"I heard about Bob Dylan before I heard him. Somebody invited me to Gerde's Folk City in 1961, and that was the first I heard him sing. He knocked me flat. Everything everyone said [about him] was right. I thought he was brilliant, amazing, a scuff ball." [A scuff ball?]

"[P]eople say to me, that if I hadn't discovered Bob, people wouldn't have heard of him. People would have heard of him. ...[However, i]n those days, since he was such a grubby little thing, they needed to have him sanctioned [by Baez] before they would listen. So yeah, I'm happy that I did that."

"His [songs] were just the best. I was already comfortable with protest songs. But with Dylan's songs it was, 'Aha!' Because they're so good. After he wrote those images, thousands of young kids scribbling on their pads have tried to duplicate that and nobody's been able to. He's influenced every songwriter in rock and roll and folk. And whether or not he was involved in social action or not, he wrote this artillery for us."

"I think he is a very tenacious character. I think underneath all the so-called eccentricity, which I think is just a mask, there's a very true person. He's a good father --- I've seen him with his children --- with a moral compass, and who can get lost at sea like everybody. But I think he's very strong."

"I love Bob Dylan, I really do. I love his early work, I love the first time he plugged in electrically, I love his Christian albums, I love his other albums."

[On encountering Dylan in the early '60s:] "The only thing I can compare him with is blotting paper. He soaked everything up. He had this immense curiosity; he was totally blank, and ready to soak up everything that was in his range."

"I'm an intense Dylan fan... I think [Infidels is] one of the most remarkably written albums I've ever heard. And I thought that Desire was a brilliant album too. A song like 'I And I:' 'I took an untrodden path once where I dare not stumble or set foot...' [sic!] The language in that record is brilliant, it's beautiful. That song with 'sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace...' That's really inspired writing. ...I'm kind of rabid about that one [Infidels].

"I always wanted to do in rap what Bob Dylan did for rock, when he picked up the electric guitar and everybody booed him, and yet he just played on, and he broke down that barrier."

"I sat there and listened to Dylan and said he's like me. He don't care --- he's writing what he feels and needs to be said."

[After mentioning the accusations of "ripping off" Dylan and being irritated with Dylan comparisons in general, Donovan tells this anecdote:] "I remember arriving, and Bobby Neuwirth, Dylan's roadie at the time, quietly bringing me into Dylan's suite... I went into a little television room, creeped in and shut the door. It was dark in there. Dylan was just a shadow. He was looking at the ice skating championships from Austria on television in a darkened room. He didn't say anything. We just sat down. Neither asked the other a question. There was nothing to say, nothing to ask. Slowly my eyes got accustomed to the dark, and I realized there were other figures in the room sitting on the couch. Slowly the figures became more real. It was John, Paul, George, and Ringo. I must say I felt a little out of my depth."

"Dylan may be the very opposite [of Donovan's own style] in the sense that he isn't comforting, but it [his voice] is arresting and it is totally absorbing."

"For me, the most exciting new artist is still Bob Dylan --- the Highway 61 Revisted sort-of era. Because that's just fuckin' Shakespeare."

"['Like a Rolling Stone'] was fucking ambitious and at the same time seems thrown away... It rings with an ecstatic kind of joy (was he on speed?) that makes you feel that anything is possible. It's like a slingshot that simultaneously slams a rock into your head and launches you like a stone. Your head spins with excitement at the language... All the songs on [Highway 61 Revisited] kind of take my breath away, but I'll pick this one because it changed the face of music forever. Suddenly here was a songwriter with a point of view... 'Like a Rolling Stone' was based in a long tradition, and yet he said things so they sounded brand new. It was an incredible acerbic dis, but also thoughtful and interesting."

[Asked if Dylan was a "big influence" on him:] "Absolutely. And he still is. You know, I think he should be some kind of influence on all modern songwriters. Because he was so influential and did so much with the form. But he's not the only one. ...Nobody is the new anybody. If you are, you're barking up the wrong tree."

"Sufi Whirling Dervish master musicians I'd visited in Turkey were big Dylan fans, even though they didn't understand a word of English. They were listening to the meaning in the emotions, rhythms, tones, and other currents created by the words."

"I once wrote a song to castrate Nixon, and I played it for Bob Dylan. It was very embarrassing. The lyric was filled with all sorts of atrocities. I played it for Dylan, and he said, 'That's what people are expecting from me, so I can't do it.'
"I tried for a while to imitate what Dylan had been doing. And then, as the years went by, I laughed at myself for envying him because I realized that he couldn't help being what he was any more than I could help being who I was. So I gave that up and continued to write popular songs."

