While he's won a loyal following for his own music, singer/songwriter Bob Neuwirth is perhaps best known for his work with others; as a collaborator and confidante, Neuwirth has been associated with artists as gifted and diverse as Bob Dylan, John Cale, Patti Smith, T-Bone Burnett, Janis Joplin, Kris Kristofferson, and Peter Case.

Neuwirth's introduction to music came while he was studying painting at the Boston Museum School at the end of the 1950s. Neuwirth became part of the Boston academic environment just as the folk-blues revival was coming into swing, and Neuwirth became a friend and fan of such legendary bluesmen as Lightnin' Hopkins, Mississippi John Hurt, Rev. Gary Davis, and Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee. Neuwirth took up the guitar and began performing his own material on the coffeehouse circuit, first in Cambridge and later in San Francisco during a hitchhiking trip out West. During his days in Cambridge, Neuwirth was introduced to Bob Dylan by Joan Baez, and they became fast friends, as Neuwirth tagged along with the budding "Voice of a Generation" on many of his early tours. Neuwirth unwittingly played a major supporting role in D.A. Pennebaker's documentary Don't Look Back, which followed the increasingly confrontational Dylan during his 1965 U.K. tour, with Neuwirth playing his real-life role as Dylan's trusted sidekick.