Bob Dylan

I consider myself really lucky to have been raised in a family where music was so important. Sometimes it was just how we communicated even. I know families today have DVD players to keep the kids busy but that creates 'separation' not togetherness. This was different, this was me HAVING to listen to my dad's music, unwillingly at first, but sure enough ALWAYS turning into singing together on our weekly road trips to the ski house in Vermont where I attended nursery school in the Pumpkin Patch at Mount Snow, or going to the bagel shop in New York in the morning, or as I got into my early teens heading to some shitty fireman's hall into the Jersey border with my brother to go to a 'tape and cd show' where the entry was $3 and you'd scrounge through the thick scent of stale cigarettes looking for that one missing record, tape or cd to your ever growing collection. My dad has always had amazing taste in music, recently its questionable (was that a NEW country album or 5 on your iphone?), but man his music collection and unspoken passion for great music really shaped me and my brother from a really young age....

Bob Dylan was a staple in his car and in his house. Among the Beatles, Neil Young, CSN, Harry Chapin, Neil Diamond and tons more......but Dylan always stood out. So moody. He could make you wake up from a long nap in the greatest mood, or he could put you to sleep in a bout of the deepest saddest thoughts, but I've always loved his music, his attitude, his stories, and his ever changing of his own songs and look.

When Dylan went electric, it nearly KILLED his career, but he didn't care. He knew what he was doing. He knew he couldn't sing, he knew that his stories about how he got to New York were all tall tales, but he played his cards his way and it always worked, despite the death threats before shows and despite everyone telling him how to do things differently.

He wrote and recorded perfectly crafted folk songs and then would get to shows not play one the same way it was recorded in 1968, or tour with a 20 piece band all dressed as gypsies and clowns and this was in 1975. Its something that stood out to me when watching the Wilco documentary 'I am trying to break your heart'. When Jeff Tweedy says "their my songs, and I can create them and they're mine to destroy" about the recording process of adding extra instruments and stripping things down and changing songs from just being pop/folk to masterpieces....it was all Dylan

I can't embed this video, but its a great live version of Tangled Up in Blue from the tour in 74 or 75. check out the weird makeup.....but he just did it.

Tangled Up in Blue

thank you to my dad for inspiring me from such a young age and thank you to church of choppers for posting that picture of Bob Dylan on the triumph that got me fired up on this a few days ago.