Re: [Harp-L] Dylan etc

[Joseph Leone <3n037@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

NOW we're REALLY talking about a 'package deal'. I was never a hero worshiper and about the most I would ever say about a performer, even if they were terrific, would be: "Oh, he's/she's decent".  But I guess it was when I came back from Europe the last time, I fell into the doo-wop era. I liked doo-wop, didn't like folk. Then along comes Mr. Zimmerman. 

So, although he was considered a protest singer, I don't think that the kids in our small mill town (Sharpsburg Pa.) felt as such. While none of us were hippie types, I think Mr. Dylan transcended all of that nonsense. Right from the get go I realized that this kid was going places. His aura was hard to fight. He had SO much vision and depth for one so young. I guess I was 18 and he was 19 at the time, but he came across as someone three times as old. He had something to say. AND he was able to say it convincingly. It was like sitting on a tree stump listening to a wise old wizard. Revealing the trials and tribulations of life. He was one of the scant people whom I never switched the radio station on. Most of us kids listened to the black rhythm and blues stations. WILY & WAMO. But we would listen to Mr. Dylan.    

A lot has been said about his abilities with instruments. Well, think about it. They fit the mood of what he was saying perfectly. He was a poet. And while his poetry was reaching into you, in to your dark moist guts, his background music was spice. Kept simple enough so as to not detract from the message. Most of my friends thought his voice was a put on. Something contrived to be so different that it caught immediate attention (which it did). But I don't think so. I think that was really him..his way of pleading that you listen to his poetry. An almost bleating lamenting sound as one might hear coming from a sheep going to the slaughter. And I don't think he cared about money or fame. 

And considering that he probably weighed about 8 1/2 stone dripping wet WHILE holding a bucket of quarters, we still thought that he was ONE COOL KAT. Personally, I think that the country would be just a bit lesser if he had never been around. At the mention of some peoples names, I have a tendency to put my finger into my mouth in a vomituous gesture. In the case of people like Dylan, Orbison, and a few others, I have only fond feelings. 

smokey-joe  



On Apr 6, 2013, at 2:25 AM, Ken Deifik wrote:

> Mike Rubin wrote:
>> Just to keep the argument going, I think Dylan is a great guitarist, a
>> musical harmonica player with more technique than we credit him for, one of
>> the greatest singers that ever lived and one of the greatest songwriters
>> that ever lived.
> 
> I fully agree.  I saw him perform twice.  First time was at the Woody Guthrie Memorial Concert at Carnegie Hall in early 1968.  He was backed by the Band, though at the time one didn't know who they were or what they were about to become.
> 
> As great as all the acts were that day, Dylan's singing and playing almost made my head explode.  So powerful.  Same with the 1974 tour.  I loathe stadium shows, but I wasn't going to miss that one, and his singing and playing was so powerful that it changed my entire approach to playing.
> 
> One of the great Dylan revelations was listening to his earliest records anew when they were remasted in mono a while back.  Like many people I had absorbed those records so completely back in the day that I never 'heard' them again after about 1970.  Went right by me.
> 
> But listening to the new mono's last year it was as though for the first time, an entirely earthshaking experience.  Even when he was a kid his playing was on a much higher plane than most of the bigshot folkies of the early 60's.  Not technically, but emotionally.  Many young people try to impart an emotional feeling to their music by making it overwrought, which doesn't work at all.  Dylan, even at 20, had irony and wit and bitterness and tenderness in his guitar playing.  And in his harp playing.
> 
> As has been said of Miles Davis, Dylan made virtuosity irrelevant.
> 
> By the way, Blowing In The Wind was so inescapable in the Sixties that I think I stopped 'hearing' it by 1964.  It was wallpaper.  It became corny.  I never once played it with my teenage musician pals in the late 60's.
> 
> Hearing it again recently I found it devastating.
>