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Seven Days: Jan 1 – 7, 2024 (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=”Jan 1 – 7, 2024″ 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_1704687726445{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_1704688251708{margin-top: 20px !important;padding-left: 30px !important;}”]

[/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_1704690578490{margin-top: 20px !important;padding-left: 30px !important;}”]

  • Going Show-By-Show Through Bob Dylan’s 1974 Comeback Tour with The Band (Flagging Down The Double E’s) [10]
    • “The very first song they performed on Tour ’74, though, was not a hit. It was the deepest cut they performed across all 40 shows. You could argue it’s the deepest cut Bob Dylan has played ever. And that song was…“Hero Blues,” a Freewheelin’ outtake.”
  • The First Live “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” at Tour ’74 Night Two (Flagging Down The Double E’s) [10]
    • “You notice things you don’t when listening through five extra layers of murk. For instance, the organ. Garth Hudson sounds phenomenal on “Tough Mama,” wailing away on the high notes like a man possessed (Bob also really leans into the “hotter than a crotch” line). Ditto on another new song, Something There Is About You,” where halfway through that organ gets joined by Bob’s pointed harmonica jabs.”
  • “Hollis Brown” and House Lights in Philly (Flagging Down The Double E’s) [10]
    • “After one final outing in the Philly afternoon show, “Tough Mama” is gone for good. He wouldn’t play it again for 23 years. The electric deep-cut opener “Hero Blues” is now gone too. He wouldn’t play that one again ever.”
  • Dylan Revisited: The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963) Dylan.FM [8]
    • “Suze is most obviously present on The Freewheelin’s magnificent cover and on the blues template of Down the Highway where Dylan laments that “The ocean took my baby, my baby stole my heart from me.”
  • How Does Dylan Write His Songs? Melodies from Words (Dylanology) [8]
    • “What comes first – the melody or the words? and: Is there a determined relationship between them? Can any melody go with any set of lyrics, or do certain lyrics call for some specific tune?”
  • Another Year Gone By (Johnny Borgan) [5]
    • “A wonderful leg of the tour, Dylan still making up his mind to give it all to us – as good as he could, with magical performances of both covers and songs from his RRW standard repertoire, new arrangements, new disguises, new experiences, for him and for us.”
  • Dylan + Art: Rodin (Shadow Chasing) [5]
    • “My faint sense of a kinship between late Dylan and Rodin’s sculpture grew stronger as I made my way through the galleries. I’ve continued to ponder these interconnections since my museum visit in early December 2023. The more I reflect, research, and write about these two great artists in juxtaposition, the more light and shadows they cast upon each other’s work.”
  • New York State of Mind and the Story of Billy Joel´s Family (DarmstadtDylanDays) [3]
    • “When Bob Dylan kicked off one of his recent NYC-Concerts with Billy Joel´s New York State of Mind, I had the feeling to look at the background of Billy Joel, diggin´deeper and learned about the „rough and rowdy story, which happens to his family.”
  • Dylan Cover a Day: “To Be Alone With You” (Untold Dylan) [5]
    • “Sue Foley’s version is a real contrast with the rock approach above and she uses her voice to make as much as possible of the song, which I suspect is what is needed in covers of this piece. It bops along but constantly I want to listen just to hear what she does with her voice – the sound becomes almost salacious – although that could just be an inappropriate reaction of an old man sitting alone in his house.”
  • Lyrics and Music: Dark Eyes (Untold Dylan) [5]
    • “And it is only at the end that we understand why, with the “French girl” and “drunken man” line.  The world is wrecked, there is no emotion that he can touch or feel, and so the music has to express this and keep it, as indeed it does. In fact “A million faces at my feet but all I see are dark eyes,” then rings out truer and more powerfully than it ever could with a deeper or more complex accompaniment.”
  • NET Extended: Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright (Untold Dylan) [5]
    • “He has also changed a song that was three and a half minutes long into a very lively seven-minute performance through the instrumental break after each verse. And overall when he gets to the “long and lonesome road”, he’s not shuffling along with the guitar slung over his back, he’s jumped in the open sports car with the guitar sticking out from the back seat, and driving off at 100mph.”
  • Dylan Cover a Day. Time Passes Slowly (Untold Dylan) [5]
    • “Caroline Doctorow’s version of “Time Passes Slowly” is one of my all-time favourite Dylan covers – it has everything that I could possibly want from a cover version – an understanding of the song itself, some beautiful harmonies, and a gentle reverence for the original and an excellent performance.”
  • Lyrics and Music: Idiot Wind (Untold Dylan) [5]
    • “My point is that through this totally novel chord sequence, through opening without any clarity as to which key we are in, and with there being hardly any melody at all (it is mostly on two notes, with a couple of others in passing) Bob gives us a feeling of uncertainty, openness and indeed darkness, all at the same time, that reflects the opening lyric of “Someone’s got it in for me”, and the second line which makes it clear he has no idea who is doing this, or indeed why they are doing whatever they are doing.”
  • NET 2019 Pt.1 (Untold Dylan) [5]
    • “There is no sense that the 2019 tour were farewell concerts; as far as everybody was concerned it was business as usual for the NET, and the seventy-eight year old maestro continued the roll he’d been on since 2015, innovating and experimenting, reveling in the new power and authority of his miraculously rejuvenated voice, making the final five years of the NET the most arresting and compelling of all.”

