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Wednesday, 08 September 2010 07:19 pm

i've lost my harmonica, albert?

Posted by jackobob 
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Re: where's my harmonica, albert?

October 23, 2008 04:00PM
good one richie. i was actually thirty minutes in when i made the above comment.

i was finding it very interesting and then i had to leave to go out. i will return it to it shortly.

thanks for putting it up.



edited to add.

most interesting. thanks again.

http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a102/jackobob/bob/th_bobmybird2.jpg



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/24/2008 04:21AM by jackobob.
Re: where's my harmonica, albert?

November 14, 2008 09:27AM
Re: where's my harmonica, albert?

December 02, 2008 12:22AM
fred tackett interview about dylan's gospel period (from 2.28)



http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a102/jackobob/bob/th_bobmybird2.jpg
Re: where's my harmonica, albert?

December 05, 2008 11:02PM
[www.pbs.org]

http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/images/a/6558.jpg

Tavis: When I say Bob Dylan, what comes to mind?

Odetta: Well, I have to thank him for his popularity, and I do appreciate that he has honored me by saying that there was something of whatever it was I was doing that helped him pursue his own path. And because of it, I'm more known than if he had not come along.

I don't know, if I were striped and maybe another color, my name might even be further out there than it is now. But because of Bob Dylan, my name is out there somewhat, you know. It's almost - I keep thinking of the Great White Hope, and for the community or someone out of the community to do something and then there's an invitation of what that person is doing, and then the invitation is the one that is spotlighted.

Tavis: I know of which you speak, which raises this question: Whether or not there is ever cause or occasion for you to be bitter, angry, upset, have angst - you pick a word if it applies at all - about the fact that, as much as you are out there, you are not out there more because of these external factors.

Odetta: I think I go two ways on that. There's some times that I resent, but then I see how the media treats those who are terribly popular and famous and I'm very happy. (Laughter)

Tavis: I don't want none of that.

Odetta: I'm very happy they're not up in my face.

Tavis: That is a brilliant answer - I've never heard it quite put that way. So when you get resentful, you just kind of think about all that hell they catch. "No, I think I'm okay right where I am."

Odetta: Exactly.

http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a102/jackobob/bob/th_bobmybird2.jpg
Re: where's my harmonica, albert?

January 27, 2009 04:32AM
part of a bbc interview with leonard cohen.

the hallelujah / i and i story is at 6:35



http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a102/jackobob/bob/th_bobmybird2.jpg
Re: where's my harmonica, albert?

January 28, 2009 11:04AM
Re: where's my harmonica, albert?

January 28, 2009 11:17AM
just sayin' that the other day about Blood on the Tracks.

just ask j-w

Johnny we hardly knew ye

ta jackobob
Re: where's my harmonica, albert?

January 28, 2009 11:33AM
johnny on bobby

part one

the above post was part two

http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a102/jackobob/bob/th_bobmybird2.jpg
Re: where's my harmonica, albert?

January 28, 2009 12:04PM
yes, I never did understand why part one had to come first
Re: where's my harmonica, albert?

January 28, 2009 05:05PM
Quote:
Richard
yes, I never did understand why part one had to come first
In my lavatorial experiences number two sometimes does come before or during a late number one.
Re: where's my harmonica, albert?

January 28, 2009 06:23PM
i have a great joke, told to me by Dave Van Ronk. I will have to record it and post it. I'm sure many are waiting. many
Re: where's my harmonica, albert?

January 29, 2009 06:00AM
Quote:
Richard
i have a great joke, told to me by Dave Van Ronk. I will have to record it and post it. I'm sure many are waiting. many


No, but we are waiting for the end of this sentence...
Re: where's my harmonica, albert?

January 29, 2009 08:25AM
life sentence
Re: where's my harmonica, albert?

January 29, 2009 12:16PM
get in that recording studio, richard, and start taping that joke.

and it better be good.

http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a102/jackobob/bob/th_bobmybird2.jpg
Re: where's my harmonica, albert?

March 18, 2009 06:13AM
[www.charlierose.com]

charlie rose talking to bill flanagan

the dylan content is from 11 mins.

http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a102/jackobob/bob/th_bobmybird2.jpg
Re: where's my harmonica, albert?

March 18, 2009 10:32AM
Thats a great piece of film.I like both the guys but now I'm going to hunt down Flannigan books.thanks Jackobob.
Re: where's my harmonica, albert?

