I grew up around folk music. My father's sister, Barbara, had a friends group that included several folk singers, and the whole tribe would sometimes land at our little duplex in Columbia, Tennessee — home of Mule Day and ancestral home of President James Knox Polk, possibly the first president with a mullet.
The ashtrays, coffee mugs and guitar picks would come out, and our house would fill with the sound of blended melodies of the singers and acoustic guitars. As they used to say in the '60s, it was a hootenanny.
My mother, who was sometimes paid to sing hymns at a local funeral home, would join in on some of the choruses. She would go to town on anything by Peter, Paul and Mary, her favorite group. She heard them on the headphones at her dentist office and was instantly hooked. (You might have heard: Peter Yarrow — of Peter, Paul and Mary — died last week at age 86.)
As a kid of maybe 10 or 11 years old, I remember drifting off to sleep while lying on our thick shag carpeting, which we imported from Dalton, Georgia, tying it in a big roll to the top of our Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser station wagon. I remember listening to the doleful song "Goodnight, Irene" by "Lead Belly" Ledbetter. The chorus goes: "Goodnight, Irene. Goodnight, Irene. I'll see you in my dreams." It was my signal to go to sleep.
It was at my Aunt Barbara's house that I first heard "Bridge Over Troubled Water" by the folk-rock duo Simon & Garfunkel. It was the first song that ever lifted me. Something about the way the melody built to an emotional crescendo made me feel safe and excited at the same time.
As a prepubescent, I had a crush on folk singer Joan Baez, whose raven hair and exotic look mesmerized me when she occasionally appeared on our Magnavox color TV. And her songbird voice singing "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" became instantly memorable. I didn't know any Mexican people, and I found her half-Mexican, half-Scottish face beguiling.
Other songs that remain stuck in my head 55 years later include "Pick Me Up on Your Way Down" by Charlie Walker, which taught me that language could be used for irony; and the lyric "Oh, Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz" from Janis Joplin's "Mercedes Benz," a tongue-in-cheek takedown of materialism.
It all seemed so long ago until last Sunday, when I ventured out to the multiplex to see the new Bob Dylan movie "A Complete Unknown" starring actor Timothée Chalamet.
(READ MORE: Timothée Chalamet crashes his own look-alike contest)
I have to say, I was never a big Bob Dylan fan. I've come to recognize the brilliance of his lyrics, but in recent decades his mumbling delivery has muffled his talent. That said, Chalamet is brilliant in his portrayal of a young Dylan, right down to his dirty, untrimmed fingernails. Meanwhile, actress Monica Barbaro, who plays Baez — who was Dylan's sometimes girlfriend — is a vision.
In one scene, Chalamet sings Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'" to a young audience at the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island, and the original energy and meaning of the '60s anthem jumps off the screne in full force.
I wondered if today's young people would be drawn in.
A 20-year-old student of mine at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Corbin Winters, saw the movie and tells me he thinks Dylan's music holds up among today's 20-somethings.
"I really enjoyed the scene in which Dylan sings 'The Times They Are A-Changin'" he told me. "It's one of the songs I knew before seeing the movie. The scene helped me understand his message. ... It showed his impact on the whole genre."
(READ MORE: American songwriter Bob Dylan wins Nobel in literature)
It strikes me that we need a modern-day Dylan to help us through anxious times. Some say Kendrick Lamar's work echoes "Blowin' in the Wind." I don't know. I need other people to educate me on this.
We also need a "Bridge Over Troubled Water" for the 21st century. (In the meantime, the original will do.)
While watching "A Complete Unknown" amid a pack of boomers, it struck me that more young people should see this film. I know they like Chalamet, so it shouldn't be a hard sell.
They need to hear this verse from the Dylan song, not on a black-and-white YouTube clip, but up on the big screen, sung by a modern movie star such as Chalamet:
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
... For the times they are a-changin'.
Contact Mark Kennedy at [email protected] or 423-757-6645.