Have a friend here in Phoenix who is a fellow music lover and also a fan of Bob Dylan. We'd talked about visiting the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa (Dylan's archives are in Tulsa because that's where Woody Guthrie's archive and museum is). Earlier this year he found out that Billy Strings (another mutual favorite) was playing a Tulsa concert on December 10 so we decided to make a road trip.
Fortunately, Southwest Airlines has direct flight to Tulsa, so on the afternoon of the 10th we flew there and attended Billy's concert that night. I'd seen him once before and have watched endless live videos on YouTube. Billy and his band don't have a warm up act. They start at 8 and end around 11, with a 20 minute break in the middle. One of the things I like best about his music is though I only recognized about a 1/3 of the songs, everything they played was incredible. The rest of the group; mandolin, bass, banjo, and fiddle are as talented as Billy. We, like most of the audience, spent most of the concert on our feet.
We were in the 12th row of seats but in front of us was an area without seats where fans can stand for the entire concert. At the end of the show, Billy slid off the stage and hung out with the folks in that area.
His shows are a magical experience. Will see him again. Upon returning to AZ realized the concert marked exactly 4 years since I first heard Billy Strings (read Away From The Mire).
One of the last songs Billy played was Don't Think Twice, It's Allright. Appropriate since we visited the Dylan Center the next morning.
The exhibits at the Dylan Center take you through Bob's career and are set up in an entertaining fashion. It includes previously unavailable photos, recording takes, letters, and drafts of lyrics, along with videos from Dylan interviews.
The special exhibit was Dylan Goes Electric, sparked by the movie A Complete Unknown and Elijah Wald's excellent book Dylan Goes Electric!, by itself worth visiting. The highlight was a film about the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, the first part of which consists of interviews with some of the surviving key players (and their conflicting memories) and culminates with Dylan's entire performance that night which consisted of three electric tunes (Maggie's Farm, Like A Rolling Stone, It Takes a Lot To Laugh It Takes a Train to Cry) and the two acoustic tunes he came back out to play to calm the audience down, It's All Over Now Baby Blue, and Mr Tambourine Man.
All the interviewees recount that the Newport sound system was awful and Dylan's vocals were inaudible during the electric set. However, in the film the sound has been remastered so you can clearly hear the vocals and, it turns out, Dylan was in fine form.
Listening to Baby Blue when Dylan returned to the stage, it's unmistakeably meant as a warning to the hardcore folkie contingent who disdained his turn to electric that The Times They Are a-Changin'.
Leave your steppingstones behind thereSomething calls for youForget the dead you've left, they will not follow youThe vagabond who's rapping at your doorIs standing in the clothes that you once woreStrike another match, go start anewAnd it's all over now, Baby Blue
We had enough time before our flight to make a brief visit to the Guthrie Center which is next door to Dylan.
Billy plays most of his solos with eyes closed.
Lyrics from Mr Tambourine Man with Dylan's handwritten changes inserting "in the jingle-jangle morning). Below is the Cash Box Top 100 for the week in September 1965 when Like A Rolling Stone displaced The Beatles Help! at Numero Uno. The Top Ten also includes another Dylan song, It Ain't Me Babe by The Turtles at 7.
Below: Pete Seeger is often portrayed as strongly objecting to Dylan's turn to electric. Pete's contention is that his objection to Dylan at Newport was that the electric music was so loud it drowned out Dylan's lyrics. This is a 1968 letter from Pete to his father about the recent release of Dylan's album John Wesley Harding. I really like the last paragraph: "Maybe Bob Dylan will be like Picasso, surprising us every few years with a new period. I hope he lives as long." He has done so. If you are in any doubt listen to Oh Mercy (1989), Time Out Of Mind (1997), Love and Theft (2001), and Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020).
No comments:
Post a Comment