DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Oct 07 - 07:36 PM

don't listen to the Captain - he's not a traditional singer - I have the word of an expert on it.(Ho! Ho!)

couldn't bear to look at those Ewan McColl threads anymore - all those gits putting down a great man.

Don't do the same captain - half the kids in our fifth year in 1965 wanted to be folksingers on account of Dylan. he inspired millions of people to start singing folkmusic.

nobody else has got so many people excited about the idea of folkmusic as a creative force. its only stinkpots who carp about great men like MacColl and Dylan. Bugger 'em! collectively not worth one of Dylan's farts.

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Oct 07 - 07:57 PM

Dylan didn't fart. He didn't stop whining long enough for any backpressure to build up.

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Oct 07 - 10:44 PM

I guess you'll never have that problem either, will you, Steve? ;-)

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Lowden Jameswright
Date: 18 Oct 07 - 05:20 AM

I've just revisited Bob's first album after many many years (can't believe it - still mint - any offers?) - and I'm changing my mind; I reckon he probably did play guitar on (most) of the tracks. The wee drummer boy may be right about the 3 he mentions though, but they aren't so flash that he couldn't have played 'em. It is a bit strange though that his playing at Newport was so crap - but maybe he was very nervous and so didn't dare try his more adventurous stuff. If he was playing safe with basic strumming he failed miserably though.

On the harmonica front I have to say on reflection it don't sound too bad; I guess I'm mellowing in my old age. "Awesome" though is not an adjective I'd use to describe it; not after being exposed to the likes of Sonny Terry & Sonny Boy Williamson!

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Oct 07 - 10:08 AM

WLD,you are quite right he did get alot of people interested in folk music.

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: GUEST,Winger
Date: 18 Oct 07 - 03:46 PM

WLD

Ewan MacColl talking about Bob Dylan in'Sing Out' magazine in 1965: "I am still unable to see him as anything more than a youth of mediocre talent. Only a completely non-critical audience nourished on the watery pap of pop music could have fallen for such tenth-rate drivel. The cultivated illiteracy of his topical songs are the embarrassing fourth grade schoolboy attempts at free verse."

Can't figure out if this is a great man talking about a great man or a stinkpot talking about a stinkpot.

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Oct 07 - 04:03 PM

It is a very good songwriter[Maccoll]talking about a good songwriter[Dylan],both of whom had/have[IMO]character flaws.
considering Masters of War was written in 1963,it is unforgivable that MacColl, Should dismiss his songwriting like this,some of it may have been drivel,but then not everything Maccoll wrote was good either,is it possible he was jealous?

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Oct 07 - 04:41 PM

The Captain is right on course with this one. MacColl had worked for close on twenty years. he was someone talked about with awe on the USA scene. I owned several American collections of folksongs where The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face was published as a folksong written by Ewan MacColl - long before it was widely known in England. In the early '60's, he must have seen songs like Where have all the Flowers gone, and feel his moment was surely arriving - only to have it dashed away from him by someone younger, sexier, more dynamic as recording artist - it must have been a very bitter pill to swallow.

His revenge was terrible however and must have been beyond his wildest imaginings. mainly due to his crazy followers and disciples, who interpreted his fit of pique as licence to reject and destroy the entire contemporary folksong movement in England.

Take a look at footage of American folk festival bills of those early years - the big names on the bill are the contemporary artists. the traditional section is almost afterthought - a repectful nod to posterity. In England, this got turned round totally. And its still pretty much where its at.

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Declan
Date: 18 Oct 07 - 07:30 PM

The Seeger family connection is interesting here.

Pete seems to have been a major supporter of Dylan, until his alleged reaction to Bobby's electrification. Seems unusual therefore that Peggy appears to be saying she was unaware of Dylan until he showed up in Engalnd. I know they wouldn't have been exchanging eMails or texts in those days, but you'd imagine that Peggy would not have been completely unaware of Dylan when he arrived.

I've no idea how close Pete and Peggy were to each other, and I haven't worked out the implications of the dates, but I'd be interested in hearing what people who might know more about these things could add to this particular question.

