DO LOOK BACK

Imagine being present when a movement starts to take hold, when the world begins to take notice of something that would eventually change everything. Like when the Sex Pistols played Manchester in June 1976—a legendary show with only a few dozen in attendance but often referred to as “the gig that changed the world." Among those present was a murderers’ row of attendees who all left the gig inspired to start their own bands, including Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley (who formed Buzzcocks); Ian Curtis, Bernard Sumner, and Peter Hook (who formed Joy Division, and eventually New Order after the death of Curtis); Mark E. Smith (the Fall); Morrissey (the Smiths); and Tony Wilson (founder of Factory Records and the Hacienda nightclub). History in the making.

That’s like what happened with photographer Daniel Kramer, after seeing a clip of a wild-haired brunet kid of average height playing guitar on television. What drew him to this young man wasn’t the music; it was his poetry, and how it weaved through the songs. Kramer felt compelled to shoot this young Bob Dylan right away. After six months of contacting Dylan’s manager with a request for an hour shoot and being repeatedly rejected, Kramer finally was given the green light. He headed up to Woodstock, N.Y., and “the hour became five or six hours, and I made about two dozen 11x14 prints,” as Kramer remembers in a 2017 interview with Fahey/Klein Gallery. “I laid my prints out across the conference room table and he and his manager walked around the table, looked at the pictures, and then Bob stopped next to me and said, ‘I’m going to Philadelphia next week. Do you want to come?”’

For the next year, Kramer followed Dylan, creating a detailed photographic documentation of a musical icon in his moment of ascension. Those monumental photos by the late, great Kramer, who passed earlier this year at age 91, are from his collection at Morrison Hotel Gallery but can also be found in the new book Bob Dylan: A Year and a Day, out now via Taschen. Two hundred stunning images of the pioneering iconoclast Dylan from 1964 to 1965. Some of those photos we’re proud to show here, but let’s be real, you’re gonna need to see them all.

So snag the book, if not for someone you love, then for yourself. Or better yet, give it to a toddler, and make sure you let them know that this gift is for them and you’re just “making sure it’s safe for a little while.”