Bob Dylan is finally 70... archived

the first Dylan album I actually purchased, at age 15, was "Desire"...it was actually an eight track. Here is a nice take on a really good song from Desire....

thanks father bear. i havent heard that in a while. too bad the record skipped at the end - I'll just fillin the last verse -

the moral of this story the moral of this song
is simplyto never be where one does not belong
and ifyou see your neighbor carrying something
help him with his load
and dont go mistaking Paradise
for that home across the road.


that album was choc full of lost Dylan poems.

but there are so many great ones, ballad of thin man, tom thumbs blues...

and some that many have never heard - the album that gave us forever young also gave us this -

According to this column, there were a number of times/events that could have precluded us celebrating Bob Dylan's 70th.

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/

"Here’s hoping that the approach of his 70th birthday finds Bob Dylan in a better mood than the weeks preceding his 25th. In an interview from 1966,
conducted by the critic and journalist Robert Shelton and recently posted by BBC News, Mr. Dylan, then 24, talks about
having overcome a heroin habit and shares some grim thoughts on death and what he calls “this suicidal thing.”

"Masters of War"

Posted By: buzzsawI am wishing Bob another 70 years.
I have seen Bob Dylan perform more than any other musician. (I'm just saying - I've seen Rush like 30 times).

Bob's music has been some of the most thought provoking good medicine that has come in to my life.

This is Bob 1975 covering Bob 1952.
This clip and this song is pizza - because it ALWAYS DELIVERS.

Thanks for digging that up. Still my favorite.

Although, this is one of my favorite covers of a Dylan song. Thanks.

Posted By: Soul 29

Coming on stage in 1966 in England with his backup group the Band and playing electrical instruments, Dylan is met with the heckle "Judas". He had been under fierce attack from folk lovers who were outraged by his apparently turning away from the music. You can tell Dylan is momentarily thrown off balance by the remark. But then he tells the band (and you can hear it if you listen carefully), "play F-- loud"! and follows it up with a blistering version of "Like a Rolling Stone". A great rock and roll moment. Keep playing it loud, Happy Birthday Bob!

The Grateful Dead covering "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again."

Posted By: father_bearComing on stage in 1966 in England with his backup group the Band and playing electrical instruments, Dylan is met with the heckle "Judas". He had been under fierce attack from folk lovers who were outraged by his apparently turning away from the music. You can tell Dylan is momentarily thrown off balance by the remark. But then he tells the band (and you can hear it if you listen carefully), "play F-- loud"! and follows it up with a blistering version of "Like a Rolling Stone". A great rock and roll moment. Keep playing it loud, Happy Birthday Bob!

Thanks for this one.

When I was 14, I didn't like what I heard of pop music. Top 40 radio played The Beatles' "Hello Goodbye" over and over, and while I liked the Beatles, that was one of their most inane obnoxious songs. Then a friend told me about an FM station he liked. One day I turned it on, and I swear, the first thing I heard was the opening drum whack of "Like A Rolling Stone". I was dumbfounded, and hooked from there on out.

No song had a similar impact on me since, but here's one that came close when it came out:


I'll be performing this song at the Dylan Birthday Bash, June 4 at Highland Place

High school English teacher brought a Dylan record to class, this would have been 1963/64, saying this was an amazing new voice we must hear.

This was not a "modern" multimedia type teacher, but a true and intense believer in literature. The record was scratchy, the literal voice, well, you know, and the words hard to follow. We were mostly nonplussed at the time, wondered what on earth the teacher was seeing. The impact came later and has lasted so long.

RIP Mr. Bottaro, and happy birthday Bobby.

"Like A Rolling Stone" is another favorite. It's the one Dylan song that I actually prefer hearing Dylan sing/play. When this song was released, I was struck at the sheer beauty of the guitar and astonished at the lyrics. Dylan surgically eviscerates the subject of the song into tiny pieces with words. I had never heard anything like it. I fantasized about taking my own inventory of jerks I'd known who had fallen on bad times. The word I'm looking for is "schadenfreude." Yet I was never certain that Dylan actually feels joy at the misfortune of the song's subject. More like Dylan was speaking from the voice of experience; that he, himself, knew what it was like to be a rolling stone. On the other hand, the subject could very well have been someone who shunned Dylan. I know there were celebrities or "has-beens" who were horrified in wondering if Dylan was writing about them.

I read something recently, to the effect that Dylan fans are bigger fans of his older songs, than Dylan is.

Such is life ...

That having been said, I had forgotten about this one -

The 1997 "Kennedy Center Honors", with Bob Dylan sitting in the box with President Clinton, and Bruce Springsteen doing "The Times They Are a Changin'"



Too bad they hadn't really changed, given the early years of the first decade of the 21st Century.

Another one of my favorite performers, doing this song for the woman who was with Bob Dylan on the cover of "Freewheelin' " (and in real life at the time), and who had passed away not so long before -

I could see that. I'm a movie buff and when some directors are asked which is their favorite work, it's rarely what we'd expect them to say. And often state that once the work is done, they don't watch it. Sometimes the process of producing the work is more important than the result, and their favorites sometimes aren't ours.

And Dylan seemed to sincerely dismiss the idea that he was the voice of a generation. Probably part of what makes him fascinating.

Always liked "Baby You Can Follow Me Down," which he did on the '65 London tour with Robbie Robertson etc. Not sure there is a clip out there, but it is on the Scorcese or Pennebaker documentaries.

the 30th anniversary concert for Bob Dylan had some tremendous covers



and this version of blowing in the wind by Stevie is perhaps the best one ever.

UPDATE! Happy 70th Birthday Bob Dylan. Saturday night June 4, Highland Place Bar & Grill, Maplewood NJ. 8:30 - Midnite. To celebrate Bob Dylan's 70th birthday, Jeff Hays and the Whole Shebang host local artists in a night celebrating the music of Dylan and the Band. Performances by Walk the Dog, Chris Breetveld (of the Breetles), Almost Canadians, Ronnie Beck, Mingle and other guest performers. Admission is free.

Here is another vintage Bob--a press conference where he slices and dices the press. Go Bob!

http://youtu.be/AxBdXqVYZlo

bump

Looking forward to great night of music tonight..