Bob Dylan
mark.kidel
Capturing a "shape-shifter" – as the Irish musician Liam Clancy described Bob Dylan – is not a simple task. The object of the hunt is by definition elusive. Sean Wilentz’s multi-dimensional series of essays on Bob Dylan chases its prey with a deftness and broad-ranging sweep that mirrors Zimmy’s mercurial nature without losing overall coherence. Dylanology is a discipline that has produced brilliant commentators, not least Greil Marcus, Michael Gray and Christopher Ricks, and historian Wilentz is a worthy addition to this learned and sometimes brilliantly inspired cohort. In a book Read more ...
theartsdesk
Next to tell us about her recent reading habits is singer and songwriter Martha Wainwright, who since the arrival of son Arcangelo last November has been juggling music with motherhood. Born in Montreal in 1976, Wainwright is part of one of North America's greatest musical dynasties: her father is folk singer Loudon Wainwright III and her mother is the late Kate McGarrigle, who died early in 2010 having performed and recorded with her sister Anna as a revered duo for almost half a century.Her brother, Rufus, is an acclaimed singer and composer, and her half-sister Lucy Wainwright-Roche has Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
An ongoing series celebrating musicians' birthdays. This week Don Van Vliet, also known as Captain Beefheart, in a fascinating 1997 documentary made by John Peel, master drummer Gene Krupa, singer Long John Baldry on a TV special hosted by the Beatles, producer Jerry Wexler talking about working with Bob Dylan, smooth operator Sade whose first album of new material in ten years is due to be released next month and a brief farewell to producer Willie Mitchell.15 January 1941: Don Van Vliet, or Captain Beefheart, retired from music in the early 1980s to pursue painting. This 1997 documentary is Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Astonishingly tall and surmounted by a luxuriant clump of dramatic red hair, Brett Dennen couldn't be mistaken for any other singer-songwriter. It's possible to detect any number of musical echoes in his songs - Neil Young, Dylan, Paul Simon - but thanks to his huskily soulful voice and a gift for conveying complicated sentiments in a resonant phrase, he manages to stand apart from the crowd here too.As a songwriter, Dennen was a late developer, hardly getting started until he was 21 or 22. "I think it's one of those things where it was just brewing for a while," reflects the tunesmith from Read more ...