And of course the huge influence of the Loaf can't be denied... on fast food eaters everywhere.
BlueChair wrote:You can't underscore the influence The Beatles had on Dylan. It may have not been immediate, but it was there. Sure, Dylan never tried to do anything psychedelic or orchestral, but it was after his exposure to The Beatles that he started moving away from the whole protest thing.
He definitely would have anyway. When professional commentators say he was influenced by the Beatles they really mean their status as pop icons, not really their music. That influenced him. Nothing about their music seems evident in Dylan's. He, and everyone else, had been aware of the Beatles for a while before he decided to change from his The Times They're A Changin'/Masters Of War/With God On Our Side moral of the story style, but he did so very deliberately. And it's well documented that he was just fed up with the folkie establishment, and with the likes of Joan Baez, etc -- he really used them as much as he could, and tollerated its restrictions, to build up that folkie image of himself, before leaping into new directions.
BlueChair wrote:I remember an associate who was close with Dylan saying that it was because of Lennon that Dylan went out and purchased an electric guitar.
Sounds like hype, probably just another symbolic reference point.
Actually, Poppet I, too at times find Dylan sort of unapproachable. In fact, I own "Blonde on Blonde", "Blood on the Tracks," and "John Wesley Harding" and I'm not sure whether I've listened to any of them all the way through, though I definitely love many of the songs when listened to separately. I keep starting them and then deciding I'm just not in the right mood right now. These days I'm blaming it on the poor audio quality and will probably buy them all again now they've been reissued -- and then not listen to them again for another ten years.
On the other hand, "Highway 61 Revisited" is one of my all time favorite albums so I guess maybe it's more accessible (to me, anyhow!). Perhaps you should start there instead.
I also love the pre-electric "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" which is a pretty obvious classic.
bambooneedle wrote:And of course the huge influence of the Loaf can't be denied... on fast food eaters everywhere.
BlueChair wrote:You can't underscore the influence The Beatles had on Dylan. It may have not been immediate, but it was there. Sure, Dylan never tried to do anything psychedelic or orchestral, but it was after his exposure to The Beatles that he started moving away from the whole protest thing.
He definitely would have anyway. When professional commentators say he was influenced by the Beatles they really mean their status as pop icons, not really their music. That influenced him. Nothing about their music seems evident in Dylan's. He, and everyone else, had been aware of the Beatles for a while before he decided to change from his The Times They're A Changin'/Masters Of War/With God On Our Side moral of the story style, but he did so very deliberately. And it's well documented that he was just fed up with the folkie establishment, and with the likes of Joan Baez, etc -- he really used them as much as he could, and tollerated its restrictions, to build up that folkie image of himself, before leaping into new directions.
BlueChair wrote:I remember an associate who was close with Dylan saying that it was because of Lennon that Dylan went out and purchased an electric guitar.
Sounds like hype, probably just another symbolic reference point.
I like Dylan. I really respect him as a songwriter, and the proof that his songs are great is especially clear when he is covered. Hendrix's All Along the Watchtower, The Byrds' Tambourine Man, etc... all show the genius at work there.
That said, my guitarist in Oliver's Army and I do a side project cal;led Duck & Cover. It's two guys with acoustics singing songs they like. We try to avoid dinosaur rock and stick to smart-rock and forgotten gems. We play a few Elvis songs, of course, and a few typical things like a Beatles tune, a Simon & Garfunkel tune, and the like. Mostly though, it's songs by The Jam, XTC, Michael Penn, Del Amitri, Prince, Cracker, and so on. We were putting our set list together, and we both said, "Hey we should do a Dylan tune." We both went on about how great a songwriter he is, and started looking for tunes to play. The irony is, we didn't really want to do any of them. We each have a few Dylan albums, some of which I listen to all the way through now and then. But none of the material cried out to both of us. That's not an indictment of Dylan, but an eventuality that I was really surprised by. People shout requests when we play, but no one ever asks for Dylan. That's weird to me. Rationally, we ought to want to play the songs, and people ought to want to hear them. But it's just not so. I have no idea what this means.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
--William Shakespeare
I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine. - If only i knew how to play a guitar... this song will make you melt, assuming you have a romantic bone in your body...
Noise, if few people ask for Dylan songs or want to play them to an audience it's probably because they're so very stylized. Maybe practically no-one wants to hear anybody else do them, and performers daunted by maybe not matching him. I've heard great live Dylan covers though, notably a big black guy at the rail tunnel doing I Shall Be Released, and a girl probably in her early 20's doing A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall. Reminded me of the Eddie Brickel version.
Somebody should try The Ballad Of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest.
