The Dylan.FM Blog

<< Back to Blog

Seven Days: Dec 17 – 23, 2023 (Bonus)

[vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1654295754149{margin-top: -40px !important;border-top-width: 1px !important;border-right-width: 1px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;border-left-width: 1px !important;}”][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Dec 17 – 23, 2023″ font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:38|text_align:left|color:%23aaaaaa” google_fonts=”font_family:Open%20Sans%3A300%2C300italic%2Cregular%2Citalic%2C600%2C600italic%2C700%2C700italic%2C800%2C800italic|font_style:300%20light%20regular%3A300%3Anormal” css=”.vc_custom_1703458197753{margin-top: 20px !important;}”][vc_custom_heading text=”Seven Days (Bonus)” font_container=”tag:h1|font_size:38|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Open%20Sans%3A300%2C300italic%2Cregular%2Citalic%2C600%2C600italic%2C700%2C700italic%2C800%2C800italic|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal” css=”.vc_custom_1691342510626{margin-top: 5px !important;}”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” gap=”35″ css=”.vc_custom_1669589654602{margin-top: -20px !important;border-top-width: 1px !important;border-right-width: 1px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;border-left-width: 1px !important;}”][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1695580670799{margin-bottom: 20px !important;padding-top: 5px !important;padding-right: 5px !important;padding-bottom: 5px !important;padding-left: 5px !important;background-color: #eaeaea !important;}”]This Bonus Edition is for Premium members only and includes the complete collection of links for the week, plus additional videos.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator][vc_custom_heading text=”News Items About Bob Dylan” font_container=”tag:h1|font_size:26|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Open%20Sans%20Condensed%3A300%2C300italic%2C700|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1703467339993{margin-top: 20px !important;padding-left: 30px !important;}”]

  • Bob Dylan Stealth Releases 1973 Outtakes LP, Sending Fans on Worldwide Scavenger Hunt (Rolling Stone) [8]
    • “The original versions of “Rock Me Mama” and “Sweet Amarillo” appear on the new 50th Anniversary Collection along with an alternative rendition of “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” and multiple takes of songs like “Billy Surrenders,” “And He Killed Me Too,” and “Final Theme” that will be of limited interest to anyone but true Dylan completists.”
  • Timothée Chalamet Is Hoarding Unreleased Bob Dylan Songs (Variety) [5]
    • “This might earn the ire and wrath of a lot of Bob fans, rightfully,” Chalamet said in a recent interview with Happy Sad Confused’s Josh Horowitz, “but he sent me like a 12-hour playlist of unreleased Bob stuff from like 1959 to ’64. I feel like I’m holding onto gold or something.”
  • The Hitch Hiker in Bob Dylan’s ‘Wagon Wheel’ Never Made It to Tennessee! (Motor Biscuit) [5]
    • “The Cumberland Gap is a pass on the border of Kentucky and Virginia, and it is 200+ miles from the 81 to 220 route. What’s more, it’s due west of Roanoke. There’s no way you could head south out of Roanoke and also hit the Cumberland Gap. And it gets weirder.”
  • Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan: Story of an Impossible Meeting… (WECB) [8]
    • “And he added: “When I heard him for the first time it was like coming out of jail.”. He is the supreme deity of rock and roll. I have thought many times that Freedom, for me, was Elvis Presley singing ‘Blue Moon of Kentucky’. “I thank God for Elvis.”
  • Unreleased Bob Dylan Song To Feature On New Waterboys Boxset (Mojo) [5]
    • “Bob wasn’t working in his usual way, which is he’s got a song, and everybody tries to guess what the chords are. He was playing instrumentals that he’d written with Dave [Stewart] and the idea was that later he would put lyrics on them. So, we played there for two or three hours and there was one particular lovely instrumental.”
  • Duff McKagan on Unsolicited Dylan Shout Out (Loudwire) [3]
    • “”There’s a Duff McKagan song called ‘Chip Away,’ that has profound meaning for me. It’s a graphic song. Chip away, chip away, like Michelangelo, breaking up solid marble stone to discover the form of King David inside. He didn’t build him from the ground up, he chipped away the stone until he discovered the king.”
  • “The Voice” Winner Huntley And Niall Horan Knock Out Bob Dylan Classic (Inspire More) [3]
    • “Niall Horan joined Huntley for one last performance together with Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door by Bob Dylan.”

