Three days before recording “Talkin’ World War III Blues,” Dylan might have performed the piece onstage on April 21, 1963, at Club 47 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the club where he heard Carolyn Hester for the first time in 1961. Carolyn played a decisive role in Dylan’s career. However, the first legitimate “live” performance is dated April 25, 1963, when Dylan played his “Talkin’ Blues” in Chicago at the Bear.
FOR DYLANOLOGISTS
After his concert on April 25, 1963, Dylan jammed with a local bluesman Mike Bloomfield, a future member of Paul Butterfield’s Blues Band and a brilliant guitar player. In 1965 he played on the recording of Dylan’s album Highway 61 Revisited.
Corrina, Corrina
Traditional / Arrangement Bob Dylan / 2:42
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar, harmonica
Bruce Langhorne: guitar
Howie Collins: guitar
Dick Wellstood: piano
Leonard Gaskin: double bass
Herb Lovelle: drums
William E. Lee: bass (?)
George Barnes: guitar Gene Ramey: bass
Recording Studio
Columbia Recording Studios / Studio A, New York: April 24 / October 26, 1962 / December 8, 1964
Technical Team
Producer: John Hammond
Sound Engineers: George Knuerr and Pete Dauria
Genesis and Lyrics
“Corrina, Corrina” was selected as Bob Dylan’s B-side to his first single and had a brief appearance in stores. It is a 12-bar country blues song, originally known in the world of vaudeville under the title of “Has Anybody Seen My Corrine?” It was published by Roger Graham in 1918, the same year Vernon Dalhart recorded a vocal version and Wilbur Sweatman’s Original Jazz Band a foxtrot instrumental version. In April 1926, Blind Lemon Jefferson recorded “Corrina Blues” on the Paramount label as his own version of “C. C. Rider.” Shortly thereafter, Bo Carter, a member of the Mississippi Sheiks, recorded “Corrine, Corrina” in 1928, and two years later the Mississippi Sheiks (as the Jackson Blue Boys) recorded the same song with bluesman Papa Charlie McCoy on vocals. In 1934, Milton Brown and His Musical Brownies recorded the song, and in 1940 Bob Wills (James Robert Wills), known as the king of the Western swing style, adapted it.
A standard of American popular music, “Corrine, Corrina” came back into the spotlight in the early 1960s when Bob Dylan added a version titled “Corrina, Corrina” to his repertoire. As always, his adaptation is very personal. Although he kept most of the lyrics and the song structure from “Corrine, Corrina,” he added the line, “I got a bird that whistles, I got a bird that sings,” borrowed from “Stones in My Passway,” recorded by Robert Johnson in 1937. The shadow of another bluesman floats over this song: another Johnson named Lonnie. “I was lucky to meet Lonnie Johnson at the same club I was working and I must say he greatly influenced me,” said Bob Dylan. Lonnie Johnson’s influence is obvious in “Corrina, Corrina.” “I used to watch him every chance I got and sometimes he’d let me play with him.”20
Production
Despite the number of versions that have influenced Dylan in his own reinterpretation of “Corrine, Corrina,” none are obviously like his version. While sometimes accused of being close to plagiarism in some of his works, Dylan’s cover has an intrinsic strength closer to an original creation than to an adaptation. He implicitly told Nat Hentoff, “I’d never heard ‘Corrina, Corrina’ exactly the way it first was, so that this version is the way it came out of me.”19 Even if he mentions Lonnie Johnson as an influence, his own interpretation has a personal touch.
At the first session on April 24, Dylan was accompanied by bassist William E. Lee, known as Bill Lee. But after two unsatisfactory takes, he reworked the song six months later on October 26, accompanied by five other musicians: Bruce Langhorne and Howie Collins on guitar, Dick Wellstood on piano, Leonard Gaskin on double bass, and Herb Lovelle on drums. The same musicians performed five takes of his first single, “Mixed Up Confusion,” on the same day. The master for “Corrina, Corrina” was only finalized on November 14, and two musicians, Howie Collins (guitarist of Coleman Hawkins and Benny Goodman) and Leonard Gaskin (double bass player who played with Billie Holliday or Miles Davis, among others), are respectively replaced by George Barnes and Gene Ramey.
