May 21st 1975

“Tim came round in evening. He listened to and might buy New Morning”

Yes, I had been introduced to Bob Dylan.

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with Mr Zimmerman… in as much as I love some of his stuff to the same degree with which I hate his other stuff.

In early 1975 I had bought – or at the very least taped – Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks” which had successfully taken my breath away. He managed to articulate a lot of things I was trying to express in his lyrics and the music just flowed from beginning to end, tracks like “Tangled up in Blue” and “Idiot Wind” making me realise why (my then hero) Steve Harley had so many good things to say about him. “Blood on the Tracks” was the beginning of my true appreciation for the simpler singer/songwriter style which I suppose had started with Cat Stevens a year or so earlier?

“New Morning”, originally released at the start of the 70’s, is retrospectively credited as the start of Dylan’s then re-birth in public awareness and a type of album which ultimately led to “Blood…” and the (even better IMHO) follow-up “Desire”

I can’t remember much about “New Morning” and couldn’t name you one tune from it now. I know I picked it up someone quite cheaply – Woolworth’s bargain racks again? – and, after just one listen, decided it wasn’t for me.

It looks like I previewed it for and tried to palm my errant purchase off on Tim, who had previously worked with me at  Lancaster & Crook.

Fingers crossed!

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