The album that made Robbie Krieger love Bob Dylan
To say that Bob Dylan drastically affected rock and roll is the musical equivalent of saying that water is wet or the sky is blue. Compared to artists like Chuck Berry, who wrote songs about the pleasures of the genre, Dylan was looking to wake people up whenever he played music, ultimately serving as the spokesman for his generation after performing tracks like ‘Blowin’ In the Wind’ at various political rallies in the early 1960s. Although Robby Krieger came into the scene a bit later in life with The Doors, he was hooked on Dylan from his album Bringing It All Back Home.
Before Krieger had even picked up an electric guitar, he was already enamoured with what could be done on an acoustic. In the wake of the first era of rock and roll coming and going, the folk boom had become an omnipresent part of American culture, with artists like Pete Seeger singing about what can happen when everyone comes together for one cause.
It shows in Krieger’s signature style as well. Even when he was playing with The Doors, rarely would Krieger be found with a pick in his hand, favouring the kind of fingerstyle playing that came from classical guitar players as well as folk fingerpicking songs. Whereas Dylan never claimed to be the most groundbreaking player in the world, he already had a knack for lyrics on his first album.
Before he became the Bob Dylan that most of us know today, Mr Zimmerman was following in the footsteps of people like Woody Guthrie, making the kind of songs that any wayward traveller would be singing. Even though fans of artists like Buddy Holly may not have known what to make of Dylan, Krieger knew that he heard something special when seeing him with an electric for the first time.
Recalling his first time seeing the folk-rock legend, Krieger knew that he was hooked the minute that he heard his first album, telling Best Classic Bands, “I thought he was a great fuckin’ acoustic player. He did some stuff that was pretty damn good. And his harmonica work, I had never heard anyone play harmonica like that. Not a blues harmonica player sucking in the notes. I was amazed he could do all that stuff and sing at the same time. Then I loved his Bringing It All Back Home LP. That was my favourite. It all made sense.”
After spending years as an aspiring folkie, Bringing It All Back Home is the start of Dylan flirting with rock and roll, eventually making songs that took inspiration from the genre and poetry in equal measure on pieces like ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’. Dylan would even take things a step further on Highway 61 Revisited, featuring tracks that went against the traditional rock mindset on ‘Like a Rolling Stone’.
Although The Doors would take things in a different direction when Jim Morrison got behind the microphone, Krieger was still up for making Dylan-esque songs, even stepping up to sing in a mock Dylan accent on ‘Runnin’ Blue’ off their album The Soft Parade. If Dylan wanted to expand his musical palette along with his poetic wordplay, The Doors balanced themselves between rock and roll bombast and artistic self-destruction.
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