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Author Topic:  Bob Dylan Awarded Nobel Prize in Literature
Mark Hershey

 

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New York, USA
Post  Posted 28 Oct 2016 8:19 am    
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What do you guys think about his line 'The Sun's not yellow, it's chicken'?
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Mark Eaton


From:
Sonoma County in The Great State Of Northern California
Post  Posted 28 Oct 2016 8:22 am    
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Erv Niehaus wrote:
My spin on him getting the award is that the committee must be running low on likely candidates. Whoa!


Among the long-time members here Erv, I guarantee you no one was surprised by your spin - we could see it coming from a mile away. Wink

As far as some of the more off the wall Dylan songs and lyrics over the decades as big a fan as I am if I have some of the old albums on CD in the car player, there are plenty where I hit the skip button. And that goes for just about every recording artist I like with an extensive body of work.

Jimmy Webb and MacArthur Park? As a teenager after hearing the Richard Harris hit a version on the radio a few times, I already knew I was pretty much done with it for the rest of my life.

Contrast that with Wichita Lineman which has a permanent position in my Top 20 favorite songs of all time.
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Joachim Kettner


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Post  Posted 28 Oct 2016 8:45 am    
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How about one of the most famous acts of my generation used pedal steel almost fifty years ago on his recordings? "John Wesley Harding" from 1968 had Pete Drake playin on two cuts.
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Mark Eaton


From:
Sonoma County in The Great State Of Northern California
Post  Posted 28 Oct 2016 9:26 am    
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Joachim Kettner wrote:
How about one of the most famous acts of my generation used pedal steel almost fifty years ago on his recordings? "John Wesley Harding" from 1968 had Pete Drake playin on two cuts.


It was actually 1967 and two years later Pete played on Nashville Skyline.
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Mark Hershey

 

From:
New York, USA
Post  Posted 28 Oct 2016 9:39 am    
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Mark Eaton wrote:
Joachim Kettner wrote:
How about one of the most famous acts of my generation used pedal steel almost fifty years ago on his recordings? "John Wesley Harding" from 1968 had Pete Drake playin on two cuts.


It was actually 1967 and two years later Pete played on Nashville Skyline.


There is also pedal steel on John Wesley Harding.

"The final session did break from the status quo by employing Pete Drake on the final two recordings. Cut between 9pm and 12 midnight, "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight" and "Down Along the Cove" would be the only two songs featuring Drake's light pedal steel guitar."
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Erv Niehaus


From:
Litchfield, MN, USA
Post  Posted 28 Oct 2016 10:04 am    
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At least he's got a steel guitar. Rolling Eyes

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Barry Blackwood


Post  Posted 28 Oct 2016 11:09 am    
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Quote:
Jimmy Webb and MacArthur Park? As a teenager after hearing the Richard Harris hit a version on the radio a few times, I already knew I was pretty much done with it for the rest of my life.

Different strokes, Mark.... Cool

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/music/jimmy-webb-discusses-famous-lyrics-in-macarthur-park-1.9477080
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Joachim Kettner


From:
Germany
Post  Posted 28 Oct 2016 11:53 am    
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On a sidenote, singer/songwriter Eric Andersen adressed Jim Webb as Mr. Balloons once (Up, up and away). People can be sarcastic.
Thanks for the article Barry!
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Mark Hershey

 

From:
New York, USA
Post  Posted 28 Oct 2016 11:55 am    
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Barry Blackwood wrote:
Quote:
Jimmy Webb and MacArthur Park? As a teenager after hearing the Richard Harris hit a version on the radio a few times, I already knew I was pretty much done with it for the rest of my life.

Different strokes, Mark.... Cool

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/music/jimmy-webb-discusses-famous-lyrics-in-macarthur-park-1.9477080


I read that article right after the mention of that song in this thread. The lyrics aren't nonsense, if you read that article it adds context to the song.
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Mark Eaton


From:
Sonoma County in The Great State Of Northern California
Post  Posted 28 Oct 2016 1:10 pm    
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Joachim Kettner wrote:
On a sidenote, singer/songwriter Eric Andersen adressed Jim Webb as Mr. Balloons once (Up, up and away). People can be sarcastic.
Thanks for the article Barry!


Eric Andersen, one of my musical heroes, saw him perform for the first time when I was about 20. And speaking of steel, on some of his more country sounding stuff he did for a time he had the late great Weldon Myrick on pedal steel.
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Mark Eaton


From:
Sonoma County in The Great State Of Northern California
Post  Posted 28 Oct 2016 1:28 pm    
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Barry Blackwood wrote:
Quote:
Jimmy Webb and MacArthur Park? As a teenager after hearing the Richard Harris hit a version on the radio a few times, I already knew I was pretty much done with it for the rest of my life.

