Bob will be 70 this week, he’s catching up on me.
Some time ago I toyed with the idea of a post here that was based on the question of ‘who’s the greatest contributor to pop music of the 20th century’, when I posed the question to my wife she instantly said ‘Bob Marley’ and I had to agree with her but Dylan also came strongly to mind. I’ve enjoyed his music right from the start though I did miss out on some of his middle period. I titled this piece ‘Alternate Bob’ because the music playlist is comprised of alternate takes of some of his best known songs. I didn’t keep track of the titles as I assembled them so let it come as a surprise.
Question: If Dylan is not the ‘greatest contributor, who is and second, what’s the best song Dylan ever wrote.
Don’t miss the article by Stephen Moss on page one today and also scan the comments.
Happy Birthday Bob.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/may/19/bob-dylan-at-70
Instantly, a range of sub-categories suggest themselves: most seminal, most dramatic influence; most enduring; broadest… Both Bobs are in there (if we were sub-dividing by decade, you’d hand Dylan the 60s and Marley the 70s) but I’d say each of George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith, Chuck Berry and Jimi Hendrix would have a case. Throw back a few glasses of malt and I’d be making a case out for Dvorak. Louis aArmstrong’s in there and Elvis can’t really be ignored.
Not just because he’s my favourite artist but I’d rate Curtis Mayfield worthy of a mention as well. For Your Precious Love arguably the first soul record; songwriting that encompasses late doo-wop through to hip-hop; massive influence on Jamaican vocal groups, including The Wailers, ground-breaking producer, activist, bandleader, soundtrack composer; spellbinding roster of collaborators and artists who covered or sampled him; the likes of Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, Isaac Hayes, Stevie Wonder, James Brown, Prince and Michael Jackson might have matched or bettered him at certain times or in particular attributes but there’s at the very least an AV case to say he exceeded all overall.
I’m still way too Dylan-lite to judge his best but if we’re giving ‘pop music’ a particular definition for the other question, Like A Rolling Stone is the one I think the Dylanistas and the Dylan-sceptics should love, and while my absolute favourite keeps changing, this is the one that abides.
I’m tempted to be all mainstream and modern and ‘why-do-the-60s-forever-get-lauded-as-pop-music’s-golden-age?’* about it and say Madonna. Or Prince. It’s a generational thing, innit. Perhaps more realistically, I think Smokey Robinson has a pretty good claim to the title.
Never been a massive fan of Dylan, but my favourite version of one of his songs is The Byrds’ take on “My Back Pages”:
And my favourite performance by him of one of his own songs is “Is Your Love In Vain?”, which doesn’t seem to be on youtube. Oh well.
*Because they probably were, innit.
I don’t think that there is a “greatest”. The thing I love about music is that it is a synthesis of lots of strands of different types of music.
If anyone could claim to be the most important contributor to modern music, I’d have to say it was Thomas Edison, who invented the phonograph and therefore created the record business in a manner of speaking.
As for Bob’s greatest – easy Like A Rolling Stone, the greatest rock song of all time.
The way the idea of this ‘greatest contributor’ business came about was that we were talking after dinner one night and I made a comment to the effect that I thought that Shakespeare was the greatest contributor to the English language and in part to subsequent popular culture, this led to the consideration of who is his current equivalent, not specifically re. the language but who in music has affected pop culture the way that Shakespeare’s plays and poems have. I know that it’s potentially an enormously wide topic but I was thinking from a fairly narrow perspective, a single individual who’s influence is international. It’s a silly question I know, but I found that it forced me to think about many aspects of music and musicians and their contributions worldwide. My main interest in RR and the Spill is in discovering new musics and in trying to understand contemporary pop culture.
Bob first. Paul McCartney second. “Like a Rolling Stone”.
Sorry to be crushingly predictable. (I do have about 50 favourite Dylan songs though).
Hello! Paying a rare visit to the ‘Spill because some things are very important to me, and Bob is one of them. As much as I love the Beatles, the Byrds and Elvis Costello, where would any of them be without him? Okay, the Beatles would probably still have conquered the world, but for me the quality of their songs improved dramatically once they started absorbing his influence.
It’s hard to argue with Carole and barbryn – Like a Rolling Stone may be the greatest thing ever committed to tape. But I could make a case for Visions of Johanna, Simple Twist of Fate, Every Grain of Sand and many others.
My eldest son is called Dylan. I do joke that my wife vetoed the name Elvis, but nah, he was always going to be called Dylan.
I don’t think it’s possible to deny Dylan’s contribution to popular culture. The quality of his lyrics set a standard that is rarely matched yet provided both a target for other aspiring musicians and some respectability for ‘pop’ culture. As someone on the Scorsese doc said, the songs grabbed people, not the singer. His variable performance has always been the ‘problem’.