April 25, 2009 09:24AM
Dave Berry
Singer (and human sloth)

I started listening to Dylan in the early sixties when the first album came out. It was quite different
to anything else I had heard. I was fortunate to see him in 1966 at the Gaumont. They used to
have gigs on Sundays because the cinema was closed. It was cool to boo Bob Dylan at that time,
but I enjoyed it when he changed style in the mid-sixties.

One of the highlights of my career was when Alan Price talked about my stage act and played the
opening to one of my songs on the Bob Dylan documentary film Don't Look Back. I'm still thrilled
by the same things that thrilled me when I started out.

What makes Dylan special? It's the fact you can't answer that question that makes him special.
He is Bob Dylan, and most of us artists, whether it's the Stones or the Kinks, are in a category,
but Dylan isn't. That's his appeal.

[www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk]

http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a102/jackobob/bob/th_bobmybird2.jpg
Re: where's my harmonica, albert?

April 25, 2009 09:29AM
I used to like him ! (Dave Berry)

When i heard you was cold
I bought you a coat and hat
I think that you
Must've forgotten about that
Re: where's my harmonica, albert?

April 25, 2009 09:40AM
bill, you used to like bob dylan.


grinning smiley

http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a102/jackobob/bob/th_bobmybird2.jpg
Re: where's my harmonica, albert?

April 25, 2009 03:06PM
The leather glove,The Crying Game and Avril Harvey............God so much of my life..........sad.
Re: where's my harmonica, albert?

May 02, 2009 09:48PM
Jackie De Shannon

Jackie De Shannon is one of America's pop's most formidable characters. Born Sharon Lee Myers in Kentucky in 1944, she was singing on the radio at six, and had her own show by 11. At 15, she briefly dated Elvis Presley; at 16, Eddie Cochran convinced her to move to LA to pursue a career; and at 17, she was recording her own singles there, as well as writing hits for Brenda Lee and Helen Shapiro.

"I fought for everything - hard," De Shannon begins. "I may have been this tiny blonde teenager from the midwest, but I always had my bow and arrow with me." However, De Shannon didn't always win her fights. Her biggest regret is failing to convince her record company to let her make an album of Bob Dylan cover versions in 1963. "The first time I saw him, his songs made my hair go up like alfalfa, but my record company thought they'd never catch on." She raises her eyebrows, recalling how Dylan would send her demos by post, and speak to her on the phone. "I've had to live with that - the idea that that album could have been piece of my history, that I was ahead of the curve, and the world hadn't caught up."

[www.guardian.co.uk]

http://www.jackiedeshannon.com/music/breakaway/ace%20cover.jpg

http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a102/jackobob/bob/th_bobmybird2.jpg
Re: where's my harmonica, albert?

May 02, 2009 10:00PM
ian mclagan

When you played with Bob Dylan, did he tell you what he wanted you to play, or were you given carte blanche?

He didn’t want any piano. He wanted organ only. There was only one song that he showed me what he wanted. That was the song about Reagan, “Jokerman.” He just wanted a pad of organ, but big. He didn’t want piano, but eventually Mick Taylor convinced him to get me a piano for rocking stuff like “Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat,” and all that. He didn’t tell me what to do. It was very sparse. I don’t think it was him at his best. I like the band he’s got now. They’re really rocking. It wasn’t particularly happy times for me, frankly. But it was great thrill for me, playing those songs, and playing a lot of songs I never heard before.

[popdose.com]


http://dylanstubs.com/pictures/1984/LA_Rehearsals_1.jpg

http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a102/jackobob/bob/th_bobmybird2.jpg
Re: where's my harmonica, albert?

May 02, 2009 10:13PM
that was an interesting comment in the light of this video:

"I don’t think it was him at his best. I like the band he’s got now. They’re really rocking."



[www.youtube.com]

http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a102/jackobob/bob/th_bobmybird2.jpg
Re: where's my harmonica, albert?

May 18, 2009 08:19PM
bobby vee

[www.goldminemag.com]

That was the art of that period of time, and that’s why all those rockabilly guitar players like the Scotty Moore sort of bits are so hard to reproduce, because it’s the art of finesse. It’s not Eddie Van Halen doing hammer-ons up and down the neck. You’re actually playing single notes and inside the melody. That sort of went out the window with Cream and Hendrix, although Hendrix actually did some of that. People that are learning how to play guitar now aren’t really learning how to play guitar. They’re learning how to tune down to D and playing a big fat chord and let ‘er rip.

