[1] By junior high school he had decided that he wanted to be a singer-songwriter, motivated by Minnesota groups such as The Gestures and David Rivkin's Chancellors.
He dropped out of University of Minnesota, hitchhiked to Greenwich Village, sang in folk clubs, toured, had some air time, and had an album deal.
After a year he could not make ends meet, and he took a day job as a Chicago and North Western Railway brakeman, returning to Minnesota.
He had previously run into Dylan several times, including at High Holiday services and knew David and their mother.
[4] Odegard learned the next day that Dylan was unhappy with five of the songs he had recorded in New York for a new album soon to be released, "Blood on the Tracks".
[8] Blood in the Tracks is the best selling album of Dylan's career[9] and ranked by Rolling Stone as one of the ten best of all time.
[14][15] He describes his experience playing guitar on Blood on the Tracks as "the defining moment of [his] journey into the music business proper.
Needing a job, he started at the National Academy of Songwriters as a staff member,[16] and became executive director 1984–1994.
He notes that his lack of credit for Blood on the Tracks led him to become a strong advocate for protecting the rights and earnings of songwriters.
[17] In 2005, he was a member of a Temple Israel congregant humanitarian mission in Cuba, bringing 1000 pounds of medical supplies to the island, and, also, to support the Cuban Jewish community.