Mr. Zimmerman comes to Hamilton
Hooked up with an old acquaintance Wednesday night in a hockey arena in Hamilton. Bob Dylan rolled into town on his tour bus and delighted, dismayed and confused fans for a couple hours before lamming it for the wilds of Ohio.
It's strange - I'm somebody who's been accused of never listening to anybody and yet I realize I've been listening to Bob Dylan for about 40 years. Yikes. Leonard Cohen called Dylan the greatest lyrical genius of the past 500 years. George Harrison said that a hundred years from now, the only music from our time that will survive is Dylan's. And the guy beside me at the concert, smoking a spliff the size of a fucking cohiba, said - "Yo, Bobby!"
I gotta agree with all of them.
Dylan has been touring constantly for a lot of years now and he blew his voice to pieces about a decade ago. He now sounds like Tom Waits gargling with kerosene. The thing is - the guy is not a good singer. He's a GREAT singer. Listen to Slow Train Coming sometime. Nobody else - not Sinatra, Bennett or Ella Fitzgerald - could sing those songs. His enunciation - which has always been a moveable feast - these days falls somewhere between Buckwheat from the Little Rascals and a punch drunk boxer. If you know the lyrics you're okay. If not, you're screwed. His arrangements are quirky too - one of the great things about seeing Dylan is to listen to the first 30 seconds of a song and ask, "What the fuck is that?" and then go, "Oh, it's Just Like A Woman, which on Wednesday night was sung in Al Pacino's over-the-top actor's staccato. Scent Of A Woman meets Bob from Hibbing.
But that's just Bobby being Bobby. He has always confounded people. There were those there Wednesday night who wanted nothing more in all the world than for Dylan to strap on his old Martin acoustic and trill "Blowing In The Wind" like he did back in the day. But my theory is this - there are certain artists out there, of a certain age, who fear one thing more than any other. And that one thing is becoming a musty, irrelevant golden oldie act.
That ain't never gonna happen with this guy.
It's strange - I'm somebody who's been accused of never listening to anybody and yet I realize I've been listening to Bob Dylan for about 40 years. Yikes. Leonard Cohen called Dylan the greatest lyrical genius of the past 500 years. George Harrison said that a hundred years from now, the only music from our time that will survive is Dylan's. And the guy beside me at the concert, smoking a spliff the size of a fucking cohiba, said - "Yo, Bobby!"
I gotta agree with all of them.
Dylan has been touring constantly for a lot of years now and he blew his voice to pieces about a decade ago. He now sounds like Tom Waits gargling with kerosene. The thing is - the guy is not a good singer. He's a GREAT singer. Listen to Slow Train Coming sometime. Nobody else - not Sinatra, Bennett or Ella Fitzgerald - could sing those songs. His enunciation - which has always been a moveable feast - these days falls somewhere between Buckwheat from the Little Rascals and a punch drunk boxer. If you know the lyrics you're okay. If not, you're screwed. His arrangements are quirky too - one of the great things about seeing Dylan is to listen to the first 30 seconds of a song and ask, "What the fuck is that?" and then go, "Oh, it's Just Like A Woman, which on Wednesday night was sung in Al Pacino's over-the-top actor's staccato. Scent Of A Woman meets Bob from Hibbing.
But that's just Bobby being Bobby. He has always confounded people. There were those there Wednesday night who wanted nothing more in all the world than for Dylan to strap on his old Martin acoustic and trill "Blowing In The Wind" like he did back in the day. But my theory is this - there are certain artists out there, of a certain age, who fear one thing more than any other. And that one thing is becoming a musty, irrelevant golden oldie act.
That ain't never gonna happen with this guy.
posted by Brad Smith at
6:47 PM
2 Comments:
Great work, Brad. It's good to read someone who actually "gets" what Bob does/is. You don't feel the need to offer superfluous praise nor do you take lame pot shots at him. My respect to you, my friend. Keep on keeping on.
Thanks... couldn't have said it better.
Bruce in London ON
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