Released in 1967 Dont Look Back is a fly on the wall documentary following Bob Dylan during his ten day tour of the UK in April/May 1965. Falling just over a month after the release of Bringing It All Back Home, the film captures Dylan at a fascinating turning point of his career. Dont Look Back is also particularly notable with D. A. Pennebaker being given a level of access to the enigmatic Dylan that has not been seen since. That said, Eat The Document, Dylan and Pennebaker’s rather unsuccessful attempt to film his 1966 UK tour may have played a role in this change of heart.
Bringing It All Back Home is Bob Dylan’s first masterpiece, notably it’s also his first album to make it into the Billboard Top 10 Albums chart. The first notes from the electric guitar in the introduction to “Subterranean Homesick Blues” are an immediate declaration of intent, separating Bringing It All Back Home from the folk music that had comprised Dylan’s career up to that point. Structurally, the album is divided into two halves with side one featuring Bob Dylan backed by a rock band and an acoustic side two. Lyrically, the album continues on from Another Side Of Bob Dylan in eschewing the protest and socially conscious songs of his early albums and moving towards the more personal and sometimes surreal.
It’s difficult to reconcile that the same artist released the landmark album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan only fourteen months after his relatively unremarkable debut Bob Dylan. This is the album where Bob Dylan’s skill as a songwriter became apparent. As opposed to his thirteen track debut which featured just two original titles, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan counts only two covers amongst its thirteen tracks and these have been rewritten in such a way to as put his own stamp of originality on them. Continue reading “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963)”
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