There's a time in life for Hoagy Carmichael. There's a time in life for Claude Debussy. There's a time in life for Jerry Lee Lewis. There's a time in life for Destiny's Child. All these things have their moment. ~Elvis Costello
Bob Dylan was in the middle of negotiations for the upcoming festival but backed out when his son fell ill and although he lived close to the upstate New York venue, legend has it that Dylan was so annoyed at the constant stream of hippies showing up at his door and accumulating outside of his house near the originally planned site of the festival that he turned the gig down and headed to England that August weekend of 1969. Two weeks later he did take to the stage at a music festival on the Isle of Wight in southern England.
Simon and Garfunkel were invited, but were “too busy” to accept. They were after all finishing up their Bridge Over Troubled Water album which was already over due. Garfunkel was juggling his time between the duo and his acting career.
The Woodstock organizers naturally did extended an invitation to the Stones to perform, however they were spread all over the place at the time. Their singer and band leader Mick Jagger turned the gig down on everyone’s behalf, and instead went to Australia to shoot a movie in which he played the outlaw Ned Kelly, that only a few even remembers now.
According to the book “Led Zeppelin: the Concert File” their manager said no because at Woodstock they’d have just been another band on the bill.”
In short, The Doors didn’t play Woodstock “because we were stupid and turned it down,” according to the band’s guitarist Robby Krieger. They thought it would be a second class repeat of Monterey Pop Festival of 1967.
In the almost 60 years since Bob Dylan released his debut album, countless words have been spilled on his singular legacy. There are books and movies and over half a century’s worth of music journalism trying to dissect the mystery and pin down the multitudes. College courses unpack his lyrics. A Presidential Medal Of Freedom and a Nobel Prize and who knows how many other honors mark Dylan’s towering, seismic presence as not just a musician but a cultural and literary icon of the American Century. All of which is to say: You and I both know about Bob Dylan, and there’s little I could say to celebrate his 80th birthday that hasn’t been said many times before.
Instead, we chose to celebrate the occasion by surveying a vast array of musicians on their favorite Bob Dylan song. (Technically, there are picks from 86 musicians here, but we didn’t want to wait another six years to publish this. Consider it a bonus.) Below, you’ll find singer-songwriters working in a tradition most obviously indebted to Dylan, but you’ll also find young country stars and ascendent art-rockers and jazz boundary-pushers. You’ll find David Byrne writing an essay about one of Dylan’s most recent songs, and you’ll find David Crosby remembering the first time he saw Dylan play in the Village, and a whole lot more. All spoke to Dylan’s incomparable influence, the way he kicked open some kind of door or another no matter what form an artist works in. We were excited and stunned by all the thoughtful responses we received for this project, and we think you will be too. Happy birthday Bob Dylan!
As fans puzzle out the epic “Murder Most Foul,” we count down the best of Bob, from the fury of “Pay in Blood” to the pure genius of “Simple Twist of Fate.”
50. Changing of the Guards (1978)
Street Legal delivered fans a shock: Dylan fronting a large band, with female backing singers to the fore. The words, meanwhile, might well represent an oblique personal history, from adolescence through marriage to religious conversion: whatever they were about, they reduced Patti Smith to tears on first hearing.
49. This Wheel’s on Fire (1967)
Subsequently covered by everyone from Siouxsie and the Banshees to Kylie Minogue, in every style from psychedelic to electro-glam stomp, the original Basement Tapes recording of This Wheel’s on Fire – both a great song and another of Dylan’s umpteen apocalyptic visions – has a uniquely intense, eerie quality that no one else has subsequently matched.
48. Pay in Blood (2012)
Should you wonder if Dylan’s capacity for rage had been dulled by his advancing years, listen to Pay in Blood, a gentle musical backdrop for an expression of literally murderous fury: at first he’s so angry that the lyrics are incomprehensible, his voice just a phlegmy snarling noise; when they come into focus, he’s demanding vengeance on bankers and politicians “pumping out [their] piss”. Bracing.
