Dylan was the first outsider superstar. Male movie stars and pop idols were supposed to be tall, broad shouldered, wholesome looking with perfect teeth and greased back hair. If they were singers, they were supposed to have voices that were at least pleasant on the ears. 1961/62 Bob Dylan possessed none of these things. He was a short, skinny, dishevelled looking country boy with what would be described by most as an ear piercingly annoying singing voice. Although not explicitly stated, it's painstakingly implied when you listen to regalings from his Greenwich Village peers like Dave Von Ronk, Liam Clancy and Tony Glover that Bob being signed to Columbia was not only met with astonishment but also resentment from them. How could they have picked this twerpy little kid before the rest of them who were doing exactly the same thing but better and in a far more refined manner than him? What John Hammond saw in this kid when he was introduced to him at a party is academic. The question should rather be '' how on earth did Bob get to that party?'' The clues to this answer are given in the interviews with his peers: Bob was a sponge, a hustler, a chameleon, this irritating kid who was always there every time you turned around and just wanted to swat him away (Clancy).
His first album's flopping most likely vindicated the rest of the NY folk scene's prevailing beliefs about Bob being undeserving and ''nothing special''. Bob's excuse for the sheer mediocrity of his debut was that he didn't want to ''give anything away '' Implying that he had already written songs like '' Blowin in the Wind'' and '' A hard rain's a gonna fall'' that would only feature a year later on his next album. Had Hammond/ Columbia/ Grossman passed on Bob and went with a safer more obvious candidate like eg. Von Ronk, with all due respect to Dave and his talents - would he or any of others have had that '' it'' factor, the unutterable, inexplicable thing that it took to rise to the level of superstardom that Bob rose to? I somehow doubt that.
His first album's flopping most likely vindicated the rest of the NY folk scene's prevailing beliefs about Bob being undeserving and ''nothing special''. Bob's excuse for the sheer mediocrity of his debut was that he didn't want to ''give anything away '' Implying that he had already written songs like '' Blowin in the Wind'' and '' A hard rain's a gonna fall'' that would only feature a year later on his next album. Had Hammond/ Columbia/ Grossman passed on Bob and went with a safer more obvious candidate like eg. Von Ronk, with all due respect to Dave and his talents - would he or any of others have had that '' it'' factor, the unutterable, inexplicable thing that it took to rise to the level of superstardom that Bob rose to? I somehow doubt that.