I’m currently reading Behind The Shades Revisited, a Bob Dylan bio by Clinton Heylin, and it’s pretty good so far. I’m up to 1962-1963, when Bob was just finding his way as a songwriter, relying mostly on old blues and folk songs (with plenty of Woody Guthrie thrown in) and sometimes leaning on more seasoned Village folkies for some of his arrangements.

What I hadn’t heard before was that his girlfriend at the time, Suze Rotolo (that’s her with Bob on the cover of the Freewheelin’ album), had an older sister Carla that actually worked with folklorist Alan Lomax. Lomax and his father John are the biggest reasons why we know of so many songs by artists from the rural south and Appalachia. Their trusty tape recorders captured what was truly music of the people, by folks who would never make it to an urban recording studio.

In her capacity as part of the Lomax organization, she had the ear of people like Robert Shelton, the New York Times music critic who famously gave Bobby his first glowing review. Even Columbia Records A&R man and producer John Hammond was bugged by Carla Rotolo to listen to the nasally kid from the Minnesota North Country. So a little credit for someone who has remained for the most part an unsung hero in the story of Robert Zimmerman…