On October 26, Dylan and his band recorded six takes of “Corrina, Corrina,” the last take being the master on which, apparently, an overdub guitar by Bruce Langhorne was added. “I remember doing a version of ‘Corrina, Corrina’ with Bob that was acoustic,” Langhorne said in an interview with Richie Unterberger, “and I played acoustic… It might have been overdubbed.”23 It seems that on November 14, an alternative take was also recorded and used as the B-side for “Mixed Up Confusion” with a harmonica intro (in B|,) and a slightly different harmonica solo.
The song is a success with a flair for nostalgia, with strong emotion, probably due to the absence of Suze Rotolo. The arpeggio played on the guitar is brilliant, and Bruce Langhorne’s guitar playing is particularly inspired. Curiously, Dick Wellstood is noted as playing piano, but he is totally inaudible in the mix. The only title benefiting from musicians from the studio, this cover is an essential piece for the perfect cohesion of the album.
FOR DYLANOLOGISTS
Pete Townshend, who confessed to have listened repeatedly to, among others, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan to write his first songs, delivered a stunning interpretation of “Corrina, Corrina” in 2012 (Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan Honoring 50 Years of Amnesty International).
Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance
Henry Thomas / Bob Dylan / 1:59
Musician
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar, harmonica
Recording Studio
Columbia Recording Studios / Studio A, New York: July 9, 1962
Technical Team
Producer: John Hammond
Sound Engineers: George Knuerr and Pete Dauria
Genesis and Lyrics
Henry Thomas, who was born in 1874 and probably died in 1930 (although some claim to have seen him in the 1950s!), recorded several titles between 1927 and 1929 for the famous Vocalion label, where Robert Johnson recorded his entire repertoire. He ensured the link between the tradition of vaudeville and Texas blues. Thomas was rediscovered in the early 1960s, thanks to the folk revival. Bob Dylan was the first to turn to Thomas’s repertoire for inspiration. Thomas’s recording of “Honey, Won’t You Allow Me One More Chance?” was the source of Dylan’s version “Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance.” After finding this song on a disc, Dylan confesses to having been captivated by the title. In fact, Dylan creates something more like a new song rather than a simple adaptation, since he wrote new text and changed the rhythm. The song also has the flair of the bluesman Jesse Fuller, whose “You’re No Good” Dylan covered on his first album. Dylan turned “Honey, Won’t You Allow Me One More Chance?” into a story following the tradition of African-American idiom: a lover asks a woman to allow him one more chance. No doubt Dylan was influenced by the departure of Suze Rotolo for Italy on June 8, almost a month to the day before starting the recording session in the studio.
Production
Similarities between both versions are mostly limited to the title and chorus. Henry Thomas’s version is an authentic “ragtime blues,” while Dylan’s version leans toward country and comedy. Dylan’s “Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance” recalls some songs from his debut album, such as “Pretty Peggy-O” and “Freight Train Blues.” Bob has fun, and his interpretation gives the impression of a second-degree song. Dylan adds his own guitar accompaniment, playing happily on his Gibson J-50 and placing harmonica solos (in G major) rather high between verses. Only one take was needed to record the piece.
The first stage performance of “Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance” was given at Gerde’s Folk City in New York on April 16, 1962, less than three months before Dylan entered the studio. There is also an excellent
alternative recording dating from 1970 with acoustic and electric guitar, bass, and drums, which gives a more settled dimension to the song. It is more convincing than the version on the disc.
FOR DYLANOLOGISTS
Dylan was not the only one honoring Henry Thomas. In 1968 Canned Heat performed “Going Up the Country,” a tune known worldwide and a song strongly based on Thomas’s “Bull Doze Blues,” recorded in 1928.