[/vc_column_text][vc_separator][vc_custom_heading text=”Blog Posts About Bob Dylan” font_container=”tag:h1|font_size:26|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Open%20Sans%20Condensed%3A300%2C300italic%2C700|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1703466081884{margin-top: 20px !important;padding-left: 30px !important;}”]

  • Dylan’s Christmas Lights: A Scholarly Treatise (Merill Markoe) [10]
    • “I was moved to photograph it because, much the way he forged his own path in music, he was exhibiting an independence of style in his Christmas decorating. His approach, conjuring images of a string of loose lights having been casually tossed into the hedge by someone in a hurry, seemed to be making a faux-naïve statement, not unlike a Matisse or a Chagall.”
  • Bob Dylan on Daniel Lanois, Oh Mercy and Time out of Mind (PSB Archives) [10]
    • “He managed to get my stage voice, something other people working with me never were quite able to achieve. Daniel just allowed the record to take place any old time, day or night. You didn’t have to walk through secretaries, pin-ball machines and managers and hangers-on in the lobby and parking lots and elevators and arctic temperatures.”
  • Rolling Thunder ’76 Soundman Talks Touring with Bob Dylan (Flagging Down The Double E’s) [8]
    • “I was the audio engineer for this portion of the Rolling Thunder Revue tour. While I do not have a complete setlist for both the Mobile, AL and Austin, TX shows, I do have tapes of both shows. “
  • Inside the ‘Christmas in the Heart’ Sessions (Flagging Down The Double E’s) [8]
    • “He’d never met Bob Dylan before. He’s never met him since. But he told me about one strange day in May in Los Angeles—extremely un-Christmas-y weather—helping Bob Dylan record Christmas songs.”
  • Ask Greil (Letter In The Ether) [8]
    • “The Budokan is the only Bootleg Series set I don’t even want to hear.”
  • Lyrics and Music: Caribbean Wind (Untold Dylan) [5]
    • “What normally happens is that a phrase ends up on the “tonic” the chord around which the whole song is based – the basic chord of the key that the piece is in. This piece is in G, and it starts on the chord of G, all the chords used are taken from the key of G, so we expect the line to end of G, but then… suddenly Bob ends the opening section on C.”
  • High Water (for Charley Patton) (2001) Pt.5 (Untold Dylan) [5]
    • “He told me once, which was a really good tip, he said, when you’re writing a song, you know, you got your verses, your bridge and your chorus, he said, don’t stop there. Write twenty verses while you’re in The Zone. You know, the last ones might be better than all the stuff you had.”
  • Cover A Day: Thunder On The Mountain (Untold Dylan) [5]
    • “But all in all it looks like most artists really don’t want to have a bash at this song – and I wonder why. Is it that they think that with Bob’s rendition and the Wanda/Jack version above there is nothing more to be said?”
  • NET Extended: One Too Many Mornings (Untold Dylan) [5]
    • “The spacing of the lines shows us a new set of thoughts about these past days and certainly gives me the feeling Bob is reflecting on those times past, rather than just trying to create a melody to fit over the chord sequence – which in fact is what he has done.”
  • NET Pt.4: Hell Bent For Leather (Untold Dylan) [5]
    • “Before rounding up a few strays we haven’t already covered, Dylan songs that didn’t regularly make it onto the Setlist, I’d like to offer two covers. While Dylan dropped singing American Standards after the first leg of the 2018 tour, some of the final performances of these songs were loving renditions indeed.”

[/vc_column_text][vc_separator][vc_custom_heading text=”Reviews & Releases” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:26|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Open%20Sans%20Condensed%3A300%2C300italic%2C700|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1703466191744{margin-top: 20px !important;padding-left: 30px !important;}”]

