Bob Dylan Stopped Idolizing People After Meeting His Idol
Since the 1960s, Bob Dylan has been idolized by other musicians. People who became famous in their own right credited Dylan with influencing their songwriting. Even his contemporaries cited him as an influence. Early in his career, though, Dylan decided to stop idolizing anybody. He explained that after he met his last idol, he realized that this person couldn’t help him. He came to the conclusion that idolatry was pointless.
Many musicians idolized Bob Dylan
Dylan’s songwriting was highly influential for the people who listened to him growing up.
“He influenced my songwriting, of course. He influenced everybody’s songwriting,” Tom Petty said, per American Songwriter. “There’s no way around it. No one had ever really left the love song before, lyrically. So in that respect, I think he influenced everybody, because you suddenly realized you could write about other things.”
His contemporaries were also big fans of his work. According to Petty, George Harrison admired Dylan so much that he secretly recorded him.
“George quoted Bob like people quote Scripture,” Petty told Rolling Stone in 2002. “Bob really adored George, too. George used to hang over the balcony videoing Bob while Bob wasn’t aware of it. Bob would be sitting at the piano playing, and George would tape it and listen to it all night.”
Bob Dylan once spoke about the last person he’d idolized
While people idolized Dylan, the musician said he stopped having idols early in his career. He admired Woody Guthrie so much that he left Minnesota for New York partly so that he could visit him. Guthrie was in the hospital with Huntington’s Disease, and Dylan made a point to visit him soon after arriving in the city.
“Like seeing Woody Guthrie was one of the main reasons I came East,” Dylan told The New Yorker in 1964. “He was an idol to me. A couple of years ago, after I’d gotten to know him, I was going through some very bad changes, and I went to see Woody, like I’d go to somebody to confess to.”
When he realized that Guthrie couldn’t help him, though, he swore off having idols.
“But I couldn’t confess to him,” Dylan explained. “It was silly. I did go and talk with him — as much as he could talk — and the talking helped. But basically he wasn’t able to help me at all. I finally realized that. So Woody was my last idol.”
The singer emerged from isolation to attend a Woody Guthrie memorial concert
Though Dylan decided to stop idolizing Guthrie, he still thought of him as a key influence. In 1968, he emerged from over a year of seclusion in order to play at a memorial concert in Guthrie’s honor. The concert also featured Pete Seeger, Judy Collins, Arlo Guthrie, Tom Paxton, Jack Elliot, Odetta, and Richie Havens.
Per Rolling Stone, Dylan played “Grand Coulee,” “Mrs. Roosevelt,” and “I Ain’t Got No Home.” He also joined the other artists on “Bound for Glory” and “This Land is Your Land.”
