Maps of Music

The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963)

Where the lyrics of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan take you, and where it was really made.

The cover shows Dylan and Suze Rotolo walking down a Greenwich Village street, a casual picture that later films and a TikTok trend recreated.

Key places

Cover photo location on Jones Street (1963)

Album cover Jones Street — Dylan and Suze Rotolo were pictured walking along Jones Street in Greenwich Village, New York City, for the album cover. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan: second studio album by Bob Dylan
• Released May 27, 1963 through Columbia Records
• Thirteen songs, eleven of them Dylan's own compositions
• Opens with "Blowin' in the Wind", which became an anthem of the 1960s
• Other key tracks: "Girl from the North Country", "Masters of War", "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall", "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right"
• Marks the start of Dylan writing contemporary lyrics to traditional melodies
• Cover shows Dylan and girlfriend Suze Rotolo on Jones Street, Greenwich Village, New York City

Background

• Debut album Bob Dylan sold only 5,000 copies in its first year, just enough to break even
• Some within Columbia referred to Dylan as "Hammond's Folly" and suggested dropping him
• John Hammond defended Dylan and wanted the second album to succeed
• Lyrics drew on news about the civil rights movement and fear of nuclear war
• Love songs, some bitter and accusatory, balanced the political material and surreal humor
• Dylan moved into an apartment on West 4th Street with Suze Rotolo in January 1962
• Album made Dylan a national and international figure
• Led to the label "Spokesman of a Generation", which Dylan repudiated

Recording

• Recording ran from April 1962 to April 1963
• Assembled from eight sessions at Columbia Records Studio A, 799 Seventh Avenue, New York City
• Songs from the April 1962 sessions were left off the album
• "Blowin' in the Wind" recorded at the July 9, 1962 session
• First studio recordings with a backing band took place October 26, 1962
• Four songs were replaced after the Ed Sullivan Show dispute, with newer songs recorded in April 1963

Cover

• Photographed in February 1963 by CBS staff photographer Don Hunstein
• Taken a few weeks after Rotolo returned from Italy
• Dylan and Rotolo walked in the middle of Jones Street near their apartment

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota; raised in Hibbing, Minnesota.
• Moved to New York City in January 1961 to pursue a music career.
• Signed to Columbia Records after playing harmonica on Carolyn Hester's album; debut album Bob Dylan released in 1962.

Members

• Solo artist; backed over the years by bands including the Hawks/the Band, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and his touring band led by bassist Tony Garnier.

Career

• Breakthrough with The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963); protest songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" became anthems for the civil rights and antiwar movements.
• Went electric with Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited (1965) and Blonde on Blonde (1966), provoking controversy among folk fans.
• Motorcycle accident in 1966 led to nearly eight years without touring; Basement Tapes recorded with the Band.
• Converted to Christianity in the late 1970s and released gospel albums; won Album of the Year Grammy for Time Out of Mind (1997).
• Has toured since 1988 on the Never Ending Tour; won an Academy Award and ten Grammy Awards; awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Playboy: Nat Hentoff's folk music article in the June issue called Dylan "the most vital of the younger citybillies"
• Scaduto: the album was an immediate success, selling 10,000 copies a month
• Dylan's income from the album reached about $2,500 a month
• "Blowin' in the Wind" reached number two on Billboard's pop chart through Peter, Paul and Mary's version

Reappraisal

• Q magazine (2000): easily the best of Dylan's acoustic albums and a quantum leap from his debut
• AllMusic (Stephen Thomas Erlewine): It's hard to overestimate the importance of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, the record that firmly established Dylan as an unparalleled songwriter
• Patrick Humphries: rarely has one album so effectively reflected the times which produced it
• Howard Sounes: called it Bob Dylan's first great album

Records

• US Billboard album chart peak: number 22, later one million copies sold in the US
• Reached number one on the UK album chart in 1965
• Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (2003): number 97
• Library of Congress added it to the National Recording Registry in 2002
• Original pressing is considered the most valuable and rarest record in America, with one copy sold for $35,000

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Peter, Paul and Mary's single of "Blowin' in the Wind" came out three weeks after this album's release
• The cover photo was recreated in Cameron Crowe's 2001 film Vanilla Sky
• Taylor Swift cited the album as the inspiration for her song "Betty" on Folklore
• Dylan refused to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show rather than comply with TV censorship
• John Lennon said the Beatles first heard Dylan through a copy of this album in Paris in 1964

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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