Reading Chroniclies Volume One

[Poke]

I like what nick is doing with this thread.

The primary impression I got from Chronicles I is that Bob buys into the Dylan mythology just as much as, if not more than, his most vacuous worshiper. Except for when he has to address the nature of the myth directly (in the New Morning section) - then it's, "hey, I'm just a regular music-makin' dude!"

[owen]

manho said:

one of the great myths of pop music lore is that the beatles came along to save us from a culture which was in serious decline.

yeah, and also the beatles thought the songs were good enough to cover..

another thing bob says in that paragraph is that "the music came at you like you didnt have a brain"

says the guy who wrote wiggle wiggle.

[owen]

another classic single from 62:

[dino]

i like this thread a lot myself

i think is about time to discover the real dylan, which it means you should gve away a good 50% from the mythology

in certain case, like THE NET, you have to give away a good 90% from all the bullshit people like paul williams have spread around for years - all you have, from a serious NET study, is some dozen real good performances every year and nothing more

[manho]

"yeah, and also the beatles thought the songs were good enough to cover.."

not just good enough to cover. good enough to copy. while dylan was copying simple folk and blues music the beatles were trying to emulate the most sophisticated popular music ever written.

boby would sort of get it in about late 65. he got it but really he couldn't do anything about it. he'd invested too much intellectual energy into a different style of music. a different current, if you like.

if you follow the cultural logic you can see why he's wearing hopalong cassidy suits today while paul is more into armani.

[manho]

"A few crap songs on the list, but there always is, and at least 15 classics"

i put the crap ones on the list cos they were recorded by special artists to give an idea of the general quality around at the time. the list was chosen at random, by the way. there could well be superior charts a few weeks earlier or later. so the shirelles were there, for example, even tho it was a weak effort. but it was the shirelles.

[manho]

3.

Have you ever wondered why Dylan didn't just get a band together like Lennon - they were born only a few months apart - and break down the doors of teeny-popdom for the new cool generation of singer/songwriters? Well wonder no more because Dylan explains it all on page 42:

"When I put together my early bands, usually some other singer who was short of one would take it away. It seemed like this happened every time one of my bands was fully formed. I couldn't understand how this was possible seeing that these guys weren't any better at singing or playing than I was."

My early bands? Like, how many did he have? He was still a schoolkid at this time, remember. But, anyway, you get the picture, he was trying to be the Beatles first but something always got in the way. What would that have been, I hear you thinking. Well, the guys who stole Dylan's many bands:

"could perform at small conventions, private wedding parties, golden anniversaries in hotel ballrooms, Knights of Columbus functions, things like that - and there was cash involved. It was always the promise of money that lured my bands away."

Knights Of Columbus? Now we know. Dylan would have beaten the Beatles to it but he was discriminated against for being Jewish.

And remember that the career in music was a poor second choice for the young Dylan. His first preference was officer training at West Point. But they wouldn't let him in there either because:

"... my name didn't begin with a 'De' or 'Von'... and you needed connections and proper credentials to get in there."

Oy Gevalt!

The West Point thing was a big disappointment for, as we discover in the early chapters of the book, war was Dylan's big thing. He loved it:

"I also looked through Vom Kriege, the Clausewitz book... Clausewitz is in some ways a prophet. Without realising it some of the stuff in his book can shape your ideas."

I remember reading the Clausewitz book myself at university. My version was called On War, though. I guess Dylan read the original German.

Yeah, Dylan certainly loved his wars. He goes on about it at length in the first part of the book. And his favourite war of all was the American Civil War. That's right, he was into it way back in the early 60s. And there you were thinking all those references to it in his recent work was something new, right? Well you were wrong. The Civil War content in the new songs isn't there because Dylan has run out of ideas. It was always part of the masterplan.

One Civil War guy who doesn't figure, however, is Henry Timrod. He mentions a lot of poets: Byron, Longfellow, Poe, Shelley, Leopardi, Milton... but old Henry doesn't get a mention for some reason.

Probably later in the book, right?

The original Broadway cast of the musical Oliver, You've got to pick a pocket or two:
www.sendspace.com/file/83xbvc

Photos: Knights of Columbus. Hank Timrod:

[owen]

yeah, one of the great myths about bob is that he is anti-war.

