Bob Dylan “Bob Dylan” 1962. The big news today is that Dylan has been awarded the Nobel Prize in literature, the first American to win the prize in literature since ‘93 (which went to novelist Toni Morrison), “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition” so it seems fitting to spin his first album release. My favorite song on this record is “Highway 51″ – a rockin’ acoustic folk tune which also name-checks Wisconsin.

I am not a regular Dylan listener but spent a great deal of my 1970′s childhood hearing his albums, going to folk festivals around the Midwest and sitting around on various living room floors* listening to my dad play Dylan songs on guitar with my mom accompanying on autoharp, along with other hippie-ish folk music freaks. My parents are HUGE Dylan fans, in fact they were in Indio, California last weekend at Desert Trip on the Coachella grounds seeing Dylan along with Paul McCartney, The Who, Roger Waters, Neil Young and the Rolling Stones. Dubbed “Oldchella,” they joined hundreds of thousands other baby boomers, 20-something hippie wannabes and celebrities to see these rock legends perform. My folks reported that Dylan spent most of his time with his back to the audience, refused to let his face be shown on the gigantic screens and that his voice sounded a lot worse for wear, but that they loved it anyway. (Their only negative comment about the entire experience was that “The Who were too loud.”)

*Various living room floors, the lower two photos of me with my dad, probably in 1972.