Bound For Glory

Bob Dylan 1962

 

by

 

Olof Björner

 

A summary of recording & concert activities,

releases, tapes & books.

 

 

 

 

© 2001 by Olof Björner

All Rights Reserved.

 

This text may be reproduced, re-transmitted, redistributed and

otherwise propagated at will,  provided that this notice remains

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CONTENTS:

 

1      INTRODUCTION.. 2

2      Year At a glance.. 2

3      CALENDAR.. 3

4      RECORDINGS. 4

5      SONGS 1962. 5

6      SOURCES. 6

7      SUGGESTED READINGS. 7

7.1       General background.. 7

7.2       Article compilations. 7

7.3       Selected articles. 7

 

 

 

1           INTRODUCTION

Dylan becomes an established folk artist and by the end of 1962 he is already headlining hootenanny shows. His song writing is now most prolific, 39 songs can be attributed to 1962, and a lot of time is spent recording the second album for CBS, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.

 

2           Year At a glance

 

 

 

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3           CALENDAR

January

John Hammond arranges a deal with music publishing company Leeds Music. A number of Dylan's new songs are recorded as for them. These are known as the "Leeds Music Demos".

20 January

Bob Dylan writes a letter to Tony Glover:

Hey hey hey it’s me writing you a letter. Back now in that city and thinking of all that whistling harmonica music you are making back there in that dungeon hole gets me thinking and talking to my good girlfriend about the harp player I knowed — I looked high and wide and uptown and downtown for that book you wanted and I feel so bad, I can’t find it — will send it tho as soon as I get it. Seen ol Dave Ray and sorta introduced him around. We went one time to see John Lee Hooker paying his dues to the blues at Folky City. Ol Dave is doing & singing & playing better & better every day — Sometime I get the feeling that if it wasn’t for New York, I’d move here. … I was up in Schenectady last week playing and singing — I spent so much money that I went in the hole and had to play an extra nite just to get back to New York. Hope sometime to get an apartment so if you’re ever out this way drop by and my house is yours — it’s getting colder here now and the wind blows right thru to your bones — you’d think you were [in] a swamp land when you walk down the street or something. I’m a gonna take Dave Ray to see Gary Davis sometime soon — Dave then would automatically be 10 times better.

Dylan concludes by asking Glover to “say hello to that Mississippi River for me” and quotes Guthrie: “This world is yours, take it easy, but take it.” And he adds: “My girlfriend says that you don’t sign your full name to friends, so — Me, Bob.”

January

Dylan appears at the San Remo Coffee House in Schenectady, New York.

2 February

Dylan plays harmonica on Midnight Special a track on Harry Belafonte's album with the same name.

Early February

Dylan appears at Cynthia Gooding's radio show.

February

Dylan appears at Cafe Lena, Saratoga Springs, New York.

16 February

 Dylan writes another letter to Tony Glover in “Minneapolice,” using an envelope from the Normandie Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He had just recently written “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues”:

Work out a new tuning on the guitar you gotta hear it to believe it — Big Joe Williams start at Folk City next Tuesday for two weeks. So the Minor Flea or Bee or key or something like that somewhere huh? oh well what d’you want? — That’s U of M’land [University of Minnesota] out there and you can’t expect too much you know

There ain’t much work around here now I aint workin, I’m writing a lot and bummin’ around — This here place we got a couch in one room — I’d sure like to know when you’re a comin

I’d sure like to know why that Mississippi didn’t say nothing — maybe cause she’s mad at them people for kickin’ [David] Whittaker outta that there keg place — Times aren’t too awful good anywhere right now — Rote a new song called ‘The John Birch Paranoyd Blues’

Dave Ray’s still working down the Gaslight hole — times aint too good down there neither

That’s all for now man, hurry write back and say when you’re a coming here — (Bring a piles load of money with you — fill yer trunk up — we can use for wood to burn when you get — wood’s expensive as hell nowadays — Blow inside out & upside down till then.

Dylan again signs off with a quotation from Woody Guthrie: “Sometimes I feel like a piece of dirt walkin.”

February

A new magazine "Broadside" is published. Dylan is to be a regular contributor. First issue contains the new song Talkin' John Birch.

2 March

Dylan, playing harmonica and singing backup vocals, records with Victoria Spivey and Big Joe Williams.

19 March

The first self-titled album is released.

Dylan writes a poem for Izzy Young, called Talking Folklore Center. It is published as a broad-sheet by the Folklore Center, later in 1962.

23 March

Gig at Gerde's Folk City.

Spring

Cynthia Gooding records 6 songs by Dylan in her apartment.

16 or 23 April

At Gerde's Folk City Pete Seeger performs Blowin' In The Wind, a new song Bob Dylan taught him the chords to backstage, just before the performance.

20-22 April

Dylan shares the bill with Jesse Fuller at Ann Arbor Goddard College.

24 April - 6 May

Bob Dylan is the headlining artist at Gerde's Folk City.

24 April

Recording for next album starts.

25 April

After the second Freewheelin’recording session, Bob Dylan performs at the Folk And Jazz Festival at Palm Gardens in New York City.

