On June 5, 1965, Joan Baez played a special concert at the BBC Television Theatre in Shepherd’s Bush, London. This is Joan Baez in her prime. The show was recorded less than a month after Dylan’s 1965 tour of England, depicted in Pennebaker’s film Don’t Look Back, in which Dylan failed to invite Baez onstage despite the fact that she had introduced him to national audiences in America.
Continue reading Video of the day: Joan Baez live at the BBC 1965
Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child’s balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying
Town Hall
Birmingham, England
5 May 1965
Bob Dylan (guitar, harmonica & vocal)
Continue reading Bob Dylan plays “It’s Alright, Ma” @ Birmingham, England 5 May 1965 (video)
…
BD: Well, I don’t like to listen to too much country and western people. I like to listen to some of their songs…
NH: Yeah.
BD: …that they sing. But I get, oh, monotonized by listening to too many. I like Buck Owens’ songs, he’s alright. And Hank Williams and Joe Williams. There all the time, easily, you can make some sort of sound.
NH: Mm.
BD: But the other people are just the songs they sing. I think.
NH: How about in the rhythm and blues and rock n’ roll fields? Who do you especially, you know… who strikes you especially?
BD: Oh, you mean just name a name?
NH: Sure, just, you know, if you’re… almost like free association… if you’re thinking in terms of just pleasure in listening, who would you think of?
BD: I’d listen to all the Motown records. I listen to Wilson Pickett. Otis Redding, I guess. Charlie Rich.
…
Autumn 1965
Nat Hentoff (The Playboy) Interview
The Original Unpublished Version, New York City, New York
There are two versions of this interview, the original version which you’ll find on tape and the
published version which appeared in Playboy in March 1966. To call them versions ignores the
fact that they are totally different interviews.
~Every Mind Polluting Word
Continue reading Bob Dylan: Nat Hentoff (The unpublished Playboy) Interview, Autum 1965 (audio)
You got a lotta nerve
To say you are my friend
When I was down
You just stood there grinning–
… I was gonna put Positively 4th Street on the other side, but, uh… I didn’t figure anybody could understand it so…
~Bob Dylan (Bob Fass/WBAI Interview, 26 Jan 1966)Outside of a song like Positively 4th Street, which is extremely one-dimensional, which I like, I don’t usually purge myself by writing anything about any type of quote, so-called,
relationships. I don’t have the kinds of relationships that are built on any kind of false pretense, not to say that I haven’t.
~Bob Dylan (Scott Cohen, Sept 1985)
This masterpiece would have fitted nicely on “Highway 61 Revisited”.. where it did belong.
original version:
Continue reading Bob Dylan’s best songs: Positively 4th Street #13 (Audio & Video)
The performances are fairly routine, uninspired, with the exception of “One Too Many Mornings” which is fresh and passionate. Dylan must have really felt a thousand miles behind by
this point.
In hindsight, the BBC-TV filming was the last stand of Bob Dylan, folk star. When he arrived back in the States the Byrds’ version of “Mr. Tambourine Man” was at the top of the charts. Dylan immediately purged himself of whatever he’d been through in Britain by writing six pages of “vomitific” prose. He was done with his acoustic songwriter identity. He turned the prose into a song, rounded up a new batch of musicians, and on June. 15, 1965, went into Columbia Studio A in New York City and recorded “Like a Rolling Stone.”
~Paul Williams (Bob Dylan Performing Artist I: The Early Years 1960-1973)
BBC Studios
London England
1 June 1965
Continue reading Bob Dylan: BBC Studios, London England 1 June 1965