47. My Back Pages (1964)
Those upset when Dylan went electric couldn’t say he didn’t warn them something big was coming: My Back Pages spends the best part of five minutes not repudiating his protest singer past, but bidding the kind of certainties that fuelled it (“lies that life is black and white”) a sardonic farewell…
While I agree that Dylan was a restless artist following his own muse, there is no denying that he was totally captivated by The Beatles breakthrough hits in America, listening attentively to “I Want To Hold Your Hand” & “She Loves You (Yeah Yeah Yeah).”
Even though most of his purist folkie friends at Gerde’s Folk City club & The Gaslight & similar locations held their noses at this seemingly meaningless teenie-pop, with the exception of Roger McGuinn who went on to form the ‘American Beatles’ band The Byrds, Dylan privately said that The Beatles harmonies were outrageous & their chords made it all valid. He was very attentive & interested in the Beatlemania phenomena & resisted meeting them until Time Magazine gave him a cover, as they did The Beatles previously, so he would be accepted as an equal (and/or better)…
Paul McCartney discovered Bob Dylan’s 1963 “Freewheelin’” album in 1964. All the Beatles had listened to it and it had inspired John and Paul to try writing deeper, more meaningful lyrics. John began by working on a new song called “I’m a Loser.”
In 1964, Dylan met the Beatles at the Delmonico Hotel in New York City. Within minutes of meeting each other, Dylan proceeded to get the Fab Four stoned for the first time on pot.
Dylan’s lyrics had inspired Lennon and McCartney to begin writing “deeper” songs such as “Norwegian Wood” and “Eleanor Rigby.”
Bob Dylan has had a strict “no photos” policy at his concerts for years, but that’s rarely stopped fans from taking our their cellphones and trying to snap a few images before security swarms. But on Tuesday night at a show in Vienna, Austria, he finally reached his boiling point when he stopped singing “Blowin’ in the Wind” after one verse to admonish the audience.
“We can either play or pose,” he barked into the microphone according to multiple reports. “It’s your decision!”
He emerges from some dark corner of the audience, maybe drunk, gawkily shoving his way through the crowd as the audience stands contented, mesmerized by the rock god onstage. He leans forward next to your ear, brutishly disturbing your daydream with a shrill, piercing shout:
“FREE BIRD!”
Eyes roll in the audience. The man’s face snarls with wretched delight. He is the only one laughing.
But just before your disgust impels you to jam your elbow into this troll’s ribcage, a guitar rings out. Everyone turns to the stage.
Holy hell, Bob Dylan is actually playing “Free Bird.”
To the shock of a Berkeley audience, Dylan closed out his set at the Greek Theater last week — which featured covers of some of Frank Sinatra’s most famous songs from his newest album “Fallen Angels” — with a take on Lynyrd Skynyrd’s 1973 hit “Free Bird.”
“Wagon Wheel” is a song with a very interesting story. It doesn’t sound like a typical 21st century country song. But it’s the kind of song 21st century country artists love to cover because it’s the kind modern country songwriters have so much trouble coming up with. Which is to say, it comes from a more instinctive place, taking the express track from the writer’s gut without that stop at the brain for mental market-testing.
“Wagon Wheel” sounds like the work of one of the great folk songwriters of the 20th century, say a Woody Guthrie or a Stephen Foster…because it is in fact the work of one of the great folk songwriters of the 20th century–at least in part. I direct you to Wikipedia for the story:
(The following reprinted from Wikipedia)
“Wagon Wheel” is a song originally sketched by Bob Dylan and later completed by Old Crow Medicine Show. Old Crow Medicine Show’s version was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America in November 2011.
