I started writing poetry before I started writing songs. In my checkered college past I was a creative writing major at Long Beach State University, which had a great writing program, and that’s where I learned all the nuts and bolts that helped me out in songwriting. They forced us to write in traditional forms — sonnets, iambic pentameter — just so we could understand that writing wasn’t just splaying free verse all over the page. But then the more songs I wrote using all those poetic forms, the more my poetry become like prose, almost to the point of journalism…
~Dave Alvin (Interview by Jim Catalano)
Emmylou Harris was 30 at that time, and she is here accompanied by The Hot Band: Albert Lee, Emory Gordy, John Ware, Glen D Hardin, Rodney Crowell, Hank Devito. Superb band! They run through what was to become a greatest hit set, lovely rendition of well-known songs. The Highlights for me are, Making Believe and Luxury Liner.
Emmylou recorded some of her best albums with The Hot Band, one of the best backing bands in country history.
“That’s the song I picked to do at Bobfest (in New York in 1992). I’d been listening to it almost every day for two months. It’s so fucking funny: ‘Did he make it to the top? Well, he probably did and dropped.’ There are so many verses, it was impossible to learn. G.E. Smith, who was playing with me, turned the pages. There is a lot of anger here. It’s not the Three Stooges.”
– Lou Reed
Foot of Pride is an outtake from the Infidels sessions. As with most Dylan albums, outtakes and rough mixes from Infidels were bootlegged and these sessions had some very interesting gems. A take of Foot of Pride with Bob Dylan was later released on The Bootleg Series Vol. 1-3.
Bob Dylan has not performed the song live (to my knowledge) but Lou Reed does a great job.
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]“I’ve never been to Vegas, but I’ve gambled all my life.”
― Ryan Adams (Oh My Sweet Carolina)
“Some people want to go forever, I just want to burn off hard and bright.”
― Ryan Adams (Firecracker)[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Ryan Adams – Gimme Something Good (Live,Later… with Jools Holland):
I stumbled to my feet I rode past destruction in the ditches With the stitches still mending beneath a heart-shaped tattoo Renegade priests and treacherous young witches Were handing out the flowers that I’d given to you.
Patti Smith – Changing Of The Guards – The Best Dylan Covers
“…I had finished Gone Again in memory of Fred [‘Sonic’ Smith, her late husband], and I really didn’t think about touring at all, since my children were in school, but I heard from Dylan in 1995, and he asked whether I wanted to do a series of East coast dates with him. … Bob and I spoke privately and I thanked him for giving me the opportunity, and he really encouraged me to come back into the fold. He said the people would be happy to see me. I truthfully wasn’t certain how I would be received, or what I should do, and being encouraged by him was very important to me. I mean, Bob – the man I know – is a man of few words, but the words are always meaningful. And so that was very important. He was very encouraging to me about my place in the community of rock’n’roll.”
– Patti Smith (Kirk Elder, interview 2009, AlternativesToValium)
Changing of the Guards is a song written by Bob Dylan, released in 1978 as a single and as the first track on his album Street-Legal.
Lyrically, this song has provoked much critical insight, both positive and negative. According to Oliver Trager author of Keys to the Rain: The Definitive Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, “Changing of the Guards” has been criticized as a “song in which Dylan unsuccessfully and cynically parodies his anthemic self in haunting fashion…
“My voice was never really that glamorous. But a big vocal range really isn’t necessary for the type of songs I sing. For what I sing, my voice does pretty well.”
(Bob Dylan to Greg Kot in August 1993)
“My songs come out of folk music…..I love that whole pantheon. To me there’s no difference between Muddy Waters and Bill Monroe.”
(Bob Dylan)
