Continue reading August 13: Great Concert – Bob Dylan in Ottawa, Canada 2002 (audio)
This is a quirky album, from a Dylan not pointing a way for anyone, but from a great artist remaining at his work knowingly in the face of not being creatively on top form in the phenomenal way he had been in the period 1964–68.Warm and abiding, it sounds better and better as the years go by.
~Michael Gray (The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia)
| Wikipedia: Dylan ultimately decided to re-record “If Not for You” and “Time Passes Slowly”, holding one final session on August 12. During that session, he also recorded “Day of the Locusts,” which by now had been finished.For the album’s final sequence, the three August 12 recordings were placed at the beginning of New Morning, while covers of “Ballad of Ira Hayes” and “Mr. Bojangles” were dropped. |
Studio E
Columbia Recording Studios
New York City, New York
12 August 1970
8th and last New Morning recording session, produced by Bob Johnston.
Continue reading August 12: Bob Dylan The Last New Morning recording session 1970
I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn, there’s someone there, other times it’s only me
I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man
Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand
Shot of Love is Bob Dylan’s 21st studio album, it was released by Columbia Records in August 1981.
It is generally considered to be Dylan’s last of a trilogy of overtly religious, Christian albums. Also, it was his first since becoming born-again to focus on secular themes, from straight-ahead love songs to an ode to the deceased comedian Lenny Bruce. Arrangements are rooted more in rock’n’roll, less in gospel than on Dylan’s previous two albums. So maybe it is more of a new start than a gospel-tinged end?
Continue reading August 10: Bob Dylan released the album Shot of Love in 1981
“Dylan has invented himself. He’s made himself up from scratch. That is, from the things he had around him and inside him. Dylan is an invention of his own mind. The point isn’t to figure him out but to take him in. He gets into you anyway, so why not just take him in? He’s not the first one to have invented himself, but he’s the first one to have invented Dylan.”
– Sam Shepard (Rolling Thunder logbook)
Sam Shepard, was an American playwright, actor, author, screenwriter, and director, whose body of work spanned over half a century. He was the author of forty-four plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs. Shepard received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of pilot Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff (1983). Shepard received the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award as a master American dramatist in 2009. New York described him as “the greatest American playwright of his generation.” Continue reading Rest In Peace Bob Dylan collaborator Sam Shepard, he died July 27
Heart of mine be still
You can play with fire but you’ll get the bill
Don’t let her know
Don’t let her know that you love her
Don’t be a fool, don’t be blind
Heart of mine
–
Palace des Sports
Avignon, France
25 July 1981
Continue reading July 25: Bob Dylan Heart Of Mine, Avignon, France 1981