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Oct 07 - 07:39 PM

MacColl was representing the aggrieved outlook of an old, mostly UK-based folk establishment who were thoroughly irritated by the rapid rise and success of what must have seemed to them to be a motley and inexperienced and upstart bunch of feckless semi-talented youngsters from the USA...Dylan, Baez, Buffy-Sainte-Marie, and all the rest of them.

As such, it was the typical kind of reaction that an older establishment usually has to the new kids bursting onto the scene and changing the styles.

I wouldn't give it any more importance than it deserves, and it doesn't deserve a whole lot. Both MacColl and Dylan were wonderful at what they did...they just didn't happen to do exactly the same thing, that's all, and they represented different eras in folk music.

Dylan (in the early to mid-60's) often expressed contempt and dismissal for the old folkies of his day ("a bunch of fat old people sitting around playing guitars")...just as MacColl and some of his peers at that time expressed contempt and dismissal for Dylan and some of the young folkies. It was a case of age-based prejudice on both sides, as far as I can see.

Bob is much more generous toward the older folk veterans of his day now, as can be ascertained by reading his great book "Chronicles - Volume 1".

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Oct 07 - 11:15 PM

Exactly LH - it was entirely an understandable fit of annoyance.

I find it so unfair - on these other threads about MacColl - these characters casting about for odd occasions when people have lost their temper and said nasty things about EM. He just deserves a degree of reverence for what he achieved - in my opinion at least.

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 03:11 AM

At the same time as his item in "Sing Out", MacColl also set out to slaughter Dylan in particular and the U.S.songwriting scene in general in a Melody Maker intervieiw with Karl Dallas. He dismissed the work of Dylan and Paxton as "saying nothing that LBJ could disagree with" and calling Dyla's poetry "punk and terribly old hat".
I remember being saddened by this at the time as I held both Dylan and MacColl (and still do)in the highest esteem both as performers and songwriters.
However as I recall MacColl received very little support for these attacks from the music scene and I certainly didn't see it as a catylist to destroy our contemporary songwriting movement. Alternativly, although I favoured traditionally based folk clubs, I and plenty others were quite comfortable in clubs where traditional and contemporary songs lived side by side. In fact for ten years I helped run a folk and blues club at which we booked MacColl three times!

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: GUEST,Zoothorn
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 04:30 AM

re the guitar-playing - maybe he was stoned when playing live, & just trying to hold it together; and/or trying to elicit maximum volume playing live into a mike, & eschewing subtlety for force? & probably a lot more nervous than he might have seemed..

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Lowden Jameswright
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 04:44 AM

I've always thought MacColl was a bit of an arsehole - his quote on Dylan confirms that he was COMPLETE in that regard!

Jealous? - how could you suggest such a thing.

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 04:59 AM

well he wasn't an arsehole. he was a more than okay guy. as an artist he was reliable - always turned up and did the business.

he was friendly and very encouraging in the general way of things to other singers and sogwriters. However he was human, and us humans have our off days. We shouldn't be judged by them - particularly when our best days are as good and productive as Ewan's best days were.

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: GUEST,Edthefolkie
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 05:45 AM

Just reading my daughter's copy of Greil Marcus' "Like a Rolling Stone" (my God that sounds like a putdown by MacColl).

I have the greatest respect for Mr. Marcus, and the book is excellent, but there's an absolutely hilarious paragraph where he claims that Brit folk clubs in 1965 were Communist cells, from whence commisars and workers were detailed to march to Dylan's concerts, waving red flags and placards and causing mayhem. Hence, apparently, the cry of "Judas" at Manchester Free Trade Hall.

Presumably Ewan MacColl and Bert Lloyd were the party apparatchiks detailed by the Kremlin to get rid of this dangerous revisionist, no doubt with Karl Dallas waving a revolver in the background.

If a respected essayist like Marcus can get something like this so wildly wrong what's the hope of us knowing what was going on in MacColl's mind forty years after the event?

Mind you I bet I wouldn't have got on with him.

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Lowden Jameswright
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 05:57 AM

Putting down other artists isn't clever - and he left a lasting legacy with others I'm not going to mention here - have no time for any of them.