"My favorite writer is still Bob Dylan; it'll always be Bob Dylan. I always put him on a level way above the average. He sort of blew my mind. When I first started listening to his records, I went nuts. I said, 'Nobody ever told me you had to write poetry.'"

"The 1974 Dylan tour, from a touring standpoint, was the most exciting thing I'd ever experienced. This man created a one-on-one with every person in the audience... People would excuse themselves from who they came with to go one-on-one with Bob. He was the man, far more than anyone else."

"When the [Rolling] Stones performed, every man felt like a man and every woman felt like a woman. And they all wanted to take the Stones home. I think with Dylan they wanted to give him a bowl of soup."

"Coming from my background of rock and heavy metal and then blues and jazz, I wasn't really hip to folk music in general. But when I heard this ["Positively 4th Street"], it totally blew me away. I don't know if it's popular, but it's an amazing song that everyone should know about."

"Dylan is so brilliant. To me, he makes William Shakespeare look like Billy Joel."

"He's turned himself into a decent bandleader. He don't strum no more. Bobby plays an electric guitar. He plays like [Steve] Cropper plays. He's really part of the rhythm section. Oh man, I love the way Bob has led his band... I like to go like that, just no plan, and play it all by ear. He's as good at it as anybody I know."

"I first heard ['Visions Of Johanna'] thirty years ago. I was probably at school in a basement, watching the older guys crowd 'round the record player, going, 'This is it, man.' I loved it simply for the feeling of the song, and that's why I still love it. It manages to convey so many contradictory moods... It's very sad and very funny at the same time, and it's not easy to convey those feelings simultaneously... I feel, as a songwriter, I've been created by that song, but I've also made that song my own."

[On his voice sounding like Dylan's:] "Yeah, well, it would. I'm not really a singing singer. You're not looking at Dolly Parton here. I listened to Dylan avidly from eleven years old on... [The similarity] just came out naturally that way. But probably, because he's so ingrained in the consciousness, that style, that you can't help but sound that way part of the time. But I was never conscious of trying to be someone else all the time."

[At a Dylan recording session ("which was like the end-all for me"), Kooper has given up on guitar, feeling too unskilled, and convinced producer Tom Wilson to let him play organ:] "Now I had played organ before, but just on my own demos... The song was a very long one, and the band was playing so loud I couldn't hear the organ. I put my hands on the keyboard, and not hearing what I was playing but knowing enough about music to know that if I played a C it would fit into an F chord, I waited for the band to make a chord change before I played.
It was the first complete take of the day, and when they went to play it back, Dylan said, 'Turn up that organ.'
Tom Wilson said, 'That cat's not an organ player.'
Dylan said, 'Don't tell me who is an organ player. Just turn up the organ.'
That was the take of 'Like a Rolling Stone,' and that is how I became an organ player.'
"...You couldn't help being influenced by Dylan. And he couldn't help being influenced by the Beatles and the Stones. He would go to England, and they would come to the United States to see him, to pay homage to him. They were influenced by him, and he in turn was influenced by them.They kind of cross-pollinated each other. You never would have had a 'Like a Rolling Stone' without Dylan being into the Beatles [I don't see this, personally - N], just as you never would have had 'I'm a Loser' and 'You've Got To Hide Your Love Away' without Dylan."

"His delivery is so unique, and I don't think any of the guys in the band ever tried to imitate him --- that would be impossible --- but surely the way his songs scan, their rythym and their meter [affected us]."

[Asked to name his favorites.] "It wouldn't be fair if I didn't name every Dylan record. It almost makes me furious sometimes, how good his lyrics are. You know, you aspire to things. I'm trying and trying [to write a song], and I'll get something and I'll say, 'That's pretty good,' and then I'll listen to Blood On the Tracks and think 'Who the hell am I kidding? What the hell am I talking about?' 'Come in, she said / I'll give you / shelter from the storm.' Asshole!"

"I liked Bob Dylan, because I found him so interesting. He had the great capacity to throw off one skin and put on another one."

"The first time I heard [Dylan] was in Greenwich Village at Folk City. He had just come to new York from the West Coast. He had only a couple of songs that he had written himself. Mostly he was doing Woodie Guthrie songs. I remember the little girls used to like him a lot. They'd kind of squeal when he got on stage and get all excited. I didn't have any idea that he'd get as big as he did. But he was really good."

