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The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan: A Folk Tribute

The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan: A Folk Tribute (Delphonic DELPH010)

The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan: A Folk Tribute
Various Artists

Delphonic Music DELPH010 (DL, UK, 21 November 2011)

Folk artists pay tribute to Bob Dylan’s seminal second LP The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.

Recorded in May 2011 as part of BBC Radio 2’s Bob Dylan 70th Birthday season.

Tracks

  1. Seth Lakeman: Blowin’ in the Wind (3.17)
  2. Thea Gilmore: Girl From the North Country (4.40)
  3. Martin Simpson: Masters of War (4.26)
  4. Chris While & Julie Matthews: Down the Highway (3.34)
  5. Ewan McLennan: Bob Dylan’s Blues (2.52)
  6. Karine Polwart: A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall (7.27)
  7. Ralph McTell: Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right (4.01)
  8. Martin Carthy: Bob Dylan’s Dream (5.47)
  9. Coope Boyes & Simpson: Oxford Town (1.48)
  10. Billy Bragg: Talkin’ World War III Blues (3.06)
  11. Cara Dillon with The Scoville Units: Corrina, Corrina (2.54)
  12. Rory McLeod: Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance (9.37)
  13. Rab Noakes with Fraser Speirs: I Shall Be Free (5.02)

Comment

[This is the blurb on BBC Radio 2’s programme on Bob Dylan that was broadcast on 18 May 2011]

As Radio 2 celebrates Bob Dylan’s 70th birthday, the cream of the British folk scene re-interprets songs from his iconic album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. Mark Radcliffe guides us through a collection of specially recorded songs that illustrate not only Dylan’s great writing skills, but also the inventiveness and creativity of British folk artists, some of whom inspired a young Dylan when he first visited Britain in the early 1960s.

Although Freewheelin’ is Dylan’s second studio album, it initiated the process of writing contemporary words to traditional melodies. Eleven of the thirteen songs on the album are original compositions and it contains several that came to be regarded as his best and classics of the 1960s folk scene: Blowin’ in the Wind, Masters of War, A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall and Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.

In December 1962, partway through recording Freewheelin’, a young Bob Dylan came to London for the first time where he met English folk singer Martin Carthy. Carthy taught Dylan the traditional songs Scarborough Fair and Lord Franklin, both of which would appear on the album just months later as Girl from the North Country and Bob Dylan’s Dream. Almost fifty years on, we come full circle, as Bob Dylan’s Dream is performed by Martin Carthy himself.