A few e-mails I thought I’d mention (some belated, sorry):

Justin, following up on the story about Dylan’s complaints against modern recording technology, says:

… while listening to the ‘Tell Ol’ Bill Tapes’, Bob says(to others in the studio) “if it doesn’t capture on tape, there’s nothing we can do, but it’s great out here.”

Not sure if you’ve heard them yet, but I highly recommend you download them. There are some interesting tidbits in them, as well as great versions of ‘Tell Ol’ Bill’

Indeed — I did hear that recording session, which has been making the rounds in various online download forums. And it does a show a Dylan who likes what he’s hearing in the studio but is suspicious that the finished record won’t sound the same.

The whole session is a fascinating window on what Dylan does in the studio. In fact, he comes across so well out of it, that maybe he released the tape himself — though it’s unlikely. It reminds me of some Sinatra recording sessions that you can find if you’re industrious. After hearing Sinatra work in the studio, you realize the extent to which he knew exactly what he was doing, and how he was in charge all the time. You get the same message from “Tell Ol’ Bill.”

Dylan may be looking for something spontaneous, but it doesn’t happen randomly. That seems like a contradiction, but it isn’t.

…

Fred writes about the recently published Michael Gray “Bob Dylan Encylopedia,” which he was working his way through:

While some of Gray’s analysis of Bob’s work certainly has merit, his political opinion inappropriately pollutes the work (I won’t bore you with the details, but examples are found in the entries for “Sheryl Crow” and “Charlie Daniels”). His entry for “Love and Theft” is quite good (although I disagree with several points), and it’s an example of how the book really shines in some areas. It also includes interpretations that I just think are over the top. Some of his commentary on Bob’s humanity seems unreasonably hostile. His analyses of the recordings are inconsistent, some more fleshed out than others. For example, he neglects to include “Shooting Star” as a highlight on Oh Mercy. Some bewildering: he hates the MTV Unplugged so much that he just can’t get near it and does little to objectively explain it. Oh well, that’s his loss. I get the impression that he’s not too fond of Country music either, or at least he’s not real savvy about it. Anyway this book is already outdated what with the radio show (not mentioned) and the upcoming Modern Times (not mentioned)… This is the Summer of Bob.

I haven’t yet acquired this book. Fred’s opinion about it echoes a lot of what I thought about Gray based on his previous “Song and Dance Man” opuses (opii?). He’s knowledgeable, but has axes to grind. To me he’s an example of a critic who has arguably grown to hate his subject. However, the media will continue to defer to him as the number one Dylan analyst, thanks to the mind-numbing poundage of his written work, if nothing else.

“This is the Summer of Bob” — I like that. Who could argue?

…

Rob says:

Thanks for your recent post on Bob’s Devil show. I don’t have XM and don’t get to hear the shows, so it is nice to get a rundown on the things that went on. The info about Sammy Davis Jr was a bit disturbing. Speaking of Bob and the Devil, I came across this web page. It claims that Dylan sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads. Can’t say I agree with a lot of it. It brings up his last interview in Dec 2004 where he talks about keeping a deal he made. I am not sure if I believe that a person can sell their souls to the devil. If one isn’t in Christ then they belong to the devil anyway.

Thanks, glad you enjoy the posts on the show.

The website Rob speaks of is here: BOB DYLAN: A BARGAIN WITH THE DEVIL?

See it to believe it. It has numerous factual inaccuracies, but they pale in comparison to the fundamental inanity of claiming that Bob Dylan — of all modern entertainers — is somehow in league with Beelzebub.

I think that Dylan, by virtue of the nature of his work and people’s reaction to it, tends to attract the most sensitive as well as the most rebellious souls, often in their teen years. They might be attracted to the image of protest, of radicalism, the questioning of authority and/or the expansion of one’s mind. Those things are all in Dylan’s work, to one degree or another, though not in the way conventional wisdom would have you believe. In the end, however, for those that stick with his work and make headway towards realizing what is really so different and powerful about it, the path leads nowhere so much as right back to the Bible. The very thing, in fact, which those rebellious teenage types may have rejected way back along the line. Dylan turns out to be a subversive among the subversives.

If the Devil made a deal with Dylan, it was one bad deal for the Devil.

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