink, exploring traditional Anglo-American songs. I've got a copy of the A Tree With Roots bootleg and, though the sound quality is poor, the songs are just great, a real treasure trove.
"At that time psychedelic rock was overtaking the universe and we were singing these homespun ballads" – Dylan, '78
Dylan showed he was always at least two steps ahead of the competition by moving away from psychedelia to a more roots-based music steeped in folk & country, now more widely known as Americana. This would inspire bands like his greatest followers The Byrds to move in a similar direction. Part of the inspiration for the album was the death in October '67 of his great hero, Woody Guthrie; just a few weeks later, Dylan would be in the studio in Nashville recording three songs, including I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine, partly a tribute to Woody's song, Ludlow Massacre. Like many of the songs on the album, the atmosphere is austere and religious and the songs are stripped down and esoteric. Apparently, there are 61 biblical allusions in JWH (according to Bert Cartwright), but it's not just Christian references that give the album a religious feel, there's a deeper spirituality about it, partly influenced by the Sufi mysticism and Buddhism of the Bauls of Bengal (two of whom appear on the front cover). This is an album about outlaws, misfits, minstrels, outsiders and morality, and contains some of Dylan's best songwriting.
One factor in the specialness of the album is that all but two of the songs were written without accompanying music, something Dylan had never done before, nor after. The two, Down Along The Cove and I'll Be Your Baby Tonight, point forward to the country rock revolution. While on many of the album's songs you get a sense of a man on the run who is dealing with his demons, on these two there's a more positive feel. The only hint of surrealism that characterised his '66 albums can be found in the sleeve notes. In the songs, "the imagery was to be functional rather than ornamental", designed to "advance the story" not seek to rhyme. Dylan sounds like a preacher moralising on The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest, one of my favourite songs on the album, while Dear Landlord is similar to Maggie's Farm in that it shows his frustration with the music industry / scene, expressing his distaste about managers and promoters "putting a price on his head". All Along The Watchtower is about the fall of Babylon, and inspired Jimi Hendrix to produce one of his best musical performances, a fitting soundtrack to the Babylonian morality of late '60s America. This album stands testament to Dylan's genius, his poetry and his capacity for metamorphosis.
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