Free Press

Issue date: 4/28/08 Section: Arts and Entertainment

Richard Abrams, right, channels his favorite folk troubador, Bob Dylan. Abram teaches a popular class in the English department on Dylan and his roots.

Richard Abrams teaches Bob Dylan. But not in the department you'd expect - Abrams is an English professor. And Dylan: his poet. His class, one of the many "topics in literature" courses numbered ENG 150, is always popular. We decided to sit down with Abrams and ask about why he loves - and teaches - the classic folk/rock/blues/country artist.



FP: When were you first turned on to Dylan?

Abrams: I was in college at McGill in Montreal; about '65 I think. I asked a friend of mine, "so what is this with Bob Dylan?" and he said, "he's a new folk singer who swallows his words." I thought that was a pretty good description of Dylan, even now.

I grew up with folk singers, some of whom went on to become semi-famous. When I was in high school I just loved radio. It took a while for the penny to drop with Dylan. I liked him but I don't think I was absolutely sold on him.

I liked particular songs, 'Freewheelin'' was a great album, but not till 'Bringing It All Back Home,' that was such a leap on Dylan's part, I was flabbergasted. You know, you expected different things form a rock career back then. You did not expect fifty year careers.



FP: What did you expect?

Abrams: With Dylan you figured he'd be around for a few years as an influential folk singer, then he'd crest and then he'd go the way of Elvis Presley and he'd make movies about Hawaii and Las Vegas. You didn't really expect that a pop singer, someone you could hear on the radio or buy a record of, would be a force influencing national thinking.

So the kind of thing that Dylan became was itself a novelty. It wasn't that he was filling the slot. There was no such creature in American life before this.



FP: Has there been a surge in interest in Dylan with the recent movies coming out?

Abrams: Oh, definitely! It doesn't hurt that there's a huge surge in the kinds of things Dylan's doing. Whoever would've thought that he'd do his autobiography? It had best-seller status. Whoever thought he'd do a radio show as a D.J. for old music? It's the best, most innovative radio show I've ever heard. 'Theme Time Radio Hour,' on subscription radio, online.



FP: How long have you been offering the Dylan class?

Abrams: Five or six years off and on. It started as a senior seminar, fewer people; they do more of the work, present papers. It's much easier when you don't have crowd control problems of 26 people.



FP: Has it always been packed?

Abrams: Absolutely, unfortunately. I get email appeals from people who want to join over the number and they say, "just one over the number?" and little do they realize that they're number 17 over the number.



FP: Is it true there aren't any books officially assigned to the class?

Abrams: This is the first time I have not assigned books. I do really like a particular biography, Howard Sounes' 'Down the Highway,' and there's that other book, 'Don't Think Twice it's Alright,' but all I do now is make it a recommended reading. To me, I have the feeling that I'm starting things in people's minds that will continue on for a long time and maybe in the summer time they'll have time to read that biography.

And this is the first time I've ever given quizzes on the material. I want the text to be the music. I want people to be absorbed in the music.



FP: What do you mean by absorbed?

Abrams: I grew up with this music and had the experience that nobody in the class has had of waiting for a next album to come and sometimes wondering if there would be a next album or whether Dylan was going to stop producing. It seemed touch-and-go quite a few times in his career. I'd like to, if I can, simulate the experience of getting lost in the music and finding words to live by. As Dylan said in "I and I," "I've made shoes for everyone even you, but I go barefoot." I want the music to mean the most to people. I don't want to encapsulate it as a reading experience.



FP: How has the class changed over the years?

Abrams: I think the really interesting thing about it is it's changed with students' attitude about Dylan. He is certainly not a relic anymore. People have a feeling that they are overlapping with a bit of history, serious history.



FP: The title of the class is "Bob Dylan and his American roots." Tell us about the "roots" part of the class?

Abrams: My idea is that you don't really understand the past by looking back at it, you have to look forward toward it from what came just before.

With regards to the course, there's just not enough time, but it seems to me pretty important. I feel I do absolutely the bare minimum tracing out, in the first month of the class, the history of American song.

I love that part and I would like to expand that, but I have the feeling that most students would rather be doing Dylan and let Dylan spread out. But to me it would be sort of irreverent to not pay tribute to blues, R&B, gospel, protest, country, protest revival and so on.



FP: So you've always given three or four writing assignments, do you change them every semester?

Abrams: I've modified last year's for this semester. I've given a great deal more direction in the past and I've decided I don't want to do that. I'll tell you something about this bunch of people in there, you get a very creative and iconoclastic crowd compared to many, many, other classes that I teach as a regulation literature teacher and I want to capitalize on that. I'm hoping that less direction means more creativity.

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Abrams Favorite Dylan Album:
Blood On The Tracks

Favorite Dylan song:
"Brownsville Girl and Sad Eyed Lady of the Low Lands"

Three Dylan albums to have:
The Times They Are A-Changin', Highway 61 Revisited, of course, Blood On The Tracks

ENG 150 Topics in Literature: "Bob Dylan and his American Roots" textbooks (suggested only):
Howard Sounes, "Down the Highway"
Andy Gill, "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright"

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