Tag Archives: MTV Unplugged

Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan Concerts, Bob Dylan video, Film, Live, Music Calendar

November 18: Bob Dylan second MTV unplugged session 1994 (videos)

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bob dylan mtv unplugged

I wasn’t quite sure how to do it and what material to use. I would have liked to do old folk songs with acoustic instruments, but there was a lot of input from other sources as to what would be right for the MTV audience. The record company said, “You can’t do that, it’s too obscure.” At one time, I would have argued, but there’s no point. OK, so what’s not obscure? They said Knockin’ on Heaven ‘s Door.
~Bob Dylan (to Edna Gundersen May 1995)

Knocking on Heaven’s Door:

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Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan Concerts, Bob Dylan video

November 15 and 16: Bob Dylan Camera rehearsals for MTV Unplugged taping sessions 1994 (Videos)

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bob dylan mtv rehearsals

Sony Music Studios
New York City, New York
15–16 November 1994
Camera rehearsals for MTV Unplugged taping sessions

  • Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar)
  • Bucky Baxter (pedal steel guitar & electric slide guitar)
  • John Jackson (guitar)
  • Brendan O’Brien (keyboards & guitar)
  • Tony Garnier (bass)
  • Winston Watson (drums & percussion)

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  1. I Want You
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Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan albums

May 2: Bob Dylan MTV Unplugged released in 1995

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bob dylan mtv unplugged

 

May 2: Bob Dylan MTV Unplugged released in 1995

I wasn’t quite sure how to do it and what material to use. I would have liked to do old folk songs with acoustic instruments, but there was a lot of input from other sources as to what would be right for the MTV audience. The record company said, “You can’t do that, it’s too obscure.”
~Bob Dylan (to Edna Gundersen May 1995)

Knocking on Heaven’s Door:

Continue reading May 2: Bob Dylan MTV Unplugged released in 1995 →

Bob Dylan, Bob Dylans's best songs, The Best Songs

Bob Dylan’s best songs: Dignity

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bob dylan dignity

Of the virtues, I suppose I think integrity is the most essential. Not dignity – a thief can have dignity.
~Bob Dylan (to Barbara Kerr, Feb 1978)
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‘Dignity’, which describes so resourcefully the yearning for a more dignified world, would have been the album’s [Oh Mercy] ideal opening track. It scorches along musically, declaring its allegiance to the timeless appeal of the blues, while sounding, above all things, fresh. Its lyric, meanwhile, though ‘Dylanesque’ in that it sounds like no-one else’s work and sounds like a restrained, mature revisit to a mode of writing you might otherwise call mid-1960s Dylan, is fully alert and freshly itself, admits of no leaning on laurels, and has the great virtue that while not every line can claim the workaday clarity of instructional prose, the song is accessible to anyone who cares to listen, and offers a clear theme, beautifully explored, with which anyone can readily identify.
~Michael Gray (The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia)

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@ #43 on my list of Dylan’s 200 best songs. It was originally recorded for “Oh Mercy” in 1989, but Dylan wasn’t satisfied with it… and left it. Michael Gray points out that it would have been a perfect opening track to the album… way better than “Political World”… only thing missing was an instrumental solo in the middle.

I will not mess with too many details around the songs recording history.. even Clinton Heylin calls Dignity’s recording history a bit… messy….

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Officially we now have 5 different versions available:

# released Album
1 1994 Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits Volume 3
Brendan O’Brien remixed version
2 1995 MTV Unplugged
Live version
3 2000 The Best of Bob Dylan, Vol. 2
Touched By An Angel version*
4 2008 The Bootleg Series Vol. 8
Piano demo version
 5 2008 The Bootleg Series Vol. 8
Tell Tale Signs version2

* First released on the album “Touched By An Angel: The Album” – TV Series soundtrack compilation (1998)

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Music Calendar

May 02 in music history

Bob Dylan released “MTV Unplugged” 2 May 1995 (read more)

I wasn’t quite sure how to do it and what material to use. I would have liked to do old folk songs with acoustic instruments, but there was a lot of input from other sources as to what would be right for the MTV audience. The record company said, “You can’t do that, it’s too obscure.”
~Bob Dylan (to Edna Gundersen May 1995)

 bob dylan mtv unplugged
Bob Dylan: 3rd Slow Train Coming Recording Session 2 May 1979 (read more)

When I walk around some of the towns we go to, however, I’m totally convinced people need Jesus. Look at the junkies and the winos and the troubled people. It’s all a sickness which can be healed in an instant. The powers that be won’t let that happen. The powers that be say it has to be healed politically.
~Bob Dylan (to Robert Hilburn – Nov 1980)

 bob dylan slow train coming
 Bob Henrit (born Robert John Henrit, 2 May 1944, Broxbourne, Hertfordshire) is an English drummer who has been a member of several musical groups, including Buster Meikle & The Daybreakers, The Hunters, Unit 4 + 2, The Roulettes, Argent and The Kinks.  Bob+Henrit
 Goldy McJohn (born John Raymond Goadsby on May 2, 1945) is a Canadian keyboard player best known as the original keyboardist for rock group Steppenwolf. Originally a classically trained pianist, he was a pioneer in the early use of the electronic organ in heavy metal. He is an avid golfer.  goldy-mcjohn

Spotify Playlist – May 02