I can't believe this debate is still going. The issue at hand is not whether or not we as individuals like The Beatles or Bob Dylan, it's the fact that they very well could be the largest movers and shakers in popular music, having influenced every decade that has come since, including their own. Rest assured, without The Beatles or Bob Dylan, there would have been no Elvis Costello. Perhaps Declan MacManus would have still become a musician based on his family history, but his sound and vision would certainly be MUCH different. Do I have to start digging out the Elvis quotes? I thought this was common knowledge.
I think All-Music Guide illustrates the importance of these two crucial artists most eloquently:
"So much has been said and written about the Beatles — and their story is so mythic in its sweep — that it's difficult to summarize their career without restating clichés that have already been digested by tens of millions of rock fans. To start with the obvious, they were the greatest and most influential act of the rock era, and introduced more innovations into popular music than any other rock band of the 20th century. Moreover, they were among the few artists of any discipline that were simultaneously the best at what they did, and the most popular at what they did. Relentlessly imaginative and experimental, the Beatles grabbed a hold of the international mass consciousness in 1964 and never let go for the next six years, always staying ahead of the pack in terms of creativity, but never losing their ability to communicate their increasingly sophisticated ideas to a mass audience. Their supremacy as rock icons remains unchallenged to this day, decades after their breakup in 1970.
Even when couching praise in specific terms, it's hard to convey the scope of the Beatles' achievements in a mere paragraph or two. They synthesized all that was good about early rock & roll, and changed it into something original and even more exciting. They established the prototype for the self-contained rock group that wrote and performed their own material. As composers, their craft and melodic inventiveness were second to none, and key to the evolution of rock from its blues/R&B-based forms into a style that was far more eclectic, but equally visceral. As singers, both John Lennon and Paul McCartney were among the best and most expressive vocalists in rock; the group's harmonies were intricate and exhilarating. As performers, they were (at least until touring had ground them down) exciting and photogenic; when they retreated into the studio, they were instrumental in pioneering advanced techniques and multi-layered arrangements. They were also the first British rock group to achieve worldwide prominence, launching a British Invasion that made rock truly an international phenomenon."
Bob Dylan's influence on popular music is incalculable. As a songwriter, he pioneered several different schools of pop songwriting, from confessional singer/songwriter to winding, hallucinatory, stream-of-conscious narratives. As a vocalist, he broke down the notions that in order to perform, a singer had to have a conventionally good voice, thereby redefining the role of vocalist in popular music. As a musician, he sparked several genres of pop music, including electrified folk-rock and country-rock. And that just touches on the tip of his achievements. Dylan's force was evident during his height of popularity in the '60s — the Beatles' shift toward introspective songwriting in the mid-'60s never would have happened without him — but his influence echoed throughout several subsequent generations. Many of his songs became popular standards, and his best albums were undisputed classics of the rock & roll canon. Dylan's influence throughout folk music was equally powerful, and he marks a pivotal turning point in its 20th century evolution, signifying when the genre moved away from traditional songs and toward personal songwriting. Even when his sales declined in the '80s and '90s, Dylan's presence was calculable.
This morning you've got time for a hot, home-cooked breakfast! Delicious and piping hot in only 3 microwave minutes.
Vocally, I meant. There's so much implied between the lines in how he sings, and his emphases vary depending on the performance. An example that comes to mind is the version of Idiot Wind on The Bootleg Series Vols 1-3... it's slower and more heartwrenchingly redemptive than the rather vitriolic Blood On The Tracks version. No-one can sing like Dylan.
I picked up the magazine today. There are a lot more articles written by rock stars about rock stars than the ten mentioned.
The good ones include:
Marvin Gaye by Smokey Robinson
Bo Diddley by Iggy Pop
Otis Redding by Steve Cropper (excellent peice)
Johnny Cash by Kris Kristofferson
Neil Young by Flea
David Bowie by Lou Reed
The Byrds by Tom Petty
The Band by Lucinda Williams
This morning you've got time for a hot, home-cooked breakfast! Delicious and piping hot in only 3 microwave minutes.
Poppet, my favorite Dylan songs are VERY mainstream, but that's probably because I've mostly only heard his "hits".
Simple Twist of Fate
Times they are a-changin'
Blowin in the wind
To Make You Feel My Love
SUBTERRANEAN HOMESICK BLUES
Maggie's Farm
All Along the Watchtower.
You must definitely like these songs.
And B&C is obviously pulling an April Fools....I mean, it's so obvious that The Beatles are just the best thing ever!
I was going down 3 flights of stairs in a stairwell singing Sexy Sadie to myself a couple of days ago. As I got to the bottom and I was singin "you made a FOOL" where the FOOL is a pretty high note, someone else opened the door in front of me.
They were the four Horseman. I bet Dylan likes And Your Bird Can Sing, and it's not like the lyrics are poetic or anything...