BV: There’s a rockabilly movie that’s coming out, and they were looking for songs from the time period. You know if you go into the movies, you hear all the old songs in them — “In The Still Of The Night,” “Only Have Eyes For You.” “Runaway” by Del Shannon has been in several movies. It’s such a big business that they could [afford] $50,000 or $100,000 to get the rights to use them in a movie.

It wasn’t that type of a movie. They didn’t have a budget for that, and the music director for the movie is a friend of my son’s, and he called Tommy and asked him, “Do you have any?” Does your dad have anything that he owns that we could use?”

So I sent him the CD, and he pulled off “Laurie,” which is going to be the re-occurring song in the movie — “Love Must Have Passed Me By,” maybe “Lonely Love” ’cause they wanted that real garage-y sounding thing. And I think he also used “It’s Too Late,” so that was a fun thing, and [the fact] that 40 to 45 years later somebody gets excited about this!

The film is called “The Idol.” It’s interesting. I got one clean copy from Lou Irwin. When the Bob Dylan movie “No Direction Home” came out, they put a little piece of “Suzie Baby” in there. My piece was about 45 seconds, and we made a deal with them in lieu of payment if we could dump it down into the current platform, state-of-the-art copy from film into the digital world. It might be in the package we’re going to be putting out if it doesn’t fit into that plan we’ll do something else with it.

People still haven’t really heard this even though it’s on CD it seems to me. “Lonely Love” and “Love Must have Passed Me By” ... if those two songs had been the A- and B-side of a single at the time, it would be worth $1,000 today. It would be just nuts. Those two songs have every conceivable element that make a record desirable and fun and collectible in this day and age. Especially if they had come out on Soma where they would have disappeared, know what I mean? You’re almost Elvis on “Lonely Love,” and it’s incredible because you’re 15! It’s absolutely amazing to me.

BV: My wife and I had dinner with our daughter and her husband in Minneapolis a while back, and her husband came in with the Bob Dylan book “Chronicles,” and there’s about a page and a half about his early days in Fargo when he played in my band for a while. He was Bob Zimmerman at the time. He talks about that time period, and it blew my mind that he would remember that. He played in Fargo in 1991, and I sent him a letter welcoming him back to Fargo, ’cause he spent time there when he was 17 or something and played in our band a short time. And I brought it up and gave it to one of the technicians that I knew working that show, and said, “If you see Dylan, give him this note.”

So my wife and I and daughter Jennifer, and our oldest son, Jeff, we were all at the show, and on the break after the opening act. We got a page to come backstage. We went backstage, and he and the guitar player on that tour, G.E. Smith, were the only people backstage up in this little dressing room. I had also sent along a cassette of The Vees, and when we walked in, he was playing The Vees cassette, and we chatted and I was amazed at how much he remembered from that time period. [He] talked about my brother Bill, asked how he was doin’ [and] Bill had obviously made an impression on him. And the Red Apple Café where he had worked as a bus boy, and Del Shannon ... that was the last show Del played, at the Fargo Civic.

Just about 10 minutes, and that was it — gave him a hug and left the room. Anyway, in the new book, he talks about his experience in Fargo. It’s fascinating.

So Bob Dylan was in The Shadows? What’d he do?

BV: He was in The Shadows. Yeah, he played piano, but he didn’t play very well, and we didn’t have a piano. He talks about playing in a church basement, and that’s true.

The piano was horribly out of tune. He could play “Whole Lot Of Shakin’ Going On.’ He played really well in the key of C, but that was about it. He had this amazing energy even at that time, and when he wasn’t playing he’d come up, and we did Gene Vincent songs and Ronnie Hawkins and all kinds of stuff — I remember doing “Lotta Lovin’” and all of a sudden hearing handclaps next to my ear, and he was singing harmony on “Lotta Lovin’” and I thought, “Wow, this guy, he’s a wild card.”

He was great-spirited, had an amazing sense of humor and just wonderful energy. This was summer of ’59. He also mentioned that we had that time period in common. He grew up in Hibbing, and I grew up in Fargo, but we were listening to the same music. But then he moved to New York and started connecting to a lot of things that I was not connected to, because I wasn’t aware of them.

That’s before he had ever written a song even. You were the songwriter in that band and Dylan was the piano player!

