I didn’t know that Hamilton Camp was also a folksinger until I got to college and discovered that his 1964 album Paths of Victory was a favorite album of the College Republican crowd that I began running with. For some reason, they considered it to be the perfect album to play if you were really depressed; for myself, I loved Paths of Victory because it included covers of seven – count them, seven – Bob Dylan songs, most of which were unfamiliar to me. The album also includes Camp’s best known song, “Pride of Man”, later covered by Quicksilver Messenger Service and Gordon Lightfoot.
One glance at the above album cover for Saved proves beyond doubt that Bob Dylan was serious with his Christian period. The songs were serious as well: “Covenant Woman”, “Pressing On”, “Saving Grace”, “Are You Ready”, etc. The opening track, “A Satisfied Mind” is a rare cover by Dylan of someone else’s song; “A Satisfied Mind” dates from the mid-1950’s and was first recorded by Porter Wagoner. (Interestingly, the debut solo album by folksinger Hamilton Camp, Paths of Victory – which, at the insistence of Elektra Records, has seven covers of mostly obscure Bob Dylan songs – also includes a cover of “A Satisfied Mind”).
(August 2014)