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 06:05 AM

' I certainly didn't see it as a catylist to destroy our contemporary songwriting movement. Alternativly, although I favoured traditionally based folk clubs, I and plenty others were quite comfortable in clubs where traditional and contemporary songs lived side by side.'

Summer of '65 I saw a fine young American singer/songwriter called Marc Sullivan at a west country folk club. Despite him being very accomplished, I saw that some of the locals were rude and talked through his gig. I wondered what all this was about.

When I saw the MacColl interview in MM, I knew from whence it emanated. They were too dim to have worked it out themselves. By the time I started singing The Grey Cock folk club (in the 1970's on the ring road in Brum, having some sort of arts council grant, and having Mac Coll's collaborator in the Radio Ballads , Charles Parker in the background as an eminence gris) wouldn't let floorsingers in with guitars - they would ask you your influences, and when I said ralph McTell - they said well we've got to draw the line somewhere - you can listen, but you're not singing.

It was a pernicious, underhand thing, a hydra headed monster that had no respect d for any singer that didn't sound like Walter Gabriel and wore a fiherman's smock.

Of course there were some good broad minded traddies - but like I said in 1965, Dylan had half our fifth year interesyyted in the idea of c becoming folksinger. there was a joke in Readers Digest at the time:-

Fifteen year old to his mother - I'm not sure what I want to be either a nuclear physicist or a folksinger.

The kids nowadays who get into folkmusic look like they've smoked a pipe and worn a tweed jacket since they were six.

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: GUEST,Edthefolkie
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 06:25 AM

My God - Eliza Carthy and Seth Lakeman in tweed jackets & smoking pipes! Hey man, what the hell's in this here coffee?

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 07:30 AM

Eliza Carthy .....a kid. Somebody tell her that one.

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: GUEST,Edthefolkie
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 07:58 AM

Ooer. Point taken re Eliza and pejorative "kid" reference.

(Dons slippers, puts [Porsche] pipe in mouth, and settles down in front of Miss Marple repeat on ITV3)

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 08:06 AM

My goodness, some trad folkies were dreadful snobs, weren't they! Oh, and I remember a few like that too in the clubs I went to. What a pain they were. They were almost always heavy-set men with a beard and a British or Scottish accent, and they thought the sun rose and set on them and their damned opinions. ;-) You couldn't play a Dylan song in the presence of those worthies...nor any modern song...nor anything you'd written yourself. Good heavens no! What a bunch of stuffed shirts.

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 04:54 PM

would there be any of those here on Mudcat?,they probably havent contributed to this thread,because the name Dylan puts them off.

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 12:05 AM

They're out there, Cap, lurking in the shadows, nursing their bile, stroking their greying beards, and biding their time... ;-) They gather in tight little cliques in the back rooms of pubs on acoustic nights and try to one-up each other by playing vigorously on bohdrans and Irish pipes whilst sneering down their noses at all the young "snigger-snogwriters". They bellow their way through interminable Scottish sea shanties which have 149 verses and then criticize Bob Dylan for writing "such long songs". A pox on these varlets! May they all be set upon by nameless cutpurses and roving highwaymen and left naked, battered, and senseless in the gutter, there to be gazed upon scornfully by passing hogs and street urchins until the watch finally arrives and carts them all off to the assizes to be charged with public nudity and gross indecency. ;-)

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Peace
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 12:08 AM

"May they all be set upon by nameless cutpurses and roving highwaymen and left naked, battered, and senseless in the gutter, there to be gazed upon scornfully by passing hogs and street urchins until the watch finally arrives and carts them all off to the assizes to be charged with public nudity and gross indecency. ;-)"

I thought that need to be 'said' again.

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 02:22 AM

OK, I'll get me coat

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 02:49 AM

They're out there, Cap, lurking in the shadows, nursing their bile, stroking their greying beards, and biding their time... ;-)

and thats just the women.....

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 03:35 AM

Peace said "the rest of us will have to keep hoping we write as well." That qualifies as somewhat of an understatement.

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 09:22 AM

Rather belatedly, I'm afraid: wasn't 'North Country' actually a G -Em9 - C - G riff?

