Rex Fowler Of Aztec Two-Step On Bob Dylan

How did you first get into Bob Dylan?

I was 17 and going into my senior year in high school, working a summer job in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, in the summer of ‘65. It was a resort where a lot of New Yorkers, mostly college kids, were also working. One of them had a handful of early Dylan albums. I was immediately blown away.

How has he influenced your music?

I wouldn’t have played music or written songs if it weren’t for Dylan. I’m old enough to remember hearing Sinatra wafting into the back seat of my parents’ ‘52 Buick. Later on I heard Elvis and then the Beatles. All three were inspirational but they never remotely conveyed a thought to pick up an instrument, a guitar, to try and do that. But Dylan did. By my freshman year in college in the fall of ’66, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life. I “was” Bob Dylan until I gradually began finding my own “voice” as a singer and a songwriter. Five years later I was playing my songs in the open air of Central Park, then signed by Elektra Records.

How many times have you seen him play live? What were those shows like?

I saw him live in various venues four or five times from the late ‘70s into the early ’90s before I stopped going; finally accepting that he was only going to phone it in -– plus, I literally had no idea what song he was singing or playing until it had practically ended. Whether he was too stoned or just didn’t give a shit or both, Dylan consistently disrespected his audience (and probably himself) which totally disappointed me.

Did it take you awhile to get into Bob Dylan, given his strange singing style?

Not at all, to the contrary. He killed me the first time I heard that voice, those songs. Nobody could touch Dylan one on one, not even John Lennon back then. Eventually Lennon did surpass Dylan, at least in my ear’s mind. Mind’s ear? Oh dear!

What’s the closest you’ve ever gotten to him?

I’ve never shared a bill with Dylan but the closest I ever got to him physically was at Gerdes Folk City in the early ’70s. Dylan and George Harrison had stopped in to see David Bromberg during his debut album release show. George met my eyes with a great big smile as Dylan darted out the door — both literally a few feet away passing by.

Do you have a favorite Bob Dylan quote or lyric?

It’s impossible for me to single out one favorite lyric; simply too many brilliant and important songs to try. Having said that, this has always been an absolute favorite of mine, silly as it may seem: “The Lone Ranger and Tonto, were riding up and down the line, fixin’ everybody’s troubles, everybody’s but mine, someone must have told him I was doing fine.” The man had a serious sense of humor!

What are some of your favorite Dylan songs and albums?

Oh geez, just so many songs but I guess it was that three album stretch beginning with Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and ending with Blonde On Blonde. Along with the Beatles and the Stones, they defined not only the ‘Golden Age of Rock ‘n Roll,’ but our very culture, my culture coming of age in the 1960s.

I can make a case for three of his earlier acoustic albums beginning with The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, The Times They Are a-Changin‘ and Another Side of Bob Dylan; if for no other reason than their impact on Lennon’s songwriting and singing (and just about everybody else’s for that matter!) – and their impact on the contemporary socio/politico consciousness that defined the early folk music movement before it eventually became diluted and clichéd.

Is there a period of Dylan’s music you think is underrated or overrated?

For me personally, and I know a lot of people will disagree with my assessment, but I think his Blood On The Tracks album was overrated, especially “Tangled Up In Blue.” I’m sure it and other songs on the album (“Simple Twist of Fate,” “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go”) were personal real life stories, perhaps even painful remembrances, but I never felt that pain like I did for instance on “Just Like A Woman,” “4th Time Around” or even earlier on with “One Too Many Mornings.” For me he had stopped emoting, his medium became flippant; it all seemed so disingenuous.

What do you admire about Bob Dylan?

His originality first and foremost. How he stood alone on stage in Don’t Look Back, armed with only a harmonica and six-string acoustic guitar, slaying dragons. Then how he kept reinventing himself; not like Joni Mitchell or Paul Simon or Sting – but within the same basic idiom or genre; folk into folk/rock which he basically invented; along with heavy doses of the dust bowl and delta blues thrown in for good measure. A true Americana genius if there ever was one.

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