Bob Dylan plays his first major gig in New York City
Who knows how many other young men arrived in New York City in the winter of 1961 looking like James Dean and talking like Jack Kerouac It would have been difficult to pick Bob Dylan out of the crowd at first considering how much he had in common with the other Bohemian kids kicking around Greenwich Village.Artistic ambition Check.Antipathy toward mainstream culture Yes.
A desire to put his middle-class identity behind him Definitely.But the singular creative vision that would separate Dylan from the rest of his peers and change the face of popular music wasnt really in evidence yet.What Bob Dylan did have though in addition to his guitar and harmonica was a unique stage presence and a vast library of American folk songs in his repertoire.
On April 11 1961 he got his first real chance to put those on display with his first major gig in New York City opening for bluesman John Lee Hooker at Gerdes Folk City.Bob Dylan had just arrived in town a few months earlier but as the prominent producertalent scout John Hammond would write in the liner notes of his debut album one year later The young man from the provinces began to make friends very quickly in New York all the while continuing as he has since he was ten to assimilate musical ideas from everyone he met every record he heard.Dylan befriended not only his idol Woody Guthriewhose hospitalization in New Jersey had been the initial impetus for Dylan to come east from Minnesotabut also some of the significant figures on the burgeoning Downtown folk scene like Jack Elliot and Dave Van Ronk.Dylan would write about this period in Talkin New York (1962) which included a verse about his breakthrough gig at GerdesAfter weeks and weeks of hanging aroundI finally got a job in New York townIn a bigger place bigger money tooEven joined the Union and paid my dues.Gerdes was probably the most important folk-music venue in New York City at the timethe club that every folk act with a national profile played when they were in town.
Dylan had previously joined other unknowns like himself onstage at Gerdes during the clubs Monday Hootenanny Night but the invitation to appear on a regular bill presented a bit of an administrative problem.At just 19 years old Bob Dylan was too young to obtain the necessary union card and cabaret license.One of the clubs owners Mike Porco was interested enough in getting the young man on the bill though that he signed on as Dylans guardianthe Sicilian father I never knew I had as Dylan put it.A number of major developments in the year that followed would set Bob Dylan on his road toward stardom but the very first of those was his appearance at Gerdes Folk City on this day in 1961.