Have you seen the Todd Haynes film ‘I’m Not There’? It’s an imaginative breakdown of Dylan’s different personas, each played by a different actor. Cate Blanchett is brilliant at the Don’t Look Back one, and the Woody one is played by a black kid. It works!
There’s a Richard Williams blog on the Graun site listing his (generally approved by Bob-bloggers) favourite Dylan songs, including a surprise Dylan & the Dead choice.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2011/may/20/twenty-favourite-bob-dylan-songs
Dylan and The Dead is an album that really represents the nadir in both careers.
Odd really because you would have thought that it should have worked. Both The Dead and Jerry with his solo work often did great versions of Dylan songs.
I have an album called Garcia Plays Dylan that has lots of really good stuff on it.
I agree, Carole. I’ve posted a quote from Phil Lesh’s book on the Richard Williams’ blog that goes a long way to explaining why the combination didn’t work in practice. By 1987 the Dead were a train that couldn’t turn corners as fast as Dylan could change his mind about what to play and how to play it.
Whereas with TP&TH…
“If you’re going to play with Bob, it’s a little like playing with a jazz artist. They may improvise a little. I don’t know if he does that any more, but in those days [1986/7] he would improvise. Or maybe do a song with Benmont suddenly that we didn’t really know. But he trusted Benmont, I know. I remember he did an Inkspots number one night with Ben that was really good. But we didn’t know it, and we knew not to play.”
Conversations With Tom Petty 2005
I’ve got that Garcia Plays Dylan album too, Carole, and I really like it.
‘who’s the greatest contributor to pop music of the 20th century’,
That’s a really interesting question.
I’d say that Michael Jackson has a pretty strong claim, his records are known all over the world and to all ages.
I don’t know how popular Dylan or Marley are in India, China or Africa but I’ll wager that the first few notes of Killer will spark off “zombie dancing” pretty much anywhere in the world.
For the late 20thC and into the 21st I suspect, sadly, that the major cultural reference will be Rap or R&B ( cheesy commercialised variety) music. Certainly if the kids round my way are anything to go by.
As for Dylan’s best song, I don’t think you can judge a “best”, really but, for me Desolation Row is, probably, the favourite.
Late to the party as usual. You could make a huge case for Bob, and i’ll agree with the others in going with Like a Rolling Stone as the greatest rock song ever.
But i’m going to have to leave open the possibility that one of the old bluesmen would be the greatest contributor. Which one, i don’t know, and maybe Bobster is the greatest single artist. Especially lyrically. But rock, metal, funk, etc are all blues based. Now it may be an aggregate of the great bluesmen – Leadbelly, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, BB King, John Lee Hooker, etc. as opposed to a single artist. But pop music would have been very different without them.
I suppose that i ought to turn it over to Williamsbach who knows more about the history of that than i do.
Nice call, amy. I suppose, by virtue of the fact that we might think in terms of a “bluesman” first, and then throw a few names in the hat, that seems to be more of a culture, whereas Bob’s seems more of an individual contribution (but is it so different? Can we view him without considering the musical tradition of Woody Guthrie and others that he followed, or even the cultural legacy of his Jewish heritage?).
I would always lean towards Willie Dixon’s contribution in the terms you describe. While he may have been channelling the imagery of a wider culture in his lyrics, and specifically nodding to Robert Johnson’s archetype, you can’t argue with Dixon’s songwriting influence, especially on the Stones, the Doors, Led Zep, etc.
May -
I’m going to have to defer to your greater historical knowledge of old blues, and i’ll leave the call of the individual artist to you. I do know that i can’t imagine the earliest pop music that i can recall (which would be late 60′s /early 70′s) Stones, Led Zep, Doors, Animals, Hendrix, Humble Pie, the soul singers, etc, without the blues. Which of course was the base of the later funk and metal.
Dylan seems to come from a different but parallel strain, which would be the folk music that came to the US via the Scots and Irish settlers. And both strains of course merged and intertwined. But i could of course be talking total bollocks here too as i really don’t know my music history!
And for another can of worms, what about Bowie? He might not seem like as big an influence as Dylan or the bluesman, but he’s probably the touchstone for many a conceptual or indie bank that followed.
that would be indie band, not bank.
‘indie bank’ is my favourite co-operative – I invest a large preparation of my cash – and they give me these weird black discs to store.
everyone is happy.
A really interesting question that, “Who is the greatest contributor to 20th C pop music ?” Is it the person who wrote the best songs, who wrote the most popular songs, the most influential songs, or is it indeed someone that didn’t write songs at all but merely gave a huge library of already written classics their definitive versions. My vote would go to just such a singer, Francis Albert Sinatra. He redefined the popular song in the 40s and over the next 30 years produced a canon of songs/albums that were popular worldwide and respected by all those involved in the ” business” of music. I would argue that his contribution was every bit as crucial to what we now call “pop” music as say Dylan, Berry, Lennon or Lou Reed. But that’s just my opinion.
