I think you’ll get a good laugh from this animated cartoon of what happened during that historic meeting of Bob Dylan and The Beatles.
Enjoy.
[In August of this year I’ll be publishing my rock ‘n’ roll/ coming-of-age novel, “True Love Scars,” which features a narrator who is obsessed with Bob Dylan. To read the first chapter, head here.
Or watch an arty video with audio of me reading from the novel here.
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July 29, 1966 was a life-changing day for Bob Dylan.
That was the day Dylan crashed his 500cc Triumph Tiger 100 motorcycle on a road near where he was living in Woodstock.
That accident signaled the end of The Bob Dylan World Tour 1966, and Dylan wouldn’t tour again for eight years.
But after that accident, while Dylan was living in Woodstock, he started the informal sessions with the future members of The Band that became the legendary “Basement Tapes.”
The more than 100 songs that Dylan and The Band recorded in upstate New York are an invaluable boy of work.
In his memoir Chronicles Dylan wrote about the accident:
“I had been in a motorcycle accident and I’d been hurt, but I recovered. Truth was that I wanted to get out of the rat race. Having children changed my life and segregated me from just about everybody and everything that was going on. Outside of my family, nothing held any real interest for me and I was seeing everything through different glasses.”
Here are some quotes from Dylan about the motorcycle accident, pulled together by Harold Lepidus for a post he did at his Bob Dylan Examiner site in 2011.
JANN WENNER (Rolling Stone magazine, 1969) : What change did the motorcycle accident make?
DYLAN: What change? Well, it… it limited me. It’s hard to speak about the change, you know? It’s not the type of change that one can put into words… besides the physical change. I had a busted vertebrae; neck vertebrae. And there’s really not much to talk about. I don’t want to talk about it. . . So eventually, I had my motorcycle accident and that just got me out of the whole thing, ‘cause I didn’t care anymore.
————-
PLAYBOY 1978: Did the motorcycle accident you had in 1966 have anything to do with cooling you off, getting you to relax?
DYLAN: Well, now you’re jumping way ahead to another period of time…. What was I doing? I don’t know. It came time. Was it when I had the motorcycle accident? Well, I was straining pretty hard and couldn’t have gone on living that way much longer. The fact that I made it through what I did is pretty miraculous. But, you know, sometimes you get too close to something and you got to get away from it to be able to see it. And something like that happened to me at the time.
—————
DYLAN, 1984: When I had that motorcycle accident … I woke up and caught my senses, I realized that I was just workin’ for all these leeches. And I didn’t want to do that. Plus, I had a family and I just wanted to see my kids.
—————
DYLAN, Spin magazine, December 1985: In 1966 I had a motorcycle accident and ended up with several broken vertebrae and a concussion. That put me down for a while. I couldn’t go on doing what I had been. I was pretty wound up before that accident happened. It set me down so I could see things in a better perspective. I wasn’t seeing anything in any kind of perspective. I probably would have died if I had kept on going the way I had been.
———–
Esquire interview with Sam Shepard: It was real early in the morning on top of a hill near Woodstock. I can’t even remember how it happened. I was blinded by the sun for a second. . . . I just happened to look up right smack into the sun with both eyes and, sure enough, I went blind for a second and I kind of panicked or something. I stomped down on the brake and the rear wheel locked up on me and I went flyin’.
There is a good summary of what happened here.
Here are a few Basement Tapes songs I’ve been digging recently:
“Young But Daily Growing”:
“I Can’t Make It Alone”:
“Don’t You Try Me Now”:
[In August of this year I’ll be publishing my rock ‘n’ roll/ coming-of-age novel, “True Love Scars,” which features a narrator who is obsessed with Bob Dylan. To read the first chapter, head here.
Or watch an arty video with audio of me reading from the novel here.
–- A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
Great performance by Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen of Bob Dylan’s “All ALong The Watchtower” at the Xcel Energy Center, St. Paul, MN on October 5, 2004.
[In August of this year I’ll be publishing my rock ‘n’ roll/ coming-of-age novel, “True Love Scars,” which features a narrator who is obsessed with Bob Dylan. To read the first chapter, head here.
Or watch an arty video with audio of me reading from the novel here.
–- A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
Fifty-one years ago, on July 26, 1963, Bob Dylan performed at the Newport Folk Festival.
Here are some of the performances from Newport that year.
“Talkin’ World War III Blues”:
“With God On Our Side” with Joan Baez:
“Only A Pawn In Their Game”:
Only a pawn in their game 1963 – MyVideo
“Blowin’ In The Wind”:
“North Country Blues”:
Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger, “Ye Playboys and Playgirls”
[In August of this year I’ll be publishing my rock ‘n’ roll/ coming-of-age novel, “True Love Scars,” which features a narrator who is obsessed with Bob Dylan. To read the first chapter, head here.
Or watch an arty video with audio of me reading from the novel here.
–- A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
OK, so we know this day, 49 years ago, was historic. Bob Dylan going public with his new electric rock ‘n’ roll sound.
We all know the story. We all know the different versions of the story.
What remains amazing is the music.
On Saturday July 24, 1965 Dylan played a workshop and did three acoustic numbers. I’ve got “All I Really Want To Do” and “Love Minus Zero/ No Limit” from that workshop, and then all the songs from his evening performance on July 25, 1965.
