“He built a fire on Main Street and shot it full of holes.” What an artist!
We have a lot of R.I.P. threads, I'm gonna honor an American Icon on a milestone birthday.
With my other favorite artists (including painters, poets, and writers) I can usually pick out my favorite work of theirs pretty quickly. With Dylan, I honestly cannot. He strikes too many chords . An American original, his influence stretches far and wide. And you might argue it's more a reflection of my vocal talents than anything else, but I have more of his songs in my repertoire than any other.
Many Happy Returns, Bob!
“He built a fire on Main Street and shot it full of holes.” What an artist!
"I think he's found dignity..." was on youtube for a bit this afternoon. I think the MTV Unplugged set" is very underrated.
Has anyone heard from Jeffrey lately?
Really liked his most recent album Rough and Rowdy Ways. If you like him and you haven't checked it out it is worth a listen. No stars in the sky shine brighter than Bob.
Happy happy birthday . . .
Celebrating Bob Dylan's 80th birthday. My favorite albums are probably Blood on the Tracks and Desire.
~rthomas
Blood on the Tracks to be sure, along with the mid-60s trilogy, Bringing it All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde. Desire is in the next group for me, along with John Wesley Harding, Planet Waves, Desire, Time Out of Mind and at least a half dozen others.
But yes, a transformative figure, as important in his own way, IMO, as the Beatles, the Stones, Springsteen or anybody else.
That said, when I pull out a Dylan album, which is pretty often, I tend to ignore the Sinatra tributes.
It seems we have two Dylan 80th threads. Can a mod merge them?
In the 80’s my 7yo son was a friend of the son of actress Pat Quinn - her claim to fame was playing Alice in Alice’s Restaurant. We became friends with her and one night she called and asked us to babysit her son so she could go out with Bob. We of course agreed and hoped we would get to meet the bard. That didn’t happen but still I feel like this makes Bob and I good friends. The fact he isn’t aware of my existence doesn’t shake my belief at all.
Happy Birthday, buddy.
Last edited by Skydog; 05-24-2021 at 11:41 PM.
In the fall of 1980, I was in law school in Michigan, and flew out to Portland, Oregon to interview for some jobs. I was staying at a wonderful hotel in downtown Portland, the Benson. The first night I was there, I was supposed to go out to dinner with some people, so I went down to the lobby to wait for them. I was dressed all nicely in my business suit.
The Benson has a very nice lobby, with carpeting that you have to wade through. As I was waiting, I saw six or seven guys near the check-in desk, dressed in jeans and T-shirts. I was pretty impressed that anybody would go to the Benson wearing jeans. I noticed that one of the group was standing off to the side and was wearing dark glasses, even though it was dark outside at 6 p.m. in Portland in November. I looked at the guy was dark glasses and thought I knew him from somewhere, but I couldn't place him. After 30 seconds or so, I realized it was Bob Dylan. This was a period where Dylan was doing music that was not generally well-received, either popularly or critically.
At about this point, I saw one of my dinner group coming into the lobby, so I quickly walked over to Dylan and said "I just want you to know that I've really enjoyed your music over the years." Dylan looked at this then 22-year-old kid wearing a silly business suit and said "thank you very much." I turned and walked out to meet my dinner companions.
Happy Birthday, Bob! May you stay forever young.
"How does it feel?" (to be 80)