Artist of the Week 10.18.2014-- Bob Dylan

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BiloxiParish

Artist of the Week 10.18.2014-- Bob Dylan

Post by BiloxiParish »

I am actually shocked that nobody has done this AOTW yet and if somebody has more input than I do feel free to add to it. My computer is on the fritz so I had to make this short and sweet..

Bruce Springsteen’s induction speech for Bob Dylan at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame..

“”The first time that I heard Bob Dylan I was in the car with my mother, and we were listening to, I think, maybe WMCA, and on came that snare shot that sounded like somebody kicked open the door to your mind, from 'Like a Rolling Stone.' And my mother, who was - she was no stiff with rock and roll, she liked the music, she listened - she sat there for a minute, she looked at me, and she said, 'That guy can't sing.' But I knew she was wrong. I sat there, I didn't say nothin', but I knew that I was listening to the toughest voice that I had ever heard. It was lean, and it sounded somehow simultaneously young and adult, and I ran out and I bought the single. And I came home, I ran home, and I put it on my 45, and they must have made a mistake at the factory, because a Lenny Welch song came on. And the label was wrong, so I ran back, and I got it, and I played it, then I went out and I got Highway 61, and it was all I played for weeks. I looked at the cover, with Bob, with that satin blue jacket and the Triumph Motorcycle shirt. And when I was a kid, Bob's voice somehow - it thrilled and scared me. It made me feel kind of irresponsibly innocent. And it still does. But it reached down and touched what little worldliness I think a 15-year-old kid, in high school, in New Jersey had in him at the time. Dylan was - he was a revolutionary, man, the way that Elvis freed your body, Bob freed your mind. And he showed us that just because the music was innately physical, it did not mean that it was anti-intellect. He had the vision and the talent to expand a pop song until it contained the whole world. He invented a new way a pop singer could sound. He broke through the limitations of what a recording artist could achieve, and he changed the face of rock and roll forever and ever. Without Bob, the Beatles wouldn't have made Sergeant Pepper, maybe the Beach Boys wouldn't have made Pet Sounds, the Sex Pistols wouldn't have made 'God Save the Queen,' U2 wouldn't have done 'Pride in the Name of Love,' Marvin Gaye wouldn't have done 'What's Goin'On,' Grandmaster Flash might not have done 'The Message,' and the Count Five could not have done 'Psychotic Reaction.' And there never would have been a group named the Electric Prunes, that's for sure. But the fact is that, to this day, where great rock music is being made, there is the shadow of Bob Dylan over and over and over again. And Bob's own modern work has gone unjustly under-appreciated for having to stand in that shadow. If a young songwriter - if there was a young guy out there writing 'Sweetheart Like Me,' writing the Empire Burlesque album, writing 'Every Grain of Sand,' they'd be calling him the new Bob Dylan. That's all the nice stuff that I wrote out to say about him. Now it's about three months ago, I was watching TV, and the Rolling Stones special came on, and Bob came on, and he was in a real cranky mood, it seemed like, and he was kind of bitchin' and moaning about how his fans don't know him, and nobody knows him. And they come up to him on the street, and kind of treat him like a long-lost brother or something. And speaking as fan, I guess when I was 15, and I heard 'Like a Rolling Stone,' I heard a guy that, like I've never heard before or since. A guy that had the guts to take on the whole world, and made me feel like I had 'em too. And maybe some people mistook that voice to be saying somehow that you were gonna do the job for 'em. And as we know, as we grow older, that there isn't anybody out there that can do that job for anybody else. So I'm just here tonight to say thanks, to say that I wouldn't be here without you, to say that there isn't a soul in this room who does not owe you their thanks. And to steal a line from one of your songs, whether you like it or not, 'you was the brother that I never had.' Congratulations."”



I can’t say much that can ever do justice to what Bob Dylan has given the musical world. I am sure each and every one of you has your own personal Bob Dylan story to share, or your favorite tracks or albums. I will let you guys do the talking on this I just want to share a personal story below

I don’t remember much of my life before I discovered Bob Dylan. His music found me around the same time I read Jack Kerouac’s epic autobiographical novel On the Road and my life hasn’t been the same since. I still remember the first time I purchased the Freewheelin album on CD and drove around at 2am in South MS a little bit stoned, listening to Masters of Wars and Girl From North Country with the windows rolled down and the sheer guttural call of the harmonica filled my old 90’s Dodge Ram pickup truck. Those late night excursion’s with his wild mercury sound got me pulled over a few times and sobriety checked back in my hometown.

I remember hearing Blonde on Blonde for the first time in college, where instead of studying for my college algebra exam I was fully invested in studying the pain and anguish found in the lyrics and voice on the track Visions of Johanna. I have purchased many albums over the last 30 years but none have been more listened to and more appreciated then those Bob Dylan ones. I find myself defending him more times than not these days. I actually love every album he has put out since 1997’s Time Out of Mind. I defend his blues persona and the outrageous bark, I defend his concerts and when people say he can’t write anymore I point them in the direction of the track Mississippi off of Love and Theft (Which is my personal favorite track of all time), Blind Willie McTell, or Girl from The Red River Shore. 


