In Spain there is always a ‘dylanofilo’ who grabs the torch and leads the race. It is a phenomenon that is very much ours, because in neighboring countries it also occurs, but as a multi-headed hydra. He represented us for years – and Benjamín Prado (61 years old) (the poet who wanted to be a rock star) has not given up doing so as far as I know – and now my colleague Fernando Navarro, author of Everything that matters happens in the songs (The Hits Editions).
I declare myself with this article, in my own way, Robert Allen Zimmerman’s time consul. When it seems that everything is said about Bob Dylan (81 years old) the ‘dylanitas’ have a crazy desire to review everything again, and telling the whole world again, like Zahi Hawass (75 years old), who every six months tells us something about the tomb of Tutankhamun. Aim: the last monographic special of the magazine MOJO -less than 15 euros- and is worthy of collection.
This week the best tribute to Dylan was made by James Austin Johnson, a classic of Saturday night Livelast Wednesday on the Jimmy Fallon show for the nbc; imitating in just 2.50 seconds all the voices and mannerisms of the many Dylans there have been. His favorite, and mine, the loud, unintelligible one with the Rolling Thunder Revue Band between 1975 and 1976 with musicians like Joan Báez, Roger McGuinn or T-Bone Burnett. Dear reader, please stop reading the article and check the video first. If after the laughs you feel like it, I’ll wait for you here.
Dylan still has a vibe. his stage of cowboy look in the shadows – in his concerts the hat and the backlight prevent his age from being seen – they protect him. Hellen Barrett, journalist for the Financial TimesA few weeks ago I wrote: “Dylan has been little talked about as a fashion icon for six decades.” Lucas Hare, actor (has a brief appearance in The Crown) and podcast author Is It Rolling, Bob? Talking Dylanmaintains that he was the one who invented the look of the rock star.
The incorporation of suede in jackets and jackets on his first albums, the Triumph biker look; later the makeup inspired by the mime Marcel Marceau, the large polka dot shirts that bluesmen like Buddy Guy later liked so much, the Nashville vibe very much in the southern look Clark Gable and the Ray Ban Wayfarer, of course (145 euros approximately), what would Dylan and us be without the Wayfarers.
breaking news. The latest book of the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature includes 60 short essays on the songs that made him dedicate himself to this. Written in AK-47 prose, almost with the technique of writing his own songs, irregular, rugged and provocative. The book is a delight for three types of readers: addicts; lovers of graphic editing – the selection of old photos from the golden years of rock’n’roll it is memorable for little seen and the number of files searched; and for those who still want to find songs to get excited about, archaeologists.
I belong to all three groups, so I bought two. You cannot read the book without having Tidal or Spotify connected to the sound system or Youtube at hand. The continuous references to versions, first recordings or performances on television that constitute the poet’s sound framework are the main contribution. Title, Philosophy of Modern Song (Anagram 339 pages) I found it pretentious at first, but after reading it, I find it fantastic and that’s why I have chosen it as my favorite gift for these holidays if I had to give to people as weird as me.
My favorite review, unexpectedly, that of London Calling by The Clash. “The Clash only feel since ‘beatlemania’. (…) the Clash laugh at the madman on the hill. A blow will open your head while you sing Hey Jude. The engines have broken down and the Clash live by the river.” Impossible to explain it better. When will a version of London CallingBob?
Last News. Dylan has apologized this week. Do the Gods kneel? Why? For having dispatched copies with his signature -The tradition of copies signed by the author is well known in the American market, especially in bookstores such as Barnes & Noble, and have used a machine to sign them.
That is to say that Dylan, Bob, our Bob, said that getting to sign a few thousand by hand, no way. Until a ‘dylanita’ identified the trap by denouncing that some fans had paid 600 crushing machine-signed books for those books. Genius and figure. A Nobel who signs books by machine. I still have an autograph of his, he signed it for me while hooded, during the sound check of the Maestros de la Guitarra concert in Seville on October 17, 1991.
And the Nobel keeps spinning. He has decided that the next concerts will be “non-telephone events” in which the audience will have to leave their cell phones in a Yondr bag, a package that remains in the possession of the owner of the mobile but closed with a small machine like the one that removes the alarms from clothes. The price of each bag is two euros, which Dylan charges to the viewer. Jack White had already used this system. The last time I saw him, in the Auditorium, some hunks walked the aisles during the applause between songs, and so on twenty or thirty times, so that they wouldn’t take pictures of him. I think it’s great because I’m a minion.
No dates are expected for him to perform in Spain, but it will be published soon Bob Dylan Fragments: Sessions (1996-1997) that celebrates the 25 years of the album Time Out of Mind with new mixes of the album, discards, alternative versions, live recordings between 1998 and 2001 in the format of 5 CDs or 10 LPs or its cheaper version of 2 CDs and 4 LPs. Did you know that Columbia, owned by the Japanese multinational Sony Corporation, has an executive of its 109,000 employees on staff to rescue Dylan’s file? My advice, ask the kings for the expensive one (230 euros), than just get it (bobdylan.com) already guarantees that it will be worth more.
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In old age, Bob Dylan unfolds his youth – Forbes Spain