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Bob Dylan is 80

sideshowbob

Champagne fascia aficionado
What an awesome figure he is, completely without equal.

Here's an interview from 1986:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/...-highway-61-and-touring-with-tom-petty-185639

'He lights a cigarette, moves over to the sofa, takes off his glasses and smiles a shy smile. “You know,” he says, “sometimes I think about people like T-Bone Walker, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters – these people who played into their sixties. If I’m here at eighty, I’ll be doing the same thing. This is all I want to do – it’s all I can do. I mean, you don’t have to be a nineteen- or twenty-year-old to play this stuff. That’s the vanity of that youth-culture ideal. To me that’s never been the thing. I’ve never really aimed myself at any so-called youth culture. I directed it at people who I imagined, maybe falsely so, had the same experiences that I’ve had, who have kind of been through what I’d been through. But I guess a lot of people just haven’t.”
He falls silent for a moment, taking a drag off his cigarette. “See,” he says, “I’ve always been just about being an individual, with an individual point of view. If I’ve been about anything, it’s probably that, and to let some people know that it’s possible to do the impossible.”
Dylan leans forward and snuffs out his cigarette. “And that’s really all. If I’ve ever had anything to tell anybody, it’s that: You can do the impossible. Anything is possible. And that’s it. No more.”'

Happy birthday Bob.
 
Elton John on Dylan, from his recent autobiography:

'Towards the end of the Eighties, I held an insane party in LA, and invited everyone I knew. By mid-evening, I was flying, absolutely out of my mind, when a scruffy-looking guy I didn't recognise wandered into the lit-up garden.
Who the hell was he? Must be one of the staff, a gardener. I loudly demanded to know what the gardener was doing helping himself to a drink.
There was a moment's shocked silence, broken by my PA saying: 'Elton, that's not the gardener. It's Bob Dylan.'
Coked out of my brain and keen to make amends, I rushed over, grabbed him and started steering him towards the house.
'Bob! Bob! We can't have you in those terrible clothes, darling. Come upstairs and I'll fit you out with some of mine at once. Come on, dear!'
Dylan stared at me, horrified. His expression suggested he was trying hard to think of something he wanted to do less than get dressed up like Elton John, and drawing a blank.
Given that one of my recent looks had involved teaming a pink suit and a straw boater topped with a scale model of the Eiffel Tower, you couldn't really blame him.
Another time, I invited Dylan to dinner with Simon and Garfunkel, and afterwards we played charades.
At least, they tried to play charades. They were terrible at it. The best thing I can say about Simon and Garfunkel is that they were better than Dylan.
He couldn't get the hang of the 'How many syllables?' thing at all. He couldn't do 'sounds like' either, come to think of it. One of the best lyricists in the world, the greatest man of letters in the history of rock music, and he couldn't seem to tell you whether a word had one syllable or two syllables or what it rhymed with!
He was so hopeless, I started throwing oranges at him. Or so I was informed the next morning by a friend.
That's not really a phone call you want to receive when you're struggling with a hangover. 'Morning, darling — do you remember throwing oranges at Bob Dylan last night?' Oh God.'
 
This is the song I always play to people who don't think Dylan is one of the very greatest singers America has ever produced. Everyone accepts he's a peerless songwriter, but he's also a truly mesmerising singer

 
I've didn't have an issue with his voice until the mid eighties, when his voice was pretty much shot. I think Blood on the Tracks and Desire was his finest hour vocally, particularly Desire.
 
Completely agree, Dylan and his influence are unmatched in our music.
Lots of interviews and special shows this this week. BBC4 Thursday 9pm "Renaldo and Clara"! Friday 9pm "Don't look back"! More on the same channel both days.

All across the telegraph
His name it did resound...

For me this is up with his greatest songs but doesn't get mentioned much. A great vocal performance as well.
 
Happy 80th Robert Z….I’ve been playing your stuff on vinyl since 8 o’clock this morning.

It’s nowt to do with whether he can sing or not, it’s all about the intonation and the way his music makes you feel.

A bit like Neil Young I suppose, in many ways, anyway you like him….you love him. You don’t….you don’t. I.M.O.
 
I've been sat all morning listening to "Biograph" on the LP12. Funny to think it was released in 1985 and look at how much he's done since.
 
I think this article gets close to my own thoughts:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2...ise-of-a-mighty-and-unbowed-singer-songwriter

These days I engage with his work post Time Out of Mind more than anything earlier, particularly Tell Tale Signs, Love and Theft and Rough and Rowdy Ways. Bob at 80 really is something to celebrate.

I'm the same - Modern Times is playing as I type. I enjoy his older phase more and more as I get older. Its part of the gift he has for articulating different perspectives, and experiences although you can still see direct links back to Blond on Blond or Highway 61. I had friends who were obsessive about him at school in the early '70s and, in 2021, friends who are equally as obsessive about the records he is making now. He is indeed without equal.
 
The most overrated man in music, can’t sing, can barely play but has written the odd good song.

Not in the same league as Joni Mitchell or several others I could think of.

Whatever makes you happy though;)
 
I think Blood on the Tracks and Desire was his finest hour vocally, particularly Desire.

I think Desire is my favourite album, just been listening to some tracks from this, though I think there are better albums - I think Highway 61 and Blonde on Blonde must represent his peak but there are just so many great songs.
 
The principle disadvantage of mortality is that one only has a finite amount of time to listen to Bob Dylan.

It seems gauche to tout him on the basis of his influence. Whether it's the garage rock gallop that Visions of Johanna began as, the viciousness of the live version of idiot wind on hard rain, or the pulsating drama of jokerman, he is utterly ****ing mesmerising. Like Monk, John Coltrane or Neil Young, one of the very few artists I can lose myself in exclusively for a week or more.
 


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