“Wagon Wheel” is composed of two different parts. The chorus and melody for the song comes from a demo recorded by Bob Dylan during the Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid sessions. Although never officially released, the Dylan song was released on a bootleg and is usually named after the chorus and its refrain of “Rock Me Mama.” Although Dylan left the song an unfinished sketch, Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show wrote verses for the song around Dylan’s original chorus. Secor’s additional lyrics transformed “Rock Me Mama” into “Wagon Wheel.” Secor has stated the song is partially autobiographical. The song has become extremely popular since its inclusion on Old Crow Medicine Show’s major label debut, O.C.M.S. in 2004, although the song appeared in earlier form on the now out of print “Troubles Up and Down the Road” EP in 2001. Dylan’s song is often credited to “A. Crudup.”, and the official publishing information is Dylan/Secor.
Old Crow Medicine Show: “Wagon Wheel” (2004)
Dan Milliken, reviewing the song for Country Universe, gave it an A+ rating, calling it “one of country music’s all-time great sing-alongs”.
The song has since been covered by numerous artists, including: Darius Rucker, Chad Brownlee, The Menzingers, Nash Street, Great American Taxi, Against Me!, Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers, Chris Pureka, David McMillin, Jeremy McComb, Matt Andersen, Mumford & Sons, Bodega, Little Feat, Donegal X-Press, Pat Buzzard of Saving Jane, Little Big Town, and Samjack Boys. (Note: there are lots more versions besides.)
Darius Rucker joined Old Crow Medicine Show at the Grand Ole Opry July 6, 2012, “for a special rendition of ‘Wagon Wheel.’” The fans “went crazy over Rucker’s cover of the Old Crow Medicine Show hit,” setting the stage for his tweeted announcement: “Secret out after @opry perf. I recorded a version of ‘Wagon Wheel’ for my new record & @ladyantebellum sings on track.” The new album, True Believers, is his third solo project on Capitol Records. Rucker’s cover is the album’s second single.
Darius Rucker: “Wagon Wheel” (2012)
The song did not at first appeal to Rucker. “Somebody had played ‘Wagon Wheel’ for me years ago,” he says. “It was one of those things that I didn’t really get.” When the faculty band from his daughter’s high school performed it, though, it had a different effect. Relating the story . .
“So, I’m at my daughter’s high school talent show, and I’m sitting in the audience with my family. We were watching my daughter, and the faculty band gets up. It’s just the faculty from her school, and they play ‘Wagon Wheel.’ I’m sitting in the audience, and they get to the middle of the chorus, and I turned to my wife, and I go, ‘I’ve got to cut this song.’ I’m serious. This all happened in three-and-a-half minutes, four minutes, while they’re playing the song.”
Only 100 copies of the singer’s new demos compilation were released to prevent the songs entering the public domain
by Sean Michaels
Bob Dylan’s label has made only100 copies of his latest box set. The singer’s new demos compilation, The 50th Anniversary Collection, is apparently designed to exploit a European copyright loophole.
The compilation’s official subtitle says it all: The Copyright Extension Collection, Vol 1. Delivered to a handful of “random” record shops in the UK, Germany, France and Sweden, according to Rolling Stone, the four-CD set comprises 86 songs recorded in 1962 and 1963, around the time of Dylan’s debut album. The packaging is plain, the liner notes almost non-existent. But fans are treating them as the rarities they are; bidding on eBay has topped £650.
According to sources at Sony Music, this compilation isn’t really meant for mass consumption. It’s essentially an attempt to keep these tracks from entering the public domain. Although the European Union has extended copyright terms from 50 years to 70 years, the extension only applies to recordings that have been released during the 50 years after they were made. Sony was therefore forced to release these songs – albeit in limited form – before the end of 2012, when their half-century was up.
“This isn’t a scheme to make money,” a source explained to Rolling Stone. “The whole point of copyrighting [this material] is that we intend to do something with it at some point in the future. But it wasn’t the right time to do it right after [Dylan] released Tempest.”
Perhaps Sony will eventually reissue Dylan’s 1962 debut with a series of outtakes, or collect decades of demos in another box set. Perhaps they just want to thwart the opportunist labels who can now legally sell any unreleased material from before 1963. The only thing that’s certain is that some British, German, French and Swedish Dylan fans got very, very lucky.
Every Moment Has A Song 