BV: Think about that! But he was very kind and very generous about his memories around that whole thing. I left there thinking, “My god, what a memory this guy has,” and then I thought to myself, “That’s what writers do. They remember things and then write about them later.

http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a102/jackobob/bob/th_bobmybird2.jpg
Re: where's my harmonica, albert?

May 19, 2009 01:10AM
"the song about Reagan"
Re: where's my harmonica, albert?

May 19, 2009 01:16AM
of course, Jackie DeShannon did record some of Dylan's songs, being among the earlier artists to do multiple covers of Bobby's work.

and for you not in the know

http://media.weirduniverse.net/Alfalfa-Print-C10113037.jpg

so get this image
http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/images/kaiware.jpg

out your collective head



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/19/2009 01:18AM by Richard.
Re: where's my harmonica, albert?

May 19, 2009 02:52AM
Ian Mclagan: Jokerman,,,the song about Reagan???
Just read an article a few days ago (Expextingrain) where someone argued that The jokerman was Jesus.
[literatureclassics.com]
Why can't he just be The Jokerman?
Oh well, you gotta serve somebody...
Re: where's my harmonica, albert?

May 19, 2009 03:03AM
Jacobob - I read that today today from Bobby Vee

I think he dismissed Bob Zimmerman back then, not realising the potential (but then, who would have ?) Bob was obviously bad on the piano and, as they did not have one anyway, he was doomed !!!

I think it's a great story of someone who dismissed Mr Dylan at the very beginning not knowing the phenomenon he would become !
Re: where's my harmonica, albert?

May 19, 2009 03:54AM
bobby vee
Quote:
"...He grew up in Hibbing, and I grew up in Fargo, but we were listening to the same music. But then he moved to New York and started connecting to a lot of things that I was not connected to, because I wasn’t aware of them"

(earlier in the article)
Quote:
"...People that are learning how to play guitar now aren’t really learning how to play guitar. They’re learning how to tune down to D and playing a big fat chord and let ‘er rip."

Sorry, but it sounds like he's just as disconnected now as he was in '59. There's plenty of stellar guitarists still out there. (groan)

__________________________________________________

My art site: Marcia's Art Pages
Re: where's my harmonica, albert?

June 10, 2009 08:25AM
bette midler on bob dylan [3:00]



i know, i know.

http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a102/jackobob/bob/th_bobmybird2.jpg
Re: where's my harmonica, albert?

June 21, 2009 06:05AM
james taylor

Was Bob Dylan an important influence for you?

Yes. Dylan was a revelation. There’s nothing like the effect of hearing Bob Dylan with a guitar and singing “Bob Dylan’s 114th Dream” or whatever it was, “419th Dream.” [Laughs] Dylan was a real revelation. I guess he would say he was listening to Cisco Houston and Eric Von Schmidt and Woody Guthrie. But he really turned the world on its ear and opened the door for a lot of us. He and the Beatles were the biggest influences on my lyrics. And then musically the thing I was most thrilled by was to hear Ray Charles. Sam Cooke was also great. And Marvin Gaye – and Marvin was also a writer, and it’s just so beautiful, his stuff. And Stevie [Wonder], of course.

When someone like you or Dylan or Simon performs a song you wrote yourself, one feels a closeness to the material, an intimacy

Yes, and sings it themselves with the guitar that they’re playing. Yes, there’s definitely a direct connection. That’s sort of a combination of songwriting and performance art and self-expression that can really be meaningful, can really offer people an emotional path. It can be a container for their own emotion. It can help them organize and deal with their own emotions, because someone like Dylan has shown them a way of handling it, of laughing at it. “If for one moment you could stand in my shoes, you’d know what a drag it is to see you…” [Laughs] That’s useful, that’s really useful. It allows you to take that feeling and say, yeah, that says it all for me. It allows you to process something, or to handle it. Someone walks a path and you can follow that.

When you hear Ray Charles – though he didn’t necessarily write it – sing, “He came home with a watch/ said it came from Uncle Joe/ I looked at the inscription, it said, ‘Love from Daddy-o.’ I got news for you, somehow your story don’t ring true, and I got news for you.” You know – somebody’s cuckolding him. She’s coming home, she says, “Before the day we met you said your life was tame/ I took you to a nightclub and the whole band knew your name.” [Laughter] You listen to that song later and you say, “Yeah, I took her out.”

