October 20: Tom Petty Birthday – Bob Dylan & Tom Petty Singing Together & Covering Each Other

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I remember playing shows [with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers in the ‘80s] and looking out.. I didn’t have that many fans coming to see me,they were coming to see Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers.
~Bob Dylan (to Robert Hilburn, December 1997)

Thomas Earl Petty (October 20, 1950 – October 2, 2017) was an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, and actor. He was the lead singer of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, formed in 1976. He previously led the band Mudcrutch. He was also a member of the late 1980s supergroup the Traveling Wilburys.

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October 19: Bob Dylan Concert @ Radio City Music Hall 1988 (audio)

As with much of the late 80’s, Dylan’s vocals are intense and powerful. The three piece band led by GE Smith is raw and energetic. .. The performance is marvelous. Dylan takes a huge bite out of the Big Apple from Radio City. Coincidentally, Warner Brothers released the incredible ‘Traveling Wilburys Vol.1″ while Dylan was playing in this ‘showplace of the nation’. This might have lent a hand to a little extra sparkle and drive to be found in this tour de force.
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Great concert from part 3 of the Interstate 88 tour.

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October 19: Bob Dylan released New Morning in 1970 – 49 years ago

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..Well, there were two good songs on S. P., DAYS OF FORTY-NINE and COPPER KETTLE… and without those two LPs there’d be no New Morning. Anyway I’m just starting to get back on my feet as far as my music goes… Al, do you use amphetamine?
~Bob Dylan (A.J. Weberman Interview, Jan 1971)

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)

The album has a feeling of”starting over” about it, as the title and the back cover photo (Dylan with blues singer Victoria Spivey in 1961-he looks very young) both suggest.
~Paul Williams (Bob Dylan Performing Artist I: The Early Years 1960-1973)

The Man in Me:

From Wikipedia:

Released October 19, 1970
Recorded June–August 1970 at Studio B and Studio E, Columbia Studio Building, 49 East 52nd Street, New York City
Genre Rock, country rock, country
Length 35:21
Label Columbia
Producer Bob Johnston

New Morning is the eleventh studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released in October 1970 by Columbia Records.

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October 17: Bob Dylan first recording session for John Wesley Harding in 1967

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I heard the sound that Gordon Lightfoot was getting, with Charlie McCoy and Kenny Buttrey. I’d used Charlie and Kenny both before, and I figured if he could get that sound, I could…. but we couldn’t get it. (Laughs) It was an attempt to get it, but it didn’t come off. We got a different sound… I don’t know what you’d call that… It’s a muffled sound.
~Bob Dylan to Jann Wenner November 29, 1969

52 years ago today Bob Dylan started recording “John Wesley Harding”.

Some background from wikipedia:

Dylan went to work on John Wesley Harding in the fall of 1967. By then, 18 months had passed since the completion of Blonde on Blonde. After recovering from the worst of the results of his motorcycle accident, Dylan spent a substantial amount of time recording the informal basement sessions at West Saugerties, New York; little was heard from him throughout 1967. During that time, he stockpiled a large number of recordings, including many new compositions. He eventually submitted nearly all of them for copyright, but declined to include any of them in his next studio release (Dylan would not release any of those recordings to the commercial market until 1975’s The Basement Tapes; and by then, some of those recordings had been bootlegged, usually sourced from an easy-to-find set of publisher’s demos). Instead, Dylan used a different set of songs for John Wesley Harding.

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October 17: Watch Bob Dylan at Guitar Legends, Seville 1991

.. a superb three-song acoustic set. A slightly-at-a-loss Richard Thompson embellishes Dylan’s plaintive singing and light strumming with some virtuoso acoustic guitar work. If ‘Boots of Spanish Leather’  might seem an obvious choice, covers of “Across the borderline’ and ‘Answer Me’ transcend their original selves.
~Clinton Heylin (A Life of Stolen Moments)

Guitar Legends was a concert held over five nights, from October 15 to October 19, 1991, in SevilleSpain, with the aim of positioning the city as an entertainment destination to draw support for Expo ’92 beginning the following April.

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