I really couldn't get into Dylan when I was growing up, and one day in 1985 I was driving down the street in Baltimore, MD when Positively Fourth Street came on the radio. I found myself turning the volume up and wondering "why the hell didn't I like this guy before? This is brilliant!" I suppose it just takes the right moment. 23 years and a boatload of records later, I would probably have to rank Dylan as the single most important rock and roll musician ever.
I've often said that Dylan was the first punk rocker. Not because the music he played is what we refer to as punk, but because he was punk. Back in 1966 during his tour of the UK, his electric sets were met with jeering, catcalls and rhythmic clapping (a derogatory gesture in the UK). He got into verbal sparring with his audiences, and after one famous exchange in Manchester on May 17, 1966, he turns to his band, Robbie Robertson and the Hawks, as they are about to launch into Like a Rolling Stone and says "play it fuckin' loud!" What follows is a soaring, sneering, snarling and howling verbal pissing-upon of the audience that will, in my mind, go down as the best example of an artist musically telling anyone within earshot: "fuck you, this is what I'm doing."
Bootleg Series Volume 4, the "Royal Albert Hall (not)" show, if you're interested.
