“You hear sometimes about the glamour of the road, but you get over that real fast. There are a lot of times that it’s no different from going to work in the morning. Still, you’re either a player or you’re not a player. It didn’t really occur to me until we did those shows with the Grateful Dead [in 1987].
~Bob Dylan (to Robert Hilburn, Feb 1992)
As you get older, you get smarter and that can hinder you because you try to gain control over the creative impulse. Creativity is not like a freight train going down the tracks. It’s something that has to be caressed and treated with a great deal of respect. If your mind is intellectually in the way, it will stop you. You’ve got to program your brain not to think too much.
~Bob Dylan (Edna Gundersen Interview – May 1995)
Ok, here are some of our videos (& some audios) from the archives.
Highlights: Bob’s harp playing, improved out of sight since last tour’s tentative efforts. The Wicked Messenger – absolutely searing rendition, I thought Patti’s version was good, but this took it to another level.
Standing in the Doorway, one of my absolute favourites,
starts beautifully and would have been a highlight, but lost it’s way lyrically – oh well! maybe next time. Watchtower and Hwy61 – simply smokin’ Desolation Row and Visions in the one show!
-Sue (boblinks.com)
Perth Entertainment Center
Perth, West Australia, Australia
18 March 2001
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar)
Charlie Sexton (guitar)
Larry Campbell (guitar, mandolin, pedal steel guitar & electric slide guitar)
MB: Do you consider yourself a poet or a songwriter?
BD: I don’t consider myself either one of those two things. I did when I first heard the words, you know, of course – “songwriter” – you hear that when you’re very young. “Poet,” I never heard that word really. I never really could think of myself as such until I came to New York and then for a while I did think I was a poet, but I don’t consider myself anymore from seeing all the rest of the people who’re called poets too and I just don’t like to refer to myself as a poet because it puts you in a category with a lot of funny people, you know
Place Des Arts
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
20 February 1966
Released in the UK on ON THE CREST OF THE AIRWAVES VOLUME ONE, Music Melon MMLTDBOX12, 13 February 2012.
Released on The Classic Interviews 1965-1966, Chrome Dreams CIS2003, 19 May 2003.
Oh all the money that in my whole life I did spend
Be it mine right or wrongfully
I let it slip gladly past the hands of my friends
To tie up the time most forcefully
But the bottles are done
We’ve killed each one
And the table’s full and overflowed
And the corner sign
Says it’s closing time
So I’ll bid farewell and be down the road
–
Dylan is part of an all-star cast who have convened at the Shrine to celebrate Frank Sinatra’s eightieth birthday. While cameras roll and Sinatra is seated in A 18, DyIan unveils a remarkable version of” Restless Farewell,” all five verses sung with a nervy precision, accompanied by his usual musical misfits and a string quartet. The whole thing is actually rather moving, as is Sinatra’s seemingly genuine enthusiasm for the performance, which is subsequently broadcast on cable TV.
~Clinton Heylin (Bob Dylan: A Life in Stolen Moments Day by Day 1941-1995)
Shrine Auditorium Los Angeles, California 19 November 1995 Frank Sinatra 80th Birthday Tribute
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar)
Bucky Baxter (pedal steel guitar & electric slide guitar)
John Jackson (guitar)
Tony Garnier (bass)
Winston Watson (drums & percussion)
….. and a string quartet with unidentified musicians
“…his fall 1979 concerts. “What Can I Do For You?”, “Solid Rock”, “Saving Grace”, “Covenant Woman” and “In The Garden” as performed at these shows are some of the finest work in Dylan’s oeuvre, but you’d never know that from listening to “Saved”, the 1980 studio album that features these compositions.
…….you’re awareness and appreciation of Dylan’s greatness is incomplete until you hear these songs (and “When He Returns”) as performed live in the fall of 1979..
~Paul Williams (Bob Dylan: Performing Artist, Vol 2: The Middle Years 1974-1986)
“….this gospel show explodes with vocal passion to be found in few other Dylan periods.”
~bobsboots.com
The November shows @ Warfield in 1979 are by many fans (& collectors) considered to be the highlight of the “Gospel Tours”. Nov 6,7,11 & 16 are the shows I’ve been listening to…. and Nov 16 is my personal favorite. It is an amazing concert… … it’s actually one of my absolute fav Dylan concerts, top 10 for sure.
Fox Warfield Theatre San Francisco, California 16 November 1979
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar)
Fred Tackett (guitar)
Spooner Oldham (keyboards)
Tim Drummond (bass)
Terry Young (keyboards)
Jim Keltner (drums)
Regina Havis , Helena Springs , Mona Lisa Young (background vocals)
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