I Shall Be Free
Bob Dylan / 4:48
Musician
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar, harmonica
Recording Studio
Columbia Recording Studios / Studio A, New York: December 6, 1962
Technical Team
Producer: John Hammond
Sound Engineers: George Knuerr and Pete Dauria
Genesis and Lyrics
The last song on The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan album is a rewrite of Leadbelly’s “We Shall Be Free,” which was probably adapted from a nineteenth-century spiritual. Leadbelly, Sonny Terry, Cisco Houston, and Woody Guthrie performed “We Shall Be Free” in the 1940s. Twenty years later, Dylan revived the song as a social satire, quite pleasant, of a man running for office: “He’s out there preachin’ in front of the steeple / Tellin’ me he loves all kind-a people”; the American middle class “set [me] down on a television floor / [I’ll] flip the channel to number four”; and the housewife “yells and hollers and squeals and snorts without stopping.” With this song, Dylan raises the curtain of the theater of the absurd when he asks, “What I want to know, Mr. Football Man, what do you do about Willie Mays [famous baseball player], Martin Luther King, and Olatunji [percussionist and illustrious Nigerian activist],” and especially when John F. Kennedy calls him up, saying, “My friend, Bob, what do we need to make the country grow?” The songwriter says, “My friend, John, with Brigitte Bardot, Anita Eckberg, and Sophia Loren, country’ll grow!”
Production
Recorded on December 6 at the last recording session of 1962, “I Shall Be Free” was probably planned to close The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan album before the new date of April 24, 1963, disrupted the initial track list. “I Shall Be Free” is very close harmonically to “We Shall Be Free” by Leadbelly. With intonations of “talking blues,” Dylan sometimes lacks rigor in the rhythmic placement of his voice. This last song on the album has no other function than to end on a note of levity, which is a relief after the weighty subject matter of several songs such as “Masters of War” and “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” In 1964, Dylan followed the same method for his fourth album, Another Side of Bob Dylan, including “I Shall Be Free No. 10.”
With his guitar in D in open tuning (capo on the fourth fret) and harmonica in G, Bob is carried away by his performance, and, probably to the disappointment of John Hammond, he hardly finds his position to face the microphone, punctuating the recording of nearly eight plosives (0:21, 1:01, 1:21, 1:56, 3:08, 3:17, and 4:09)! Dylan never played this title live and took five takes to complete the recording. Only the second and fifth takes were completed. The second take was used for the master track. Except for “Corrina, Corrina,” it is the only song on the album that ends with a fade-out.
FOR DYLANOLOGISTS
It is ironic that, in the official copyright filing of the song, the lyrics do not exactly match what Dylan sings. Some names like Yul Brynner, Charles de Gaulle (!), Robert Louis Stevenson, and Ernest Borgnine were replaced by others. Columbia’s fear of litigation?
The Freewheelin’ Outtakes
The years 1962 and 1963 were exceptionally fertile for Dylan. He recorded no less than thirty-six songs during the sessions of his second album. Some were covers, but most were original compositions. Only thirteen were chosen for the official album. The “forgotten songs” are among the best of an already mature songwriter. The nine titles selected for The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3: Rare & Unreleased, 1961–1991 and “Baby, I’m in the Mood for You,” as released on Biograph, attest to the maturity of the songwriter.