My own personal Bob Dylan story is here: I saw Bob Dylan on July 26th 2011 in New Orleans for the very first time in concert, that day I will always remember. It was a milestone in my life because after the concert was over, I drove at break neck speeds to a hotel in New Orleans to pick up my wife who was due at the hospital to deliver our first daughter Audrey Jane into the world. Thats right and as God saw fit we scheduled her induction to be a mere hours after the Bob Dylan concert. So within a 17 hour period I saw Bob Dylan and got to welcome my first born into the world. I’ve still got the ticket stubs to prove it.

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Re: Artist of the Week 10.18.2014-- Bob Dylan

Post by Tequila Cowboy »

Wow. You would think there would be an outpouring of responses on this one. Anyway Dylan is by far and away my favorite artist of all time, my favorite songwriter and yes, my favorite singer. To address that last bit I know people like to bitch about his singing and say he has a terrible voice but that's the thing, he does have a terrible voice. It's what he does with it that's so amazing. He can emote in a way that most singers can only dream about. I have a friend who firmly believes Dylan's voice is (or was) better than he lets on and that "Bob Dylan" the performer is a character he performs. I don't buy that. I think he's completely genuine but he uses the exaggerated qualities of his voice for emotional emphasis. As a songwriter he's a man with few peers, maybe you could put Townes Van Zandt, John Prine and possibly James McMurtry in his general class but few others and Dylan is unquestionably the best. I'm not as enamored with his late period work as some are even so I admit he still puts out vital work fifty years on. Legend doesn't even describe it. When I have more time I'll come on an discuss some of my favorites of his work. Thanks for starting this one BiloxiParish.
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Re: Artist of the Week 10.18.2014-- Bob Dylan

Post by beantownbubba »

A pat on the back for having the guts to take this on biloxi. I have no idea how to approach the subject and don't have time right now anyway.

Dylan's singular greatness cannot be argued. Seeing him and the band on the "comeback" Before the Flood tour in NYC was one of the most exciting, formative experiences of my life. Oddly enough, the older i get the more time I spend on the not particularly musical question of what it must be like to be bob dylan. I don't know how one survives that scrutiny, pressure, isolation etc. To me that's why he gets special props not only for making quality music 50 years on but just for still being in the game at all.

More when i can.
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Re: Artist of the Week 10.18.2014-- Bob Dylan

Post by Kudzu Guillotine »

Growing up the youngest of six, Dylan was sort of a given in my household like Hendrix, the Byrds, Leon Russell, Zeppelin, Gram Parsons, Grateful Dead, etc., his music was just always there. Even though I owned a greatest hits album and considered myself a fan, I never gave it much thought. I remember watching the Hard Rain special on TV in '76 and feeling like I was missing something because largely, I just wasn't getting into it. A couple years later, I picked up Street Legal, gave it few spins and then gave it to one of my older brothers who's a big Dylan fan. He loved it, I didn't get it. Fast forward to '91 and the release of The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991 which is where my Dylan fandom began in earnest. A couple years later I saw him in concert for the first time on the tour where he co-headlined with Santana. He would often be halfway through a song before I recognized it but still, I enjoyed the show. I was also impressed by his guitar playing, which I thought was stellar. One of my friends who'd seen him with the Dead numerous times thought this performance was superior. His exact words were, "at least he was coherent". In '97 I purchased Time Out of Mind which I fell in love with immediately. On several tracks, it sounded like he was channeling the spirit of Howlin' Wolf. From here on out, I began purchasing each album in the Bootleg Series as they were released, same for all of his new albums. I still don't own anything prior to Time Out of Mind other than the Bootleg Series albums and a couple vault releases. It's not because I don't want to, it's just because I haven't gotten around to purchasing them yet. So, there's the story of my backackwards introduction to Bob Dylan. I've left myself plenty of discovering to do.

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Re: Artist of the Week 10.18.2014-- Bob Dylan

Post by Clams »

Some of my favorites, in no particular order:

1. Up To Me
2. Positively 4th Street
3. Mississippi
4. I Shall Be Released
5. Knockin' On Heaven's Door
6. Hurricane
7. Gotta Serve Somebody
8. Maggie's Farm
9. Simple Twist of Fate
10. Shelter From the Storm
11. My Back Pages
(crazy how many great ones I just left off)


Some of my favorite Dylan covers:

1. Springsteen - I Want You (on bootlegs circa 1975)
2. DBT - Like A Rolling Stone
3. Hendrix - All Along the Watchtower
4. Jerry Garcia Band - Tangled Up in Blue
5. Warren Zevon - Knockin on Heavens Door (the G'n'R version is pretty good too)
6. James McMurtry - Choctaw Bingo (j/k but it does remind me of a Dylan song)
7. Norah Jones - I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
8.
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Re: Artist of the Week 10.18.2014-- Bob Dylan

Post by Duke Silver »

Clams wrote:Some of my favorites, in no particular order:

1. Up To Me
2. Positively 4th Street
3. Mississippi
4. I Shall Be Released
5. Knockin' On Heaven's Door
6. Hurricane
7. Gotta Serve Somebody
8. Maggie's Farm
9. Simple Twist of Fate
10. Shelter From the Storm
11. My Back Pages
(crazy how many great ones I just left off)


Some of my favorite Dylan covers:

1. Springsteen - I Want You (on bootlegs circa 1975)
2. DBT - Like A Rolling Stone
3. Hendrix - All Along the Watchtower
4. Jerry Garcia Band - Tangled Up in Blue
5. Warren Zevon - Knockin on Heavens Door (the G'n'R version is pretty good too)
6. James McMurtry - Choctaw Bingo (j/k but it does remind me of a Dylan song)
7. Norah Jones - I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
8.