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 11:41 AM

Straight out of Scarbrough Fair and down a bit?

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 11:52 AM

Just try and find an original chord sequence if you think you can.... ;-) The thing that's wonderful about music is that we can get so much out of just 12 tones...and three or four beats in a measure.

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 02:53 PM

Girl of the North Country -just listen to the sodding record. whoever played guitar that can piss smoke rings.

scarboro fair my bottom! a variant maybe, but the accompaniment is exquisite.

I admire Martin Carthy but I've never heard him come up with anything as attractive.

and no I don't think it was Bob Dylan, even if he was enjoying recreational drug and suffering a flash forward memory to the motorbike accident.

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 04:35 PM

"Girl From the North Country" and "Scarborough Fair" are related, to some extent ("remember me to one who lives there"), but they are by no means identical in either melody, rythm, or chord structure, to say nothing of arrangement. They are two different songs with a some noticeable similarities in theme and structure. So what?

The folk tradition is filled with hundreds and hundreds of songs that resemble each other somewhat in melody or chord structure and which share certain memorable phrases or images. That's part of what makes the folk tradition what it is. We build on the past backlog of lyrics, tunes, musical structures, and styles. And that's good.

It only seems to bother certain people when Bob Dylan does it. I wonder why? ;-) Because he is who he is, that's why. He is the single most influential songwriter of the last 50 years, and that's what pisses those certain people off.

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 05:47 PM

I have no problem with Dylan having written it. But that guitar accompaniment - just listen.

I think the final proof is the Johnny Cash version on Nashville Skyline. Imagine letting the desecration of one of your most beautiful trax - the first track on the album.

Dylan has yet to get a decent amount of respect for the session men who have complemented his vision with sensitive work.

A couple of decades later he will be grovelling round Mark Knopfler and Sly and Robbie, Allen Toussaint - hoping for some of their magic. he hasn't learned that being a 'star' like himself has nothing to do with it. he's not a country star who can call on Hargus Pig Robbins, and the rest of Billy Sherril's team. he actually needs a sensitive musician - who will listen to what his song is about and try and get something down that sets his words like a diamond in the centre of a beautiful ring or brooch.

Businessmen they drink my wine, ploughmen dig my earth

I've been listening to ploughed up pieces of business from Dylan for a long time. he was damn lucky - he fell amongst honest men in the first instance.

downhill all the way - ever since.

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 06:40 PM

I would remind you, Hawk 'n' Cap'n, that it is perfectly valid to not think much of Bob Dylan, still less regard him as a "folk singer."   He's a pop singer (y'know, Number Ones, played a lot on Radio One, cult status and all that) who sings almost all his own songs and hardly any of anyone else's who just happens to play an acoustic guitar sometimes. He's as much a "folk singer" as the Corrs are a "traditional Irish group" (golly gosh, they have a FIDDLE!!).   Not that all that should colour one's views as to his worth or quality, but I reiterate that is OK to not think much of him (without being shot down by his groupies).

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 06:48 PM

Steve Shaw,Fair Comment,I cant disagree with you.

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 10:53 PM

Well, it all depends on what you think a "folksinger" is, and what you think about that depends on when and where you were growing up, around whom, and who you were influenced by, right? We all have mental patterns that were set by our earliest experiences, and those patterns go on justifying themselves for the rest of our lives.

In the end, all that matters about Dylan or any other singer whatsoever is...do you enjoy listening to them? If you do, great, enjoy them. If you don't, fine, just go and listen to someone else instead that you like better.

If Dylan's not a folksinger to you, okay. That's up to you. To me, he's a singer and a writer who went through a number of stages...country/rock/blues/folk/protest/"folk-rock"/country/all of the below together/religious rock/and who knows what else...

At around 14, he played country music (inspired mostly by Hank Williams). After that he played rock n' roll, inspired by Little Richard and Buddy Holly and other rockers...and he fronted a couple of really loud high school rock bands "Ellston Gunn and the Rock Boppers" and "The Golden Chords". He played a lot of piano then, Little Richard style.

Then he got into the old acoustic blues stuff, like Robert Johnson and Blind Willie McTell, etc, and he did a lot of that on acoustic guitar for years afterward.

