November 15 – 16: Bob Dylan Camera rehearsals MTV Unplugged sessions 1994 (Videos)

Sony Music Studios
New York City, New York
15–16 November 1994
Camera rehearsals for MTV Unplugged taping sessions

  • Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar)
  • Bucky Baxter (pedal steel guitar & electric slide guitar)
  • John Jackson (guitar)
  • Brendan O’Brien (keyboards & guitar)
  • Tony Garnier (bass)
  • Winston Watson (drums & percussion)

Amazon about the CD release:
THE RARE REHEARSAL RECORDINGS FOR THE CLASSIC DYLAN UNPLUGGED BROADCAST MTV s ever popular Unplugged series had been running more than five years before Bob Dylan a troubadour almost custom made to fit the program s format – agreed to take part. Having already achieved huge success with featured bands and artists as diverse as Nirvana, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney and Eric Clapton – amongst numerous others – by 1994 the series was a much anticipated feature in the cable channel s schedules. Dylan had hoped to record a selection of folk traditionals for his episode, much in keeping with the two albums he d released prior to the MTV show, 1992 s Good As I Been To You and 94 s World Gone Wrong.

However, at MTV s behest, he settled on performing a set made up almost exclusively of classic album cuts from his early albums – perhaps a good move in retrospect, as 1995 s Columbia Records release MTV Unplugged album provided Bob with his best sales in years. The CD features the rehearsal sessions for the finally aired program, recorded during the afternoons of 15th and 16th November 1994, and includes some very different versions of a selection of the songs that would end up in the show and subsequently on the album. However, in true Dylan fashion, a number of tunes that were not performed for the actual transmission were also rehearsed and are included here alongside those that were. Continue reading “November 15 – 16: Bob Dylan Camera rehearsals MTV Unplugged sessions 1994 (Videos)”

November 14: Watch Bob Dylan’s concert in Worcester, Massachusetts 1999

1999 was a great year for Bob Dylan’s “Never Ending Tour”.

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]For all the splendours of earlier in the year [1999], this last leg was the most consistently triumphant. By the time Dylan brought the year’s touring to an end, with an extended set on November the 20th, he had played 121 shows – the most in a single year of his entire career. It had been a very good year, the best since 1995.
~Andrew Muir (One More Night: Bob Dylan’s Never Ending Tour)[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

A lot of concerts from this tour is in circulation (both video & audio) and this concert is (…again) a great example from that last leg.

Centrum Arena
Worcester, Massachusetts
14 November 1999

Continue reading “November 14: Watch Bob Dylan’s concert in Worcester, Massachusetts 1999”

November 12: Neil Young is 75 today – Singing 6 Bob Dylan songs

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]The only time it bothered me that someone sounded like me was when I was living in Phoenix, Arizona, in about ’72 and the big song at the time was “Heart of Gold.” I used to hate it when it came on the radio. I always liked Neil Young, but it bothered me every time I listened to “Heart of Gold.” I think it was up at number one for a long time, and I’d say, “Shit, that’s me. If it sounds like me, it should as well be me.
-Bob Dylan (to Scott Cohen, September 1985)[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Neil Percival Young (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian singer-songwriter. After embarking on a music career in the 1960s, he moved to Los Angeles, where he formed Buffalo Springfield with Stephen Stills, Richie Furay and others. Young had released two solo albums and three as a member of Buffalo Springfield by the time he joined Crosby, Stills & Nash in 1969. From his early solo albums and those with his backing band Crazy Horse, Young has recorded a steady stream of studio and live albums, sometimes warring with his recording company along the way.

Continue reading “November 12: Neil Young is 75 today – Singing 6 Bob Dylan songs”

November 12: Bob Dylan released the single George Jackson in 1971

Sometimes I think this whole world
Is one big prison yard.
Some of us are prisoners
The rest of us are guards.

George Jackson” is a song by Bob Dylan, written in 1971, about the Black Panther leader George Jackson, who had been shot and killed by guards at San Quentin Prison on August 21, 1971, during an attempted escape from prison. The event indirectly provoked the Attica Prison riot.

There are controversies about how Dylan portrays George Jackson. Several writers have argued that Bob Dylan’s lyrics are a bit lacking in the facts department.

Continue reading “November 12: Bob Dylan released the single George Jackson in 1971”

November 11: Dave Alvin was born in 1955

dave-alvin

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)

Continue reading “November 11: Dave Alvin was born in 1955”

Bob Dylan: 4 great live versions of his beautiful “Wedding Song”

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]I love you more than ever, more than time and more than love
I love you more than money and more than the stars above
Love you more than madness, more than waves upon the sea
Love you more than life itself, you mean that much to me[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

“Wedding Song” was recorded on November 9th in 1973.

Dylan has only performed it 9 times live, all of them in early 1974.

The Spectrum
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
7 January 1974

  • Bob Dylan (vocal, guitar, harmonica)


Continue reading “Bob Dylan: 4 great live versions of his beautiful “Wedding Song””