If you're looking for a #8, try "Going to Acapulco," by Jim James and Calexico.
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Re: Artist of the Week 10.18.2014-- Bob Dylan

Post by Duke Silver »

I have nothing intelligent to add about Dylan but I look forward to reading this thread. I saw him for the first and only time on the Modern Times tour, and it was...surreal. Musically it was pretty horrible, but I guess when you're talking about Dylan in the 21st century that's beside the point.

Top 10 of the top of my head:

Don't Think Twice, It's Alright
Buckets of Rain
The Man in Me
I Want You
I Threw It All Away
Forever Young (Fast Version)
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
One More Cup of Coffee
New Morning
Like a Rolling Stone
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Re: Artist of the Week 10.18.2014-- Bob Dylan

Post by jr29 »

Duke, you are 100% spot on with that Goin To Acupolco cover. I also would highly suggest Son Volt's
cover of Going, Going, Gone.

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Re: Artist of the Week 10.18.2014-- Bob Dylan

Post by Jonicont »

They're selling postcards of the hanging
They're painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town
Here comes the blind commissioner
They've got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
And the riot squad they're restless
They need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row.
Always go to the show

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Re: Artist of the Week 10.18.2014-- Bob Dylan

Post by RolanK »

Yes, Bob Dylan. Took me years to really get into him, but now I consider myself a huge fan. I find myself binge-listening to Dylan only in periods.

Still got a huge portion of his catalogue yet to dig into; but I belive I've got most of the "essential" stuff from the 60's and 70's. I like his newer stuff as well, but perhaps for other reasons than the classics. Agree with what TC says about his singing. His voice is perhaps not "pretty", but the way he delivers the words, his rhythm and the timing of his phrasing is unique.

My first Dylan album way back when I was a young lad was 'At Budokan'. I know many people hate it, but I've always liked it.

I only saw him live once, unfortunately, at an outdoor festival. First song was a trainwreck, his guitar was out of tune, and he seemed pretty pissed and/or uniterested, but then something happened midway in the second song, as if he and the band suddenly caught fire, and from there it was one of the swampiest, rocking shows I'd seen.
Last edited by RolanK on Tue Oct 21, 2014 12:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Artist of the Week 10.18.2014-- Bob Dylan

Post by Tequila Cowboy »

Ok, some favorites:

Records:

Blood On the Tracks
Desire
Planet Waves
Blonde on Blonde
Highway 61 Revisited
Infidels
Empire Burlesque
The Freewheeling Bob Dylan
Nashville Skyline
John Wesley Harding

Songs:

Visions of Johanna
Sweetheart Like You
Romance In Durango
I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine
When The Night Comes Falling From The Sky
Jokerman
Simple Twist of Fate
Buckets of Rain
Desolation Row
Temporary Like Achilles
Hurricane
Tough Mama
I and I
The Times They Are a Changin'
A Hard Rain's a Gonna Fall

Covers:

Seven Days- Ron Wood
Absolutely Sweet Marie- Jason & the Scorchers
You're going Make Me Lonesome When You Go- Madeleine Peyroux
Maggie's Farm- Rage Against The Machine
Simple Twist of Fate- Jerry Garcia Band
Masters of War- Pearl Jam
Goin' to Acapulco- Jim James & Calexico
I Shall Be Released- The Band
It Ain’t Me Babe- Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash
Positively 4th Street- Jerry Garcia & Merle Saunders
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Re: Artist of the Week 10.18.2014-- Bob Dylan

Post by John A Arkansawyer »

Tequila Cowboy wrote:Covers:

Seven Days- Ron Wood


This is not just one of the best Dylan covers ever, it's one of the best covers ever. It sounds like Dylan and it sounds like Wood and it's just fantastic.

Joan Baez is probably the single best interpreter of Dylan songs up to a certain point. And then there's Hendrix:



The least known of his Dylan covers and I think the best of them all.
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Re: Artist of the Week 10.18.2014-- Bob Dylan

Post by Hud »

Thanks for the write up and tackling the impossible!

I've never heard many of these covers, so this will be fun and good exposure to bands I haven't listened to.