Here Dylan rock out through “Maggie’s Farm,” “Like A Rolling Stone” and “Phantom Engineer,” an early version of “It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry.”
This music will be as alive as anyone until humans are no more.
What a gift that we can hear this music today.
“All I Really Want To Do”:
“Love Minus Zero/ No Limit”:
Bob Dylan – Love minus zero-no limit (live 1965) by Bambino_Portoghese
“Maggie’s Farm” at Newport”:
“Like A Rolling Stone” at Newport:
Bob Dylan – Like a Rolling Stone (Live… by toma-uno
“Phantom Engineer” (early version of “It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry”):
“Mr. Tambourine Man”:
“It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”:
[In August of this year I’ll be publishing my rock ‘n’ roll/ coming-of-age novel, “True Love Scars,” which features a narrator who is obsessed with Bob Dylan. To read the first chapter, head here.
Or watch an arty video with audio of me reading from the novel here.
–- A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
In 1964 Douglas R. Gilbert got the once-in-a-lifetime assignment to photograph Bob Dylan up in Woodstock, and elsewhere, for Look magazine.
Look never ran the photos, but now they will be exhibited at the South Haven Center for the Arts at 600 Phoenix Rd, South Haven Charter Township, MI 49090.
You can see four of them here.v
But the mother lode is at Gilbert’s website, where you can view 46 of the photos right now!
There are superb photos of Dylan with Allen Ginsberg, John Sebastian, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Sally Grossman — wife of Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman — who was later in the cover photo for Bringing It All Back Home.
Here’s what’s on Gilbert’s website about the photos:
In July of 1964, one year before his music changed from acoustic to electric, I photographed Bob Dylan for LOOK magazine. I spent time with him at his home in Woodstock, New York, in Greenwich Village, and at the Newport Folk Festival. The story was never published. After reviewing the proposed layout, the editors declared Dylan to be “too scruffy for a family magazine” and killed the story.
Some of the photos were used for The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964, Concert at Philharmonic Hall.
And they appeared in the excellent book: “Forever Young: Photographs of Bob Dylan‚ by Douglas R. Gilbert.”
[In August of this year I’ll be publishing my rock ‘n’ roll/ coming-of-age novel, “True Love Scars,” which features a narrator who is obsessed with Bob Dylan. To read the first chapter, head here.
Or watch an arty video with audio of me reading from the novel here.
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One year ago, Bob Dylan and band performed “Blind WIllie McTell” at the Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia, MD on July 23, 2103.
Cool version.
[In August of this year I’ll be publishing my rock ‘n’ roll/ coming-of-age novel, “True Love Scars,” which features a narrator who is obsessed with Bob Dylan. To read the first chapter, head here.
Or watch an arty video with audio of me reading from the novel here.
–- A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
A year ago, on July 21, 2013, Bonnie Raitt performed Bob Dylan’s “Million Miles” in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The song appeared on her 2012 album, Slipstream, as did Dylan’s “Standing in the Doorway.”
Studio version:
Another live version, this one performed at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre in Atlanta, GA, on May 9, 2012:
Continue reading Video: Bonnie Raitt Sings Bob Dylan’s ‘Million Miles’ – July 21, 2013 – Copenhagen, Denmark
Forty-nine years ago, on July 20, 1965, one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll records was released.
Bob Dylan’s revolutionary “Like A Rolling Stone” soon raged from across the country, and the world was a different place.
Here, then, are some of Bob Dylan’s many performances of the song.
The original:
Live at Newport, July 25, 1965:
Bob Dylan – Like a Rolling Stone (Live… by toma-uno
Forest Hills Tennis Stadium, Queens, NY, August 28, 1965:
Manchester, May 17, 1966:
Royal Albert Hall, London, England, May 26, 1966:
Isle of Wight, Wootton, England, August 31, 1969:
Bob Dylan and The Band, Academy of Music, New York, December 31, 1971:
Bob Dylan and The Band, Oakland Coliseum, February 1974:
Los Angeles, January 6, 1978:
San Francisco, Nov., 15, 1980:
Bob Dyland with Mick Taylor, Arena di Verona, Verona, Italy on May 28 or 29, 1984 (There’s an interview and then it goes into the song):
Bob Dylan and Tom Petty, 1986:
Bob Dylan and Neil Young, Greek Theater, University of California, Berkeley, California, June 10, 1988:
And, finally, here’s Jimi Hendrix covering “Like A Rolling Stone” in his own unique and amazing way:
[In August of this year I’ll be publishing my rock ‘n’ roll/ coming-of-age novel, “True Love Scars,” which features a narrator who is obsessed with Bob Dylan. To read the first chapter, head here.
Or watch an arty video with audio of me reading from the novel here.
–- A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
Bob Dylan performed “House of the Rising Sun,” a song off his debut album that he didn’t write, at the Metro Radio Arena in Newcastle, England on April 12, 2007.
It was a tribute of sorts to The Animals who had a huge hit with their electric version of the song and who came from Newcastle.
[In August of this year I’ll be publishing my rock ‘n’ roll/ coming-of-age novel, “True Love Scars,” which features a narrator who is obsessed with Bob Dylan. To read the first chapter, head here.
Or watch an arty video with audio of me reading from the novel here.
–- A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-