Topic: Happy 70th Bob!

[Mr.OMuck]

One could make an argument that he is an almost inevitable evolutionary development arising out of country Blues.
Why is Bob so much more compelling than Leonard Cohen, Phil Ochs, Bruce Springstein, Tom Waites et al? As Leadbelly used to say "Blues got 'im"!

[eric]

A remarkable guy.  Still kickin', maybe the only big time rock and roller from my time that refused to become a nostalgia act.  Damn, I'm old...

[CF]

One could make an argument that he is an almost inevitable evolutionary development arising out of country Blues.
Why is Bob so much more compelling than Leonard Cohen, Phil Ochs, Bruce Springstein, Tom Waites et al? As Leadbelly used to say "Blues got 'im"!

I wouldn't put Cohen in that list but I otherwise agree.
I have such a divided opinion of Bob nowadays. He's very inspiring but I wish he was a bit more up front about his sources for a lot of his tunes, I don't buy the 'it's folk music & we all own the songs' mentality completely. You gotta let people know where you get these songs, that's the least payment you can make really. I've liked everything I've heard from him & am a fan of his recent work too tho'. Happy b-day Bob. 

[Mr.OMuck]

What do you mean specifically Mike? What is he not revealing? He went out of his way to point out the connection between Modern Times and Charlie Patton. Its charming how all my Canadian friends circle the wagons around Leonard Cohen, and now he's one of the grandfathers of my dear late friend Kate McGarrigle's granddaughter so I have to be nice ...I guess.

[unezrider]

happy b-day bobby!
kinda the pide piper of my musical adventures, really. he led me to country blues, muddy waters, hank williams, woody guthrie, bill monroe, mississippi sheiks, ramblin' jack, patton, blind willie mctell, jimmie rodgers, johnny cash, elvis, etc? some writers, too.
& in fairness, he did give willie dixon song writing credit on his last album, too. though i don't think otis rush was mentioned, & "beyond here lies nothing" is straight from "all your love". but that aside, i enjoy catching the lines & melodies he lifted from here & there. & really he's been doing that sort of thing since the 60's. it's just a more direct usage now.
& in regards to o'muck's questioned about why he's more compelling ? no idea why, mr. o'. but i feel the same.
chris

[harvey]

It amazes me that devides opinion still maybe that is what is so compelling about him, or maybe because he has written some of the most intriguing and moving lyrics of our time. I remember reading in one of many many Dylan books, remember he was writting "how many roads must a man walk down........ Etc" the sametime that The Beatles were writting "love, love me do.... Etc" us Brits are a backward lot sometimes

Anyway happy birthday Bob one of my biggest inspirations and the one who lead me to this music.

[CF]

Hey don't get me wrong, I love Dylan . . . & Muck the list of ideas Dylan used but did not mention are far too many for me to list here. There are blogs dedicated to it. Here's one

http://bobdylanroots.blogspot.com/

Did you know that Joni Mitchell called Dylan a fake last year in an interview? She may have since retracted but she basically said she believed everything about him was a put-on: fake voice, name, etc. I'm not saying I agree with her but I certainly believe Robert Zimmerman was one hell of an opportunist!

Cohen's thing doesn't seem to go down well in the States for some reason. I think he's a little too French Canadian-European-seeming. Cohen is every bit the songwriter Dylan is, if we must compare, & was a published & celebrated poet a decade before he made records . . . & he was certainly influenced by the younger Dylan too.

[uncle bud]

Joni's ego has become hard to take of late, and Dylan has always put on various personae and voices. As for Cohen, not in Bob's league music-wise, IMO, though an excellent poet with some great songs.

I have to say I agree with the great Leonard himself though, whom I believe said somewhere recently that people should stop singing "Hallelujah".

Everyone. Just give it a freakin' rest, for God's sake. Please.

Oh, and Happy Belated Birthday, Bob.

[GhostRider]

".

Everyone. Just give it a freakin' rest, for God's sake. Please.

Oh, and Happy Belated Birthday, Bob.

Unkie Bud's a bit testy after the Canadian election results.

Alex

[Mr.OMuck]

Cohen's thing doesn't seem to go down well in the States for some reason. I think he's a little too French Canadian-European-seeming.

Almost exactly the words my fiddler friend and Montreal resident Joel Zifkin used to describe American incomprehension of Leonard Cohen's "music".
I suspect there's something to it.