Also a big fan of Ron woods cover of 'Seven Days' as well as Faces cover of 'Wicked Messenger'

I really like my other favorite Athens band covering 'Solid Rock'

http://youtu.be/Ogxa1CHmKyg
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Re: Artist of the Week 10.18.2014-- Bob Dylan

Post by Barely_Oakely »

I'm a Dylan fan, but I wasn't always. I've been inundated with his music since I was a kid, it was everywhere you go. I'm from Hibbing Minnesota - Bob's home town. We've got shrines, bigfoot-esq sightings, streets names after him and album covers painted on garage doors.
Image
When you're a kid and people tell you that this nasaly sounding wordy dude is the best thing that's ever happened to music it's hard to believe them - particularly when you suspect a local bias. I went for years ignoring the fans and telling them all that "I just don't see it." Then I went to college. I remember feeling homesick one night and "The Times they are a-Changin" came on the stereo. I don't know why, but that was the moment in my life that I can say started me actually LISTENING to music. I went on Amazon and immediately ordered up Freewheelin, Blonde on Blonde, Bring it all back Home, and Highway 61. From Dylan I learned about the Band, and from the Band I learned about everyone else. Listening to Bob and the Band made me re-think how you approach listening to music. It wasn't about a guitar or a hook, it was about the whole package and the thought that went into it. I can honestly say that if I hadn't "found" Dylan, I would have never gotten into DBT - I would still be listing to "oldies radio" as background muzak and never digging any deeper. People always tell me that I'm a Dylan fan because I'm from Hibbing, but I left home and then found Dylan.

I can't pick favorite songs, but I'll say that my favorite era was electric Dylan pre-motorcycle accident followed by the time around Blood on the Tracks, and then early folk acoustic Dylan. I probably watch "No Direction Home" every six months and it's better every time.

A quick anecdote:
Growing up I had a neighbor, Ernie. He was a little old Italian man and I remember hearing the story about how in the 50's he woke up one night because he heard something in his front yard. He came out the door to find some boys in his apple tree stealing apples. The kids all scattered and ran, but Ernie caught up to one coming down from the tree. Before he the boy could run he kicked that Zimmerman kid square in the ass. No wonder he hated Hibbing...
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Re: Artist of the Week 10.18.2014-- Bob Dylan

Post by Tequila Cowboy »

I would so have an album cover on my garage door if I could! Although I'd probably go with The Replacements Tim.
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Re: Artist of the Week 10.18.2014-- Bob Dylan

Post by dogstar »

Desire is my favourite Dylan record and I love the Bootleg Series of the Rolling Thunder Tour.

Shelter from the Storm is usually my favourite Dylan song.

I saw him once, at the Glastonbury festival in 1998, on a Sunday afternoon, immediately after Tony Bennett. I didn't recognise a single song until half way through Masters of War, which was about the fifth or sixth song they played. Apart from that the set left no lasting impression on me. Tony Bennett was fucking awesome by the way.
Last edited by dogstar on Wed Oct 22, 2014 8:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Artist of the Week 10.18.2014-- Bob Dylan

Post by hanklow »

Dylan is by far my favorite artist of all time…it's not even close. He also my favorite vocalist…and when I hear most anyone sing a Dylan song it sounds castrated. Removed of the passion and expression.

He is the only artist I would miss DBT to see. Fortunately, I've never really been faced with that decision…though not for a lack of touring by either of them.

Favorite albums are not really surprising
HWY61
Blond on Blonde
Blood on the Tracks
Bringing it all Back Home
Love & Theft (the albums since then are less impressive to me than is generally accepted

To Ramona is my favorite song by anyone, ever.

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Re: Artist of the Week 10.18.2014-- Bob Dylan

Post by RevMatt »

When Bob Dylan emerged at the dawn of the sixties there were no precedents. He was a folk singer who, early on, broke the rules of the genre by being a composer (albeit one who borrowed liberally from "the tradition") instead of an interpreter. Not even old enough to vote when John Hammond signed him to Columbia he appealed to a young audience in a way no musical performer had previously. He wasn't a teen idol in the sense that girls wanted to tear his clothes off while boys emulated his cool. No, Dylan was the sort of artist that young men and women -- college students especially -- wanted to hang out with and talk all night about things like art, literature, politics and revolution. It was something new which caused no end of misunderstanding.

Fifty years later we've learned a few things. We know that a great songwriter can speak to our hearts, communicate our aspirations and produce a body of work that becomes a companion as we walk our life's journey. Great music validates us, puts words to those things we struggle to express and makes us feel less alone. However, most of us learn to separate the person from the body of work. Musicians and songwriters capable of creating great work are not necessarily remarkable outside the context of their music. Many are introverts. A fair number are socially awkward and uncomfortable making small talk. The life experience necessary to create great art is surprisingly limited. A single experience of heartbreak and unrequited love is all that is needed to write a career's worth of great torch songs.

