Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan Concerts, Bob Dylan video

Bob Dylan: Rotterdam – September 10, 1987

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Bob Dylan & Roger McGuinn - Rotterdam 1987
Bob Dylan & Roger McGuinn – Rotterdam 1987

Three years on, Dylan returns to this relatively intimate venue, and, although the acoustics remain poor, he presents a high-energy show. After concluding the main set with a version of “Slow Train,” he returns with the Heartbreakers and Roger McGuinn (who has opened all the shows) for a fine version of “Chimes of Freedom,” Dylan singing the first and last verses, and Mr. McGuinn the second. The second encore is “Gotta Serve Somebody.”
~Clinton Heylin (Bob Dylan: A Life in Stolen Moments Day by Day 1941-1995)

Sportpaleis Ahoy
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
19 September 1987

  • Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar) with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.
  • Tom Petty (guitar)
  • Mike Campbell (guitar)
  • Benmont Tench (keyboards)
  • Howie Epstein (bass)
  • Stan Lynch (drums)
  • The Queens Of Rhythm: Carolyn Dennis, Queen Esther Marrow, Madelyn Quebec (backing vocals)

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Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan other, Cover versions, My Morning Jacket, Sound

Calexico and Jim James Going to Acapulco


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Calexico and Jim James – Going To Acapulco

Calexico have some very fine Dylan covers. Sometimes alone and sometimes as a terrific backing band for other great artists. Today we present the collaboration, Going To Acapulco, with Jim James (My Morning jacket) and Calexico from the film, I’m Not There.

I’m Not There is a 2007 biographical musical film directed by Todd Haynes, inspired by the life and music of American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Six actors depict different facets of Dylan’s public personas: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, and Ben Whishaw. At the start of the film, a caption reads: “Inspired by the music and the many lives of Bob Dylan”. Apart from the song credits, this is the only mention of Bob Dylan in the film.

The film tells its story using non-traditional narrative techniques, intercutting the storylines of seven different Dylan-inspired characters. The title of the film is taken from the 1967 Dylan Basement Tape recording of “I’m Not There”, a song that had not been officially released until it appeared on the film’s soundtrack album. The film received a generally favorable response, and appeared on several top ten film lists for 2007, topping the lists for The Village Voice, Entertainment Weekly, Salon andThe Boston Globe. Particular praise went to Cate Blanchett for her performance, culminating in a Volpi Cup from the Venice Film Festival, the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress, along with an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination.

Calexico has several fine collaborations on the soundtrack.

We will start with a wonderful live version from The Newport Folk Festival in 2008.

Going To Acapulco – Calexico and Jim James (Live, August 3, 2008, Newport Folk Festival):

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Bob Dylan books, Sound

Dylan author and political activist Mike Marqusee died Jan 13 R.I.P.

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Mike-Marqusee-001

Dylan author and political activist Mike Marqusee died Jan 13 R.I.P.

Mike Marqusee  (October 26, 1953 – January 13, 2015) was an American writer, journalist and political activist in London. 

Marqusee, who described himself as a “deracinated New York Marxist Jew” had lived in Britain since 1971. He wrote mainly about politics, popular culture, the Indian sub-continent andcricket, and was a regular correspondent for, among others, The Guardian, Red Pepper and The Hindu. After he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2007, he wrote extensively on health issues, and in defence of the National Health Service. His book The Price of Experience: Writings on Living with Cancer was published in 2014.

He wrote the Bob Dylan books:
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Blues, folk, Gospel, Jazz, Soul, The Best Songs, Van Morrison, Video

The Best Songs: Sometimes I feel like a motherless child


The Negro spiritual, Motherless Child Blues is a Negro Spiritual that turned into “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” (or simply “Motherless Child”) .

The song dates back to the era of slavery in the United States when it was common practice to sell children of slaves away from their parents. An early performance of the song dates back as far as the 1870s by the Fisk Jubilee Singers. Like many traditional songs, it has many variations and has been recorded many times.

The song is clearly an expression of pain and despair as it conveys the hopelessness of a child who has been torn from his or her parents. Under one interpretation, the repetitive singing of the word “sometimes” offers a measure of hope, as it suggests that at least “sometimes” I do not feel like a motherless child.

Although the plaintive words can be interpreted literally, they were much more likely metaphoric. The “motherless child” could be a slave separated from and yearning for his African homeland, a slave suffering “a long ways from home”—home being heaven—or most likely both. (- wikipedia)

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Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan recording sessions

50 years ago: Bob Dylan – The first recording session for “Bringing It All Back Home”

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Bob Dylan - bringing it all back home

I never wanted to write topical songs,…. Have you heard my last two records, Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61? It’s all there. That’s the real Dylan.
~Bob Dylan (Frances Taylor Interview, Aug. 1965)

50 years ago – 13 January 1965 – Bob Dylan entered Studio A, Columbia Recording Studios, NYC for the first of three seminal days in the studio… It was time to show the “real” Dylan on record.

Wikipedia:

Bringing It All Back Home is the fifth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released in March 1965 by Columbia Records. The album is divided into an electric and an acoustic side. On side one of the original LP, Dylan is backed by an electric rock and roll band—a move that further alienated him from some of his former peers in the folk song community. Likewise, on the acoustic second side of the album, he distanced himself from the protest songs with which he had become closely identified (such as “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall”), as his lyrics continued their trend towards the abstract and personal.

The album reached No. 6 on Billboard’s Pop Albums chart, the first of Dylan’s LPs to break into the US top 10. It also topped the UK charts later that Spring. The lead-off track, “Subterranean Homesick Blues”, became Dylan’s first single to chart in the US, peaking at #39.

bd-65-studio
Photo by Columbia Records photgrapher Don Hunstein

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