In this episode of Dylan Revisited, it’s time to meet the podcast’s first guest. Martin Fitzgerald is the author of a brilliant new book about the JFK assassination, The Umbrella Man and Other Stories, as well as Ruth and Martin’s Album Club.

Borrowing the premise of the latter, I challenged Martin to listen to a record he had never heard before, Broadside Ballads Vol. 1, which features a number of Bob Dylan’s early compositions as well as performances by Dylan himself under the pseudonym Blind Boy Grunt.

Find out what Martin thought of the record and hear his take on the time it was recorded in: JFK’s America of the early 1960s.

Let’s revisit Broadside Ballads Vol. 1.

Written, produced and performed by Colm Larkin. Theme music by Frank Harkin - check out his band Ha Ha Ha.

All other music is used for the purposes of illustration and is intended as fair use.

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A book based on the podcast is now available. Busy Being Born (1960-66) tells the story of Bob Dylan’s early career through his albums, live recordings, bootleg tapes, film, TV appearances and more. It collects material that has already featured in this podcast series, while covering much more material from those early days in Greenwich Village.

Dylan Revisited: Busy Being Born (1960-66) is available now in paperback, hardback and Kindle editions – click here to check it out.

The Umbrella Man and Other Stories by Martin Fitzgerald is available now in bookshops and online – here’s a Waterstones link.

For even more Bob Dylan-related stuff, visit www.dylanrevisited.com for the latest revisits (just finished Desire), or follow us on Twitter, Bluesky and Instagram.