Bob Dylan

[joe (Liverpool)]

Joe, you are talking through through your backside. There's nothing out of tune about Bob at all he has his own style and he's pitch perfect within his vocal range.

I am not, have you got the album?

Dylan ; Released 1973 CBS S69049

Side 1 Lily of the west

Can't help falling in love

Sarah Jane

The ballad of Ira Hayes

Side 2

Mr Bojangles

Mary Ann

Big yellow taxi

A fool such as I

Spanish is the loving tongue

Most of the tracks are way, way out of tune.

[JTM]

I am not, have you got the album?

Dylan ; Released 1973 CBS S69049

Side 1 Lily of the west

Can't help falling in love

Sarah Jane

The ballad of Ira Hayes

Side 2

Mr Bojangles

Mary Ann

Big yellow taxi

A fool such as I

Spanish is the loving tongue

Most of the tracks are way, way out of tune.

I agree that "Dylan" is probably Bobs worst album, ( It's the album of rag tags CBS put out when Bob switched labels to Asylum) but I don't agree that he's out of tune. I no longer have it. Edited November 19, 2012 by JTM

[in_the_evening]

Infidels could have been the most amazing album of Bob's career, until at the last minute he changed some songs out.

The album originally had "Blind Willie McTell" and "Foot of Pride". I forget what he substituted for them, but those two songs are some of his best work from the 80s.

to the OP: sounds like the book you're getting is an updated "Lyrics" book he published. I think the first went from 1962-1980.

[thezepguy]

Fun fact: Dylan compares himself to a bird three times throughout Blood On the Tracks.

[thezepguy]

Don't get Dylan- Dylan he does covers of various songs it is absolute fucking crap, you should hear the mess he makes of I can't help falling in love with you. It's laughable, he is so out of tune. When I first bought it years and years ago I thought it was a spoof album but apparently not.

Dylan isn't widely available..hell, I don't even have Dylan. But I don't really want it.

[Sagittarius Rising]

I think Bob Dylan is an amazing songwriter, he can really weave a tapestry of thought with music. That being said I am no fan of his voice, nor of his personality. He comes across as a self-importaint creep most of the time I have seen him in interviews and to be honest, if I ever saw him walking down the street or out in public he would be the last guy I would want to talk to. I just don't like people who come across like their shit don't stink, regardless of their talent. So, musically he is a genius with few peers, personally he seems to be an asshole.

[thezepguy]

I think Bob Dylan is an amazing songwriter, he can really weave a tapestry of thought with music. That being said I am no fan of his voice, nor of his personality. He comes across as a self-importaint creep most of the time I have seen him in interviews and to be honest, if I ever saw him walking down the street or out in public he would be the last guy I would want to talk to. I just don't like people who come across like their shit don't stink, regardless of their talent. So, musically he is a genius with few peers, personally he seems to be an asshole.

He is actually really humble..he refused to be called the voice of a generation in the 60s. He's just Dylan, and he's amazingly clever in interviews.

[joe (Liverpool)]

He is actually really humble..he refused to be called the voice of a generation in the 60s. He's just Dylan, and he's amazingly clever in interviews.

Yes, he was really humble during Live Aid when his guitar string snapped!!!!!!, he immediately turned and took the guitar off the guy next to him, just like a proper gent would do.

[thezepguy]

Yes, he was really humble during Live Aid when his guitar string snapped!!!!!!, he immediately turned and took the guitar off the guy next to him, just like a proper gent would do.

That's just Dylan being Dylan. I'm sure the guy didn't mind. I'm sure I wouldn't if I was just a backing musician.

[joe (Liverpool)]

That's just Dylan being Dylan. I'm sure the guy didn't mind. I'm sure I wouldn't if I was just a backing musician.

If my memory serves me right, there were three of them front of stage it was Ronnie Wood I recall whose guitar dylan took, hardly a backing musician, they were all at the back of the stage.

[tom kid]

This is some of the best Dylan I've ever heard.

[weslgarlic]

[Tor__Hershman]

.

