The first time I ever heard Dylan chorttle

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When you tell the story so many times that you begin to worry - maybe that is the time to write it down and put it aside and put it right there. That may be the case with the first time I ever heard Bob Dylan singh. The route was circuitous in that I came to him under a cover.

The Byrd's version of Tambourine Man was this gigantic hit - as hits could be for mere days in that time - it was a gigantic hit for me, cause it turned around what I listened too (Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett) - The guitars were electric folk, like the Searchers but almost psychedelic in their reverberating drone. Now we know that sound - something like Fill Spector meets Leadbelly - was the creation of the Wrecking Crew - the Los Angeles studio band par excellence. The words though - wow - total poetry.

Take me on a trip up on your magic swirling ship all my senses have been. Stripped and my hands can't field to grip

outside the kin of pop or Broadway … I guess I knew Bob Dylan wrote Blownin in the Wind by Repeatable Mary and now I was learning that he was the author of this number, the Turtles hit, and Sonny and Cher number on and on suddenly -but the Byrds were a high-power mix.…

I can remember with Dave Murray listening to the words that you really weren't going to find a Bob Dylan record in the record racks of our town too much in those days - I think I ran into Dave when I was coming from my last day of baseball in eighth grade - and we stopped at Jerry Jamison's (he was laid up or something) and his brother was home from college. Yeah he had a guitar, a lot of Hootenany records of the era which is 1965 lo and behold had a Bob Dylan record I think it was Bob Dylan's first record in any case we put it on

And I was completely blown away at how bad Bob Sang. I'd listened to folk almost every night for long periods of time - folk (but Chad Mitchell Trio harmonious style ) and Broadway and I didn't like rock 'n roll much not enough to listen to the stations anyway - but his voice was so grating and untutored and I really had no comparative template hear it by .. to do it it only lasted for maybe a week or so before I would just love his music and buy as many records as I could

All that is kind of a prelude to consideration of his new record - Fallen Angels - questions to ask about it: Is it a put on? does he really think he can sing that well? does he think he can sing better than Rod Stewart? Is this a requirement to meet product quota? Is some of it not really that bad? Or even good? Is he trying to place himself in a continuum of songwriter time? Is he preparing us for what might be his last great epic to come?

More Bob stuff


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