Let Me Die In My Footsteps
Bob Dylan / 3:33
Musician: Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar / Recording Studio: Columbia Recording Studios / Studio A, New York: April 25, 1962 / Producer: John Hammond / Sound Engineers: George Knuerr and Pete Dauria / Set Box: The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3: Rare & Unreleased, 1961–1991 (CD 1) / Release Date: March 26, 1991
“Let Me Die in My Footsteps” was written in May 1962, the same month that Nikita Khrushchev launched Operation Anadyr, which was intended to prevent the United States from invading Cuba. The song is “gently ironic” and inspired by the construction of fallout shelters, a widespread practice in the United States during the Cold War.1 Recalled Dylan, “I was in Kansas, Phillipsburg or Marysville I think. I was going through some town out there and they were making this bomb shelter right outside of town, one of these sort of Coliseum-type things, and there were construction workers and everything. I was there for about an hour, just looking at them build, and I guess I just wrote the song in my head back then, but I carried it with me for two years until I finally wrote it down.”1 He added, “As I watched them building, it struck me sort of funny that they would concentrate so much on digging a hole underground when there were so many other things they should do in life. If nothing else, they could look at the sky, and walk around and live a little bit, instead of doing this immoral thing. I guess that it’s just that you can lead a lot of people by the hand. They don’t even really know what they’re scared of.”25
Without veering toward paranoia, like most of his compatriots, the young songwriter delivered a pacifist message (“I’d throw all the guns and the tanks in the sea”), albeit one devoid of optimism (“Let me die in my footsteps / Before I go down under the ground”). He responded to the accusation that he had written a political song with the comment, “The song was personal and social at the same time.”1
The short text Dylan wrote for the cover of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan album was dropped at the last minute from the track listing in favor of “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” It was later reprinted for the booklet for The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3.
Recorded in one take on April 25, Dylan did not have any particular attachment to the song. “When I began performing ‘Let Me Die in My Footsteps,’ I didn’t even say I wrote it. I just slipped it in somewhere, said it was a Weavers song.”1
There are two other recordings of “Let Me Die in My Footsteps”: the first was released in September 1963 on Broadside Ballads, Vol. 1, an album of topical songs recorded by Pete Seeger and Sis Cunningham, the founder of Broadside magazine. The second is a demo recorded for the music publishing house Witmark & Sons dating from September 1963, but it appeared only in 2010 on The Bootleg Series Volume 9: The Witmark Demos: 1962–1964.
Kingsport Town
Traditional / Arrangement Bob Dylan / 3:29
Musicians: Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar, harmonica; Bruce Langhorne: solo guitar / Recording Studio: Columbia Recording Studios / Studio A, New York: November 14, 1962 / Producer: John Hammond / Sound Engineers: George Knuerr and Pete Dauria / Set Box: The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3: Rare & Unreleased, 1961–1991 (CD 1) / Release Date: March 26, 1991
“Kingsport Town” is mainly inspired by “Who’s Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet?” by Woody Guthrie and originates from “The Storms on the Ocean,” recorded in 1927 by the Carter Family.
This ballad about a lovely young woman with eyes as black as her curly hair was recorded the same day as “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” November 14, 1962, but was not selected for the final track listing.
After “Corrina, Corrina,” Bob is accompanied for the second time by another musician, Bruce Langhorne, during the recording sessions of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. The number of takes necessary to record “Kingsport Town” is unknown, since all studio documentation is missing. Had Bob not written other songs on a totally different level, such as “Girl from the North Country” or “Masters of War,” “Kingsport Town” probably would
have made the album.
Rambling, Gambling Willie
Bob Dylan / 4:12
Musician: Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar, harmonica / Recording Studio: Columbia Recording Studios / Studio A, New York: April 24, 1962 / Producer: John Hammond / Sound Engineers: George Knuerr and Pete Dauria / Set Box: The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3: Rare & Unreleased, 1961–1991 (CD 1) / Release Date: March 26, 1991
“Rambling, Gambling Willie” was born from a double inspiration. The hero of the song, the Gambler Will O’Conley who “had twenty-seven children, yet he never had a wife” could be a fictionalized portrait of Wild Bill Hickok, who, after attempting to enforce the law in the Wild West, proudly wearing a sheriff’s star, died at a poker table. In reality the song is the American transformation of the nineteenth-century Irish highwayman Willie Brennan, hung in Cork in 1804 and immortalized in the traditional folk song “Brennan on the Moor.”
Bob Dylan All the Songs Page 9