Throughout his career, Bob Dylan has displayed an ability to start trends without really doing anything but being himself. His instincts for what music to make at any given time always seemed to be ahead of the game.
Because of that, Dylan often subtly started movements before they truly came into fashion. Consider how he proved to be ahead of the curve when it came to what would eventually be known as Americana.
Bob Dylan's switch to electric music shook up the music world in the mid-60s. But Dylan started to pivot away from the heavier rock elements of that fusion pretty quickly. Even on albums like Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde, Dylan delivered as many gentle songs as raucous ones.
On the latter album, Dylan made the decision to record in Nashville after getting frustrated with early efforts at the material in his usual stomping grounds in New York. He quickly gained a rapport with the ace session musicians available. It was only natural that shades of country music began to work their way into singer-songwriter-style efforts like "Just Like A Woman" and "Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands".
A 1966 motorcycle accident slowed Dylan's pace and took him off the road as a touring artist for several years. It also drastically changed the tone of his music. When he returned in 1967 with his next album, he was miles away from the clatter of the electric rock boom that he had helped to instigate.
1967 was a year in music known for its psychedelic, flower power vibes. But none of that could be found on Bob Dylan's John Wesley Harding, the album that he released that year. The recordings, again made in Nashville, were hushed, the lyrics quizzical and portentous. He was dancing out on another wavelength, waiting for the rest of the world to meet him there.
Dylan had started sprinkling the seeds of Americana, or alt-country, into these releases, even without any forethought of doing so. When he retreated to Woodstock, New York, with members of a group that would eventually become The Band, he and his cohorts dug even deeper into the mystical roots of American music.
During these informal sessions, Dylan was ostensibly creating a series of publishing demos that might be recorded by others. He could fill his coffers without the pressure of having to make an actual album. But the men ended up creating music that would create a lasting footprint that they couldn't have possibly imagined.
While artists did indeed record the songs, some even delivering hits with them, their true impact manifested itself via the bootleg recordings of them that began to filter onto the market. Known as Great White Wonder (and eventually The Basement Tapes), these recordings fascinated and enthralled those who heard them.
These songs impacted the burgeoning country-rock movement. Check out, for example, how The Byrds recorded two of the Basement Tapes songs ("You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" and "Nothing Was Delivered") on their seminal Sweetheart Of The Rodeo album in 1968. But they also filtered into the sensibility of those artists who started adding just a little rootsy ambience into their heartfelt confessionals.
As usual, Dylan didn't stick around for too long in his vein before he was on to the next transformation. Nonetheless, he certainly made his mark in that short period in 1967 and '68. It's hard to imagine the Americana movement occurring in quite the same way without it.