Roger Day wrote:
>Pennebaker directed "Don't Look Back".
>
>
Oh I know, that's why I brought it up, someone mentioned Pennebaker:-).
>Someone on another list pointed out that, in the Scorcese film, no one
>in pop/folk had much to say about Bob the human-being rather than Bob
>the genius. Guess that's the price he paid. Although one can never the
>sheer pressure he was under in '65.
>
>
I don't know if the Scorsese film was/is intended as hagiography, but
Dylan in Pennebaker's version came across as a bit of a rat's butt,
e.g., his patronizing treatment of the really clueless Donovan. Also,
NOBODY seemed to mention the everyone-assumes-that-they-had-one torrid
relationship with Baez, and that is reputed to have inspired some of his
best work ("Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands"). Or his marriage to Sarah,
also not exactly the stuff of dreams. Was the Baez connection even
there or simply fandom rumoring?
Whatever the truth of biography and the gossip pages, Baez's early,
sweet-dirge version of "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall" is simply the greatest
cover of a Dylan song I've ever heard. Close behind is Bruce Hornsby
singing "Tangled Up In Blue," maybe my favorite Dylan song (how many
guys write a lyric that refers at one moment to Petrarch, Dante or
Cavalcante?). But there Dylan has the edge: he sings without an
audience that is clearly wasted and busily interrupting Hornsby and his
backup with shout-out "Woohoo!"
And who is that girl on the cover of the first album, the one where
they're walking through what looks like the East Village?
>Agree with the songs - and I came by him in the 70s rather than the 60s.
>
>
I really intended the other singers who came up in the protest
"movements" after the 70s. I turned off the tube when I realized
everyone--except maybe Springsteen--was sounding the same--noisy and jangly.
And the one I miss was the one who got lost in 1976: Phil Ochs. "Baby,
baby, baby you're out of time."
Ken
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Kenneth Wolman
Proposal Development Department
Room SW334
Sarnoff Corporation
609-734-2538
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