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  • Little Pieces Fit Together (Acoustic Live) [5]
    • “Did Dylan invite you to join his legendary 1974-75 Rolling Thunder Revue tour? “Bobby Neuwirth did,” Bullens says. “Neuwirth was the originator of the whole idea and its ringleader. So, yes, I was planning on doing the whole tour with Rolling Thunder, but then, by happenstance, after I arrived back in Los Angeles from New York, I crashed a Rocket Records press party and met Elton John. That night, Elton asked me to go on tour with him.”
  • Portsmouth 2000 Live Review (Cult Following) [5]
    • “This is from an era where Dylan shook up his lyrical style and led some in attendance to this confused state of waiting to hear some words they could pick up on and later identify as the track they thought it was. Instrumental changes and a real turn from Dylan in this one mark the September 25 show as a legendary one, consistent and stuffed full of hits.”
  • The Rolling Thunder Revue Review (Cult Following) [5]
    • “Ripped right from the heart of the Montreal Forum, this piece from Dylan is electric, inspired and honestly some of his finest work. The light is shone rather brightly on this tour and with just those first two tracks it is obvious as to why.”
  • Dylan and The Dead Review (Cult Following) [5]
    • Slow Train begins well though the mood soon sours. Even in a period where the hits were still right there to rattle out, the drained perspectives of Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door and All Along the Watchtower are jilted and follow some unbearable material.”
  • The 1966 Live Recordings – Pittsburgh Review (Cult Following) [5]
    • “Incomplete and poor quality this instalment may be, what is left of the Pittsburgh 1966 show is frankly fascinating. Laughter from the crowd on Visions of Johanna is possibly a good sign though the incomplete pieces of Desolation Row and She Belongs to Me turn those in attendance.”
  • Highway 49 Revisited (Aquarium Drunkard) [5]
    • “Altogether, the disc is a standout snapshot of Rolling Thunder 1976 and one that proves that the tour wasn’t just about bad moods, but also remarkable music. Dylan’s teetering but lands consistently, somehow, on the beautiful side of the razor’s edge. Listen just once and you’ll agree: Hattiesburg is a show that merits space on the shelf, whether through the official Bootleg Series or some shadier version of the same.”
  • ‘Before the Flood’—Memorializing Dylan and The Band’s ‘Tour ’74’ (Best Classic Bands) [5]
    • “With its arena scale and emphasis on crowd-pleasers, Tour ’74 basked in its sense of occasion, setting up Before the Flood as the capstone to the strategy devised to restore Dylan’s prominence at the forefront of rock. The tour itself spanned just six weeks, with the live set mixed, mastered and released three months later.”
  • Great White Wonder Review (Cult Following) [5]
    • Great White Wonder is a monumental experience beyond its songs. Live recordings from The Johnny Cash Show, buried and beloved pieces from the early years of Dylan – these are what devoted fans live for, and it is clear to hear why.”
  • Newcastle, England 1984 Review (Cult Following) [5]
    • “Clunky and a tad distant at times though the walls of sound which come through on Masters of War and the stern vindication found in Ballad of a Thin Man are worth sticking around for.”
  • Bob Dylan: Mixing Up The Medicine (Rhythms) [5]
    • “And then there’s the surprisingly consistent value from those essays, using an item in the archives as a starting point for discussions of collaboration, deference, inspiration or, as another musician, Allison Moorer, explores in her poetic piece, “discomfort inside, discomfort outside”, and the rewards which come from that.”
  • The Girl From The North Country at Durham Performing Arts Center (Broadway World) [5]
    • “Even more troubling is the lack of integration of the music into the story. Girl from the North Country reimagines many songs by Bob Dylan but doesn’t even seem to attempt to make them fit into the story cohesively. It teeters between being a musical and a play with music; at times, it feels like a concert is occurring that keeps interrupting the actual action of the play. “

[/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://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nluiApeNWKI&list=WL&index=3″ title=”Top 10 New Year’s Resolutions from ThemeTime Radio Hour”][/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

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