Different strokes, Mark.... Cool

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/music/jimmy-webb-discusses-famous-lyrics-in-macarthur-park-1.9477080


Good article, thanks for sharing. I'm not "above" giving the song another chance cake-left-out-in-the rain lyrics aside.

I think what turned me off to the song as a young man beyond the lyrics was the overly dramatic sort of schmaltzy delivery of Richard Harris, not to mention the overall production.

That's also about the time I was getting into speak of the devil, Eric Andersen. His music to me was about a hundred times cooler.

Wichita LIneman, again - forever in my top 20, and By The Time I Get To Phoenix and Galveston - fine pieces of work. And if I could write something like Up, Up and Away and get a Rolls Royce out of it, where do I sell my soul for this new gift?

Right - where it all goes down according to Dylan, Out on Highway 61
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Barry Blackwood


Post  Posted 28 Oct 2016 5:23 pm    
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Quote:
I think what turned me off to the song as a young man beyond the lyrics was the overly dramatic sort of schmaltzy delivery of Richard Harris, not to mention the overall production.

He was an Irish actor and not a singer per se, which probably accounted for the "dramatic" delivery.
A bit of trivia for you, Harris insisted on singing "MacArthur's Park" when he recorded it..
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Mark Eaton


From:
Sonoma County in The Great State Of Northern California
Post  Posted 29 Oct 2016 2:55 am    
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I am aware he was an actor. Some actors can make the transition to becoming a fine singer, others not so much. And the vice versa is of course true as well.

Dylan was no threat for an Oscar in his role in Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid but I liked his soundtrack for the film.
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Mark Hershey

 

From:
New York, USA
Post  Posted 29 Oct 2016 5:22 am    
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/world-exclusive-bob-dylan---ill-be-at-the-nobel-prize-ceremony-i/

Bob Dylan says he will attend the ceremony “if it’s at all possible”.
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Ollin Landers


From:
Willow Springs, NC
Post  Posted 29 Oct 2016 6:52 am    
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I was in High School in the early 70's. That was back when you could actually learn something in a public school.

I had an English teacher who was African American and graduated with honors from Spelman College with a degree in literature.

She asked us to do a booklet of poems by our favorite authors and then write comments about how we interpreted the poem.

One of the "poems" I included was Dylan's "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall".

She was only vaguely familiar with Dylan but was amazed. She said it was one of the most complex poems she had ever read. In many respects she compared it to the Jazz-Poetry style of Langston Hughes and Ginsberg.

Although MS. Spears specifically told us no limericks or song lyrics she made an exception for me and gave me an A because I had recognized it for what it was, poetry.
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Charlie McDonald


From:
out of the blue
Post  Posted 29 Oct 2016 7:53 am    
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Dylan falls between Woody Gutherie and Bruce Springsteen in the evolution of modern folk music.
He was working in early rap,following the beat generation angst.
For the Nobel committee to recognize the force of music in literature is commendable. 'A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall' isn't a song
to dismiss easily. It's a good thing to find music in place with other literature, and there was important poetry here.
Dylan himself saw it in the dimestores and bus stations, looking to urban poets who were writing the sound of silence on walls.
Recognizing the force of music in it is gratifying.

For my money, I think a Nobel prize is worth this recording of Sandy Denny doing Tomorrow is a Long Time, with Sneaky Pete at the wheel.
But then, I liked McArthur Park. What other 7 minute song got radio play? Did it not launch Jim Webb?
I think Dylan and Webb should have collaborated.
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Barry Blackwood


Post  Posted 29 Oct 2016 9:03 am    
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The latest:
http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/7557797/bob-dylan-accepts-his-nobel-prize-for-literature

I'll believe it when I see him holding the prize.. Winking
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Barry Blackwood


Post  Posted 16 Nov 2016 10:38 am    
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Quote:
Bob Dylan says he will attend the ceremony “if it’s at all possible”.

Apparently it's not possible..
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/bob-dylan-won-t-go-stockholm-pick-his-nobel-prize-n684726
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Joachim Kettner


From:
Germany
Post  Posted 10 Dec 2016 7:00 pm     Dylan's reply
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Bob Dylan:

Good evening, everyone. I extend my warmest greetings to the members of the Swedish Academy and to all of the other distinguished guests in attendance tonight.

