Bob Dylan: a year has gone – month by month since May 2014
We’ve had a great Bob Dylan year and it is time to look at some of the highlights. We have posted almost more than 600 (closer to 700) posts about Bob Dylan, so, it has been hard to distill this into one or two highlights per month from the last year (from May 24 2014 to May 24 2015).
May 2014:
Bob Dylan celebrated his 73rd birthday!
A very interesting book was reviewed with mind maps here at alldylan.com:
Down The Tracks: Bob Dylan and the Music That Influenced Him (documentary)
Just as Bob Dylan has inspired four decades of musicians, so too was his own musical style influenced by those who came before him. This documentary profiles the folk performers who had the greatest impact on Dylan’s early career. Leadbelly, Pete Seeger, Mississippi John Hurt and other musicians appear in vintage clips, while special focus is given to Woody Guthrie, whose bond with Dylan is reflected in nearly all of Dylan’s music.
While there isn’t a note of Bob Dylan singing in this documentary from 2008, it is still a very worthwhile watch. It gives us a depiction of what influenced Bob Dylan as he grew into the greatest songwriter of all time. There are great and rare clips of Pete Seeger, Leadbelly and many more.
A very interesting addition to all the films about Dylan and the music that influenced (and still influences) him.
10 Good cover versions of Bob Dylan’s Christian songs
I love the “Christian period” in Dylan’s career, always have. In the beginning I felt quite alone in my belief in Dylan, but now he is finally getting recognised for his faith-based songs. The Bob Dylan records from that period are so much better than the critics at the time wrote, they were simply too shocked by his conversion to see the beauty in the songs. I have to say that not all critics were harsh, some recognised quality.
And so what if he’s taken up with the God of Wrath? Since when have you been so crazy about the God of Love? Or any other species of hippie bullshit?
– Robert Christgau
First his live shows from these years got well deserved praise and now finally the albums. They might not be among his best by Dylan’s standard, but by anyone else’s they’re actually quite decent!
Here are evidence that the songs are solid Bob Dylan compositions. I have tried not to only include gospel choirs, there are a lot of performances I could have chosen, but instead I’ve tried to show how the songs work in different styles.
May 21: American Masters – Marvin Gaye What’s Going On (documentary)
Marvin Gaye released What’s going on May 21, 1971, we present a great documentary about the album.
Marvin Gaye is one of the great and enduring figures of soul music, but his life was one of sexual confusion, bittersweet success and ultimately death by the hand of his own father.
Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. (April 2, 1939 — April 1, 1984), better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye, was an American singer-songwriter and musician with a four-octave vocal range. Starting as a member of the doo-wop group The Moonglows in the late fifties, he ventured into a solo career after the group disbanded in 1960 signing with the Tamla Records subsidiary of Motown Records. After starting off as a session drummer, Gaye ranked as the label’s top-selling solo artist during the sixties.
Because of solo hits such as “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)”, “Ain’t That Peculiar”, “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” and his duet singles with singers such as Mary Wells and Tammi Terrell, he was crowned “The Prince of Motown” and “The Prince of Soul”.
His work in the early and mid-1970s, including the albums What’s Going On, Let’s Get It On, and I Want You, helped influence the quiet storm, urban adult contemporary, and slow jam genres. After a self-imposed European exile in the early eighties, Gaye returned on the 1982 Grammy-Award winning hit, “Sexual Healing” and the Midnight Love album before his death. Gaye was shot dead by his father on April 1, 1984. He was posthumously inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.
In 2008, the American music magazine Rolling Stone ranked Gaye at number 6 on its list of The Greatest Singers of All Time, and ranked at number 18 on 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
This fine documentary is directed by Samuel D. Pollard, also an editor and producer, known for 25th Hour (2002), 4 Little Girls(1997) and When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2006). Including interviews with the singer’s family, friends and musical colleagues.
High water risin’—risin’ night and day All the gold and silver are bein’ stolen away Big Joe Turner lookin’ east and west From the dark room of his mind He made it to Kansas City Twelfth Street and Vine Nothin’ standing there High water everywhere
– Bob Dylan (High Water (for Charley Patton)
The premier blues shouter of the postwar era, Big Joe Turner’s roar could rattle the very foundation of any gin joint he sang within — and that’s without a microphone. Turner was a resilient figure in the history of blues — he effortlessly spanned boogie-woogie, jump blues, even the first wave of rock & roll, enjoying great success in each genre.
~Bill Dahl (allmusic.com)
