The first two things I wrote were Guitar Town and Down the Road, because I was looking for an opening and an ending. So I wrote ’em like bookends, and then filled in the spaces in the middle. And the album’s kind of about me. It’s kind of personal.
~Steve Earle (to Alanna Nash – May 1986)
Guitar Town was his first shot at showing a major audience what he could do, and he hit a bull’s-eye — it’s perhaps the strongest and most confident debut album any country act released in the 1980s.
~Mark Deming (allmusic)
Now I wish I could write you a melody so plain
That could hold you dear lady from going insane
That could ease you and cool you and cease the pain
Of your useless and pointless knowledge
Mama’s in the fact’ry
She ain’t got no shoes
Daddy’s in the alley
He’s lookin’ for the fuse
I’m in the streets
With the tombstone blues
–
The Vietnam War was one of the things going through Dylan’s mind when he wrote/sang “Tombstone Blues” (” … fattens the slaves/then sends them out to the jungle”), but one would be hard put to claim the song is about the war. The influence of Depression-era songs like “Wandering” (“Daddy is an engineer/Brother drives a hack/Sister takes in washing/And the baby balls the jack”) can also be spotted, but shall we then say it’s a song about the “new Depression”?
~Paul Williams (Bob Dylan Performing Artist I: The Early Years 1960-1973)
… the star of this show is [Mike] Bloomfield, whose between-verse solos build from heated to blistering, jackrabbiting helter-skelter over the fretboard, anticipating and pointing the way to Alvin Lee, Johnny Winter, and any other late-sixties guitarist who took blues riffs and fed them uppers. It is practically the only time on the album that he’ll get to shine like this. [..] Bloomfield uses his axe like a flamethrower, spewing liquid fire over the space between the vocals, he and Dylan marauding the tune like twin Gypsy Davies burning out the camps, leaving only scorched earth. Take him away and the song remains lyrically strong but musically weakened, its engine a few cylinders short.
~Mark Polizzotti (Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited (33 1/3))
My favourite Bob Dylan bootleg 1995: Prague 3 nights in March
“Anyone who has watched a sunrise over the ancient city of Prague will feel they have visited a city of magic & wonder. Anyone who has heard Dylan’s performance on the 11th will have felt a similar sense of awe”
~Andrew Muir (One More Night: Bob Dylan’s Never Ending Tour)
The first leg of the Europe 1995 tour picks up the NET after the MTV Unplugged sessions in November, 1994 and a three-month break from performing live. Dylan played two months in Europe in 95. He began with three shows in Prague and ended on April 11 in Dublin. Dylan returned for a second leg with a month in Europe in the summer of 1995.
Right before the Prague dates Dylan came down with the flu, this meant that all three to be pushed back one night. Dylan did these shows without playing guitar but focusing on singing and on the harp.
Usually the show at the 11th gets picked as the best of the three Prague shows, I don’t think it’s that simple. There are lots of bootlegs that has songs from these three incredible nights. Many collectors place these Prague shows among the very best Dylan ever performed. All three are legendary performances. I’m hard pressed to pick one so I’ll recommend a few boots.
Bob Dylan sang in a style that reminds me of crooning these nights and maybe this gave him the idea of making an album with Frank Sinatra songs.
Classic concert: Jan Garbarek live Wackerhalle Berghausen 2006 – Happy birthday
Jan Garbarek (born 4 March 1947) is a Norwegian tenor and soprano saxophonist, active in the jazz, classical, and world music genres. Garbarek was born in Mysen, Norway, the only child of a former Polish prisoner of war Czesław Garbarek and a Norwegian farmer’s daughter. Effectively stateless until the age of seven (there was no automatic grant of citizenship in Norway at that time) Garbarek grew up in Oslo. At 21, he married Vigdis. He is the father of musician and composer Anja Garbarek.
Happy Birthday Jan Garbarek!
The band:
Jan Garbarek: Saxes
Eberhard Weber: Bass
Rainer Brüninghaus: Keyboards
Manu Katche: Drums/Percussion
Bobby Womack sings All Along the Watchtower by Bob Dylan
Facts Of Life is a 1973 R&B album recorded by Bobby Womack. for United Artists Records.
Released in June 8, 1973, it raced to No. 6 on the Billboard R&B Charts. It also charted at No. 37 on the Billboard U.S. Pop Charts. The album included the hit single “Nobody Wants You When You’re Down and Out” (which charted No. 2 on the Billboard R&B Singles chart).
It also included a very good cover version of Bob Dylan’s All Along The Watchtower:
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