And I never claimed B.D wasn't the greatest bullshit artist of all time, he may well be, and I've certainly caught him quoting Kerouac and others in songs..but so what? Its what you make of it that counts. By the time the phrase "perfect image of a priest" pops up in Desolation row, lifted whole from Kerouac's Desolation Angles, its recontextualized to a degree that makes it as good as original. Kind of like if DeKooning uses a color combination that I really dig and then I use it too, which I do all the time btw, which every artist does, is it a worse sin with words? 

Speaking of which:

The first historical record of the song was by ethnomusicologist John Lomax in 1908, who recorded it as sung by an African American woman called Dink, as she washed her man's clothes in a tent camp of migratory levee-builders on the bank of the Brazos River, a few miles from College Station, Texas and Texas A&M College."

This from Wikipedia...drink responsibly.

[Mr.OMuck]

And ten years and a day later John Miller came along! Happy Birthday John!

[CF]

Leonard Cohen's "music" was "music" last time I checked 

Here's a better example of what I'm talking about O'Muck: Eli Smith from Down Home Radio (& friend) did a great two-part program about Dylan's influences. You will hear examples of how Dylan got many ideas from folk tunes & used them in his own way & then they show examples of outright reuse without credit like the beautiful 'Sugar Babe' from his 'Love & Theft' album which is a Gene Autry song or? I would never chastize a fellow musician for borrowing & creativley recycling but Dylan goes, in my opinion, a bit too far sometimes & should be a bit more honest credit-wise. I certainly didn't realize that many of the melodies of his famous songs are actually older folk melodies . . . I guess I was surprised just how much Dylan has borrowed, is all, & because I'm a big fan of the man & his work I'm trying to get my head around it.

http://www.downhomeradioshow.com/2007/02/songs-that-inspired-bob-dylan-parts-1-2/

I am not at all trying to attack Bob but I do think it's important that folks who care about folk music & crediting those who write or are associated with the songs get their credit. As a writer & a folk-influenced musician I wish I had the balls to borrow so liberally & creatively, that way of writing can, obviously, be very rewarding. But when I play a Joe Pullum song the problem is: I know what Joe looks like! I can see his face as I sing his songs & so I have to credit that! Probably, I'm a very poor folk musician because of it 

[dj]

I guess I was surprised just how much Dylan has borrowed

Dylan came of age in a different era, when attitudes about copyright and borrowing were much looser.  You can see that not just in Bob's work, but in everyone from Brian Wilson & the Beach Boys to Led Zeppelin.  As another musician from the same era, John Lennon, so aptly put it, "Genius is the art of hiding your sources".

And it's not just pop music.  You can go through the classics and find melodies, chord progressions, etc. borrowed all over the place.  And we all know about country blues.  For literature, check out T. S. Eliot.  His greatest works contain an amazing number of quotes from other sources.

The moral of the story is: don't judge someone from 50 or 100 or more years ago by the standards of today. 

[Gumbo]

Dylan came of age in a different era, when attitudes about copyright and borrowing were much looser.

He also has God Sony on his side.

I agree with cheapfeet.  As much as i enjoy Dylan's music (and that's a lot) I would enjoy the music more knowing that he respected the boundaries between "Love" and "Theft". Dropping in quotes from previous works is one thing, but recording Rollin and Tumblin with new words and claiming sole authorship is another thing entirely.

Of course this brings up the problem of who to credit ... Muddy Waters? Little Walter? Willie Newburn? or just 'trad.' like they used to do in the old days?

EDIT: Happy Birthday Bob!

[Mr.OMuck]

Somewhere in the quote generator here is a quote from Woody Guthrie & Pete Seeger to the effect that even though they wrote a particular song, they'd be much obliged if any and everyone would sing it, alter it do anything they wanted with it and no payment was expected to be forthcoming. Its important to understand that this was the animating spirit of the Folk community during its early days. God on our side = Patriot Games. I guess it was assumed that people would be familiar enough with the source material to get the connection right off the bat. Then they'd applaud the wonderful repurposing of a tune probably originally older than Patriot Games. Remember it was a small close world with few records, and most people involved really were familiar with the source material and didn't need to be told. If later he didn't adjust his sense of appropriation to fit the times, well maybe he didn't notice how much the Times were a Changin'.

Yes L.C. is music...sorry.