Or to hear Mose Allison write something like “Long ago a young man was a strong man, and all the people would stand back when a young man walked by/ Nowadays the old men got all the money and a young man ain’t nothing in the world these days.” So you just say, “Yeah.”

Songs are useful. They’re like myths. Myths are useful because they allow you to cast yourself and your life and your own experience. And for some people, “Fire and Rain” speaks to them in that way. Dustin Hoffman came to me once and said, “’Fire and Rain’ allowed me to go from one side of an experience that I didn’t think I could ever get out of to the other side of it.” I met Bob Dylan and he told me he liked “Frozen Man.” That’s all I need.

http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a102/jackobob/bob/th_bobmybird2.jpg
Re: i've lost my harmonica, albert?

June 26, 2009 08:23AM


Bruce's speech inducting Bob Dylan into the Rock 'N' Roll Hall Of Fame:


The first time I heard Bob Dylan, I was in the car with my mother listening to WMCA, and on came that snare shot that sounded like somebody'd kicked open the door to your mind. Like a Rolling Stone. My mother, she was no stiff with Rock 'N' Roll, she liked the music, sat there for a minute, then looked at me and said "That guy can't sing". But I knew she was wrong. I sat there and I didn't say nothing but I knew that I was listening to the toughest voice that I had ever heard. It was lean and it sounded somehow simultaneously young and adult.

I ran out and bought the single and ran home and played it, but they must made a mistake in the factory because a Lenny Welch song came on. The label was wrong. So I ran back to the store, got the Dylan, and came back and played it. Then I went out and got "Highway 61". That was all I played for weeks, looking at the cover with Bob in that satin blue jacket and Triumph motorcycle shirt.

When I was a kid, Bob's voice somehow thrilled me and scared me, it made me feel kind of irresponsibly innocent - it still does - when it reached down and touched what little worldliness a fifteen- year-old high school kid in New Jersey had in him at the time. Dylan was a revolutionary. Bob freed the mind the way Elvis freed the body. He showed us that just because the music was innately physical did not mean that it was anti-intellectual. He had the vision and the talent to make a pop song that contained the whole world. He invented a new way a pop singer could sound, broke through the limitations of what a recording artist could achieve, and changed the face of Rock 'N' Roll forever.

Without Bob, the Beatles wouldn't have made "Sgt. Pepper", the Beach Boys wouldn't have made "Pet Sounds", The Sex Pistols wouldn't have made "God Save The Queen", U2 wouldn't have done "Pride in the Name of Love", Marvin Gaye wouldn't have done "What's Goin' On", the Count Five would not have done "Psychotic Reaction" and Grandmaster Flash might not have done "The Message" and there would have never been a group named the Electric Prunes. To this day, whenever great rock music is being made, there is the shadow of Bob Dylan. Bob's own modern work has gone unjustly underappreciated because it's had to stand in that shadow. If there was a young guy out there, writing the Empire Burlesque album, writing "Every Grain of Sand", they'd be calling him the new Bob Dylan.

About three months ago, I was watching the Rolling Stone Special on TV. Bob came on and he was in a real cranky mood. He was kind of bitchin' and moanin' about how his fans come up to him on the street and treat him like a long lost brother or something, even though they don't know him. Now speaking as a fan, when I was fifteen and I heard "Like a Rolling Stone", I heard a guy who had the guts to take on the whole world and who made me feel like I had to too. Maybe some people mistook that voice as saying that somehow Bob was going to do the job for them, but as we grow older, we learn that there isn't anybody out there who can do that job for anybody else. So I'm just here tonight to say thanks, to say that I wouldn't be here without you, to say that there isn't a soul in this room who does not owe you his thanks, and to steal a line from one of your songs - whether you like it or not - "You was the brother that I never had".

[74.125.77.132]

http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a102/jackobob/bob/th_bobmybird2.jpg
i've lost my harmonica, albert?

July 01, 2009 10:28PM
Songwriter Jimmy Webb on Just Like A Woman :

"This was when I understood how deep Dylan's well really was. It wasn't a folk song, it wasn't protest, it was just a great love song. What a fortuitous nexus of rhyme and purpose is the chorus: 'She takes just like a woman / She makes love just like a woman / Then she aches just like a woman / But she breaks just like a little girl.' As songwriters we live for the moment when words to fall together like that, as if they've been waiting for just that arrangement. The way everything leads toward that last line is masterful. That would be enough for most writers, but the third verse reveals Dylan's strategy to be much larger. When he says 'Please don't let on that you knew me when / I was hungry and it was your world,' he steps on-camera and addresses this person directly to deliver one final twist. There's a lifetime of listening in these details and layered subtleties."


