April 30 - May 6, 2023

Seven Days in Dylan News

As an experiment, many items below have summaries provided by ChatGPT.

News Items About Bob Dylan

The Bob Dylan Center Opening – One Year Ago (TulsaWorld)
- Huge cache of photos from opening events
Coffee With The Director (Downtown Tulsa)
- “Members are invited to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the Bob Dylan Center’s opening with Director Steven Jenkins.”
Woody Guthrie Center Celebrates 10 Years (The Oaklahoman)
- “Dylan responded very positively to not only Guthrie‘s music — which remains extraordinary — and the indelible songs he wrote, but I think to that figure of the folk singer, the truth teller.”
- ChatGPT Summary: “The center’s executive director, Cady Shaw, says that every day on the floor, she sees something new to learn from Guthrie’s prolific work. Guthrie wrote over 1,000 songs, including “This Land Is Your Land,” and was also an artist, writer, newspaper columnist, radio show host, and activist. The center features a May Bell guitar, an interactive map, and a 13-minute film, “The Woody Guthrie Legacy: Made for You and Me,” among other exhibits.”
Before Dylan There Was Connie Converse (New York Times)
- ChatGPT Summary: “Connie Converse was a talented singer-songwriter who made music before the singer-songwriter era began in the early 1960s. Her music did not catch on, and by the time it did, she had already disappeared. After 50 years of being overlooked, an album was made in her honor, which has now been streamed over 16 million times on Spotify. Ms. Converse’s lyrics and composition style were so good that some have dubbed her the female Bob Dylan. She was highly private and disappeared in 1974, never to be seen again.”
The Stories Behind 20 Bob Dylan Album Covers (Ultimate Classic Rock)
- “Famous for creating much and explaining little, Dylan has dipped his toes into just about every form of art there is: music, literature, painting, theater, film. But if art is the perpetual motion of illusion, then Dylan has been moving swiftly for some six decades, perhaps most clearly displaying this sentiment on the covers of his albums.”