As for Dylan’s best song I would agree with Ubu’s suggestion. Desolation Row was/is such a revolutionary song that even though other songs of his are more accessible eg Like a Rolling Stone, Knocking on Heaven’s Door it is DR that sums up his unique appeal.
1) Yes he is
2) Desolation Row
yrs
Mister Boring
p.s. I think Bing Crosby should come second.
Thank you all for your contributions, one detail is worth a mention, no one has mentioned the playlist, if you haven’t heard it you should especially if your appreciation of Dylan is based on his studio releases, the playlist are all variations of those and are very interesting I think.
May: Not dividing by decade, it’s the 20th century, and it’s worldwide.
I love and have all those you mention, plus I’d love to join you for those glasses of malt, distilled or otherwise to discuss this seriously. Wonderful as Curtis is he doesn’t rate on this scale, nor do Gershwin, Porter, Smith, Berry nor my beloved Duke, neither do Sam, Marvin, Isaac, Stevie or James, none of them do so on a worldwide century long scale. As I think about all those great artists I ask, were we to stop 100 people on the street in anytown, anywhere and ask ‘Who’s George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Bessie Smith etc. how many do you think would know? Not many I suspect. On the other hand if you asked about Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, or Louis Armstrong, I think you’d get a much different response. If this were personal popularity I’d agree on all counts, but we’re looking for Shakespeare!
Bish: Much as I like him Smokey don’t cut it.
Carole: Of course you’re right, greatest is a dumb category, there is no greatest. But Edison didn’t contribute to music, except indirectly, he contributed to communication; his wasn’t a creative musical contribution, his was more akin to the Wright Bros or Leonardo’s. Marconi would rate on that scale inventing radio as he did which probably propagated more music that discs. But Rolling Stone’s up there with the greats.
Barbryn: We ALL have 50 favorite Dylan songs,
Chris; Yes I’ve seen the Haynes film and I appreciate the different facets of his personality that it presents, what I find interesting about that is that a pop music personality rates high enough to warrant a feature film about his life, there’s supposedly another in the works devoted to Bob Marley but off hand I can’t think of another except for some trashy hollywood films of some years gone by, Glenn Miller, Judy Garland, Bix Beiderbecke et al.
Mark, don’t make it so rare next time, stick around for a bit. Agreed re, Beatles, Byrds, et al. plus your Dylan choices. A friend from years ago had two kids, he named them Louis and Ella.
Ubu, have to disagree with you re. Jackson but it’s all subjective and personal taste, I don’t rate him and I’m not sure about his acceptance worldwide, I know he sold some huge numbers but I’ve never known why. Desolation Row however is an altogether different proposition, especially the Highway 61 version, it goes beyond being a favorite for me, I think it’s the best song he ever wrote and the best he ever performed. Charlie McCoy’s 11+ minute acoustic guitar ‘solo’ throughout is just as amazing, the interplay between the singer and the guitar is how all music should be. I was very tempted to include it in my playlist but didn’t because of its length.
Amylee, good call, I hadn’t thought in those terms and you’re absolutely right, almost all contemporary pop owes a huge debt to the blues as does most jazz. From such simple sources…. Dylan does seem to come from the folk tradition though that also drew heavily on the blues and he quickly combined all the influences and added a strong dose of rock ‘n roll to create another unique sound. Bowie doesn’t fit, he’s just a very interesting and competent fringe player, but who am I to judge him or any of the others mentioned here?
But neither does Francis Albert, his talent like many others of his era was to deliver other people’s songs impeccably, he didn’t write any of his material, Ella does likewise plus Sarah and many more. None of these nor others mentioned can match Dylan’s output both as a songwriter and as a performer, talk about the ‘never ending tour’ he goes on forever constantly creating new material. I spent most of last Saturday afternoon scrolling through my iTunes Dylan folder and randomly playing known and unknown cuts, he’s unbelievable, almost every song is an ‘earworm’, he writes great tunes as well as great lyrics and he seems to do it so effortlessly. Disregarding the singles and all of the official bootleg albums he’s released over 60 albums in about 45 years and he’s still going strong. I did a search at my local small town library for ‘Bob Dylan’, it came up with 200 entries either by or about Dylan. There are guys who’ve made careers just writing about him.
So based on some of that I’d rate him up there with Bob Marley who’s contributions are different but just as significant worldwide and for me it’s a toss up who gets the final nod, can’t think of anyone else who matches those two.
Apologies for any hurt feelings caused by my sometimes bombastic opinions but it’s all purely subjective.
PAIRUBU – I can guarantee that at least until the the late 70s, Bob Dylan was a superstar in Africa.
Pragmatism please. Any artist whose influence relied or relies on sheet music, 78s or downloads cannot compare to those who influenced others through movies (Bill Haley And His Comets), and the first wave of 45s. Nothing else compares.
Damn! For the record, 60s Dylan is, for me, the creme de la creme.