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The Review - MUSIC - grooves with RóISíN GADELRAB
Published: 16 April 2009

Bob Dylan

Returning Dylan’s debt to Bob

PREVIEW - BOB DYLAN
Roundhouse

BOB Dylan’s no stranger to Camden.
His first gigs on British soil were in Fitzrovia and King’s Cross, he helped fellow folk singer Martin Carthy destroy a wardrobe for firewood in his Belsize Park flat and he once serenaded two doe-eyed au pairs with Blowin’ In The Wind at a friend’s house in Hampstead.
He says he “learned a lot” about the English music scene from Bloomsbury folk legend Bob Davenport and is even rumoured to have been turned away from the Roundhouse for an incident which may or may not have involved cannabis.
But this was all in the 60s, when freedom was a reason for living and the internet didn’t exist.
Nearly 50 years on, Dylan is returning, to play at the Roundhouse for 2,000 people, the smallest and most intimate date on his tour – and all tickets were sold online.
And, just like when the luddites stomped off in a huff when Dylan went electric, the internet sales have caused a stir – quite rightly some might say, after the website crashed within minutes of tickets going on sale.
Old friend and official Dylan “influence” Bob Davenport witnessed his earliest performances in England at The Singer’s Club in the Pindar of Wakefield, now the Water Rats in King’s Cross.
“It’s a long way from the Pindar of Wakefield to the Roundhouse.” Mr Davenport says. “The journey between that first experience and his present one is quite amazing. He’s played much larger venues, but you get a much more intimate feeling at the Roundhouse.”
It was at the Pindar that one of the most iconic photos of Dylan was taken.
“That was in the bitter winter in 1962.” Mr Davenport says. “He was getting away from the folk songs that were current then. He was beginning to make his mark.
“A friend of mine who was there said she liked that – while a lot of folk songs by men at the time were bawdy sea shanties, she was impressed that he was singing something quite different.”
Dylan also played the King and Queen’s pub in Cleveland Street.
“Martin Carthy was the MC and he saw Bob and recognised him from the photo on the front of an American Magazine called Sing Out!” says Mr Davenport. “He asked him would he sing there and he did. He loved London – you could sit in the coffee houses all day on a cup of coffee for 10p. Central London was so active. You would have people in coffee houses swapping guitar chords.”
Mr Davenport was on the same bill as Dylan and Joan Baez at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1964 and has often been cited by the American legend as an early influence.
Mr Davenport says: “Bob picked up some tunes from myself and Martin Carthy, but he wrote his own words.
“He told Q Magazine that Martin and I had influenced him.
“When I was singing at Newport, Bob brought Joan Baez to see me. And he came to see me when I was in New York in 1963.”

• Bob Dylan plays the Roundhouse on Sunday, April 26.

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