On November 4, 2014, Bob Dylan and his band performed at the Orpheum Theater in Minneapolis.
Check out three songs: “Things Have Changed,” “She Belongs To Me” and “Beyond Here Lies Nothing.”
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[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in a recent issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]
I’m jazzed that the folks over at bobdylan.com have included a link to my review of Bob Dylan’s recent killer show on October 30, 2014 at the Paramount Theater in Oakland, CA in the “Hype” area of Dylan’s website.
“Hype” is where they link to articles about Dylan that they like.
You can get directly to the review with this link.
And if you haven’t yet read my new column about The Basement Tapes Complete: The Bootleg Series Vol. 11,here.
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[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in a recent issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]
The clang of an ancient gong announced that Bob Dylan was in the house, and that his first set for the final night of a three-night gig (October 30, 2014) at the beautifully restored Paramount Theater in downtown Oakland, CA, had begun.
Was I excited, yeah baby! Yet I was worried too. How could he compare to the Dylan of old?
“Ah, but I was so much older then/ I’m younger than that now,” he once sang, though not on this night.
And it was good he didn’t. Those lines made sense when he wrote them, when he was in his early 20s.
But Dylan is 73, he’s so much older now.
I last saw him live at the Greek Theater in Berkeley in June of 1986, and it wasn’t the best show. Frankly, it was a shadow of the show I saw in 1974 when Dylan and The Band played the Oakland Coliseum and tore the place up. That was incredible.
Think about it though. 1986. That was nearly 30 years ago. Ancient history. Another lifetime.
Bob Dylan, age 73. What would that be like? I’d seen John Lee Hooker perform at the Sweetwater when he was past 80 and he was fantastic. And I saw Muddy Waters when he was 65, and he was damn good too. There’s a wisdom that sometimes comes with age.
But Dylan? With his ragged frog of a voice. And no guitar, ’cause he doesn’t play guitar anymore. How’s that gonna work?
Whatever my pre-show worries, as soon as the band kicked off with “Things Have Changed” I relaxed.
This was gonna be good.
Dylan came onto the stage, a character out of one of his more surreal songs. The flat-brimmed white hat, something a Spanish Don wore in the ’20s perhaps. And a black frock coat with white trim. Dylan was dressing up for us. He wasn’t showing up in his streetwear — jeans and a hoodie. No way, he was here in a grand old theater and he had dressed the part.
A band leader. A performer. An artist.
Dylan is the master of great looks.
He still has style. And you know what, Dylan dressing up the way he does each night, sends the audience a message before he even sings a note. This isn’t gonna be Chuck Berry doing just another gig. This is special. Bob Dylan got dressed up on this night for this crowd. He cares.
I was there with a long time friend, and later during the show he asked me how this show compared to when I’d seen Dylan in 1974.
Well you can’t compare the Dylan of the past and the Dylan of today, I said. It’s like he’s a different person now. It’s like the folkie protest Dylan was one guy, and the Highway 61 Revisited Dylan was another, and the man who recorded the Basement tapes and John Wesley Harding was someone else again.
The Dylan of 2014 is yet another Dylan.
The show.
First of all, I thought Dylan was in great voice, and having listened to a recording of the show I can say that with even more force. Sure his voice is different. More Tom Waits than Woody Guthrie. But if you give it a chance, it grows on you and pretty soon you find yourself totally digging it. And it’s totally Dylan’s voice. On this night he was a live wire.
Dylan as piano man. He’s always had his own bluesy piano style, and over the years he’s gotten even better. So while I miss Dylan on guitar, his whorehouse piano on numerous songs including the snaky tango, “Beyond Here Lies Nothing,” was just right. And while some have derided his harmonica playing since the early days, I’ve always been a huge fan. On this night his harp breaks were dead-on perfect.
He seemed totally in-the-moment and with us as he sang his songs — all but one being his own compositions.
But what knocked me out the most was the set list. Of the 18 songs Dylan sang, 14 were ‘new’ songs, written in the 21st century. Only one, “She Belongs To Me,” was written in the ’60s, and two, “Simple Twist Of Fate” and “Tangled Up In Blue,” came from the mid-’70s. The final song of the night was Dylan’s version of a song Frank Sinatra made famous, “Stay With Me.”
That’s gutsy. That’s self-confidence. And you know what? These 21st century Bob Dylan songs are killer.
While Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones go out and play oldie-but-goodie greatest hits shows, Bob Dylan plays material from his most recent albums.
Dylan these days comes across onstage as a working musician. He doesn’t talk to the audience. He’s there to play music.
“He’s a real song and dance man,” my friend said.
Dylan was either at the piano, standing fairly still before the microphone as he sang, or swaying in place as one of his band members took a killer solo.
