Bob Dylan - Town Hall, New York, 1963

It was 59 years ago on March 19, 1962 that Bob Dylan released his debut self titled LP. Initially poor sales led the record to be known around Columbia Records as ‘Hammond’s Folly’ (John Hammond was producer of Dylan’s early recordings and the man responsible for signing Dylan). The album featured only two Dylan original compositions, ‘Talkin’ New York’ and ‘Song To Woody’, the rest are old great folk standards. The poster here advertised the first major concert of Bob Dylan’s career, at Town Hall in Manhattan on Friday, April 12, 1963. This was Bob Dylan’s first major concert. For the first time, Dylan played nothing but his own material. Columbia rolled tapes for a possible live album which never materialized, but fans have enjoyed hearing tracks from this show on bootlegs since the 1970’s, and of course Sony Legacy has since released a few of the recordings on the Bootleg