[dino]

i'm afraid of the moment when manho will arrive at the part of the book when boby talk about wanting to fuck with joanie the first time he see her on tv

i dont want to discover that boby was no good in bed

[billhaley]

what? this post started with this crap?

The first musician Dylan mentions in Chroniclies Volume One isn't Woody Guthrie. And it isn't Dave Van Ronk. Or Blind Willie McTell. Or any other blind black guy. Or blind drunk white hillbilly guy. Or just plain pissed country artist. It's Gennaro Louis Vitaliano. Never heard of him, right? Well, what about his stage name? Jerry Vale.


wtf?

first page first sentence - Bill Haley - you get it?

[Cat Stevens]

billhaley... what a stupid username.

almost as stupid as Cat Stevens.

[manho]

4.

Harry Belafonte. Remember him? Come on, you must do. He was the black guy who even white guys could love. With his insipid darkie crooner impressions he was about as threatening to white culture as Jack Benny's butler. Mediocre actor. Mediocre singer. Did a sort of fake Caribbean music. Strictly Whitesville. There were about as many black faces in a Harry Belafonte audience as you see at the average Dylan concert. So I guess they have something in common. Come on, you must remember Harry, right?

Anyway, Dylan sees Harry in a completely different light. Apparently he wasn't just a second rate actor:

"He was a movie star, too, but not like Elvis. Harry was an authentic tough guy, not unlike Brando or Rod Steiger;"

Brando? Marlon was a tough guy?

"Belafonte's... presence and magnitude was so wide. Harry was like Valentino... Everything about him was gigantic. The folk purists had a problem with him, but Harry - who could have kicked the shit out of all of them - couldn't be bothered, said that all folksingers were interpreters... He even said he hated pop songs, thought they were all junk. I could identify with Harry in kinds of ways."

Yeah, you guessed it. Harry was one of the most important guys to have eved lived and breathed. And what a coincidence then that Dylan would soon be:

"making my professional recording debut with Harry, playing harmonica on one of his albums called Midnight Special."

When Harry Met Salary, right?

At this point in the story Dylan is hanging out in the village with Paul Clayton and Ray (the goon who explained that Freud sucked ass, remember?). Paul and Ray "would talk through the night".

"They would sit at two tables... either they'd lean back against the wall or forward on the table, drink coffe and glasses of brandy."

Wow! They'd lean back against a wall! Or even lean forward on the table! And drink coffee! Couple of rascals, right?

Clayton was a folk singer:

"He sang a lot of sea shanties, had a Puritan ancestry."

Sounds like Paul was more or less one of the folk purist morons who were dissing Belafonte two pages earlier.

Ray was the guy who got Dylan hooked on the Civil War:

"Ray had said that New York City was the city that won the Civil War, came out on top - that the wrong side had lost, that slavery was evil and would have died out anyway, Lincoln or no Lincoln."

I guess it's Ray we all have to thank for Masked & Anonymous.

Thanks, Ray.

Here's one of the junk pop songs that was playing on the radio while Dylan was blowing his harp for the Banana Boat Guy:

Solomon Burke, If You Need Me (1963):
www.sendspace.com/file/xgems2

Yep, I guess we had to wait till the Stones came along in 1964 to rid us of all that garbage.

Photos: Dylan with Harry Belafonte. The Banana Boat Guy.

[cripes]

I remember once back at the old Pool I posted a picture of Rochester in the boby Rochester setlist thread and raggedclown accused me of being a racist.

[dino]

once at the old Pool i posted a Joanie lesbian joke and he accused me to be homophobic - but thats ok cuz i'm a homophobic

[Cat Stevens]

LOL @ RG!





"there is only one thing in the world worse than being homophobic, and that is not being homophobic"

[dino]

RG my ass

[Cat Stevens]

right you are, mr. Killer

[owen]

even guys like gene pitney were way ahead of belafonte.

but if bob played with him then he must be good.

[cripes]

Harry Belafonte can tally my banana.

[Steve]

dino said:

i like this thread a lot myself

i think is about time to discover the real dylan, which it means you should gve away a good 50% from the mythology

in certain case, like THE NET, you have to give away a good 90% from all the bullshit people like paul williams have spread around for years - all you have, from a serious NET study, is some dozen real good performances every year and nothing more

??