The inventive genius Bob Dylan said was “so far ahead of his time”
Bob Dylan is the kind of artist that only seems to come around once a generation. Even if he’s put out albums that have garnered a mixed reception among fans and critics from time to time, there’s no doubt that he gives his audience an authentic version of himself every single time he steps up to the microphone. That kind of honesty only comes from someone who’s heard other originals before them, and Dylan still thought that Robert Johnson created a repertoire that no one else could have reached.
Then again, all kinds of folk songs tend to trace back to the blues. Before Woody Guthrie had even started putting together songs reflecting the changing times, the blues pioneers could sit on a handful of riffs for minutes on end, all while telling a story either about how a woman did them wrong or how the state of the world got them down.
In fact, some of the blues originators may have left too much of an impact on Dylan. Listening to some of his first masterpieces, like ‘Masters of War’, Dylan practically takes the blues formula and plays it on acoustic guitar, using his guitar as a bed to put every one of his grievances on top of.
But Johnson never thought in terms of having an impact on society. Compared to the wayward drifter that Dylan turned himself into, the blues guitarist had the kind of story that seemed ripped directly out of American folklore. Looking at the rest of the blues scene, his exceptional talent behind the fretboard and the legend of him selling a soul for his skills feels like the example that every rock guitarist has ever done for their gifts.
And when he opened his mouth to sing, Johnson’s high register had the kind of conviction that could only come from someone who had experienced life. He didn’t have to specifically have a conversation with Satan on ‘Me and the Devil Blues’, but as soon as that lonesome guitar started, he had his audience in the palm of his hand.
Whereas Dylan could frame his songs like a narrative, he thought Johnson created portraits of America that no other artist could ever touch, telling The New York Times, “Robert was one of the most inventive geniuses of all time. But he probably had no audience to speak of. He was so far ahead of his time that we still haven’t caught up with him. His status today couldn’t be any higher. Yet in his day, his songs must have confused people. It just goes to show you that great people follow their own path.”
Even though Johnson got a major boost from other blues greats like Keith Richards and Eric Clapton, Dylan might be the most accurate person to carry on his mantle. Since Johnson never got the chance to explore the blues aside from his handful of known recordings, Dylan took the basis of that storytelling and used it to bring about change in the world, whether that was trying to make sense of his own life on ‘Tangled Up in Blue’ or the greater problems with the world on ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’.
Being a rockstar may have been the extra bonus for Dylan, but it was never about pandering to one specific crowd. It was about speaking the truth whenever you were in the spotlight, and over his half-century in the public eye, Dylan has proven that he doesn’t have a single dishonest bone in his body.
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