"Hear this man do it, and take courage. How great it could be if everybody struggling to find their own voice were able to just sort of stop struggling and.. well, use their own voice. We all got one, unique as a fingerprint."
Of course we want to celebrate Bob Dylan on his 70th birthday!
The soundtrack on the first video is "Thunder on the mountain" from the great album "Modern times" (2006).
This is not the blog to discuss good and not so good Dylan albums, but let me mention one good one, where he is really seeking out his roots, namely "World gone wrong" from 1993. I think this is the only record I have seen being reviewed by Robert Wyatt! Wyatt´s "Hear this man do it, and take courage" was published in Mojo in December 1993 (p 104-105).
Wyatt finishes is review like this: "World Gone Wrong finds Dylan strumming again through songs from what he sees as his tradition. It is still totally a Bob Dylan record. Hear this man do it, and take courage. How great it could if everybody struggling to find their own voice were able to just stop struggling and ... well, use their own voice. We all got one, unique as a fingerprint".
And here is Robert Wyatt´s own "Bob Dylan song" "Blues in Bob minor" from "Shleep" (1998). I usually don´t post sound files like this (not uploaded by the artist) but you have already bought this one I hope? If not, do it!
Woha! Now how about this version of Bob Dylan´s "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll", from the Norwegian Stangvik Festival 2010? The music is arranged by POING and Maja Ratkje, and performed by Ratkje (vocal), Rolf-Erik Nystrøm (saxophone), Frode Haltli (accordion) and Håkon Thelin (bass).
