Dylan at Eighty

I don't know if I can say much about Bob Dylan, who turns eight years old today, that hasn't already been said.

Called by one critic "the greatest rock and roll songwriter who isn't Chuck Berry or Smokey Robinson," Bob Dylan has written strong, clever, surrealistic songs about pretty much everything, with allusions to American history and culture, a dose of social, and a bit of absurdity.  Even if you know what his songs are about, you don't know what they mean.  Songs such as "Ballad of Thin Man," about a paranoid reporter at a circus sideshow, offered various interpretations centered around the straight man in a world he doesn't understand, but who really knows who Mr. Jones is or what he stands for?  Other songs like "Maggie's Farm," about nonconformity, took on whole new meanings in later years, such as in Britain where it became an anti-Thatcher rallying cry.  And only now can we figure out a modicum of meaning in "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" when we realize that our current Postmaster General has stolen the Post Office and locked the mailboxes. And with the specter of Donald Trump being President again, we have to ask, just what do we have to pay to get out of going through all of these things twice?

Of course, his protest songs "Masters of War " and "Blowin' In the Wind" are evergreen, and "Like a Rolling Stone" is probably the greatest rock and roll song ever, with its sense of protest and put-down.  And you'll probably learn more about relationships in listening to his 1975 album Blood On the Tracks than from anywhere else: Dylan's son Jakob describes the album as a document of his parents arguing.

It remains to be seen whether Dylan has one more trick up his sleeve after defying expectations for sixty years.  But it should be obvious that whatever he pulls next, it's going to be something we don't expect.  Happy birthday, Bob. 😊

The Wild Man of Rock and Roll

Little Richard, who died earlier this month at 87, may not have been the king of rock and roll (though Leon Russell once suggested that he was the queen), but he made rock and roll possible with his wild, forceful, energetic take on the blues.  

Elvis Presley himself wouldn't have put himself above Little Richard, who more or less created the template of rock and roll with his inspired shouting and wailing, his revolutionary piano playing, and, of course, his wardrobe.  He had great hair long before the Beatles did.  And his exuberant hits - "Tutti Frutti," "Good Golly Miss Molly," "Lucille," and "The Girl Can't Help It" - remain among the most important in all of rock and roll.  His songs could be as bawdy as his stage act - "Long Tall Sally," in case you didn't notice, was about a boy's uncle cheating on Aunt Mary.  You hear his influence in not just covers of his songs, like the Beatles' own cover of "Long Tall Sally," but in original Beatles tunes like "Birthday" and the singing styles of Paul McCartney, Elton John (an obvious spiritual descendant of Little Richard,) Prince, and Roger Chapman. 

He gave his all in his long career, but he didn't get all of the rewards he was entitled too, largely because he was black, and also because most rock and rollers of the fifties never got much   As Little Richard himself once said, "You ain't never give me nothin'!" I just hope that he finally got paid.  RIP. :-( 

Slow Train Coming

Why are we still enamored with Bob Dylan even today, as he turns seventy years old?

Dylan isn't a traditional rock and roller like Elvis Presley was or Rod Stewart is. He's not someone who struts onstage or plays flamboyant arrangements. His music is menacing, but in a more subtle and sly way. He pretty much lets his voice - commonly compared to the sound of a cow with a limb caught in a barbed-wire fence - deliver the edge to the many poetic stories his songs represent.

And what songs they are! Originally a folk singer in the tradition of Woody Guthrie, Dylan adopted and adapted the ideas of the musical heroes of his teenage years, Elvis Presley and Little Richard, and added a rock and roll sound with electric instruments that sounded spare and basic but could still pull a scab off an uncomfortable wound. Many of Dylan's tunes, whether acoustically or electrically arranged, probe such sore spots. His way with words and rhymes created a world dominated by strong women, Biblical characters, wanderers seeking truth, and a motley crew of jokers and thieves. Only in a Dylan song like "Desolation Row" could Romeo and Cinderella meet through mistaken identity. Only in a Dylan song like "Sweetheart Like You" could we be introduced to "the most beautiful woman who ever crawled across cut glass to make it deal."

Dylan's songs, open to personal interpretation and universal in themes of love and betrayal, are not confined to any particular time and place, making them open to all sorts of musical re-arranging and interpretation by the many recording artists who found their own meaning and their own voice in Dylan's words.

That's why we still care about Dylan today.

Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited with their humorous parables of American culture, are considered the masterpieces in the Dylan catalog, but I recommend John Wesley Harding from 1968 as an example of Dylan's low-key side. Its on that album where, after a devastating motorcycle accident, he quietly delved into the meanings of freedom, relief, and love . . . and found himself renewed.