When Dylan first showed up in The Village his life experience was limited. Robert Zimmerman had grown up in Hibbing, Minnesota, a small city on the iron range. His family owned an appliance business. According to most biographers he experienced some kind of falling out with his father though unlike Bruce Springsteen, who used a similar adolescent experience to create both an onstage persona and a body of work, he rarely addressed this directly in his music. Instead, he chose to adopt a stage name, keep his family out of the limelight and work towards familial reconciliation privately. He learned his craft first in Minneapolis then in Greenwich Village. Early on he claimed a history of teenage "rambling" though what he knew about "hard travelling" and a life on the road came from a handful of hitchhiking journeys shortly after graduating high school. He embellished his life experiences but soon learned that a disciplined approach to craft would produce a much more bountiful harvest of songs than months spent travelling in boxcars, working on the docks or hawking tickets on a carnival midway.

The public was willing to anoint him "spokesman of a generation". For a year or two he obliged, turning the protest song into an art at the height of the civil rights movement. But as an artist he realized that such songs had a very short shelf life. Once the strike is over, the guns of war silenced by a ceasefire and the righteous vindicated the song would become an artifact. Some artists searched for new struggles, issues and movements to offer a soundtrack. But Dylan turned inward. Songs of longing, heartbreak, anguish, passion? Those tend to stay around a whole lot longer.

Many felt betrayed. That is understandable given the novelty of a brilliant young troubadour who was as much a poet as a performer. He emerged as one of the leading lights of the folk revival of the early 1960's but soon found such a scene limiting. His early champions from that scene felt used and abandoned. His early critics -- there were more of these at the time than people realize today and they expressed their criticism long before "Dylan went electric"; even Pete Seeger hedged his bets early on -- felt vindicated in their suspicions that the young songwriter wasn't sufficiently committed to "the movement"; however that was defined. But Dylan was always uncompromising in his vision, even if that meant enduring boos or falling flat on his face.

Today "Dylanology" is a cottage industry. People who dominated the Dylan message boards when the internet became widespread in the late 1990's have parlayed that expertise into book deals and consultation fees for dvd's, liner notes and other Dylan related projects. One of the many orthodoxies in those circles is that Dylan is some kind of musical changeling; that he is always reinventing himself. I would challenge this. Instead, I think he is the same guy he always was. The public simply had the opportunity to watch him grow and develop as both an artist and a person. The man keeps to himself and often appears to deliberately toy with journalists who get too personal. The truth is he doesn't owe us anything other than a show that is worth the price of a ticket. Has his music changed over the years? Of course it has. The same can be said about any artist whose career has lasted decades. The changeling charge, however, was the result of an audience not knowing what to make of those changes as they were happening. They thought they had a handle on what Dylan was all about and found new albums -- recorded with a band, recorded in Nashville -- to be disconcerting. (Dylan was not the only artist who experienced this in the early sixties. Reviews of John Coltrane's albums show that it took journalists several months to "get" what Coltrane had done with a previous album. Each new record progressed faster than Trane's contemporary audience was capable of understanding, so much so that Coltrane publicly offered to "explain" the music to critics who struggled to grasp what he was doing and, consequently, turned in negative reviews.)

One hundred years from now people will still be writing about Bob Dylan. All of us -- Dylan included -- will have passed from this life. The music, however, will live on. The songs -- at least the best ones -- are that good.
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Re: Artist of the Week 10.18.2014-- Bob Dylan

Post by beantownbubba »

Dylan stands alone in the pop/rock hierarchy. You may think he stands above the rest of the very few contenders for the top of the mountain or you may think he stands beside those others, but he doesn't stand below anyone. His work is unique in many ways, longevity among (but far from most important) of them. I figure I can only embarrass myself by saying what many others have either already said better or tried to say and failed over the course of 50+ years so just a few comments.

The remarkable thing to me is that Dylan's songs really are "art" and "poetry" in the very best ways. That may have sounded ridiculous and pretentious in the 60's when people were trying to carve out a claim to "seriousness" for rock/pop but let's review: People continue to find new meanings in the songs as they go back to them time and again; the songs continue to reveal new layers as one delves deeper into them. The songs continue to gain new adherents as new generations are exposed to them. I think that works as a pretty good definition of "art."

I have experienced that phenomenon over and over again as I listen to Dylan: Songs I dismissed as "secondary" reveal themselves to be beautiful and meaningful; songs I love speak to me totally differently as my life experiences evolve; songs I thought I understood change meanings as my understanding deepens (or my perspective changes).

It's also been interesting to watch how a number of Dylan's folk/protest songs have become part of the canon. Not surprising, they're great songs, but I wasn't around to know that, say, "This Land is Your Land" actually had a real life author (until later of course). To me it was a folk song that everyone always knew and that had seemingly been around forever. Well, "Blowin' in the Wind" clearly has that status. "Masters of War" apparently continues to speak to multiple generations judging from the number of times it still gets covered. And apparently The Times are always Changing. Hearing Dylan sing "even the President of the United States must sometimes have to stand naked" as the Watergate mess came to a boil in 1974 was one of the most incredible mergers of music/art and reality/politics I can think of or imagine - the moment gives me chills to this day.

The only person who's phrasing is anywhere close to Dylan's is Mike Cooley. I still don't know how Dylan managed to get out those incredibly long, intricate, complicated songs and lines without ever making a mistake (the mistakes didn't come until later and I guess by now they're as much a part of the legend as the earlier ability to sing 'em flawlessly). As has been stated numerous times here, the power of his singing is unmatched.

