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Bob Dylan is 80

The ‘Word in your ear’ podcast is doing a big thing on Dylan’s 80th. Worth a listen for you fans. I’ve managed about half of it; the key take seems to be that his biggest creation is his own image.

No need to fret they are very reverential.

It did remind me how much more weight your average rock critic gives to lyrics rather than playing & singing; perhaps they relate more to the latter?
 
It’s difficult to know if Dylan has been cultivating an image of mystique or genuinely trying to hide away from the spotlight. Personally I think it’s the latter since the time very early on when first the folk movement and then the whole younger generation wanted him to be their leader and frontman. Since then he’s tried his best to be the song and dance man he claims to be. I find it interesting that people like George Harrison and Neil Young seem to like him and get on with him, they are/were no fools and wouldn’t bother much with a trickster I would have thought.
Of course there’s the counter that Joni doesn’t think a lot of him, but it has to be said many prominent artists do.
 
I think he's been brilliant @Bart at hiding his true self against the cult of the personality. Nearly everything he has said over the years has been a fairy story
 
In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king. He’s a great artist but he deserved the Nobel prize as much as Obama did. People just get overexcited at times...
 
gavreid said:
I think he's been brilliant @Bart at hiding his true self against the cult of the personality. Nearly everything he has said over the years has been a fairy story
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I watched "Masked and Anonymous" on TV the other night. Dylan is an awful actor! Which is surprising as he has been playing roles and hiding his self all his life - since 1962 anyway (which I think is why he was played by six different actors in the "I'm Not There" movie).
 
vince rocker said:
I watched "Masked and Anonymous" on TV the other night. Dylan is an awful actor! Which is surprising as he has been playing roles and hiding his self all his life - since 1962 anyway (which I think is why he was played by six different actors in the "I'm Not There" movie).
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A colleague of mine was in an audience for a concert scene in Renaldo and Clara - as payment he got to see the film. He also thinks Dylan's a bit of a duff actor...
 
Just looking through my collection and pondering which Bob album I would keep if I could only have one. This being pretty much too bad to contemplate, I allowed myself 2 - one trad studio album and one from the bootleg series. So for what it's worth, today's choices would be Blood on the Tracks and Bootleg 1-3. Quite probably different tomorrow. FWIW I lump Biograph in with the bootlegs.
Thoughts?
 
For me it would be Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan for talking ww111 blues alone. It’s the only song I know completely. Most songs I can only recall one or two lines, though I’m pretty good at nursery rhythms.
 
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