[2bitnogoodjive]

Great interactive video of Like a Rolling Stone:

http://video.bobdylan.com/desktop.html

[kirchzep27]

I saw a news segment on Dylan's iron work art, very cool stuff. I usually like this kind of art all rusty and raw, but when it's sandblasted, like Dylan's work, it is cool because you can see everything that's goin on better.

[Strider]

Flashback Friday...40 Years Ago Today.

Bob Dylan and the Band at the Fabulous Forum in Inglewood, February 14, 1974. The evening show.

One thing that the deaths of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison impressed upon me was that whenever you had a chance to see a singer/band that you liked, you did everything you could to go. For you never knew in those days when someone was going to die or break up the band.

By 1974, I had seen most of the biggies...I had seen the Stones, Zeppelin, Elvis Presley, Bowie, Elton John, Iggy and the Stooges, Mott the Hoople, Curtis Mayfield, Alice Cooper, Stevie Wonder, Who, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Yes, Joni Mitchell, and a few others. Jimi, Janis, and the Doors were dead...and so, for all intents and purposes, were the Beatles and the Velvet Underground. Lou Reed, Neil Young, and Bob Dylan were the last remaining legends from the '60s that I had not been able to see in concert.

So, when after 8 long years of haitus after his near-fatal motorcycle crash Bob Dylan announced his 1974 tour with The Band, all manner of hysteria promptly broke out. By now, Bob Dylan seemed more like a ghost to me than a real person. So mysterious...so elusive. Even his voice was hard to pin down, it kept changing. I definitely preferred his '60s albums to what I had heard lately from him: "Self Portrait", "Dylan", "Planet Waves". Only "Forever Young" and some of the Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid soundtrack stuff registered with me as being on a par with his earlier songs.

Still, it was BOB DYLAN...and with The Band!

I cannot remember exactly how or when tickets went on sale...I think it might have been that infernal lottery system, where you send in your ticket application in the mail and hope you get tickets mailed back. All I know is that somehow my 6th grade teacher (who I was living with at the time, my stepmom having kicked me out) surprised me with tickets to the February 14 evening show at the Forum. Either he was lucky or he got them through a ticket broker/scalper.

Dylan played the Forum on February 13, and two shows (afternoon and evening) on February 14...Wednesday and Thursday nights...and since the Forum was the last stop of the tour, we would be seeing the very last concert, so my expectations were that much higher. Surely, Dylan would pull out all the stops for the last show.

Going by all the previous concerts I had seen, I presumed that The Band would open the show with a set of their songs, then there would be a break and then Bob Dylan would play his headlining set, with The Band backing him of course. There was no internet where you could find out about setlists ahead of time back then, and I don't recall reading the Los Angeles Times Robert Hilburn's take on the tour until after the Forum concert. So I was a little unprepared for the actual format of the concert.

Bob and the Band would come out and play a bunch of Dylan songs...around 6 or 7, I think. Then, the Band would play a few of their songs and Bob would come back out and join them for a few more Dylan songs. Intermission would follow.

After intermission, Bob would come out solo with his acoustic guitar and do 4 or 5 songs...this might have been my favourite part of the night, and judging by the reaction of the Forum crowd that night, I wasn't alone. The Watergate scandal was still going full-steam in February 1974, and when Bob sang the lines in "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" that go "But even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked", I heard one of the loudest roars I have ever heard in a concert. Obviously, this acoustic segment carried more than a little whiff of nostalgia for many people...nostalgia for the folk-singing troubadour Bob of old.

In fact, most of Bob's setlist were songs from the '60s. Only "Forever Young" and "Knocking on Heaven's Door" were from any of his more recent albums.

After the acoustic bit, the Band would come out and sing more of their songs, ending their final segment with "The Weight". Finally, the more than two-hour concert would close with Dylan and the Band on the warhorses: "Highway 61 Revisited" and "Like a Rolling Stone". The encore was "Maggie's Farm" and after bringing Bill Graham on stage and thanking him, the show ended after midnight with a rock arrangement of "Blowin' in the Wind". Over 30 songs total were played that night.