  • ‘Christmas In The Heart’ Taps Into The True Meaning Of The Season (Clash) [8]
    • “I feared the worst. It felt like a corporate cash-in, exactly what I wanted to avoid. However, unlike Charlie Brown’s existential dread, I found the opposite in the 15 songs that comprise ‘Christmas In The Heart’, a sentiment I’d not heard for a while.”
  • Oh Mercy – Dylan’s triumph (PSB Archives) [10]
    • Most of all, Oh Mercy reminds me of Blonde on Blonde because of the spontaneous interaction of the musicians, who construct a cohesive flowing backdrop for the songs while playing all kinds of wild things on their individual instruments.
  • Best Reissue of 2023: #1 Fragments Bootleg Series 17 (Mojo) [8]
    • “As they sat in Brauer’s home, his neighbour, John Raffaele, beamed. It was crisp and wonderful, he repeated, and he could hear and understand Dylan’s tale – the heartbroken, lovesick saga at Time Out Of Mind’s twilit centre – more clearly than ever. Brauer could breathe easily again, because that had been his charge: to lift the music from the shadowy, ineffable depths favoured by original producer Daniel Lanois and position Dylan at the centre of his own saga.”
  • Desire Review (Cult Following) [5]
    • “From there, Desire deviates into songs of little cruxes and oddities as their starting point. Dylan wishes to adapt those moments as fleeting observations and fun challenges to write about.”
  • Bob Dylan – Devil Dolls Review (Triplicate Disc 2) (Cult Following) [5]
    • “Opening this second section with jazz cover Braggin’ sets the scene. Tender memories, and wistful experiences adapted from the greats and turned into longing tunes from Dylan. As Time Goes By proves it – a real high for the record and a heartbreaking experience as the writings of Herman Hupfeld are brought to life once more.”
  • The Bob Dylan Bootleg Series: A Totally Subjective Retrospective Pt.4 (Light Wood Press) [5]
    • “The tops of the pops, without any hesitation, is The Bootleg Series Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs: Rare and Unreleased 1989–2006. Three exceptionally vulnerable and starless discs, brooding on how the lives and the loves that pulled them through delivered them to this messy pile-up of years.”
  • The Complete Budokan 1978 (Music Connection) [3]
    • “Chief engineer Tom Suzuki says, “We mixed the record with the keyword ‘passion’ in mind. The result is a mix that surpasses the original 1978 release, providing a crisper and clearer sound where each instrument and Bob Dylan’s voice are distinctly audible.”
  • Making the Case for Bob Dylan’s Initially-Maligned 1978 Album ‘Street-Legal’ (American Songwriter) [5]
    • “Many critics objected to Dylan’s new sound. After the impassioned folk of Blood on the Tracks and the slippery exotics on Desire , Street-Legal found Dylan going for a kind of big-band rock sound. It wasn’t entirely different from what contemporaries like Bruce Springsteen and Bob Seger were doing around the same time, but many didn’t feel it fit Dylan.”
  • An Inside Look at a Folk Enigma – Bob Dylan: Mixing Up The Medicine (Waikato Times) [5]
    • “They picked through the eyes of it and the result is a book featuring more than a thousand photos, most previously unpublished, copies of hand-written and clumsily-typed original lyrics, letters from fan, including a Vietnam War soldier who wrote from the frontlines to thank him for Blowin’ In The Wind.”
  • Kennedy Center’s Girl from the North Country is Moving and Unforgettable (Zebra) [5]
    • “Dylan’s songs are not as he recorded them. Yes, lyric-wise, but not with the same tempo. McPherson gets more heft from slowing them down, changing up some of the notes and phrasing for emphasis and re-imagining their place in the story.”
  • Theatre Review: ‘Girl from the North Country’ at The Kennedy Center (MD Theater Guide) [5]
    • “Some musicals don’t fit inside of a neat little box. Some musicals actually blow up said box in presenting a show that dares to defy conventions. Tony Winner (for Best Orchestrations) “Girl from the North Country” is one such show. “
  • Girl From the North Country (The Georgetown Dish) [3]
    • “In some cases, you realize this may be the first time you understood the words to a Dylan song. However brilliant, Bob Dylan is, no one has ever accused him of having a great voice.”

[/vc_column_text][vc_separator][vc_custom_heading text=”Bonus Video” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:26|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Open%20Sans%20Condensed%3A300%2C300italic%2C700|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal”][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/0W5UoK4vTI4?si=Iyem4HGRyJ9lcQq6″ title=”A Nice Wintery Cover of I Shall Be Released”][vc_video link=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT6sbAiCZT4″ title=”Dylan’s Toronto 1980 Sermon (Audio Enhanced) Terrible AI Image”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″ css=”.vc_custom_1654542553362{background-color: #efefef !important;}”][vc_custom_heading text=”Prior Weeks” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:26|text_align:left|color:%23ffffff” google_fonts=”font_family:Open%20Sans%20Condensed%3A300%2C300italic%2C700|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal” css=”.vc_custom_1654542433138{margin-bottom: 30px !important;padding-left: 10px !important;background-color: #000000 !important;}”][ult_layout grid_style=”4″ image_size=”full” s_icon_lightbox_image=”0″ s_icon_link=”0″ s_excerpt=”0″ s_categories=”0″ s_metas_o=”0″ s_metas_t=”0″ query_types=”1″ query_include_children=”0″ title_font_weight=”800″ d_i_filter=”79″ e_taxonomies=”77, 80″ query_offset=”1″ title_font_size=”12px” post_count=”8″][/ult_layout][vc_column_text]

Article/Link Quality Ranking

Each link has a ‘quality score’ listed as [#] with a 1-3-5-8 after the publication name. This is designed to help you choose articles and links worth reading.

Simply put, higher numbers reflecting better content and writing. At each of these levels, the quality should be more than twice as high. One way to translate the values is:

1 = Limited Value
3 = Minor
5 = Substantial
8 = Outstanding

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Turntable Only w:ToneArm 300x

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

The FM Podcast Network Shows

Weekly Dylan Newsletter Sign Up