[On the Byrds recording "Mr. Tambourine Man:"] "...I didn't think it was commercial. I thought it was soft and ballad-like; it didn't have any punch to it. But we punched it up."

"If Woody Guthrie set the bar for American songwriters, Bob Dylan jumped right over it. No one I know will ever come close to possessing the beauty of melody and the use of language that Dylan shares with us, with ease. I once asked Bob... 'Tell me how you did it. I mean, how did you write all those beautiful songs?' His response, so vague and so poignant, was nothing short of remarkable: 'I don't know what you're talking about. I've only ever written four songs in my whole life, but I've written those four songs a million times.'"

"[R]ight at the time I made Court And Spark, which was my most successful album, David Geffen was trying to sign Dylan for what turned out to be the Planet Waves project... I was so excited the night I finished [the album]. I brought it back to the house to play it. There were a bunch of people there, including Dylan. I played Court And Spark for everyone, and Bobby feel asleep and snored all the way through it. When the record came to an end, the people went, 'Huh?' Then they played Planet Waves and everybody jumped up and down. There was so much enthusiasm. Now, Planet Waves wasn't one of Bobby's best projects, and I hadn't expected it to be a competitive situation, but for the first time in my career I felt this sibling rivalry. It was an ordinary record for Bobby, a transitional piece, yet everybody was cheering. Finally, one of the women took me aside and said, 'Don't pay them any attention. Those boys have no ears.'"

"But there's still some people I admire and listen to who can't be ignored. You were talking about poetry. Dylan is the greatest living poet... Dylan's not pop. No way. We're definitely connected on various levels. It was interesting because I'd stopped thinking about the whole music business, making albums. I was quite fed up with it. Then I saw him recently and I thought, 'Well, here's somebody who's still doing it and he's good.' It sort of gave me a kick in the ass. "

"I think Dylan's great. He's got it, he's an originator, and there's only one of 'em --- one in every generation."

"The subject matter wasn't pop songs... You don't have to write about 'I found my thrill on Blueberry Hill.' You could write about virtually anything, and I think Dylan opened that up. Leadbelly was doing this, Woodie Guthrie was doing it, but it wasn't that apparent, it wasn't in your face at that point. Dylan put it into the mainstream that this could be done."

"He's one of the great artists of the century. He comes on the scene at a very high level, then (with a few glitches here and there) extends himself steadily --- usually staying one step ahead of his audience. [Enumerating what it is about Dylan that he especially likes:] The concentration and surprise of his lyrics; the beauty of his melodies (and the rasp of his anger); the dramatic sympathy between the words and the music; the range of his devotions; the power of self-renewal; his wit; his surrealism; the truth to experience... [Speaking of how Dylan's lyrics, unlike most rock lyrics, can stand alone without their music:] He doesn't (as Robert Lowell said he did) 'lean on the crutch of his guitar.'"

[Speaking of Blood On the Tracks.] "I don't think anybody has made a record as good as that. Same with Astral Weeks. You know, we're all trying, but we ain't getting there, pal."

"Sometimes all you can do is laugh, or you'll cry. Dylan gave us songs that made you laugh while informing you. It makes the medicine go down a little easier. ...I saw Dylan getting criticized in Australia by this guy who was saying, 'Your new songs aren't as relevant as your old songs.' And Dylan said, 'Well, I'm out here writing songs. What are you doing?' You know, like a whole generation is out there driving BMWs and trying to be lawyers, and at least I'm trying to do something. I thought that was pretty relevant."

"Not only does [Dylan] have so many great songs, but he also knows hundreds of cover songs that he could play at the drop of a hat. We'd be playing something, and then Bob would go, 'OK, now let's play "Tears Of a Clown."' And he'd just go right into it. For us, it was incredible. It was OK for him, too, because it'd been so long since he worked with a unit that plays together all the time. He said it was like talking to one guy. Well, by the time we got to Farm Aid we were beaming...
"Dylan told me recently I was a poet. Although I was impressed by what he said, I couldn't help feeling it was like being told you're an archer. Well, they may think you're an archer, but you know you don't own a bow."