And speaking of the band, another thought I had as I took in the music was that this current band are as good as The Band.
Dylan has assembled his version of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, or Merle Haggard and the Strangers.
What I mean is, this band is like those great country-western bands, musicians who play with soul and really have their chpps down. Now I’ve been cheering the raw, imperfect sound of punk bands since the early days of The Stooges and the MC5, and if I’ve got to choose between soul and spirt, or musician ship, I’ll take soul and spirit every time.
But Dylan’s guys, they are some of the best musicians you’ll ever hear; they’ve got a total feel for Dylan’s music. As used to be said of a great jazz band, they swing.
Bassist Tony Garnier (on upright), drummer George Receli and rhythm guitarist Stu Kimball are a rock solid rhythm section. They ground the songs and let Dylan, lead guitarist Charlie Sexton and mutli-instrumentalist Donnie Herron (pedal steel, lap steel, electric mandolin, banjo, violin) add beautiful texture and solos.
Both Sexton and Herron are simply incredible. I love pedal steel guitar and Herron added hip country riffs to “Things Have Changed,” “Workingman’s Blues #2,” “Duquesne Whistle,” and others.
Meanwhile Sexton added electrifying riffs and solos.
Dylan has become a great band leader. Years on the road, and certainly his perfectionist demands, have turned this band into one of the best.
Highlights? The beautiful ballad “Forgetful Heart” was love on a moonlit night, with rhapsodic violin from Herron, and a mournful harmonica solo from Dylan. “Long And Wasted Years” was a triumph, from that unforgettable opening riff and Dylan’s defiant vocal, to the final lines:
“So much for tears
So much for these long and wasted years.”
There were many other highlights. “Early Roman Kings,” “Simple Twist Of Fait,” “Scarlet Town,” “Pay In Blood,” “High Water (For Charley Patton)” — I could go on.
After nearly two hours of listening to Dylan’s new music, it’s clear that just as Dylan and the Hawks had a very unique sound in the ’60s, so too do Dylan and his current band.
Leaving the Paramount, I said to my friend, the music Bob Dylan now makes is totally its own thing. It has nothing to do with current trends, and it’s not some retro trip either. The only reference point for Dylan’s new music is Dylan. He’s created something unique that works for him in 2014, and his fans love it. Dylan being Dylan, and nothing could be better.
You could call the music Dylan and the band make Americana, an umbrella term that covers blues, rock, rockabilly, jazz, folk, country, western swing and more, but if were going to name Dylan’s sound, I’d want to come up with something more unique. But really, what’s the point.
It’s 2014 Bob Dylan music, a thing all its own.
The musicians:
Bob Dylan — vocal, piano, harmonica
Stu Kimball — rhythm guitar
Donnie Herron — pedal steel, lap steel, electric mandolin, banjo, violin
Charlie Sexton — lead guitar
Tony Garnier — bass guitar
George Receli — drums, percussion
Set List:
Set I
Things Have Changed
She Belongs to Me
Beyond Here Lies Nothin’
Workingman’s Blues #2
Waiting for You
Duquesne Whistle
Pay in Blood
Tangled Up in Blue
Love Sick
Set II
High Water (For Charley Patton)
Simple Twist of Fate
Early Roman Kings
Forgetful Heart
Spirit on the Water
Scarlet Town
Soon after Midnight
Long and Wasted Years
Encore:
Stay With Me
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[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in a recent issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]
“All Along the Watchtower” and “Blowin’ in the Wind”:
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[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in a recent issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]
Fifty-two years ago, on October 15, 1962, an unknown Bob Dylan performed 17 songs at the Gaslight Cafe in Greenwich Village, New York.
His performance was recorded and has circulated on bootlegs since the early ’70s.
Some of these songs were officially released on a CD, Live at The Gaslight 1962, in 2005. A couple others made it onto other official Dylan CDs. And some have not yet been officially released.
Here are all 17 of the songs, including the ones that have not yet been officially released.
[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in a recent issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]
On October 28, 2014 the first complete book of Bob Dylan’s lyrics will be published in a limited edition of 3500 copies. Priced at $200 for the 960 page, 13.3 pound book, Amazon is currently taking advance orders for the book at a discounted price of $126.74.
The New York Times can a story today, which said, in part:
The songs are presented chronologically, including alternative versions released as part of Mr. Dylan’s archival “Bootleg Series.” The album covers, front and back, are reproduced.
The way the songs are laid out is meant “to help the eye see what the ear hears,” Mr. Ricks said. “If you print the songs flush left,” he added, “it doesn’t represent, visually, the audible experience.” So refrains, choruses and bridges are indented. And where Mr. Dylan intended a line, however long, to be unbroken, it sprawls across the 13-inch-wide page.