Blog Posts About Bob Dylan

The Bob Dylan Mystery (MagUChicago)
- ChatGPT Summary: “Bob Dylan may or may not have attended the University of Chicago Folk Festival in 1961. Accounts of the event from contemporaries of Dylan’s who attended the festival are inconsistent. While some argue that he was in attendance, others insist that he was not. It is also believed that Dylan was in Chicago in the weeks leading up to the festival, and that he was not well-received when he played for the student committee affiliated with the festival.”
Credit Where It’s Due: Billy Emerson and ‘False Prophet‘ (Fred Bals)
- ChatGPT Summary:”Bob Dylan’s song “Beyond the Horizon” has co-writers besides himself. Wilhelm Groz and James B. Kennedy, who wrote “Red Sails in the Sunset,” share 25% of the song’s royalties, while the original publisher of “Red Sails” receives another 25%. During recording sessions, Dylan modified the licks of old tunes and sometimes had to credit the original composers. Many of Dylan’s songs on the ‘Love and Theft’ album borrowed from other composers, but no credits were given. The instrumental “Each Day” by Jelly Roll Morton provided the foundation for Dylan’s “Duquesne Whistle,” which he claimed was based on a Fats Waller song.”
Dylan Wins Nobel, Goes Vegas (Bob Dylan At The End of Time)
- ChatGPT Summary: “Bob Dylan received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016. A fan, who had just returned from the Desert Trip festival, was at his kitchen table in Seattle when he heard the news. That evening he was in the front row of a ballroom in Las Vegas as Dylan took the stage. The writer describes the set list and players, and how he came to be there after being inspired to attend. He writes about the Nobel buzz in the crowd and how Dylan said nothing about the prize. The writer talks about the experience of being at the show and sharing it with a stranger, who was also a lifelong Dylan fan.
Good As I Been To You Part 2 (Dylanology)
- ChatGPT Summary: “Dylan’s 90s acoustic albums feature the Csus4 chord, which replaces the third with the fourth and creates a dissonance instead of perfect harmony. The sus4 chord can use the tension of the dissonance to drive the melody forward or to ornament a C chord. Dylan also uses it as a stand-in for an F major chord or to create a countermelody. Dylan is not known for being a good duet singer, but his use of the Csus4 creates counter-melodies similar to Simon and Garfunkel. The Csus4 is also used to create melodic substance in Dylan’s guitar parts.”
Black Rider (2020) Pt.4 (Untold Dylan)
- “A change does come in this second verse, but for the time being for the worse; the suggestion suddenly becomes that the Black Rider is the blackest of all: Satan himself.”
- ChatGPT Summary: ” The lyrics of “Black Rider” by Bob Dylan insinuate that the Black Rider is Satan himself. The song suggests that the Black Rider has fallen into the fire and is eating the flame, an image that is repeated from an earlier Dylan song “Too Much of Nothing.” The image is bizarre and does not have any illuminating continuation. Dylan sings about trains frequently, and the image of the Black Rider eating fire could refer to a steam locomotive, also called the iron horse. The song explores boundaries of time and space and introduces the concept of the great world, which is seen in Faust II.”
NET Highlights: Positively 4th Street (1994) (Untold Dylan)
- ChatGPT Summary: “This version of Bob Dylan’s “Positively 4th Street” from 1994 takes out the anger and replaces it with a deep sadness, making it a remarkable piece of music. The unchanging chord sequence of the song turns out to give this version its brilliance as it builds up to an extraordinary final verse. The instrumental break and musical epilogue work well, making the whole piece hold the listener in its grip. It is an amazing piece of rewriting that is worth listening to.
Dylan’s Favorite Songs: Randy Newman’s “Louisiana 1927” (Untold Dylan)
- ChatGPT Summary: “Randy Newman’s ‘Louisiana 1927’ is Dylan’s third favorite song. The song was used as a fundraiser after Hurricane Katrina hit the Deep South. Newman wrote the song in 1974, and it reflects on the aftermath of a storm and flood. The music and lyrics of the song fit together perfectly, and it’s worth watching the Martin Simpson version. Newman was asked if he would be playing it at every show until he retired, and he replied that he would. In the song, Newman refers to the North, and the feeling that those states were indifferent to Louisiana and bordering states.
Lyrics and Music: Angelina (Untold Dylan)
- ChatGPT Summary: “Dylan’s “Angelina” song combines lyrics and music in a unique way, with the music being hesitant while the lyrics are secure and vice versa. The opening verse contains images in both the lyrics and the music, and the word “Angelina” is portrayed in a musically uncharacteristic way, being sung like a snake coiling around. The song is a world of disconnected images, with uncertainty and love being its main themes. Dylan’s comments that he couldn’t grasp what the song was about may not be the be-all and end-all of any discussion about the song.”
Why Does Bob Like Gordon Lightfoot (Untold Dylan)
- ChatGPT Summary: “Gordon Lightfoot’s “Early Morning Rain” was popular due to its relatable lyrics, and it was significant in the evolution of music lyrics. Bob Dylan has called Lightfoot one of his favorite composers, and his songs have been covered by various musicians. Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind” was inspired by his divorce and has since been slightly altered. Dylan attempted to perform “I’m Not Supposed To Care” several times in 1989 and 1998, and it evolved over those performances.”
Dylan In Cincinnati: Nov 1965 (Shadow Chasing)
- ChatGPT Summary: “Music Hall, situated in the neighborhood of Over-the-Rhine, Cincinnati, has been home to various musical performances since its opening in 1878. The building also hosted political conventions, sporting events, dance clubs, and memorial services. Although it has been associated with social inequality, it was an unlikely but ideal venue for Bob Dylan’s first-ever rock concert in 1965. The acoustic setlist mostly included songs from Another Side of Bob Dylan and Bringing It All Back Home, while the electric set featured hard-rocking songs from Highway 61 Revisited.
Blood On The Tracks: Untold Story (Peter Stone Brown Archives)
- ChatGTP Summary: “Dylan caused tension in the studio when he called for a different key and song than previously agreed upon, leading to many musicians being dismissed. The entire album was recorded in one day, with Dylan returning the next day to record most of the album again. On Wednesday, they did some overdubs, and on Thursday, they recorded the album for the third time, but only with the bass. Dylan’s unconventional method of recording stood in contrast to the style of the time, which involved recording one note at a time and taking a year to make an album.”

New Reviews & Releases

REVIEW: Bob Dylan in Minnesota (LouderThanWar)
- ChatGPT Summary: “The book “Bob Dylan In Minnesota” captures the essence of Bob Dylan’s early days and the influence his hometown had on him. The Minnesota voices collected in the book provide valuable insight into the singer’s work before he became elusive. The book includes various landmarks in Minnesota that Dylan passed through and his musical heroes, providing an understanding of the artist’s early days. The book also discusses the impact of “Blood On The Tracks” and Duluth Dylan Fest on Dylan’s legacy. Despite the commercialization of Dylan’s legacy, the book confirms that Minnesota was integral to Dylan’s development.”
REVIEW: Renaldo & Clara (Comic-Watch)
- ChatGPT Summary: “Renaldo and Clara is a 1978 film directed and written by Bob Dylan, featuring Ronnie Hawkins as Bob Dylan. It is a concert movie presented as a series of small vignettes, archived reels, bootleg VHS, and private copies, and is intended to be about birth and death coming from the same place, identity as a transferable mask, the mystique and engineered myth of Bob Dylan, among other themes. Despite its length and lack of availability, the film remains popular in the collective imagination.”