mon 04/11/2024

Bob Dylan

Ed Vulliamy: When Words Fail review - the band plays on

If you're seeking ideas for new playlists and diverse suggestions for reading - and when better to look than at this time of year? - then beware: you may be overwhelmed by the infectious enthusiasms of Ed Vulliamy, hyper-journalist, witness-bearer,...

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More Blood, More Tracks review - Bob Dylan opens up

You get plenty of Dylan for your buck these days, with the Mondo Scripto exhibition currently at the Halcyon Gallery in London, and a totemic and arrestingly beautiful set of Jerry Schatzberg's photographs of mid-Sixties Dylan in all his fuzzy glory...

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Gathered From Coincidence

It might have begun with The Beatles espousal of Bob Dylan in 1964. There was also The Animals whose first two singles, issued the same year, repurposed tracks from Bob Dylan’s 1962 debut album. Before The Byrds hit big with their version of his “Mr...

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Arena: Bob Dylan - Trouble No More, BBC Four review - up close and personal with Gospel Bob

Dylan’s Gospel years inspired and rankled in unequal measure – with the critical brickbats and audience boos often drowning out the strength and beauty of the impassioned musical ministries delivered by Dylan between 1979 and 1981, gathering around...

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Girl from the North Country, Noël Coward Theatre review - Bob Dylan fuels a dreamlike drama

The rolling stone is now at home in the West End, as Conor McPherson’s inimitable dramatic take on Bob Dylan transfers from the Old Vic, where it premiered last summer. Described as “a play with songs”, it’s the distinct harmony of two art forms,...

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Albums of the Year 2017: Bob Dylan - Trouble No More

“Passion! You gotta have passion!” I still feel the full force of Tricky’s conviction, as I was filming him in 1997, for my film Naked and Famous. He’s right: music works better than words when expressing the deepest emotions.This year has been a...

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Richard F Thomas: Why Dylan Matters review - tangled up in clues

A year ago, Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, his work commended by the committee "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition". The media response was like no other and we admirers felt...

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CD Special: Bob Dylan's Trouble No More review - he’d never sound better

After more than 35 years of subterranean bootleg life, Bob Dylan’s incendiary gospel shows and sessions from 1979 to 1981 are seeing the light of day as volume 13 of the Official Bootleg Series. Trouble No More comes as a regular two-CD and deluxe...

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Take What You Need - UK Covers of Bob Dylan Songs 1964-69

In February 1965, Melody Maker asked John Lennon about his personal enthusiasm for Bob Dylan material and Dylan interpretations. “I just felt like going that way,” he said about the new acoustic guitar-based material The Beatles were then recording...

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CD: Joan Osborne - Songs of Bob Dylan

Dylan aficionados will get the cover art reference immediately: one of Elliott Landy’s celebrated Woodstock photos, taken in 1968. Joan Osborne, Grammy nominated “no-nonsense Dylan” (New York Times) interpreter, is wearing neither hat nor guitar on...

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Girl from the North Country, Old Vic review – Dylan songs hit home, the rest is weirdness

Plays with songs in, or more precisely plays with famous songs in, can feel like the uncanny valley of theatre. They’re not quite musicals and not quite tribute shows. They deliver on familiar tunes and disconcert with fresh narrative. You’re...

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Bob Dylan, Wembley Arena review - mannered vocals, poor sound, upsetting

I’ll never forget the first time: Saturday 17 June, 1978, Earls Court. The concert lives on in my mind’s ear still – those not fortunate enough to be there should listen to Live at Budokan (on which, that autumn, in Liverpool’s Probe Records, I...

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