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Thoughts on the Dylan documentary
The first part of Martin Scorsese’s documentary on Bob Dylan, “No Direction Home,” broadcast last night on PBS, was fantastic, thoroughly enjoyable. While the focus was on Dylan’s career up through 1963, with many great samples of the kind of music and musicians that set the tone of the time and influenced him, and interesting interviews with people who knew him then, the show kept jumping forward to his amazing, cosmic, indescribable performances on tour in England in 1966, during the “Blonde on Blonde” era, with his big hair and Carnaby Street-like suits, and with a cacophonous electric band behind him, singing (if that’s the right word) like no human being has ever sung, looking like no human being has ever looked, at a peak of expressiveness that no one could maintain for long without burning out or dying; and in fact, this was just before the motorcycle accident in July 1966 that ended that stage of Dylan’s career. At one point in the program, Dylan was singing “Desolation Row” in one of the ‘66 concerts, and the performance was so full, there was so much sensory and mental input coming at me, that I just assumed it was like the other 1966 performances, with the electric band behind him. Then my attention suddenly focused and I realized to my shock that there was no band playing, no electric guitars, no organ, no drums, that it was just Dylan singing alone accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. I stared at the tv with disbelief. It was just one person singing and playing an acoustic guitar, yet that one person was putting out so much creative expression, was hitting you from so many directions at once, that it was as if an entire multitude was performing. Yet it wasn’t chaotic, as the word “multitude” suggests, but integrated into a single artistic vision. It was the absolute summit of Dylan’s genius. I just came upon another Dylan fan who especially appreciates the Dylan of 1966 and mentions an album that is available of his 1966 concerts.
To any readers who may be surprised or feel it’s inappropriate that this self-described traditionalist site is praising an icon of the destructive Sixties, I will reply with Sonny Bono’s immortal line: “The Sixties were great, but only musically.” Email entry |