Is Bob Dylan overrated?

detailed review in the star tribune

https://www.startribune.com/after-2-year-concert-hiatus-ever-surprising-bob-dylan-returns-to-embrace-his-rough-and-rowdy-ways/600112633/

nice, he played "key west"! i've never seen dylan live and i would love to hear him sing that song

So bummed to miss his Chicago show tonight. I've never seen him and really wanted to go, but not quite ready for an indoor show. Maybe in another month or two would have been better.

Pretty interesting, it's kind of rare for him to do so much stuff off the new album

I saw him the day that Modern Times hit #1 on the album chart and he did....zero songs off the album lol

Fantastic setlist

not a great recording, but here are the rough and rowdy ways tunes from last night:
https://archive.org/details/rarw-live

V. edutaining discussion of "Don't the brakeman look good, mama, flaggin' down the double E(es?)": http://www.edlis.org/twice/threads/double_ees.html
Also, Flaggin' Down The Double E's is an enewsletter with good commentaries on and downloads of BD shows old and new: twice a month free, more paid: https://dylanlive.substack.com/
Also: I saw Stevie Wonder performing on the Kennedy Center Honors a few nights ago (First Couple doing their best to rock out to "Superstition," awrite). Since then, I've been listening to several 2021 Sun Ra reissues on Bandcamp, and this evening, as I went walking, I saw Dylan at the Kennedy Center Honors, playing some of the vintage portable keyboards Mr. Ra favored, and it all turned into an intro for "I Shall Be Released," which he followed, seamlessly, with "Sometimes I think this whole world, is one big prison yard, some of us are prisoners, the rest of us are guards, Ma take these guns off of me," then I turned the corner, saw the maskless masses, turned around and came home, just thinking of the cars whizzing by, but that was an ok daydream in the dark. Merry Christmass yall!

Ha, nice: the Waifs get called to the stage by Himself:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/dec/28/the-waifs-wed-stripped-to-our-undies-and-started-on-the-vodka-when-bob-dylan-called-us-onstage Still got a good Waifs CD from them days---

And here's how Patti Smith finally got him to sing "Dark Eyes" with her---he'd fumbled a solo attempt earlier, says Ray Padgett of this Dylan shows chronicle x download enewsletter: https://dylanlive.substack.com/p/dark-eyes

'I was thinkin' 'bout Alicia Keys, couldn't keep from crying
But she was born in Hell's Kitchen, I was living down the line
I'm wondering where in the world Alicia Keys could be
I been looking for her even clear through Tennessee'Hugging faceBottle with popping corkBalloon❤Birthday cake
#aliciakeys #BobDylan
Alicia Keys
@aliciakeys
It’s My BIRTHDAY!!!! Bottle with popping corkBottle with popping corkBottle with popping corkBottle with popping corkConfetti ballConfetti ballConfetti ballConfetti ballParty popperParty popperParty popperParty popperPartying facePartying facePartying facePartying face

I’m so grateful to be alive!! Folded handsFolded handsFolded hands

Thank you to every single person who surprised me last night plotting along with the masterful surpriser my KING
@THEREALSWIZZZ
Double exclamation markDouble exclamation markDouble exclamation markDouble exclamation mark

Sorry, the song quote was tweeted by KG Miles Smiling face with sunglasses
@barberville

"I been looking for her even clear through Tennessee'Hugging faceBottle with popping corkBalloon❤Birthday cake"

top ten Dylan lyrics

"The Ballad of Hugging Face Bottle and Popping Cork Balloon" was a good Rolling Thunder era outtake

Good recent interview w Benmont Tench---1986 Wellington is the date of show download, link for that at end (several live vids are linked in here too, also pic of Dylan and Bacall):

