Who is that man?

I was working on this post a few weeks ago when I had just finished reading David Dalton's biography of Bob Dylan, Who Is That Man?, which offers an interesting take on Dylan's many incarnations, both personal and musical, over the course of his long career. I guess there's no denying that Bob Dylan has been an enormous influence on the music and culture of my generation. Like so many others my age I can remember listening to each new album for signs and messages, and interpreting Dylan's songs and behavior. When I was first learning to play the guitar he was a great role model, since most of his tunes were easy to pick up. I even learned to play a harmonica with one of those metal holders hanging around my neck.

Dylan hit for me while I was still in high school in San Antonio. The first album I bought was actually his second, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. I had to ask the record store to order me a copy of the first album, and then soon The Times They Are A-Changin' appeared. When I bought that one too, the record store manager, who was also a neighbor, asked me if I knew of any other new groups that were going to be hot. I had to confess I did not. But she was definitely right about Dylan suddenly catching on, especially with the appearance of Bringing It All Back Home. Those were strange times, and there was indeed a lot of good music, much of it being influenced by Dylan's words and images. Folk music morphed into folk-rock, and soon all the genres seemed to be blurring and changing.

Well, that was the music of my youth, Dylan, the Beatles, The Who, the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, and also the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, Cream, and on and on. For those of us in then living in Austin there were the likes of Jerry Jeff Walker, Townes Van Zandt, Michael Martin Murphey, and many others. My friends and I entertained ourselves listening to and playing that music. Sometimes we still do, although our tastes have grown much more eclectic, and have branched out to include much more country and contemporary stuff. But always lurking there somewhere in the background is Bob Dylan.

Over the years I've read several Dylan biographies and his own autobiography, Chronicles, and have thus absorbed quite a bit of the Dylan myth and legend. Behind all of that, as we know, is the somewhat more typical story of Robert Zimmerman, who by now has been submerged and effaced to such an extent that he must have ceased to exist in any but the most historical sense. All of this continues to interest me at some level because it is part of my own biography, but I must confess I no longer keep track of what is going on with Bob Dylan, if anything. Still, I wish him well and remember him fondly, much as I remember myself in those more innocent times.