A few thoughts on the songs and albums:

One album that I think has escaped mention so far is The Royal Albert Hall Concert. (This is now Vol. 4 of the Bootleg Series). While it is legendary in part for the Dylan-crowd interplay, listen to the music, especially the electric half. I'm not sure anybody has ever made nastier, more snarling, more powerful, more visceral, more, ummmm, electric rock n' roll music. Ever. Anyone. It might well be the one album I'd give to the proverbial Martian to "explain" rock n roll. If you've never heard this, you need to. If you haven't listened in a year or a decade, check it out.

"Like a Rollin' Stone" still sounds amazing. Fresh. Vital. Everytime I hear that snare kick off i still get excited.

Blood on the Tracks is an incredible album. It's not like that's news to anyone but consider that Dylan had already had (a) his moment as the greatest folk/protest singer and (b) his moment of hitting the highest peaks of sustained brilliant, creative output w/ Bringin It All Back Home, Highway 61 and Blonde on Blonde and then almost a decade later he comes up with THIS??!!! Incredible.

Dylan never stopped being political, he just became a little more subtle about it and people became less attuned to it because they weren't folk songs and it was no longer the sixties. "Hurricane" is the obvious exception to the subtlety/unawareness part.

These are some great songs that I don't think have been mentioned, INPO:

"Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll"
"Most of the Time"
"If You See Her Say Hello"
"Dignity"
"Love Minus Zero/No Limit"
"Mississippi"
"Things Have Changed"
"Ballad of a Thin Man"
"Forever Young"
"Every Grain of Sand"
"Love Sick"
"It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding"
"Sara"
"Talking John Birch Society Blues"
"Blind Willie McTell"
The list just goes on and on and on, so I'll just end with the totally amazing, never stops giving "Tangled Up in Blue"

Great job once again, Rev. But imho I think it would be better w/out this paragraph which to me just doesn't stand w/ the rest:

RevMatt wrote:The public was willing to anoint him "spokesman of a generation". For a year or two he obliged, turning the protest song into an art at the height of the civil rights movement. But as an artist he realized that such songs had a very short shelf life. Once the strike is over, the guns of war silenced by a ceasefire and the righteous vindicated the song would become an artifact. Some artists searched for new struggles, issues and movements to offer a soundtrack. But Dylan turned inward. Songs of longing, heartbreak, anguish, passion? Those tend to stay around a whole lot longer.
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Re: Artist of the Week 10.18.2014-- Bob Dylan

Post by RevMatt »

I thought about leaving that paragraph out but decided not to strike it. A big part of people's reaction to Dylan in the early part of his career had to do with the protest songs and the way he pretty much stopped writing them after "The Times They Are A Changing". His earliest fan base felt betrayed. He could have milked it for another album or two. There was something behind that decision, something Dylan knew that everybody else didn't. It turned out to be the right decision but no one at his label or publishing company would have advised him in that direction. Just my stab at what that might be.

People had become disillusioned with Dylan before he ever went electric. His fame was a very weird phenomenon. The Beatles are the only other artists who experienced anything remotely similar. I am reading Ian Bell's two books on Bob Dylan. Good writing.
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Re: Artist of the Week 10.18.2014-- Bob Dylan

Post by beantownbubba »

RevMatt wrote: His fame was a very weird phenomenon. The Beatles are the only other artists who experienced anything remotely similar.


And the Beatles split that more or less 4 ways. Dylan was just Dylan, out there by himself, w/ "stage fright" as the Band put it. It truly is a miracle that he survived all that more or less in one piece and w/ his creative faculties basically intact. The different kinds of "armor" he wore throughout the years, from humor to sarcasm to withdrawal, etc etc are totally understandable.

RevMatt wrote: There was something behind that decision, something Dylan knew that everybody else didn't. It turned out to be the right decision but no one at his label or publishing company would have advised him in that direction. Just my stab at what that might be.


Fair enough.

My own take on that is a lot simpler: Dylan grew up listening to Hank Williams and Buddy Holly as well as Woody Guthrie and the other folk and blues singers that go along w/ Dylan's legend. When he heard the Beatles, he was able to be totally receptive and he just knew, the way artists on the cutting edge know, that the world had changed and this new thing was just so...RIGHT. That he didn't go on "milking" the folk scene and stood up and took all the vitriol and insults hurled at him are just a couple of the ways in which he is singularly Dylan. Part art, part courage, part vision, part orneriness and I'm sure a few other parts as well.
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Re: Artist of the Week 10.18.2014-- Bob Dylan

Post by Tequila Cowboy »

Blood on the Tracks is my favorite Dylan record but Desire is nearly as good and I think suffers in the discography more because of what it follows than it's own merits.
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Re: Artist of the Week 10.18.2014-- Bob Dylan

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Tequila Cowboy wrote:Blood on the Tracks is my favorite Dylan record but Desire is nearly as good and I think suffers in the discography more because of what it follows than it's own merits.

