By Della Hasselle
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — Fifty years ago today, the world's music scene changed forever.
It was the date that Bob Dylan played his first gig in Greenwich Village, opening for Robert Lee Hooker at the highly coveted venue Gerde's Folk City on 11 W. 4th St., according to reports.
Then called Robert Zimmerman, the 19-year-old singer had just arrived to New York that January. Eager to conquer the Bohemian scene the Village was known for in the early 60's, he would later recall in his memoir that he felt the city was a "tangled web, too intricate to try and understand."
The ambitious singer was quick to impress, however, earning the attention of producer and talent scout John Hammond almost immediately, according to reports.
"The young man from the provinces began to make friends very quickly in New York, all the while continuing, as he has since he was ten, to assimilate musical ideas from everyone he met, every record he heard," Hammond said in the liner notes of Dylan's debut album.
The singer had to be put on the bill as a relative of Gerde's club owner Mike Porco because he was too young to get his cabaret license, according to History.com.
Gerde's was known then as the most important folk venue in the city, according to the website. Dylan called Porco "the Sicilian father I never knew," and credited him with getting him recognition.
Dylan continues to perform half a century later, with his latest album expected to drop later this month, according to his website. But even as a young man he knew he was headed for something great once he found the Village, according to his memoir.
"I had a heightened sense of awareness, was set in my ways, impractical and visionary to boot. My mind was like I didn't know a single soul in this dark freezing metropolis but that was all about to change — and quick," Dylan added in his signature poetic cadence.
To commemorate the singer, hundreds of fans took to Twitter Tuesday to sing his praises.
"If there could only be one, it would have to be #Dylan for me. I mean Bob is a legend of legends," iam_JJDylan Tweeted.
