Watched the first half of the Scorcese film on PBS last night and enjoyed it very much. Dylan’s early work on acoustic was intense and powerful, and seems so even today. Second half is tonight. Scorcese has done some good work in this genre. Anybody else watch this?
Yup, it was on BBC2 over here.
Great stuff. I have to remind myself every now and then just how good Dylan was, and this was a good reminder.
And I loved everyone complaining that he used to nick their records, and they still haven’t got back 45 years later!
If he was so interested in Woody Guthrie, I wonder if he met Arlo.
I’ve been looking forward to it for weeks!
Seeing the footage from the 1966 European tour is worth the price of admission by itself. My personal favorite was the rollicking performance of “Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat!” Apparently tonight, we get “Highway 61 Revisited” and “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry.” And didn’t Robbie Robertson look like such a kid?
I’ve often wondered if all those people who groused about his electric performance on that tour still feel “sold out?”
I loved the way Scorcese cut from “Like a Rolling Stone” to the bleak shots of Minnesota in winter. Also the way he cut from the hard rockin’ 1966 concert version of “Baby Let Me Follow You Down” to gentler accoustic version on Dylan’s first album.
I can’t wait for part 2 tonight! Although I’m recording it, I suspect I’ll end up springing for the dvd and accompanying book.
Arlo was a guest in the Rolling Thunder Review in the 70s:
Cite
I didn’t watch the entire show last night and I won’t get to watch all of tonights either but what I have seen I have enjoyed immensely. It sounds real good through my Kenwood surround sound.
In Chronicles, Dylan writes that Woody once told him there were a couple of boxes of lyrics and other writings in his house on Coney Island. Woody said to go there and tell his wife that he said Dylan could have them. This was 1961 or 1962. Anyway, Dylan takes the subway all the way out and, after slogging through what he describes as a bog or swamp, he finds the house but the only people home were Arlo (who was probably about ten at the time) and a babysitter. The babysitter turns Dylan away but Arlo tells her to let him in. (Being Woody’s kid, he was probably used to strangers showing up at the door.) So Dylan hangs out awhile but doesn’t stick around long enough for Woody’s wife to come back.
Dylan figured that the stuff in these boxes is the material that Billy Bragg and Wilco later used for the Mermaid Avenue recordings.
I also read many years ago (sorry, no cite) that Dylan taught Arlo how to play harmonica.
Anyone considering buying that accompanying book should beware. A review in my local newspaper stated it was 64 pages in sort of a scrapbook format, with sort of memento things pasted in and not that much in the way of content. I suppose it might be a “must-have” for a Dylan collector, but $45 for 64 pages seems steep. OTOH, the $30 for th DVD seems more in line.
Over on Slate, some idiot posted an article castigating the baby boomer critics for ignoring the rest of Dylan’s career and asking why everyone focuses on his 61-66 material.
Because it’s 100 times as important as the rest of his career combined, you doofus. Even if the rest of his career is not inconsiderable. Any critic who does otherwise isn’t fit to write about music.
Ugh. Anyway, the documentary is as magnificent as advance word had it.
The rest of his career would take another three films. The post-film commentary with Scorcese talked about that aspect of the documentary. There was probably enough editable material for this film to extend it by a couple of hours, at least for a lesser filmmaker. It was great to see that hilarious video again of Subterranean Homesick Blues.
Whatever else may be said of Bob Dylan, he did his own thing and went his own way. He didn’t really give a crap if anyone came with him or not.
Well, I guess we eight are the only ones who watched this amazing documentary. Pity - I would have loved to see more discussion.
I thought Scorcese’s montage of the Kennedy assasination was brilliant. And, like Chefguy, I thoroughly enjoyed the Subterranean Homesick Blues segment. I never new there were multiple versions of the “flash card” footage, having only seen the version that opens D. A. Pennebaker’s “Don’t Look Back.”
On “The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4: The “Royal Albert Hall” Concert” (actually recorded in Manchester, May 17, 1966 - hence the quotation marks around Royal Albert Hall) Dylan introduces “Like A Rolling Stone” by turning to The Band and saying, “Play it fucking loud!” How very cool that the segment in last night’s show included that very bit, although it was censored for TV of course!
This was one of the best programs I have ever seen on television. I imagine, we can look forward to seeing it ad nauseum in the future, broken up into segments and played during pledge drives!
As a teenager me and a mate found the alleyway where the famous version of this was filmed. It’s just behind the Strand in London, near Charing Cross.
It wasn’t censored in the UK! Class moment.
I also wonder if all the “going electric” detractors ever repented.