Bill Fay on The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll: "Just before I started writing, in 1964, I started playing the guitar to myself by practising The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll. Before the protest they were actual songs that you could get lost in. Take away Dylan's persona and they still stood out. Hattie Carroll? It's five chords. Even in 1964 I knew four of them. When you first start out, you can play Dylan. His songs are about the people and for the people so it makes sense that they're accessible, that they're easy to play."

Marianne Faithfull on Love Sick:

"I'm a 'rush out and buy Bob' kind of person. Love Sick is my favourite. Beautiful. Everything. The words, the melody, the passion in the singing. Someone else singing it might make them sound sappy, but the way Dylan sings - very intense and strong and not at all detached - it's a statement, and a great one, about love."


Jon King (Gang Of Four) on Highway 61 Revisited:

"When I was 11, the A level boys in the art classes were allowed to play whatever music they liked, which was Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde. What got me was the sound of his voice. Highway 61 Revisited itself was just so funny. Highway 61 bisects the American North and South, and represents an escape, particularly from where Dylan lived, the tedium of living a constrained, pre-defined life. But in that text, I saw so much. Like the way he plays with the story, and the whole issue of race."

David Crosby on It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding):

"Asking for a favourite is like asking a parent, Hey, which is your favourite child? Bob Dylan has a good three dozen flat-out sterling pieces of material that we can safely refer to as classics. But when I first heard It's Alright, Ma it really was such a knockout. 'Darkness at the break of noon / Shadows even the silver spoon' - hey, that's the apocalypse coming, nothing less."

Richard Thompson on It's All Over Now, Baby Blue:

"Sounds like it's curtains for Baby Blue, which has led some to speculate that this is an updating of the story of Mary, Queen Of Scots; Bob may have heard 'Mary Queen Of Scots' Lament' on his visit to England in the winter of 1962, or perhaps he's just a history buff. She was fond of blue stockings - indeed, she was wearing sky-blue hose with an interwoven silver thread when she was beheaded in 1587. The orphan (or soon to be) 'crying like a fire in the sun' might be her son, and the 'empty-handed painter' her secretary-lover David Rizzio, also a fine musician, and composer of outstanding ballad tunes. The action, we imagine, is shifted to Greenwich Village, and is beautifully and skilfully updated and made immediate by imagery and street language. A great song by someone who knows the tradition, innovates in it, and builds on it."


Martin Carthy on Blind Willie McTell:

"It blows this massive hole through the romantic notion of the South. It's about corruptibility. It's everything a song should be. It's concise, it's eloquent and it also happens to be a beautiful piece of music. I love the position of the narrator in the song - sitting in a New Orleans hotel room contemplating the whole history of the south, the murder amid the magnolias, but not with anger for a change. It's a... rumination."

Roy Harper on Desolation Row:

"Desolation Row, I thought when I first got hold of the record, That's exactly where we're at. It contained all the elements of where we'd felt civilisation had been for years. But it wasn't delivered with the overt sense of humour of his more accessible earlier songs. Times had changed for Dylan. He was no longer the carefree young vibe thief of the freewheelin' age. He was now expected by everyone under 20 to become the next messiah, just as he was becoming more human. There were rumours of hard drugs and self-examination. Like a lot of us, he was on the verge of floundering. There were no easy solutions any more."

Al Kooper (Dylan sideman, philosopher) on Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands:
"To me, this is the definitive version of what 4am sounds like. Using simple chords in deceptively new patterns, he wove his tale - a ballad fer chrissakes - for over 11 minutes, but I defy you to stop in the middle to answer the phone, check the ball scores or use the restroom. It's just downright riveting: that voice and harmonica, the intricacies of musicians who had previously laboured for the likes of George Jones and Tammy Wynette suddenly challenged to provide musical sets for a play they'd never seen or heard before, and rising to the occasion with a bravado I had never witnessed before in all my years as a studio musician in New York City."

