The performer Bob Dylan called his biggest idol
“I got it in Chicago on the South Side,” said Bob Dylan when discussing the first guitar he ever played. It seems the folk icon has always had a penchant for outcasts.
“I think from a street singer – I didn’t get it from him, I get it from a friend of his – Aravella Grey,” he added, “He was a singer and, uh, let’s see – there’s Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I learned a lot of songs there. I learned… not a lot but I learned. I didn’t learn songs, I just learned way of singing. I learned the way of singing I do. I didn’t really learn so many songs.”
Bob Dylan has always been the type to hang back and watch from the sidelines. He wasn’t exactly popular at school and didn’t seem to mind keeping a low profile while he got on with learning guitar and writing songs. He knew early on he wasn’t going to stick around in his small town like most of his mates planned to. His sights were set much further out – he was dead set on travelling the country, soaking it all in, and turning those experiences into music.
When he first stepped foot on stage in New York with a bow of folk covers and silken voice, he told the crowd he was inspired by Woody Guthrie, both as a musician but also someone who is constantly willing to travel and see every corner of the country he calls home. “[I’ve] been travellin’ the country,” he said, “Followin’ in Woody Guthrie’s footsteps.”
A lot of people wrongly believe that Bob Dylan’s first major journey was the trip he made to New York. They think that his music career began in the Big Apple, and until then, he was just a small-town musician, playing to crowds who were relatively indifferent. However, this wasn’t the case.
He began travelling from a young age, as when school was out, while everybody else was at parties and enjoying their breaks, Bob Dylan went out on tour with the carnival. He wasn’t juggling or venturing into a side hustle as a trapeze artist, but he was playing folk songs to the crowds flocking to the carnival. He got to see small towns that he wouldn’t have come across if not for his travels, and as a result, he also found out about music he wasn’t previously aware of.
“I was with the carnival for a long time every year. I was with the carnival summers and even part-ways into the winters,” said Dylan, “I sung around. I didn’t sing for any money but I learned a lot of songs in the carnival. That’s why I know all these songs they do now and I’m only 20. I hear a song now – at least a folk song – I’ve heard a version of it or something like it before.”
This is interesting not only because the carnival helped Bob Dylan learn an array of covers that he took to New York, but no doubt this time with the carnival was also important when it came to pinning down the art of live performing. Bob Dylan was a cool character, but that felt very intentional; he knew the art of assuming a role, and so he found inspiration from other people who do something similar. It’s important to preface all this, because when I tell you who his favourite performer is, it might come as a surprise.
“My idol is really – like when I’m even on the stage – and not even on stage – my biggest idol goin’ all through my head all the time is Charlie Chaplin,” he said, “This takes a while to explain, but he’s one of the men.”
Bob Dylan never explained himself, so I’ve tried.
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