How did the editors know which lines were meant to be unbroken? Did Mr. Dylan provide feedback or comments? Mr. Karp said he had heard that Mr. Dylan provided notebooks and manuscripts. Mr. Ricks refused to elaborate.
“I think the right thing for us,” he said, “is not to go into the question of the particular kinds of help and assistance and advice that we were in a position to receive.”
From Amazon.com:
“The Lyrics: Since 1962” (Hardcover – October 28, 2014)
by Bob Dylan (Author), Christopher Ricks (Editor), Lisa Nemrow (Editor), Julie Nemrow (Editor)
Hardcover: 960 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (October 28, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1476797706
ISBN-13: 978-1476797700
Product Dimensions: 13.1 x 12.4 x 2.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 13.3 pounds
A major publishing event—a beautiful, comprehensive collection of the lyrics of Bob Dylan with artwork from thirty-three albums, edited and with an introduction by Christopher Ricks.
As it was well put by Al Kooper (the man behind the organ on “Like a Rolling Stone”), “Bob is the equivalent of William Shakespeare. What Shakespeare did in his time, Bob does in his time.” Christopher Ricks, editor of T. S. Eliot, Samuel Beckett, Tennyson, and The Oxford Book of English Verse, has no argument with Mr. Kooper’s assessment, and Dylan is attended to accordingly in this authoritative edition of his lyrics.
In the words of Ricks: “For fifty years, all the world has delighted in Bob Dylan’s books of words and more than words: provocative, mysterious, touching, baffling, not-to-be-pinned-down, intriguing, and a reminder that genius is free to do as it chooses. And, again and again, these are not the words that he sings on the initially released albums.”
This edition changes things, giving us the words from officially released studio and live recordings, as well as selected variant lyrics and revisions to these, recent revisions and retrospective ones; and, from the archives, words that, till now, have not been published.
The Lyrics, edited with diligence by Christopher Ricks, Lisa Nemrow, and Julie Nemrow. As set down, as sung, and as sung again.
While you wait, here’s Dylan, Ry Cooder and Van Dyke Parks performing Woody Guthrie’s “Do Re Mi” at the Malibu Performing Arts Center in January 2009:
[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in the new issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]
Bob Dylan backed by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, True Confessions Tour, Sydney, Australia, Feb. 24, 1986.
Set List:
01 Justine (Don Harris/Dewy Terry)
02 Positively 4th Street
03 Clean Cut Kid
04 I’ll Remember You
05 Trust Yourself
06 That Lucky Old Sun (Gillespie/ Smith)
07 Masters of War
08 Bye Bye Johnny [Petty]
09 Straight Into Darkness [Petty]
10 A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall (acoustic – Dylan solo)
11 Girl Of the North Country (acoustic – Dylan solo)
12 It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) (acoustic – Dylan solo)
13 I Forgot More Than You’ll Ever Know (Null)
14 Just Like a Woman
15 I’m Moving On (Hank Snow)
16 Lenny Bruce
17 When the Night Comes Falling From the Sky
18 Lonesome Town
19 Ballad of a Thin Man
20 So You Wanna Be a Rock-n-Roll Star [Petty]
21 Refugee [Petty]
22 Rainy Day Women #12 & 35
23 Seeing the Real You at Last
24 Across the Borderline (Cooder/Hiatt)
25 I and I
26 Like a Rolling Stone
27 In the Garden
28 Blowin’ in the Wind
29 Uranium Rock (Warren Smith)
30 Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in a recent issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]
The other day I posted a huge chunk of Bob Dylan and his Rolling Thunder Review.
Today I’ve got some more clips.
Some of these are from Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, May 23, 1976.
Others are from other dates on the Rolling Thunder Review tour.
“Mozambique”:
“The Times They Are A-Changing”:
“Knocking On Heaven’s Door”:
“Mr. Tambourine Man”:
[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in the new issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]
I believe these first three clips are from the Rolling Thunder Review show at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, May 23, 1976.
This is a moving and beautiful version of “Just Like A Woman” with Scarlet Rivera on violin.
“Just Like A Woman”:
“Isis”:
“Blowin’ In The Wind”:
“I Don’t Believe You,” War Memorial Auditorium, Plymouth, MA, USA, October 31, 1975:
Here are a bunch of songs recorded during the tour including “Maggie’s Farm,” “One Too Many Mornings,” “You’re A Big Girl Now” and plenty more.
And here’s 50+ minutes from the April 22, 1976 show at the Starlight Ballroom in Clearwater Florida:
[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in the new issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]
Two great clips from a show Bob Dylan did at the Bournemouth International Centre in Bournemouth, England on May 5, 2002.
“Desolation Row”:
“Absolutely Sweet Marie”:
[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in the new issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]