Great rip-off artist 003: Bob Dylan

Now here's a guy who really knew how to pinch stuff.

Aah, the power of music. Thanks to the new innovation of recording it can go around and around and around ad infinitum. In the 21st century it is clear that music is just one big revolving door of influence influencing influence, but Bobby invented it. But that's about the only thing he invented. He would steal arrangements from friends.

(One story tells that he stole house of the rising sun from one guy who told him he would prefer if he didn't because he wanted to record it himself. People were saying to the guy when he performed his own arrangement that he was just ripping off Dylan. As you can imagine, the guy was pretty steamed. The flipside of that was when the Animals came out with their version, Dylan had to stop doing it because audiences thought he was ripping the Animals off (Which he kinda was). Justice never felt so good.)

Some other dude had all the Woody Guthrie records in the world, and Bob would go to his house to listen to them. The guy went on holiday. When he came back 400 of his precious vinyls were missing. He tracked Bob down eventually.

The sides are still missing.

Here's to Bob.