Rocks And Gravel

This year started with Bob Dylan and the film A Complete Unknown and he's coming around it's tail end too with the release of Through The Open Window, the eighteenth edition of The Bootleg Series, this one covering the years 1956- 1963. It includes his earliest recordings but the main focus is the years when he arrives in New York and soaks up folk music, the pre- electric Bob Dylan making his name in the clubs, bars and hangouts. It also includes a full concert from Carnegie Hall, 26th October 1963. There's an eight CD deluxe version (probably let's be honest a bit too much) and a double CD/ four LP edition with a more manageable number of songs. A while ago Rocks And Gravel (already previously released) came out as a trailer for the album...

Rocks And Gravel was recored during the twelve months of sessions for the album that became The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, his second album, released in May 1963. It's difficult to see why Rocks And Gravel didn't make the cut but also hard to work out what could have been dropped from the final album to make way for it (some very early promo editions of Freewheelin' included the song along with three others but these were replaced on all subsequent releases- needless to say early editions are both rare and expensive. The other three songs were Let Me Die In My Footsteps, Rambling Gambling Willie and Talkin' John Birch Blues). Rocks And Gravel has Dylan's voice and finger picking guitar style in full 1963 flow, the folk and blues of the early '60s filtered into is own style. People who knew him at the time he arrived in New York say he moved so fast and got so good so fast, it was breathtaking. 

The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan was a step up from his debut, with several songs that became Dylan standards- Blowin' In The Wind, Masters Of War, Don't Think Twice, It's Alright and A Hard Rain's A' Gonna Fall, not to mention Girl From The North Country. The cover, Bob (brown suede jacket and jeans) and Suze Rotolo (coat and black boots) walking down the snow covered Jones Street, West Village, New York, is as famous as the songs. 

Dylan's songs from Freewheelin' have been covered by all and sundry, with degrees of success.  In 2003 Johnny Marr covered Don't Think Twice, It's Alright, and does a decent job of it, acoustic guitar, piano and harmonica and a Marr vocal. Bob wrote Don't Think Twice... while Suze was in Italy, some distance between her and Bob, possibly instigated by her mother who didn't care for Dylan. He wrote the song 'to make himself feel better'.

Don't Think Twice, It's Alright