When Bob Dylan 's self-titled debut LP hit shelves on March 19 , 1962 , it did n't sound anything like the popular music of the time . It was the height of `` The Twist '' dance craze , and 11 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart had the word `` twist '' in the title , including `` Dear Lady Twist '' by Gary U.S. Bonds , `` Twistin ' The Night Away '' by Sam Cooke , `` Hey , Let 's Twist '' by Joey Dee and the Starlighters , '' `` Twistin ' Postman '' by the Marvelettes and `` Alvin Twist '' by the Chipmunks . ( A new California group called the Beach Boys reached a new high of Number 77 that week with their first single , `` Surfin . ' '' ) To most of America , the Kingston Trio were the embodiment of folk music . The clean-cut , sweet-voiced California group hit Number 25 that week with their cover of Pete Seeger 's `` Where Have All The Flowers Gone ? '' Dylan was also a fan of Seeger 's , but he sounded nothing like the Kingston Trio . The 20-year old singer-songwriter from Hibbing , Minnesota had been playing the coffee houses in New York for a little over a year , mostly singing traditional folk songs in a nasal voice that was virtually impossible to imagine hearing on the radio . It was Columbia record executive John Hammond who saw the huge potential in Dylan . The 51-one year old , who famously discovered Billie Holiday and countless other jazz legends , became acquainted with Dylan when he played harmonica at a recording session with folk singer Carolyn Hester . They met during a rehearsal in a Greenwich Village apartment . `` We were all seated around a kitchen table , and John was seated next to Bob , '' Hester recalled to Dylan biographer Howard Sounes in his book `` Down The Highway : The Life of Bob Dylan . '' `` Bob starts in on the harmonica and John turns and looks at him and could n't take his eyes off the great character . '' His interest grew when he learned that Dylan wrote his own songs . Right around that time , Dylan opened up for the Greenbriar Boys at Gerde 's Folk City and earned a rave review in the New York Times by pop writer Robert Shelton . Hammond did n't need any more convincing ; on October 25 , 1961 , he signed Dylan to a five-year contract . A little more than a month later , they entered the studio together to record Dylan 's first album . They cut the whole thing in just six hours ( spread across two days ) for an estimated $ 402 . `` There was a violent , angry emotion running through me then , '' Dylan said . `` I just played played guitar and harmonica and sang those songs , and that was it . Mr. Hammond asked me if I wanted to sing any of them over again and I said no . I ca n't see myself singing the same song twice in a row . That 's terrible . '' Much like his live set at the time , the album consisted mainly of old folk songs , including `` See That My Grave Is Kept Clean '' by Blind Lemon Jefferson , `` Highway 51 '' by Curtis Jones and `` Fixin ' to Die '' by Bukka White . It was his rendition of `` The House of The Rising Sun '' that caused him trouble in the tight-knit Greenwich Village folk music community . Dave Van Ronk -- one of Dylan 's earliest supporters and a huge presence in the Village -- was famous for his arrangement of the traditional tune . `` Before going in the studio , he asked , 'Hey Dave , mind if I record your version of `` Rising Sun ? ' '' Van Ronk recalled to Dylan biographer Anthony Scaduto . `` I said , 'Well , Bobby , I 'm going into the studio soon and I 'd like to record it . ' And later he asked me again and I told him I wanted to record it myself , and he said , 'Oops , I already recorded it and I ca n't do anything about it because Columbia wants it . ' For a period of about two months we did n't speak to each other . He never apologizes , and I give him credit for it . '' The album did contain two original songs : `` Talkin ' New York '' and `` Song to Woody . '' The first song recounts Dylan 's earliest days in New York when he `` got a harmonica job , begun to play/Blowin ' my lungs out for a dollar a day . '' Dylan claims he wrote `` Song to Woody , '' a tribute to his musical hero Woody Guthrie , just weeks after arriving in New York , a trip partially inspired by the fact that Guthrie was living at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in New Jersey and Dylan wanted to meet him . `` ( 'Song to Woody ' ) was written in New York City in the drugstore on 8th Street , '' he said to Sing Out ! magazine in the summer of 1962 . `` It was one of them freezing days that I came back from Sid and Bob Gleason 's in East Orange , New Jersey ... Woody was there that day and it was a February Sunday night ... and I just thought about Woody , I wondered about him , thought harder and wondered harder ... I wrote this song in five minutes ... it 's all I got to say . '' The album failed to crack the Billboard charts and sold about 5,000 copies that year . Executives around Columbia referred to Dylan as `` Hammond 's Folly . '' Undeterred , Hammond brought Dylan back into the studio just one month after the album came out to begin work on his second LP . In the five months after the first album was recorded , Dylan had turned his attention towards political causes . He recorded `` The Death of Emmett Till '' and `` Talkin ' John Birch Paranoid Blues '' at the first session , and in July of 1962 , he returned to Columbia Studio A with a new song called `` Blowin ' In The Wind . '' It had been a part of his live show for months , and by the next summer , it would completely transform his life . See the full article at RollingStone.com .
In 1961 Bob Dylan had been playing the coffee houses for a little over a year . It was Columbia record executive John Hammond who saw the huge potential in Dylan . On March 19 , 1962 , Bob Dylan 's self-titled debut LP hit shelves .