The Heartbreakers' Benmont Tench Talks Touring and Recording with Bob Dylan
1986-02-05, Athletic Park, Wellington, New Zealand
Ray Padgett
Flagging Down the Double E’s is an email newsletter exploring Bob Dylan shows of yesteryear. Some installments are free, some are for paid subscribers only. Sign up for either option here/https://dylanlive.substack.com/p/the-heartbreakers-benmont-tench-talks?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxMTI4NTEwMSwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDcxMjUyNDIsIl8iOiJZZ2gvSSIsImlhdCI6MTY0NDA4NDc2NCwiZXhwIjoxNjQ0MDg4MzY0LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjQ5ODEiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.CXJAX4zuQk_swHwyKtM-YCzA0qclu84IcIefoAgQD4U

Goldmine magazine
@Goldmine_mag
Joy Harjo, the artist-in-residence for the new Bob Dylan Center, is the guest on the Goldmine Podcast. Harjo explains the importance of the May opening of the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. https://bit.ly/3HJzUtQ

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FNA4yHVX0AUnWKa?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

Should have put the sleazy Vietnam vet/cult leader Dylan from the cover of Trouble No More box on the side of the building.

new book coming, interesting
https://www.bobdylan.com/news/the-philosophy-of-modern-song/

Tim Easton
@Tim_Easton
·
1h
Powerful & historic day listening to the confirmation hearings of Justice Jackson as I drive North through Alabama. Last night I watched Bob Dylan perform right down the street from where Rosa Parks was arrested. #Alabama #History
@bobdylan
#equality #USA

pic part of tweet

"I been looking for her even clear through Tennessee'Hugging faceBottle with popping corkBalloon❤Birthday cake"

top ten Dylan lyrics

― Chappies banging dustbin lids together (President Keyes), Wednesday, January 26, 2022 10:09 AM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

Reminds me of
post your made-up tom waits lyric

Yeah that's a good 'un.
Just now catching with this:

Tim Easton
@Tim_Easton
·
23h
JP Olsen at Hank Williams’s grave in Montgomery, Alabama. We’re here to see
@bobdylan
perform tonight. His first record came out 60 years ago this week. On a radio show that same year he covered Hank’s “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” #hankwilliams #bobdylan #alabama

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FOfFnoBWYAgxjY8?format=jpg&name=360x360

In fall of 1965, Bob Dylan told Nat Hentoff of Playboy:

Last spring I guess I was going to quit singing. I was very drained and the way things were going it was a very draggy situation… I was playing a lot of songs I didn’t want to play. I was singing words I didn’t really want to sing. I don’t mean words like “God” and “mother” and “president” and “suicide” and “meat cleaver”. I mean simple little words like “if” and “hope” and “you”.

Columbia Records is promoting some 60th anniversary thing for May 6

SUBTERRANEAN HOMESICK BLUES
2022 VIDEO REMAKE
In celebration of 60 years of Bob Dylan on Columbia Records, the iconic "Subterranean Homesick Blues” video has been reimagined by a wide range of musicians, film makers, graphic designers and street artists. Watch it now.

AR LENS
As a companion to the new "Subterranean Homesick Blues” video, try on a virtual pair of Bob Dylan's iconic Ray Ban sunglasses with the new Augmented Reality lens in Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat!

Bob Dylan :: Pretty Good Stuff | Ep. 15 – Live Time Out Of Mindhttps://t.co/PMKkGfoIez

"Time Out of Mind" turns 25 this year. Dig into live versions from the album with performances stretching from a week after the LP’s release to the edge of the pandemic... pic.twitter.com/0zrocErbpX

— aquarium drunkard (@aquadrunkard) May 9, 2022

love that Dylan's "old man facing his mortality" album is 25 years old

Mortality at 56: I don't want to die!

Morality at 81: I've had a good run.

Morality at 75: I really like Frank Sinatra.

animality at 84: i'm a dinosaur

I'd go see Dylanosaurus.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/muppet/images/5/5a/Folksinger.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20070523204016

Take 2

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/muppet/images/5/5a/Folksinger.jpg

When Dylan came to Tulsa for a concert last month, he did not visit the center being created in his honor, although his longtime bassist, Tony Garnier, did stop by.