"[By 1966], Dylan had recorded two very good albums... two magnificent albums... and two albums that neither he nor anyone else would ever surpass... He had proved himself to be the wittiest and most moving composer and performer of folk songs to have come out of the folk movement, and the writer of the most important protest songs in the days of the civil-right movement. ...[H]e had become arguably the most important figure in rock history --- more important than Elvis because he wrote his own songs, full of musical imagination; more important than the Beatles because of his sway over John Lennon, his lyrics ('I Am the Walrus' sounds like Dylan on his day off) and his bluesiness; more important than the Rolling Stones because, well, he was more important than the Rolling Stones."

"When we first started playing with Bob Dylan, we did not know a whole lot about him. We knew about these folk songs, and that he was a folk singer, and that he could write good songs. And then we started playing with him. It was a disaster. Our job was to travel to the place, go out and play, have people boo at you, then pack up, leave and go to the next place, where again they'd boo... We said, 'This is an odd way to make a buck,' let alone make a musical mark... [A]t the time, people were pissed off because they had this purist attitude about Dylan... We had no idea whether we were having a great impact, or whether this entire thing was going to go up in smoke... Except when we played. It was like thunder, with this Elmer Gantry speaking, going on, talking these words, singing them, preaching them. He was no longer doing this nasally folk thing. He was screaming his songs through the rafters, and it was like thunder. It was very dynamic, very violent, and very exciting."

"If you look through what has been written about Bob Dylan in the past thirty-odd years, you notice a desire for him to die off, so that his younger self can assume its mythic place."

"Strange to say, Dylan himself may explain his songs best, just by singing them."

"Dylan's life story sometimes feels as if it has been pieced together from centuries-old manuscripts that were charred in a monestery fire."

It was with [Paul] Butterfield's band at Newport that Bob did his first electric set. I was at the mixing console. The scene backstage was colossal. There was this polarization at Newport. On one side you had Pete Seeger, George Wein, the old guard. Pete is backstage, pacifist Pete, with an axe saying, 'I'm going to cut the fucking cables if that act goes on stage.' Pete, my childhood hero, and he's talking about my act... Finally, Pete's group calmed down. We said, 'Look, this is an aspect of the American folk process. You’ve got to let it happen.' And they did let it happen.
"So there I am at the console, in the middle of the field. Dylan hits the stage. I can barely hear the music because of the furor in the audience. From my perspective, it seemed like everybody on my left wanted Dylan to get off the stage, and everybody on my right wanted him to stay on. I turned up the sound so you could hear the music. Here comes Pete with the axe again... Peter Yarrow and Pete Seeger went nose to nose, screaming at each other. I’m mixing the set, and more people are gathering around. It was the turning point. The old guard realized the world was changing, just as they had participated in a change some years before."

"Dylan is a complex, mercurial human being of astounding gifts, whose purposes are usually ambiguous, frequently elusive, and sometimes downright unguessable. At the same time he is a sort of communicating vessel, open to currents that run up and down the ages quite outside the confines of the popular culture of any given period." [Well said!]

"I don't think [Dylan and the Beatles] influenced me a lot. I think it was inevitable; they were so powerful that you couldn't really escape the influence... As for Bob, I don't know. He's like the most mysterious of all the people of our generation. He's sort of impenetrable, really."

"Overall, Dylan's probably my favorite of everyone. The Basement Tapes are something I can't get enough of and all the unoffical, unreleased basement tapes too. Desire is one of my favorite records of all time."

"With Dylan, so much has been said about him, it's difficult to say anything about him that hasn't already been said, and say it better. Suffice it to say Dylan is a planet to be explored. For a songwriter, Dylan is as essential as a hammer and nails and a saw are to a carpenter. I like my music with the rinds and the seeds and pulp left in - so the bootlegs I obtained in the Sixties and Seventies, where the noise and grit of the tapes became inseparable from the music, are essential to me. His journey as a songwriter is the stuff of myth, because he lives within the ether of the songs. Hail, hail The Basement Tapes. I heard most of these songs on bootlegs first. There is a joy and an abandon to this record; it's also a history lesson."

"It was Bobby Dylan's writing that put us on another level...
"We went into the studio and released 'Blowin' In the Wind' as a single. We didn't wait for an album, we just put it out. Instinctively, we knew the song carried the moment of its own time...
"I remember Albert [Grossman] asking me if he should manage Dylan. We we walking in the Village, and I said, 'Yeah, I think so.'
"And Albert said, 'Yeah, I think so, too. He's too good not to happen.'"
"You know, in the beginning, Bobby was a Woody Guthrie imitator. He did not have his own identity. Albert really shepherded him through those early years."