‘This is the blueprint’: Bob Dylan’s debut at 60

Sign up to Roisin O’Connor’s free weekly newsletter Now Hear This for the inside track on all things music Get our Now Hear This email for free Get our Now Hear This email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. And the self-titled debut album he’d made – his first professional recordings, released 60 years ago today – would prove to be a historic, if inauspicious, prelude to a magnificent run of albums from 1963’s The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan to 1967’s John Wesley Harding that would reinvent folk, marry it to rock’n’roll and change the course of popular music forever. Including just two original Dylan songs among its plethora of covers of traditional folk and blues tracks – most notably “House of the Risin’ Sun”, with an arrangement “borrowed” from fellow New York folk scenester Dave Van Ronk – Bob Dylan has never been granted much canonical kudos. open image in gallery Frank Turner cites Bob Dylan as a huge inspiration on his own work “‘Song to Woody’ has been a huge song for me in my life. He’s a human being, and some of it’s a bit of a swing and a miss, but most of it is very, very good folk music.” Lia Metcalfe, singer with Liverpool alt-rockers The Mysterines and long-standing Dylan fanatic; owns a self-inflicted Dylan tattoo on her wrist Enjoy unlimited access to 100 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music Sign up now for a 4 month free trial Sign up Enjoy unlimited access to 100 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music Sign up now for a 4 month free trial Sign up “I did myself when I was pretty drunk.