I’m sorry I can’t be with you in person, but please know that I am most definitely with you in spirit and honored to be receiving such a prestigious prize. Being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature is something I never could have imagined or seen coming. From an early age, I’ve been familiar with and reading and absorbing the works of those who were deemed worthy of such a distinction: Kipling, Shaw, Thomas Mann, Pearl Buck, Albert Camus, Hemingway. These giants of literature whose works are taught in the schoolroom, housed in libraries around the world and spoken of in reverent tones have always made a deep impression. That I now join the names on such a list is truly beyond words.

I don’t know if these men and women ever thought of the Nobel honor for themselves, but I suppose that anyone writing a book, or a poem, or a play anywhere in the world might harbor that secret dream deep down inside. It’s probably buried so deep that they don’t even know it’s there.

If someone had ever told me that I had the slightest chance of winning the Nobel Prize, I would have to think that I’d have about the same odds as standing on the moon. In fact, during the year I was born and for a few years after, there wasn’t anyone in the world who was considered good enough to win this Nobel Prize. So, I recognize that I am in very rare company, to say the least.

I was out on the road when I received this surprising news, and it took me more than a few minutes to properly process it. I began to think about William Shakespeare, the great literary figure. I would reckon he thought of himself as a dramatist. The thought that he was writing literature couldn’t have entered his head. His words were written for the stage. Meant to be spoken not read. When he was writing Hamlet, I’m sure he was thinking about a lot of different things: “Who’re the right actors for these roles?” “How should this be staged?” “Do I really want to set this in Denmark?” His creative vision and ambitions were no doubt at the forefront of his mind, but there were also more mundane matters to consider and deal with. “Is the financing in place?” “Are there enough good seats for my patrons?” “Where am I going to get a human skull?” I would bet that the farthest thing from Shakespeare’s mind was the question “Is this literature?”

When I started writing songs as a teenager, and even as I started to achieve some renown for my abilities, my aspirations for these songs only went so far. I thought they could be heard in coffee houses or bars, maybe later in places like Carnegie Hall, the London Palladium. If I was really dreaming big, maybe I could imagine getting to make a record and then hearing my songs on the radio. That was really the big prize in my mind. Making records and hearing your songs on the radio meant that you were reaching a big audience and that you might get to keep doing what you had set out to do.

Well, I’ve been doing what I set out to do for a long time, now. I’ve made dozens of records and played thousands of concerts all around the world. But it’s my songs that are at the vital center of almost everything I do. They seemed to have found a place in the lives of many people throughout many different cultures and I’m grateful for that.

But there’s one thing I must say. As a performer I’ve played for 50,000 people and I’ve played for 50 people and I can tell you that it is harder to play for 50 people. 50,000 people have a singular persona, not so with 50. Each person has an individual, separate identity, a world unto themselves. They can perceive things more clearly. Your honesty and how it relates to the depth of your talent is tried. The fact that the Nobel committee is so small is not lost on me.

But, like Shakespeare, I too am often occupied with the pursuit of my creative endeavors and dealing with all aspects of life’s mundane matters. “Who are the best musicians for these songs?” “Am I recording in the right studio?” “Is this song in the right key?” Some things never change, even in 400 years.

Not once have I ever had the time to ask myself, “Are my songs literature?”

So, I do thank the Swedish Academy, both for taking the time to consider that very question, and, ultimately, for providing such a wonderful answer.

My best wishes to you all,
Bob Dylan

Banquet speech by Bob Dylan, Nobel Laureate in Literature 2016, presented at the Nobel Banquet by the United States Ambassador to Sweden Azita Raji.

© The Nobel Foundation 2016

General permission is granted for immediate publication in editorial contexts, in print or online, in any language within two weeks of December 10, 2016. Thereafter, any publication requires the consent of the Nobel Foundation. On all publications in full or in major parts the above copyright notice must be applied.

Read the complete Banquet Speech: goo.gl/oQ9M12
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Bruce Bjork


From:
Southern Coast of Maine
Post  Posted 13 Jun 2017 5:53 pm    
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Patti Smith singing "A Hard Rains A-Gonna Fall" in Stockholm with Pedal Steel.
https://youtu.be/DVXQaOhpfJU

Bob Dylan's later delivered acceptance speech
https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2016/dylan-speech_en.html
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Bryan Staddon


From:
Buffalo,New York,
Post  Posted 16 Jun 2017 8:02 am     Mr. Jones
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"There's something going on here and you don't know what it is, do you Mr Jones."
Running low on likely candidates? Perhaps a trip to the library is in order?
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