The Freewheelin'

Original Released on LP Columbia 8786 (mono)

(US, 1963 May 27)

Not yet twenty-two at the time of this albums release, Dylan is growing at a swift, experience-hungry rate. In these performances, there is already a marked change from his first album ("Bob Dylan," Columbia CL 1779/CS 8579), and there will surely be many further dimensions of Dylan to come. What makes this collection particularly arresting that it consists in large part of Dylan's own compositions The resurgence of topical folk songs has become a pervasive part of the folk movement among city singers, but few of the young bards so far have demonstrated a knowledge of the difference between well-intentioned pamphleteering and the creation of a valid musical experience. Dylan has. As the highly critical editors of Little Sandy Review have noted, «...right now, he is certainly our finest contemporary folk song writer. Nobody else really even comes close.»

... The first of Dylan's songs in this set is "Blowin' in the Wind". In 1962, Dylan said of the song's background: «I still say that some of the biggest criminals are those that turn their heads away when they see wrong and they know it's wrong. I'm only 21 years old and I know that there's been too many wars...You people over 21 should know better.» All that he prefers to add by way of commentary now is: «The first way to answer these questions in the song is by asking them. But lots of people have to first find the wind.»

... This album, in sum, is the protean Bob Dylan as of the time of the recording. By the next recording, there will be more new songs and insights and experiences. Dylan can't stop searching and looking and reflecting upon what he sees and hears. «Anything I can sing,» he observes, «I call a song. Anything I can't sing, I call a poem. Anything I can't sing or anything that's too long to be a poem, I call a novel. But my novels don't have the usual story lines. They're about my feelings at a certain place at a certain time.»

... It is this continuing explosion of a total individual, a young man growing free rather than absurd, that makes Bob Dylan so powerful and so personal and so important a singer. As you can hear in these performances. (Nat Hentoff)