In the pantheon of American writers – comprising authors, playwrights, poets and songwriters – nobody epitomises the spirit of Americana, that mythic quintessence of the country’s culture, history and tradition, more than Bob Dylan.

It would take years to travel to all the places he’s name-checked in song: few artists write lyrics with such a strong sense of place. But we’re going to try.

If we were to plot a route for a tour that encapsulates Bob’s lyrical world, we would have to begin in the American heartland, in Hibbing, Minnesota. It’s a small town famous for two things: one of the world’s largest open-pit iron mines, and being Bob’s place of birth. From there we might move on, as he did, to New York City, where the tousle-haired teenage troubadour with an acoustic guitar and a harmonica first made his name in the folk clubs of Greenwich Village, and up again to Rhode Island where he was booed off for playing an electric guitar at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.

More likely we would head south from Minnesota, and reverse the migration of the blues all the way back to the Mississippi Delta that inspired New Orleans Rag. Bob’s a reclusive character (you may have heard that), which makes him a solitary sort of travelling companion.