Nostalgia is “not his thing,” Brinkley said. (The Bob Dylan Center was set to be inaugurated with concerts from his longtime friends and collaborators Patti Smith and Elvis Costello this weekend.)

An avid baseball fan, Dylan instead made time to quietly attend the season opener for the Tulsa Drillers, the town’s minor league baseball team, according to Brinkley. The next night, he hung a Drillers pennant on his piano before he sat down to play.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/05/06/bob-dylan-museum-tulsa/

that is one of the coolest and relatable bob dylan stories i've ever heard

Bob is the best.

when I saw that story somewhere in the middle of the article, it immediately resonated.

haha, never change <3

Partial video of Dylan's stunning "Restless Farewell" at Sinatra's 80th bash. I added the SBD audio to this VHS rip, and upscaled it (but there's a watermark due to using a cheapo demo mode). One of his best performances which no one ever talks about. pic.twitter.com/90eEWpuhbr

— 𝗗𝗘𝗔𝗗𝗦𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗗 💀 (@DeadsoundApp) June 1, 2022

That's a great one - I think immortalized on one of the Genuine Bootleg Series installments too. (Those three 3CD volumes are mostly obsolete now, but at the time they were a perfect supplement to the official Bootleg Series Vol. 1-3.)

I wasn't much of a fan of that song - I thought Dylan should've set it aside and used "Lay Down Your Weary Tune" as the closing track for The Times They Are A-Changin' - but for the Sinatra tribute it was perfect, and IIRC Sinatra personally requested it.

This guy certainly impressed me in Don't Look Back and Buried Alive (striking Joplin bio) and was aboard Rolling Thunder too---also made at least one solo ab and one with John Cale, neither of which I've heard---Rolling colleagues etc. remember:
https://variety.com/2022/music/news/bob-neuwirth-remembered-t-bone-burnett-david-mansfield-steven-soles-rolling-thunder-1235284946/

Neuwirth’s Havana Midnight is one of my favorite albums, and Back to the Front and Look Up have their moments, too.

Mr. Dylan, in his book “Chronicles: Volume One” (2004), had his own description of Mr. Neuwirth:

“Like Kerouac had immortalized Neal Cassady in ‘On the Road,’ somebody should have immortalized Neuwirth. He was that kind of character. He could talk to anybody until they felt like all their intelligence was gone. With his tongue, he ripped and slashed and could make anybody uneasy, also could talk his way out of anything. Nobody knew what to make of him.”

I actually met Neuwirth through a mutual friend. I didn't let on that I was a Dylan fan because I imagine he got enough of that from strangers. By that point he was already past 70 and he was incredibly nice and polite - I still have a sharp memory of when he introduced himself (just as Bob, not Bobby) and it wasn't until he engaged with someone he already knew that a boisterous, hilarious side of him finally slipped out. Great guy, he had the best line in No Direction Home: "Back then it wasn’t money-driven - it was about if an artist had something to say. Whether it was Bob Dylan or Ornette Coleman, what people would ask was, ‘Does he have anything to say?" Very sad he's gone.

I like this one - didn't know about it until I saw Elvis Costello's recommendation in that Vanity Fair piece he did of of his 500 favorite albums.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJiq8igzd7E

Is there a link to that Costello VF piece?

Yes, courtesy of the Costello wiki pages:

http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/index.php/Vanity_Fair,_November_2000

I can't warm to that Restless Farewell performance because of the awful piezo-pickup sound of Bob's guitar. A travesty. I grew up in Ireland at a time when every pub had a bloke playing an acoustic with exactly that terrible sound, so I'm allergic. A pity.

FRANK SINATRA PERSONALLY REQUESTED THAT GUITAR TONE

Hahaha

LMAO