Seven Days

August 13 - 19, 2023

Seven Days in Bob Dylan

This is Seven Days, our weekly recap of the top Bob Dylan news, links, podcasts, events, and more. It was a slow news week, so everything is in this one newsletter this week.

News Items About Bob Dylan

  • Bob, Robbie, & Robert (Spectator)
    • “They became the voice of the sequestered Dylan, the Dylan of the post motor bike accident work which saw the first version – rhapsodic and blending the different traditions of country and rock music – of ‘I Shall be Released’.”
  • Brice Marden Obituary
    • “It was 1962. “I had wanted to make a painting for him, to put out into the world to help his career,” Marden recalled in an interview for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2015. “By the time I got this painting finished, Bob [Dylan] was, like, very, very famous. He didn’t need my help.”
  • Bob Dylan’s “Blood”-y Minnesota Musicians Finally Get Their Flowers (Houston Press)
    • “Now, imagine you were part of a group of studio musicians who appear on half of the album’s ten tracks, but your name appeared on no official credit or your contribution not even publicly acknowledged until 43 years later. That’s what befell six Minneapolis-based musicians: Bill Berg, Billy Peterson, Greg Inhofer, Kevin Odegard, Chris Weber, and Peter Ostroushko.”

Blog Posts About Bob Dylan

  • When Chuck Met Bob (Words and Music)
    • A Poem
  • Dylan Covers: Someday Baby (Untold Dylan)
    • “Although I don’t normally come back to Bob’s version (as this is obviously a series about covers) I think it is worth doing so to remind ourselves just how far he took it in his re-written version.”
  • NET Highlights: ”Every Grain of Sand” (Untold Dylan)
    • “…If you were to go through each one I think you might reach the same conclusion as me: that Bob has been trying between 2009 and 2013 to find a way to deliver an alternative version, but without success.”
  • Close To The Fire (Untold Dylan)
    • (On Caribbean Wind) “Onward march the reindeer armies of metonymy. America becomes New Babylon, and a post-apocalyptic return by blacks to heavenly Ethiopia is envisioned by Rastafarians:\.”
  • Other Songs: Sarah Jane (Untold Dylan)
    • ““Sarah Jane” is inspired by “Rock about my Saro Jane”, written sometime around the turn of the 20th century and most notably performed by Uncle Dave Macon in 1927.”
  • Best NET 2015 Pt.4 (Untold Dylan)
    • “Dylan’s discovery of the American Standards was natural and even inevitable. Since Love and Theft in 2001, Dylan had been exploring and drawing from music rooted in the 1930s and 40s.”
  • I Contain Multitudes (2020) Pt.14: I’ll huff, and I’ll puff (Untold Dylan)
    • “We have already been introduced to a “you” in the opening couplet (I’ll lose my mind if you don’t come with me), which, at least on an emotional level, seems to be the same “you” as the only other “you”, the “you” from the third verse (Half my soul baby belongs to you): an object of love.”

New Bob Dylan Podcasts

Upcoming Bob Dylan Events

Complete List of Worldwide: Bob Dylan Events Calendar

Reviews and New Releases

  • Bob Dylan’s Moropsycho Nitemare: A Clean Cut Kid (Chris Gregory)
    • Motorpsycho Nitemare is a comic ‘shaggy dog’ story that appears on what is generally regarded as Dylan’s first ‘post protest’ album, Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964). Motorpsycho Nitemare represents a kind of bridge between the comic political and social commentary of Dylan’s early ‘talkin’ blues’ songs and the surreal landscapes of satirical pieces like Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream.”
  • Book Review: How a bohemian S.F. music collector influenced musicians from Springsteen to Dylan
    • “From these and other albums, he assembled the “Anthology of American Folk Music,” a sprawling set of ballads, spirituals and blues songs that, according to Szwed, influenced Bruce Springsteen and many others. Bob Dylan recorded “at least 15 of his own versions” of the 84 songs on Smith’s “Anthology.”

New Bob Dylan Video

Margot Cotton - Desolation Row

Bob Dylan For Sale

Books

  • PRE-ORDER: Blood in the Tracks: The Musicians Behind Dylan’s Masterpiece
    • Amazon
    • Release Date: Sept 12, 2023
  • PRE-ORDER: My Greenwish Village: Dave Bob Me (Terri Thal)
  • PRE-ORDER: Mixing Up The Medicine (The Bob Dylan Center)

VINYL

  • PRE-ORDER: Christmas In The Heart Vinyl New Pressing

Prior Weeks

Dylan.FM shares news, posts, podcasts, videos and more on web, Substack, YouTube and social.