Desire and Street Legal are two records that Dylan fans didn't hold in high regard at the time but of their release but in recent years have fared much better. Infidels is another that has been reevaluated, though I do remember it getting positive reviews when it was released.

How about the elephant in the living room: Slow Train Coming and Saved, two records that alienated Dylan fans even more than when he went electric in 1965? This is the one board in the world where we don't have to convince people of Slow Train's greatness; recorded at Muscle Shoals and backed by The Swampers.

The conventional wisdom is that Dylan lost his way artistically in the late seventies and floundered during the eighties and early nineties. (Neil Young went through a similar thing in the eighties -- Trans, Everybody's Rocking, Landing On Water but recovered sooner.) But I wonder how much of this is an accurate evaluation of the songs he wrote and the records he recorded post-Slow Train, pre-Time Out of Mind and how much is the residual resentment of Dylan becoming a born again Christian? Oh Mercy garnered good reviews when it was released and is now considered by many to be a first tier Dylan record. Good as I've Been To You and World Gone Wrong were made up of traditional songs and both got great reviews.

Should there be a re-evaluation of Dylan's eighties output? I think an argument can be made that fans and critics felt alienated by the born again Dylan which caused Shot of Love, Infidels and Empire Burlesque to be treated worse than the songs actually were. I don't think these three records are in the same league as Blood On The Tracks but in the past few years records like Self Portrait and Street Legal have been the beneficiaries of critical re-evaluation. Do you think the 80's Dylan is worth another look?

My own opinion is that there were a few stinkers in the eighties: Down in The Groove and Knocked Out Loaded. Saved alienated lots of people but if somebody were to hand you a copy of it in a paper bag and say, "Here is a gospel record produced by Barry Beckett and Jerry Wexler with Spooner Oldham on keyboards" I think most people here would be intrigued enough to give it a listen.
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Re: Artist of the Week 10.18.2014-- Bob Dylan

Post by beantownbubba »

RevMatt wrote:
Tequila Cowboy wrote:Blood on the Tracks is my favorite Dylan record but Desire is nearly as good and I think suffers in the discography more because of what it follows than it's own merits.

Desire and Street Legal are two records that Dylan fans didn't hold in high regard at the time but of their release but in recent years have fared much better. Infidels is another that has been reevaluated, though I do remember it getting positive reviews when it was released.

How about the elephant in the living room: Slow Train Coming and Saved, two records that alienated Dylan fans even more than when he went electric in 1965? This is the one board in the world where we don't have to convince people of Slow Train's greatness; recorded at Muscle Shoals and backed by The Swampers.

The conventional wisdom is that Dylan lost his way artistically in the late seventies and floundered during the eighties and early nineties. (Neil Young went through a similar thing in the eighties -- Trans, Everybody's Rocking, Landing On Water but recovered sooner.) But I wonder how much of this is an accurate evaluation of the songs he wrote and the records he recorded post-Slow Train, pre-Time Out of Mind and how much is the residual resentment of Dylan becoming a born again Christian? Oh Mercy garnered good reviews when it was released and is now considered by many to be a first tier Dylan record. Good as I've Been To You and World Gone Wrong were made up of traditional songs and both got great reviews.

Should there be a re-evaluation of Dylan's eighties output? I think an argument can be made that fans and critics felt alienated by the born again Dylan which caused Shot of Love, Infidels and Empire Burlesque to be treated worse than the songs actually were. I don't think these three records are in the same league as Blood On The Tracks but in the past few years records like Self Portrait and Street Legal have been the beneficiaries of critical re-evaluation. Do you think the 80's Dylan is worth another look?

My own opinion is that there were a few stinkers in the eighties: Down in The Groove and Knocked Out Loaded. Saved alienated lots of people but if somebody were to hand you a copy of it in a paper bag and say, "Here is a gospel record produced by Barry Beckett and Jerry Wexler with Spooner Oldham on keyboards" I think most people here would be intrigued enough to give it a listen.


I remember Desire getting a great reception when it was released - the whole Scarlett Rivera mystery woman thing and the Rolling Thunder tour added to the excitement. Now I'm curious to see how bad my memory has become; perhaps I'll look it up.

Again without actually looking it up, my sense is that the 80's records have already undergone, or are already undergoing, the kind of re-evaluation you suggest. There can't be any doubt that in real time Dylan's born again phase threw both critics and fans for a loop but in rock n roll years that was a very long time ago.

But Self Portrait? Really? I never thought that one would ever see the light of day of reconsideration (I say that not having listened to it in about forever).
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Re: Artist of the Week 10.18.2014-- Bob Dylan

Post by RevMatt »

Self Portrait got a whole lot of love in the rock press when it was reissued a year or so ago.