Then he got into Woody Guthrie and the folk music thing. For awhile he had a huge repertoire of Guthrie songs. Was Guthrie a folksinger? Most people seem to think so.

You appear to be bothered by the fact that Dylan does almost exclusively his own songs. Why by bothered by that? He did almost exclusively cover tunes for years and years (all through his teens) and most of the songs on his first album were cover tunes of various wellknown folksongs, blues, etc.

AFTER that he started doing mostly his own songs. You know why? Probably because he felt like it, having spent all of his teenage years ALREADY immersing himself in playing hundreds and hundreds of cover tunes and traditional numbers.

Aww...poor Bobbie...he just didn't want to keep doing the very same thing forever and ever. You guys would all probably love him if he'd just STOPPED at one particular moment that suited your taste perfectly and kept on repeating that moment forever like an old record on the turntable.

Well, hey, you've got folksingers and pop singers and country singers who do that. Hundreds of them. They simple repeat the past endlessly. They could probably do it in their sleep. So my advice is, listen to those guys and be happy. They will never let you down.

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 03:06 AM

He was the main reason perople got interested in folk music. he brought a lot of folk into the fold.

If you think folkmusic can exist without the acceptance of the generality of the 'folk', but with just few acolytes and froots readers - well you may be right. But I don't think so.

He was folk when he was young and artistically ambitious enough to want to be - I think he's settled for something much less over the years. Which is a little sad.

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 11:50 AM

I would tend to agree with that, Weelittledrummer...he has settled for less. That often happens with people as they get older.   There's nothing to match the hunger, passion, and drive of a young person who is really excited about something, as Dylan was about the music when he was young, but the excitement can tend to fade after awhile.

There's nothing that can kill a dream so dead as achieving it in full measure. ;-) For instance, I had a dream in my head about Native Americans when I was a kid. Why? Who knows. Anyway, I eventually spent a lot of time hanging around with Native Americans, going to powwows, living among them....and then I acquired a Native American girlfriend. And that killed the dream. Stone dead. She was the single most problematical character I have ever dealt with. Any romantic illusions I was carrying about Native Americans were completely smashed by the time that relationship was through, and I've never felt the same about them since. The glow is definitely off the rose.

Now just apply that same analogy to the dream of becoming a great folksinger and playing Newport and Carnegie Hall....and see what might happen when and if you achieve it.

You never know how it's gonna go with such things till after they've been done.

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 06:00 PM

For goodness sake, Hawk, did I say I was BOTHERED by the fact that he almost exclusively does his own songs? The fact that I mentioned it does not mean that it bothers me, but that it is just another thing that comes into the reckoning as far as I'm concerned in deciding whether he should be regarded, by me in my tiny mind, as a folk singer.

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 01:05 AM

Okay. ;-) Many of my favorite "folksingers" did record mostly their own original songs, but my sense of what a folksinger was was formed differently than yours, I guess. I think what you call a folksinger is what I would call a "traditional folksinger", most likely...meaning someone who does mostly trad songs.

Folk appealed to a certain kind of audience in North America in the 60's...as opposed to pop and rock or even country and blues. Folk in North America at that time appealed to an audience that focused very much on the words of the songs (this was not so in ANY other style of popular music)...and the songs tended to be about more serious subjects than was the case with any of the other music styles. They had philosophical and topical content in them. That's what the folk audience was looking for at that time. Trad songs were popular too, but they tended to take 2nd place to the topical stuff (and I don't just mean "protest" songs, but any songs that examined the human condition in some thoughtful way and commented on it). People like Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Ian Tyson, Tom Paxton, Gordon Lightfoot, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Joni Mitchell, and various others were writing those kind of songs.

The folk audience was much quieter, much more analytical, much more political, and less there to "party" than was the case with the rock, the blues, or the country audience. You didn't dance to folk music... ;-) You listened...very attentively.

And that made for wonderful concerts, because you could hear every little thing. The audience was paying total attention to the music instead of having a big noisy party as is normally the case in a rock show. Dylan was perfect for that quiet folk audience in his early career. By the time he went electric, the whole scene was changing fast and fragmenting, and he helped speed up that process. I miss the days before the fragmenting occurred, but I don't particularly blame Dylan. It would've happened regardless. He just accelerated it some.

