Music has been an enormous part of my life ever since I was about 11 years old. Before that age I enjoyed listening to the music that my parents would play or that I would here on the radio, but I didn't really get into my own thing until 11. I can remember going to the store to find the latest “Weird Al” Yankovic albums and finding all of them hilarious and fun (I have to admit, his music is still one of my guilty pleasures). Then one day I was walking past my older sister's room and she was playing something I had never really heard before... rock music. The album was “Jesus Freak” by dc Talk and I was at the store that week to buy my own copy. It was my first serious album and I couldn't stop listening to it. I had copied it to cassette tape and always had my Walkman on to hear it again. I even fell asleep with the Walkman on several occasions. From there I continued to discover more and more music and obsessed on every album. I knew dates of album releases, names of all sorts of band members, the brands of instruments that they played and I could recite word for word every album that I owned.
The joy I found in music changed on October 16, 2003. On that morning, the Paradise wildfire came through my little town and burnt down the apartment I was living in on my parents property. I found my guitar stand in the wreckage with the strings draped over it. A few feet away from that, I found a large chunk of melted plastic where my CD collection had been. I replaced all of the CDs, but it just didn't feel the same.
Just before the fire, I had been getting into an artist named Derek Webb. I would love to talk about him and could for hours (seriously, go check him out!), but this blog is about someone else.
My first memory of Bob Dylan actually doesn't really involve his music. He was playing a song at the 1998 Grammy awards and some man came on stage next to him and started dancing strangely with his shirt off and the words “soy bomb” written across his chest. I knew nothing of Dylan, but thought it was hilarious. After that, my dad had bought his album “Blood On the Tracks” and I thought it was horrible! I couldn't make it past the first track: “Tangled Up In Blue”. But as time went on and I began to shift from my rocker stage into folk music I realized that Dylan was unavoidable. All of the artists that I liked were influenced by him. So I decided to give him another chance. I went out and bought his album “Dylan” (a greatest hits compilation) and realized that I actually liked it. Over time he has grown on me and that brings me to where I'm at today.
This blog is dedicated to the father of folk music, Bob Dylan. I am starting from the beginning and going all the way to present time. My plan should take me several years to get through all of his music and I plan to document the whole journey right here. So here are my rules:
1.I must buy all of Bob Dylan's albums in the order of their release.
2.In order to not rush and overwhelm myself, and to give myself a steady pace to fully absorb all of the music, I will be taking out $2.50 every two weeks to go into the “Dylan Fund”. This will allow me to buy a new album about every 2 to 3 months. This rule can only be broken with the approval of my wife and only if it's just an amazing deal.
3.I may not download any of the music. It must be a hard copy CD.
4.I have to listen to the albums in their entirety. No skipping anything.
5.I have to play through each song on guitar at least once (if the song is in "The Definitive Bob Dylan Songbook").
6.I cannot move on to another album until I know everything I can about whatever current album I'm on.
7.I must document everything I can.
So that's about it. I'm looking forward to this!
