The first popular song to ever feature Bob Dylan
The entire rock landscape has always been indebted to the work of Bob Dylan. Since working on his first folk tunes, listeners have been attuned to hearing Mr Zimmerman’s perspective on life, whether the massive indictments of war or the internal trips into his personal life on albums like Blood on the Tracks. Long before he earned his stripes as a rock and roll star, Dylan’s first trip behind the mic didn’t even feature his voice.
When making his first forays into music, though, Dylan was already transfixed with the sounds of rock. Coming out of high school, Dylan was known for writing in his yearbook that he wanted to join Little Richard’s band when he grew up, only to become transfixed with the folk movement in Greenwich Village.
Throughout his first handful of solo outings, Dylan would fly completely solo, using only his voice, a guitar, and a harmonica to steer him through the biggest anthems of his career, like ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ and ‘Masters of War.’ While Dylan could be prolific with his pen whenever the time called for it, his first regular studio session would be working in the calypso world.
Before rock and roll had taken over the world in the 1960s, Harry Belafonte made a name for himself on the charts with his take on calypso music. While artists like Chuck Berry were making his first major forays into rock and roll on songs like ‘Johnny B Goode’ and ‘Sweet Little Sixteen’, Belafonte’s croon was able to spark an interest in audiences both young and old.
While there aren’t many apparent similarities between Dylan’s music and what Belafonte was doing, the common thread between them was the blues. Coming from the same school of thought as blues crooners from the South, Belafonte would record the blues standard ‘Midnight Special’. A fixture of many blues bands later, Belafonte played a worthy version of the tune for a single, but one X-factor was missing.
When working out the basics of the tune, Dylan was brought in to add some bluesy harmonica to the track. Compared to the style of harmonica played throughout the rest of Dylan’s work, it’s easy to see him trying his best to come across like a seasoned blues veteran, trying on his best Little Walter impression throughout the mix.
Even though Dylan was proud to be on vinyl for the first time, he would get to see his first foray into the pop world a few months later on his debut record. While far from the visionary that Dylan would become, his debut would include songs that had one foot trailing back into the blues of ‘Midnight Special’, from his take on the traditional tune ‘House of the Rising Sun’ standing alongside a tribute song to his idol Woody Guthrie on ‘Song To Woody’.
The result saw Dylan standing at a crossroads in his career, facing both sides of his sound before finally moving towards the folk-rock that would become pivotal for the rock scene moving forward. After dwelling in the sounds of the blues, he understood the emotion that went into his ballads when it came time to play, crafting songs that had as much feeling as ‘Midnight Special’ with a sharper wit than anyone else.
Though Dylan would move on quickly from there, this was the first utterance of the artist that was soon to become a pop culture giant.
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