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: GUEST,Richard Wastling
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 09:40 AM

Please do some research before making suppositions about Bob's guitar playing - as regards 'Girl from the North Country', there exists is a widely available bootleg video of the Canadian 'Quest' TV show , transmitted on 1st February 1964 on which he plays a bunch of songs live, mostly from the 'Freewheelin' catalogue, including a beautiful fluently finger-picked version of 'Girl from the North Country" (see Google or Youtube http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3Qhwemir1Ag for evidence!).
Other live audio recordings of that 1963/64 period include, amongst others, competently finger-picked versions of 'Tomorrow is a Long Time', 'Percy's Song and 'Moonshiner Blues' amongst others.
I just think that as Bob got bigger audiences, he went for a bigger sound - anyway, what's so unusual about Dylan changing the way he does a song!

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Lowden Jameswright
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 10:29 AM

Bless you Bob for staying faithful to your philosophical look at the times as they are constantly changing. No other performer has managed to travel successfully through time as you have.

I don't care how his music is classified - there's so much of it, and in so many different colours I just pick n' mix according to my mood, whether listening or performing. He still does covers (eg Robert Johnson) - rollin' and tumblin' down the decades and changing his style as he goes. I don't hear anyone yet covering his more recent offerings, possibly because they're not as simple as Blowing in the Wind etc.. but I'm sure they'll be covered soon enough, and will be played in folk clubs (or their equivalent) in year 2057.

Roll on Bobby....

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: GUEST,Fingerpick Jim
Date: 23 Oct 07 - 04:40 AM

"Rather belatedly, I'm afraid: wasn't 'North Country' actually a G -Em9 - C - G riff? " (Rusty Dobro)

Based on the Youtube 1964 video it looks like G D+4th D7 G C G; D+4 D7 G C G; Em C   G C G; D+4 D7 G C G

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 23 Oct 07 - 05:47 AM

Thanks, FJ, I'll have some fun with that later. I fancy I'll stick with my version, though, if only to show that I know Em9 - a small step for mankind,but a giant step for the elderly and confused.

One of the things I like about Mr Z is the way he throws unexpected (by me, anyway) chords into otherwise fairly undemanding tunes, like 'When I Paint my Masterpiece', or 'One More Night'.

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: GUEST,Fingerpickjim
Date: 23 Oct 07 - 10:16 AM

My pleasuse RD - our thanks to Richard Wastling for the Youtube link. That C shape shoved up to the 3rd fret is also a feature of Paul Simon's "Kathy's Song" and what gives it it's very distinctive flavour; which came 1st I wonder?

You're right about his use of unexpected chords - part of what makes him so special. It's taken for granted now, but who else would have come up with the (very simple but effective) chords for Tambourine Man....

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 23 Oct 07 - 02:28 PM

Its not bad picking - certainly better than the Newport nonsense Good functional stuff. But theres a bit more than that going on, on the record.

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: Lowden Jameswright
Date: 24 Oct 07 - 11:28 AM

Having viewed the video and listened again to that beautiful recording of "Girl from the North Country" I have to agree with you WLD. The video does not prove (to me at least) that Dylan is playing on the recording. As to "there's a bit more than that going on", the recorded version is in Bb with capo on 3rd, which changes the colour of the sound, and there's also a hint of stereo/reverb, but the fingerstyle pattern is slightly different too.

When I listen to recordings of, say, Richard Thompson, I am never in any doubt as to who is playing. I have always doubted whether Dylan played on "Don't Think Twice" and a few others. To my ears I get the impression the same guitarist plays these two and "Corrina Corrina" for example.

All this is of no real consequence of course, but interesting nonetheless. I'd love to think guitar anoraks would be discussing my guitar style/playing in 45 years time!!

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 Oct 07 - 12:37 PM

probably Bert Weedon,hewas avery good sessionman.

Subject: RE: DYLAN NIGHT - Embarassing Moments
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 Oct 07 - 12:38 PM

100