The first volume of early Bob Dylan (SCCD2488) revealed that in the two years before 1963 when his name first began to be noted as a songwriter, the young pilgrim’s progress within the NYC Greenwich Village scene Whether private performances, club and small theatre gigs, radio appearances and noted appearances at the famed Gaslight Café, somebody had a tape running.Here we revisit a few of the venues and radio shows featured on Vol.1 (selecting different performances, naturally) but for the most part find alternative sources such as private recordings in Minneapolis in 1961 and a 1962 concert in Montreal.
Also the young journeyman employed as accompanying harmonica player to Carolyn Hester, Harry Belafonte, Big Joe Williams and - in London in January 1963 - Dick Farina and Eric von Schmidt. Recorded at Dobell’s record shop on Charing Cross Road, it was here Bob was immortalised as Blind Boy Grunt.From his eclectic interpretations of the folk-blues Americana songbook to earliest recordings of some of his own subsequently famous compositions, here is another powerful portrait of a legend in the making.
