In November 1961, Bob Dylan was just 20 years old, a young Folk Singer on the cusp of fame. His first paid performances, at Gerde’s Folk City in New York’s Greenwich Village, were starting to attract interest.
His first review had just come out, a surprising rave in the New York Times, which said, “Mr. Dylan is both a comedian and a tragedian.”
Meanwhile, Ted Russell was a photojournalist working regularly for LIFE magazine in New York when an RCA Records publicist hired him to photograph the label’s latest discovery, Ann-Margret.
Shortly afterward, the publicist moved to Columbia Records and invited Russell to take some pictures of its new hire, Bob Dylan. Russell liked the idea, thinking a story on an up-and-coming Village folk singer could interest LIFE.
“I wanted to do an essay on the trials and tribulations of an up-and-coming folk singer trying to make it in the big city,” Russell told the NY Times. "[The LIFE editors] gave me a big yawn, not the slightest interest." Despite the lack of interest in that shoot, Russell ended up shooting Dylan twice more in 1963 and 1964, when he was already a star.
|
| Dylan inside the kitchen of his W. 4th Street apartment |
|
| Dylan inside his first apartment in NYC on W. 4th Street |
|
| Dylan talking to James Baldwin at the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee's Bill of Rights Dinner |
|
| Dylan singing at Gerde's Folk City in Greenwich Village |
See more »
