YouSaid · the spoken record

Bob Dylan

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59
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2022-07-27
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2022-07-27
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Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

  1. “Biggest record companies in the world. He would then become friends with people that this is back in the Midwest. He would become friends with people that also liked folk music but had money because Bob was completely broke. People had money to spend on folk albums. He would go to their house and listen to their record collection as well. He does the same thing when he goes to New York City. He'd sit in these venues. Some of these he's going to play and he would just listen to what all the other artists were doing, right? Just like what are we doing? We're studying what all the history's greatest entrepreneurs did in the past. We're doing the exact same thing. And it was funny because there's some people that were playing at the time. Like he got, you don't understand how good Bob was about this. He watched us so much and stayed so much. He could perform any of our songs like us. He could copy the tone, the tempo, everything. And Bill says in his talk, Bob was studying, studying, studying. And that is going to be so important because it's how good he played. Remember, he's like,”

    2022-07-27 · Founders · #259 Bob Dylan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Okay, so I got to go backwards because Bill Gurley gives background that I think is very useful. I think his talk in this book and hopefully this podcast kind of go together. That's why I'm going to go constantly reference the three, right? And so what Bill realized was what Bob was doing before the book starts. And so this is back when he's in Minnesota. He attended University of Minnesota. I don't think he went to class. I know he was living in, he talks a little bit about this in the book where he's living in like a frat house for free, but he's not part of the frat. And so Bill says, over the course of eight or nine months, Bob studied every folk album he possibly could. He didn't have a lot of money. And at the time, you could walk into a record store and you would listen in a booth. He would do that for hours and hours and hours. Remember, this is probably two years before he is going to wind up sitting in the office of Columbia Records. Can't believe that he's being signed to one.”

    2022-07-27 · Founders · #259 Bob Dylan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Set. Most people don't. And then Bill says, I think that's interesting. And so his point is it's like all the greats did this. And that's exactly what Bob is telling us where we are in the book. He's like, listen, I heard Van Rock back in Midwest on records and thought he was pretty great. I copied some of his recordings phrase for phrase. How much would you have to be listening to somebody to be able to copy them perfectly? Let's go back. I got to give you background because again, this is not like any other autobiography. He's not going to run through his life. It's five chapters, if you want to call them. The first three chapters is just about this year of him breaking in to become Bob Dylan. It's that year that he spends in New York City before he is signed, right? Then he fast forwards in the book by nine years, skips over the peak of his career, right? Then there's another chapter about this other album he's doing. Then he skips ahead 17 years. Then the last chapter is flashbacks to this time we're in. It's incredible.”

    2022-07-27 · Founders · #259 Bob Dylan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Than any place else. So you can think about what's happening in the book right now is okay, he's got to figure out this is like the top of the heap. Gaslight's the club that he wants to get into the most. He's like, okay, how do I break into the gaslight? I don't know yet, but I'll figure it out. And so he starts out playing any crappy gig that he can get. And so this is really the very early days of a career that's going to span six decades. And so this is what he knows about the gaslight at this point. He says it opened early in the evening with about six performers that rotated throughout the night. It was a closed circle that an unknown, which is him at this point in his life, could not break into. There weren't any auditions. It was a club I wanted to play. I needed to. I had heard Van Rock back in the Midwest on records and thought he was pretty great, and I copied some of his recordings phrase for phrase. And so that part right there, Bob Dylan.”

    2022-07-27 · Founders · #259 Bob Dylan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “$10. That is a 1200 mile trip. And so it says the big car came to a full stop. At last I was here in New York City. I was there to find singers, the one that I heard on record. Most of all, to find Woody Guthrie. It wasn't money or love that I was looking for. I had a heightened sense of awareness, was set in my ways, impractical and visionary to boot. So keep in mind, he's describing himself when he's about twenty years old. My mind was strong like a trap and I didn't need any guarantee of validity. I didn't know a single soul in this metropolis, but that was about to change and quick. And so one of the musicians he wanted to seek out with this guy was this guy named Dave Van Ronk. And he says, Van Ronk worked at the gaslight, which was a club that had a dominant presence on the street. It had more prestige.”

    2022-07-27 · Founders · #259 Bob Dylan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “I told him nobody. That was true. I really didn't see myself. And so that's really important. That's going to appear multiple times throughout the book. I have my own maxim. I actually stole it from a hip hop lyric by this rapper named NF, and it really speaks to the importance of having different shaded product. And NF said, we may be in the same genre, but we don't put out the same product. And I feel that's exactly what Bob was saying there. There was other folk singers, there's other folk musicians, but there was nobody, just like Steve Jobs said, there was nobody like him. So at this point, Bob begins to tell the story of what led up this year about it was between one to two years of him arriving in New York City from Minnesota before he is signed by Columbia Records. And this is something that Bill Gurley talks about in that fantastic talk. And I'm going to read a quote from Bill Gurley's talk that's going to set up exactly where we are on the book. And it said, Bob did an incredibly ambitious action to pursue his dream job. He hitchhiked from Minneapolis to New York City. He had a guitar, a suitcase, and”

    2022-07-27 · Founders · #259 Bob Dylan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “The intro to the book. There's no fluff here. It's not organized like any other biography I've ever read in my life. I'm going to calm down because I'm like, this is, it's just amazing. And I'll get to just the emotional roller coaster that this book can put you on. So the book starts with him being signed. He's in New York City, 1961. I'll get to how he arrived at that point. But first, I want to go to the end. So he just got signed. They send him over to the record company's in-house publicist. This guy named Billy. Billy's asking him a bunch of questions. I just want to pull out one sentence here because this is just something that appears over and over again in the book. Again, Bob is writing this. He didn't have an editor. These are his own words. He's clearly telling us what he feels is important. He won the Pulitzer Prize for literature. And according to my research, he's the only musician to ever do that. That's how good this book is. So Billy's talking about him. And he says, Billy asked me who I saw myself like in today's music scene.”

    2022-07-27 · Founders · #259 Bob Dylan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “And he didn't have any time to waste. I could hardly believe myself awake when sitting in his office him signing me to Columbia Records was so unbelievable. It would have sounded like a made up thing. Folk music was considered junkie, second rate, and only released on small labels, but John was an extraordinary man. He had vision and foresight, had seen and heard me, felt my thoughts, and had faith in the things to come.”

    2022-07-27 · Founders · #259 Bob Dylan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “I had just signed a contract with Leeds Music giving it the right to publish my songs. Not that there was any great deal to hammer out, I hadn't ridden much yet. Lou had advanced me $100 against future royalties to sign the paper, and that was fine with me. John had taken me over to see Lou. John had only heard two of my original compositions, but he had a premonition that there would be more. John was John Hammond, the great talent scout and discoverer of monumental artist, imposing figures in the history of recorded music. Artists who had created music that resonated through American life. He was legendary. He had followed his own heart's love music, preferably the ringing rhythm of hot jazz and blues, which he endorsed and defended with his life. No one could block his way”

    2022-07-27 · Founders · #259 Bob Dylan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source