May

Dylan participates together with Gil Turner, Pete Seeger and Sis Cunningham in the Broadside Show broadcasted by WBAI-radio, New York, later in the fall.

May

Dylan writes a song to Big Joe Williams; he gives the unpublished manuscript lyrics to Tony Glover: “My eyes are cracked I think I been framed / I can’t seem to remember the sound of my name / What did he teach you I heard someone shout / Did he teach you to wheel & wind yourself out / Did he teach you to reveal, respect, and repent the blues / No Jack he taught me how to sleep in my shoes.”

8 June

Suze Rotolo sails to Italy.

Summer

Edwin Miller interviews Dylan for the magazine "Seventeen". Dylan already dismisses the first album: "it's not where I'm at".

Summer

Gil Turner interviews Dylan for a profile in "Sing Out!".

28 June - 1 July

The Potpourri in Montreal.

July

Dylan records Blowin' In The Wind, the first in a series of publishing demos for Witmark Music.

2 July

Finjan Club in Montreal. Dylan's set is recorded.

9 July

Second Freewheelin' session in New York.

13 July

Dylan signs with the Witmark music publishing company.

August

Broadside publishes a new Dylan composition called Ain't Gonna Grieve.

2 August

Robert Allen Zimmerman legally changes his name to Robert Dylan.

11 August

Tony Glover again records Dylan at a private party in Minneapolis.

Mid-August

Rachel Price of FM-Stereo guide interviews Dylan: "Elvis Presley was a good singer ... in the beginning".

September

A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall is first sung by Dylan at the Gaslight Café.

22 September

First appearance at Carnegie Hall. Dylan is part of an all star hootenanny. His set features the live debut (?) of Ballad Of Hollis Brown.

Late September

Another home tape is recorded at the Home of Eve and Mac MacKenzie. It includes the newly written Hard Rain.

October

Dylan performs with John Gibbons on Cynthia Gooding's radio show for WBAI. One song is known, a number called TB Blues which is also mentioned by Dylan a week later, when he appears on the Billy Faier Show on WBAI-FM-Radio.

5 October

Dylan headlines a "Travelin' Hootenanny" show in New York Town Hall. The show is enthusiastically reviewed by Robert Shelton.

October

Dylan is again taped at the Gaslight Café. This tape with17 songs is usually called The Second Gaslight Tape.

26 October

Recording for Freewheelin' continues at Columbia Studios in New York. For the first time Dylan records with a band.

October

In order to transcribe songs for publication in the Broadside magazine, Dylan records four songs at the Folkways Studio.

November

Long Ago Far Away demo is recorded for Witmark.

1 November

Continued Freewheelin' recordings.

14 November

Further Freewheelin' recordings.

6 December

In an attempt to finish the new album another recording session takes place.

Mid-December

Dylan leaves for England, his first trip to Europe, to appear in a TV play called "Madhouse On Castle Street".

14 December

Release of first single: Mixed Up Confusion/Corrina Corrina.   It is quickly withdrawn by CBS.

22 December

Dylan performs at the Singers' Club Christmas party at the Princess Louise pub in London, and the next day at the King and Queen Pub in West End.

29 December

Dylan plays at The Troubadour.

30 December

Shooting of "Madhouse On Caste Street" begins.

 

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4           RECORDINGS

13 January

Cynthia Gooding radio show

February

Leeds Music Demos

2 February

Harry Belafonte studio session

2 March

Victoria Spivey recording session

March

The Cynthia Gooding Tape

24 April

1st Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan session

25 April

2nd Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan session

May

Broadside show

May

Gerde's Folk City

July

First Witmark demo

2 July

Finjan Club

9 July

3rd Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan session

11 August

Minnesota Home Tape

22 September

Carnegie Hall Hootenanny

September

The Home Of Eve and Mac McKenzie

October

Billy Faier Show

October

2nd Gaslight Tape

26 October

4th Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan session

October

Folkways Studio

November

Witmark demo

1 November

5th Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan session

15 November

6th Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan session

Late 1962

Unidentified Folkclub

6 December

7th Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan session

December

Witmark demos

For details about these tapes please refer to the corresponding session pages in Still On The Road.

 

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5           SONGS 1962

January

Ballad For A Friend

Traditional, registered as Bob Dylan.

Poor Boy Blues

Ramblin' Gamblin' Willie

Alternate titles are: Rambling Willie and Gamblin' Willie's Dead Man's Hand, Rambling Gangling Willie  - the title used in the song book 'Bob Dylan Himself'.

Standing On The Highway

February

Ballad Of Donald White

Copyrighted as Donald White

Death Of Robert Johnson

Mentioned by Dylan in the Izzy Young journals.

The Death Of Emmett Till

Composed for Dylan's appearance at the benefit concert for the Congress of Racial Equality, 23February 1962. Copyrighted in 1963 as Ballad of Emmett Till. Published in Broadside #16 (Nov 1962) as The Ballad Of Emmett Till.

Let Me Die In My Footsteps

Mentioned in the liner notes to Freewheelin’ by Nat Hentoff as being released as a single! Recorded by Coulson, Dean, McGuiness, Flint and released on their album Lo and Behold, Sire 1972. The alternate title I Will Not Go Down Under The Ground was used on the album Broadside Ballads and in Broadside magazine #3 (April 1962).

Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues

First published in Broadside #1 (Febr 1962) as Talking John Birch.

March

Talking Folklore Center

No known recording. One verse from this song was included in Dylan's performance of Talkin New York at Gerde's Folk City May 1962.

April

Corrina Corrina

Honey Just Allow Me One More Chance

Blowin' In The Wind

May

Rocks And Gravel

Krogsgaard indicates that this song is adapted from Lenny Carr's Alabama Woman Blues and Brownie McGhee's Solid Road. Heylin calls it an arrangement of a traditional song.
Lyrics are not included in Bob Dylan: Lyrics 1962-1985.

June

Gates Of Hate

No known recording. A few lines from the lyrics are quoted by Gil Turner in his article "Bob Dylan - A New Voice Singing New Songs" in Sing Out! Oct-Nov 1962, reprinted in Bob Dylan - A Retrospective (see Ch 5 below).

July

Baby I'm In The Mood For You

Sometimes called Sometimes I'm In The Mood.

Down The Highway

Quit Your Lowdown Ways

August

Ain't Gonna Grieve

Long Time Gone

Talkin' Hypocrite

No official or circulating recording. No published lyrics.

Tomorrow Is A Long Time

September

A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall

October

Ballad Of Hollis Brown

Don't Think Twice, It's All Right

John Brown

November

I'd Hate To Be You On That Dreadful Day

Long Ago Far Away

Mixed Up Confusion

Oxford Town

Paths Of Victory]

Playboys And Playgirls

Walkin' Down The Line

December

Ballad Of The Gliding Swan

Also known as Swan On The River. Written for the BBC TV play Madhouse On Castle Street. Lyrics are not included in Bob Dylan: Lyrics 1962-1985.

Bob Dylan's Blues

Hero Blues

I Shall Be Free

Kingsport Town

Lyrics are not included in Bob Dylan: Lyrics 1962-1985.

Whatcha Gonna Do

 

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6           SOURCES

Tim Dunn

I Just Write 'Em As They Come.
Annotated Guide to the Writings of Bob Dylan

A Not-A-Ces Publishing Venture 1990.

Glen Dundas

Tangled Up In Tapes — 4th Edition

A Recording History of Bob Dylan

SMA Services, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada 1999. Softcover 334 pages.

Clinton Heylin

A Life In Stolen Moments.

Bob Dylan Day By Day 1941-1995.

Schirmer Books 1996, 404 pages.

Clinton Heylin

Bob Dylan, The Recording Sessions 1960-1994

St. Martin's Press, 1995, 233 pages.

Michael Krogsgaard

Positively Bob Dylan
A Thirty-Year Discography, Concert & Record Session Guide 1960-1991.
Popular Culture, Ink. 1991. 500 pages

 

7           SUGGESTED READINGS

7.1       General background

Michael Gray

Song & Dance Man III. The Art Of Bob Dylan

Cassell 1999. Hardback 918 pages (!!)

Clinton Heylin

Behind The Shades. A Biography.

Summit Books 1991, 500 pages.

Daniel Kramer

Bob Dylan. Citadel Press (hardback) or Pocket Books. Great photo book from 1964-1965.

Anthony Scaduto

Bob Dylan. An intimate biography. New American Library 1973

Eric von Schmidt,  Jim Rooney

Baby, Let Me Follow You Down. The Illustrated Story of the Cambridge Folk Years. Anchor Books 1979.

Robert Shelton

No Direction Home. The Life and Music of Bob Dylan. New American Library 1986.

Howard Sounes

Down The Highway. The Life Of Bob Dylan. Groove Press 2001.

 

7.2       Article compilations

Carl Benson (ed)

The Bob Dylan Companion — Four Decades of Commentary.

Schirmer Books, New York 1998. Softcover 306 pages.

Craig McGregor (ed)

Bob Dylan. A Retrospective.

William Morrow 1972

Elizabeth M. Thomson (ed)

Conclusions On The Wall. New Essays On Bob Dylan.

Thin Man 1980

 

7.3       Selected articles

Bob Dylan's Publications in Broadside Magazine 1962-1965 article by David Pichaske in The Telegraph #20

Bob Dylan article in Little Sandy Review 1962 in Occasionally #4

Doing The London Waltz article in Brian Lawlan's book Steppin' Out.

Talkin' Hava Negilah: Bob Dylan Approximately Revisited article in Talkin' Bob Zimmerman Blues #4

The Witmark Demo Tapes article by Clinton Heylin in The Telegraph #16

Uncopyrighted Songs article by Clinton Heylin/The Telegraph #25

Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright – Homer, the Slut #4, 5

Eric von Schmidt Interview – by Joseph Sia, On The Tracks #4 (Fall 1994)

My Name It Is Nothin’ – by Derek Barker, Isis #64

Stealin' Stealin': Bob Dylan & The Blues, 1961-1963 – The Telegraph 54 (Spring 1996)

 

                              _________________________

 

 

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