Bob Dylan, have an opinion?


Would love to hear your comments on the man. Good, bad or indifferent. Is he rocks most influential artist? Is he a musical and poetic genius? What are your favorite albums, songs, and concerts. Cornfedboy, ya got any good Dylan stories?
brulee
Prs123,

Well said! Notice I did not knock Dylan, rather simply said his music never spoke to me. Pace.
Brulee: Not much to tell. I ran into a neighbor of mine (that was hooked up) in the early morning hours when I was taking out the trash cans for my building (I had just come back home from a local club). He had returned home to replenish some party materials and I was invited back up to Malibu. They had been in a studio that evening working on an album (I seem to remember something about an "ALL Star Jazz Band"), there was also a petite bass player present that may have been Italian, but I cannot remember his name. They had taken a break at the studio that evening and had gone to a local jazz club to hear some unknowns. The unknowns it turned out blew away what they had already accomplished in the studio and they were therefore in a strange mood. I assume that they went back and redid the tracks, for the better (music is like that sometimes). I have looked for this CD in the record stores recently, but never see anything like it in stock and assume that it would have been released in 78 of 79, if at all. I was always a nobody, but because of keeping odd hours and living in LA I always seemed to run into a lot of musicians and some comedians in the early morning hours. I was also always broke and excelled at "hanging out" if you know what I mean and used to walk into the Troubadour and other show venues most nights at midnight when the cover was dropped, also frequented hole in the wall restaurants and clubs that were open until 4:00 am, some of which served alcohol illegally during this time. I was as thin as a toothpick which is why I was probably invited to share some late night meals by some of these people. Musicians whether they are famous or not are generally completely worked up after they get off work and like to hang a lot. It's kind of funny in that I did not even realize who some of these people were until later on. One of them was Sly Stone who I used to play pinball with at Barney's Beanery. I asked somebody what had happened to Sly and was told that he was in jail by one of the bartenders, that was when I made the connection. I once got drunk with Richard Prior at the Improv, but did not recogize him because the pock marks on his face had been removed when they did the burn surgery. I thought that it was him, but was used to the marks on his face and figured that it was just somebody that looked and talked like him (boy was I drunk).
Dekay,
The closest I got to Joni was front row at the Pit in Albuquerque, a city that allowed one to see more great musicians up close and affordably in the seventies than the Fillmore East or Brooklyn Academy of Music combined(which were blocks from my high school.) She had Tom Scott and the L.A. Express with her, and was just magical. I have read the classic Rolling Stone interview, but I envy you your one-on-one experiences. Right places, right times.
Most fellow musicians I have met were not big names, but wonderful nonetheless.
Need to replace my old John Wesley Harding LP. Can anyone offer some guidance about alternatives -- reissues, vinyl v. CD, etc.? General info about Zimmy's reissues would be interesting, too. Thanks
I forgot about the John Wesley Harding album, thanks. We just have the double Carnegie Hall CD and some new one (97 or 98) that my wife picked up (haven't listened to it yet). My wife can still recite the lyrics from the "Blonde on Blonde" album which are imbedded in her brain (while the best that I can do is remember the the lyrics from "I'm so Glad", by The Cream:-). PRS123: I have never seen Joni Mitchell perform, which is lame on my part as she used to play out here quite a lot.