80's Dylan is his most neglected era. Underrated. Oh Mercy and Infidels are the two best in the bunch, IMO. Infidels would have been a top tier Dylan album if he'd put "Blind Willie McTell" on that record. It is probably his best song of the decade. Oh Mercy just might be a top tier Dylan album. When he wrote about it in Chronicles Vol. 1 many Dylan fans who overlooked that record went back to it.
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Re: Artist of the Week 10.18.2014-- Bob Dylan

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Oh Mercy was the first Dylan record I ever heard, thanks to my brother's cassette collection. It was also the first Dylan I 'd heard, period. I remember crying my eyes out to "Shooting Star" as a heartbroken seventh grader and it helping me recover from the despair of unrequited adolescent love. That songs still one of my favorites.
Years later, I was feeling alone and wishing I'd gone straight and another song hit me just as hard, but in a totally different way.
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Re: Artist of the Week 10.18.2014-- Bob Dylan

Post by Tequila Cowboy »

RevMatt wrote:Self Portrait got a whole lot of love in the rock press when it was reissued a year or so ago.

80's Dylan is his most neglected era. Underrated. Oh Mercy and Infidels are the two best in the bunch, IMO. Infidels would have been a top tier Dylan album if he'd put "Blind Willie McTell" on that record. It is probably his best song of the decade. Oh Mercy just might be a top tier Dylan album. When he wrote about it in Chronicles Vol. 1 many Dylan fans who overlooked that record went back to it.


I don't know, Infidels is quite a record without it too. I remember when it came out there was a ton of buzz for it being a "comeback" record (not sure where he was coming back from) and a lot of excitement for Sly and Robbie (who were white hot at the time) as the rhythm section, Mark Knopfler and the first guitar work anyone had heard from Mick Taylor in several years. The other thing was that it was considered his full on return to secular music after his Christian records of the previous few years. Everyone I knew at that time loved it although the critics hated it. When I get that record out I binge on it for days.
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Re: Artist of the Week 10.18.2014-- Bob Dylan

Post by Clams »

The level of discourse in this thread is impressive. You guys really know your Dylan.
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Re: Artist of the Week 10.18.2014-- Bob Dylan

Post by beantownbubba »

Tequila Cowboy wrote:
RevMatt wrote:Self Portrait got a whole lot of love in the rock press when it was reissued a year or so ago.

80's Dylan is his most neglected era. Underrated. Oh Mercy and Infidels are the two best in the bunch, IMO. Infidels would have been a top tier Dylan album if he'd put "Blind Willie McTell" on that record. It is probably his best song of the decade. Oh Mercy just might be a top tier Dylan album. When he wrote about it in Chronicles Vol. 1 many Dylan fans who overlooked that record went back to it.


I don't know, Infidels is quite a record without it too. I remember when it came out there was a ton of buzz for it being a "comeback" record (not sure where he was coming back from) and a lot of excitement for Sly and Robbie (who were white hot at the time) as the rhythm section, Mark Knopfler and the first guitar work anyone had heard from Mick Taylor in several years. The other thing was that it was considered his full on return to secular music after his Christian records of the previous few years. Everyone I knew at that time loved it although the critics hated it. When I get that record out I binge on it for days.


Yeah, I hear that a lot about how Infidels would have been a great album w/ "Blind Wille McTell" on it and of course adding a song that good can't help but make almost any album better. But I'm basically w/ tc: the more interesting, relevant thing is how good the album is w/out that song on it.

Back to the previous topic:

Desire got 4.5 stars from Rolling Stone. Christgau originally gave it a B+ but then later reduced it to a B- saying it was mostly a souvenir for those who got to see the Rolling Thunder tour. AMG also gives it 4.5 stars but I suspect that's a retrospective, not contemporary, ranking.

Infidels got 4 stars from RS while Empire Burlesque and Oh Mercy each got only 2. AMG went 4, 4.5 and 3.5, respectively and Christgau gave scores of B-, B+ and B, respectively. Christgau gave Slow Train Coming a B+ while the other 2 gave it 3 stars. All together, I'd say that's a bit higher than I would have guessed but again, the AMG scores in particular might involve some retrospective adjustments. The comments to all make interesting reading but that's way too much to quote or even summarize here. The Dylan entry in the Rolling Stone Record Guide is written by Rob Sheffield, which is a good thing.

The number of albums labeled as a Dylan "comeback album" probably rivals the number of his 5 star albums, lol. That label depends in part how good you think the then-current album is but also on how bad you thought the previous few were so of course this is all over the map as anything Dylan. To me the legitimate comeback albums are Blood on the Tracks (though that implicitly downgrades Planet Waves more than is really fair (see Cortez & joelle? I can be taught)* and Time Out of Mind.

*But on the other other hand BOTT was his best album since Blonde on Blonde and it followed the Before the Flood "comeback tour" which gave BOTT an even higher profile.
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Re: Artist of the Week 10.18.2014-- Bob Dylan

Post by beantownbubba »

Listening to Blonde on Blonde right now. I can take or leave "Rainy Day Women" but then comes "Pledging My Time," a song I've probably given less than 15 minutes thought to in my lifetime* and BAM! just like that it hit me right between the eyes. The last verse is so clever I was practically laughing out loud. His catalog is so large that so many songs and albums go unlistened to for so long that moments like that happens a lot when I do listen to some of that less played stuff.

*At least for me it tends to get lost coming as it does right before Visions of Johanna.
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