Flashback

Did You Know That Bob Dylan First Recorded 'Mr. Tambourine Man' on Siesta Key?

Dylan was staying at the home of friend and fellow musician Eric von Schmidt when the recording was made.

By Cooper Levey-Baker September 1, 2024 Published in the September-October 2024 issue of Sarasota Magazine

Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan

In early 1964, Bob Dylan wrote the timeless folk classic “Mr. Tambourine Man,” inspired by musician Bruce Langhorne and his oversized tambourine, now housed at the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. While the exact date of that composition remains unknown, according to the center and Dylan's record label, Columbia Records, we do know when and where the song was first put to tape: May 1964, at 532 Beach Road on Siesta Key. (The best-known version of the song, from Dylan's 1965 studio LP Bringing It All Back Home, would not be recorded until January 1965.)

Eric von Schmidt
Eric von Schmidt

Dylan was staying at the home of friend and fellow musician Eric von Schmidt when the recording was made—a series of tracks that only surfaced officially when they were included in a limited-edition Dylan box set issued in Europe in 2014. Von Schmidt was a key figure in the folk scene of Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the early 1960s before he moved to Sarasota, where he was well known as a musician, poet, painter and all-around Renaissance man.

Filed under
Share
Show Comments