Paul McCartney on Mr Tambourine Man:

"I know it's corny, but I heard him do it at the Albert Hall [May 9, 1965], and I was aching for him to do it and knowing Dylan I thought he might not do it. It was fantastic. First half is folky, and then the second half was electric with The Band - it was the all-time concert. A really good song, very much of the period. I was lucky to be there."

Gaz Coombes (Supergrass) Tangled Up In Blue:

"I have to say I prefer the demo versions to the one on Blood On The Tracks. They're quite slow, downbeat versions of the song and that's what I love about them. They sound more emotional, more contemplative. The demos are written in the third person, like he's telling a story about someone else, then when you hear it on Blood On The Tracks he uses 'I', which makes you wonder whether it was actually about him all along. But musically, I prefer the versions on Blood On The Tapes. I discovered Blood On The Tapes when a MOJO writer told me about it! So thanks for that..."

Loudon Wainwright III on Masters Of War:

"Writing protest songs is difficult because they often have a very limited life-span. But when Dylan sings, 'you can hide behind walls, you can hide behind desks, I just want you to know, I can see through your masks', you instantly think of The White House and Downing Street today. I remember seeing him for the first time at the Newport Folk festival at about the time this song came out. He was just this young guy stood on stage with a guitar, but he had balls, and any young person will admire someone who has balls."

Sheryl Crow Every Grain Of Sand:

"The music to Every Grain Of Sand ebbs back and forth - it's almost a waltz - but the song's great strength is the text: 'Like criminals, they have choked the breath of conscience and good cheer' - it's almost Dickensian. I've called him on a couple of occasions to talk about songwriting and he's been amazing. It's like playing tennis with someone who's better than you, it brings your game up."

James Blunt on Subterranean Homesick Blues:

"I must have heard this first when I was about 14 or 15. The sense of movement in the song is so infectious. The guitarist in my band has Subterranean Homesick Blues as the polyphonic ringtone for his phone; someone rang him during a rehearsal and I just thought, 'Shit... how does one even start writing a song like that?'"

Al Stewart on Ballad Of A Thin Man:

"Musically it's beautiful. I love the skinny sound of the record - it suits the title. When I saw Dylan at the Albert Hall in 1966 he played it, and I think it was the only song that he played on piano. There's no swing in the way Dylan plays it, and that gives it this old-fashioned barrelhouse feel, which works really well with the words. And when the organ comes in on top... that's wonderful."

[www.mojo4music.com]

http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a102/jackobob/bob/th_bobmybird2.jpg
Re: i've lost my harmonica, albert?

July 02, 2009 12:11AM
Good old Macca..or poor old Macca..only a year out and no understanding of the song at all.
Re: i've lost my harmonica, albert?

July 02, 2009 01:11AM
certainly some vapid comments and a couple of good ones.

I have no idea what you're trying to say about Paul McCartney, gilp or Michael Jackson for that matter.

Jimmy Webb wrote a book explaing how to write songs - ain't that somethin'?

Al Kooper is a treasure
Re: i've lost my harmonica, albert?

July 02, 2009 02:33AM
I never mentioned MJ Richard....McArtney apparently watched Dylan doing Folk and Electric in 65....must have been a private concert......and Mr Tambourine Man was apparently a song rooted in its period......silly old me.....I always thought it was a timeless evocation of his muse. But how dare I criticise Macca.the man made his ex wife climb up aeroplabe steps on her knees...offaly nice chap.
Re: i've lost my harmonica, albert?

July 02, 2009 03:09AM
I've criticised Pauly meself, but not for such a quote.

the Michael Jackson comment was on another thread - something to do with him emitting fumes ...
Re: i've lost my harmonica, albert?

July 02, 2009 03:46AM
Quote:
Gilp
McArtney apparently watched Dylan doing Folk and Electric in 65....must have been a private concert......


possibly an error by the editor.

http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a102/jackobob/bob/th_bobmybird2.jpg
Re: i've lost my harmonica, albert?

July 02, 2009 04:01AM
And Tambourine Man is rooted in its time?
No Richard....I don't think I have spoken of Jackson emmiting fumes....only that if he was recycled I wouldn't sit on his face...............ah my apology......I did say something about noxious fumes....and I stick with it in its context.
Re: i've lost my harmonica, albert?

July 05, 2009 03:03AM
there was a link at the other place to a recent john mellencamp interview (streaming).

i'm posting it here because of the dylan reference at around 22 minutes in.

[www.npr.org]

http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a102/jackobob/bob/th_bobmybird2.jpg
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