This was my first Bob Dylan concert (and my first and only The Band show), and the first thing I noticed was how different Bob's voice was...not only different from his classic '60s albums, but also different from the post-motorcycle crash albums. It was like three degrees of Bob Dylan. He was barking, shouting, emphasizing at odd words in the lyrics...it was kind of disorienting at first, until I adjusted and got used to the intensity. To be honest, some songs suffered from this type of attack. "Lay Lady Lay" and "Just Like a Woman" are two songs that I remember not liking that much at the concert. Some of the arrangements and tempos seemed a bit rushed to me, as well, as if they couldn't wait to get through with the song and/or the concert. I was also sort of bummed that he didn't do "Positively 4th St.", "Visions of Johanna", or "Desolation Row", which were particular favourites of mine.

Of course, a lifetime of going to Bob Dylan concerts has proven that frustration and confusion are often emotions that come with going to a Bob Dylan show. He is never going to meet the audience's expectations, whatever they are...he always manages to throw a wrinkle or two to keep the audience guessing.

Still, whatever disappointments I felt at the time were still outweighed by the sheer thrill of seeing THE Bob Dylan in person, on stage, singing so many of my favourite songs of his. I didn't realize until many years later that he sang some songs at the Forum that night that he didn't do at other nights of the tour..."Mr. Tambourine Man", "Gates of Eden", "Maggie's Farm". The crowd at the Forum that night also made the concert a memorable one. It's one of the most geeked-up, excited concert crowds I have ever been a part of...the tension and anticipation was so thick, as thick as the periodic clouds of marijuana smoke wafting over the crowd.

The concert gave me a new appreciation for The Band, too. Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson, and especially, the stinging guitar of Robbie Robertson.

I never saw The Band again, and while I did see Dylan many times over the years, each show was progressively worse than this one. Only in the mid-90's did he somewhat right the ship and start playing some memorable(for the right reasons) shows again. FYI, some of this Forum concert ended up on the official "Before the Flood" release. If you look at the center spread booklet photo that comes with the remastered cd release, my seat was right around where Bob Dylan's left hand is, back in the farthest reaches of the Forum.

[Led Dirigible]

Great post as always, Strider! Thank you for taking your time to share your stories with us; they really add a lot to the forum. Nice avatar, by the way.

[in_the_evening]

The first time I saw Bob was probably 1993 or so, it was in Beverly MA on a college campus (Endicott) under a big tent....

Bob was good, but like Strider says, he has a tendency to change things up every night. I became a fairly large Dylan bootleg collecter, and the setlists were never the same from night to night. He would have a core of songs, so 12 songs would stay the same, but he would mix in four new ones in each setlist....always in the same positions (so songs 2, 5,9, and 12 for example would be diff each night). For most of the early 90s, I remember song 3 was always "All Along the Watchtower" and the closing song was always "It Ain't Me Babe".

I remember the show and sometimes he would be almost done the song before I realized what the song was. He would speed up ballads and turn them into rock and roll numbers and do the opposite to other songs. On one of his live CDs (Real Live) he does Tangled Up in Blue with an entirely new set of lyrics, and that is a long song with a lot of words. To do that, get all the syllables matching up and what not, pretty amazing.

Some of his finest material he never officially released until "the Bootleg Series" stuff.

Incredible he still plays to this day as many shows as he does.

[redrum]

One of my faves by him is 'Boots Of Spanish Leather.'

[jb126]

Great posts Strider and in_the_evening. I cannot choose a favorite Dylan tune - too many. Another artist I never got to see in his prime, unfortunately. When people start listing their favorite songs, it reminds me just how many songs I love. A random comment - many years and several dogs ago - my first dog was named Dylan :-).

[redrum]

.

It's a hard seashell.....in the bowl!

[Marmalade_Skies]

Bob Dylan isn't just an artist of a generation.  He's the artist of a lifetime.

[luvlz2]

Bob Dylan Announces 'Travelin' Thru, 1967-1969' Box Set https://ultimateclassicrock.com/bob-dylan-travelin-thru/

 

[luvlz2]

 

[Badgeholder Still]

Another lesson from the master class of badassery.