Bob Dylan and Eric von Schmidt were both part of the American folk music revival that took place in the 1960s. Von Schmidt, an American folk-blues singer-songwriter, was a significant influence on Dylan, who was just starting his career at the time.
One of the most notable connections between the two artists is the song “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down,” which Dylan included on his first, self-titled album in 1962. The song is credited to von Schmidt, who introduced it to Dylan when they were both part of the folk scene in Greenwich Village in New York City.
In his liner notes for the album, Dylan writes about von Schmidt, saying, “I first heard this from Ric von Schmidt. He lives in Cambridge. Ric is a blues guitarplayer. I met him one day on The green pastures of the Harvard University. -baby, let me follow you down is a song I heard the Singing cowboy do in sundown Alberta one saturday night at a rodeo.”
He met Dylan in the early ’60s at his apartment in Harvard Square in
Cambridge, where a folk scene developed and featured the likes of Joan
Baez and Tom Rush. He told The Boston Globe in an interview in 1996
that he played several songs for Dylan that day.
Dylan wrote liner notes for von Schmidt’s 1969 album, “Who Knocked the
Brains Out of the Sky.”
“He could sing the bird off the wire and the rubber off the tire,”
Dylan wrote. “He can separate the men from the boys and the note from
the noise. The bridle from the saddle and the cow from the cattle. He
can play the tune of the moon. The why of the sky and the commotion of
the ocean.”
On Dylan’s first album, “Bob Dylan,” in 1962, he says at the beginning
of “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down,” that he first heard the song from
von Schmidt. The song was based on one recorded by Blind Dog Fuller.
source : https://expectingrain.com/dok/who/v/vonschmidteric.html
