Apropros some of Blunt (Ryan’s) recent posts [IF I understood them at all–you know I still cannot get into Mensa]:
http://www.italianwinemerchantstore.com/wineshop/gift_baskets/red_cult_wine_box.html
It’s a sad day when Bob Dylan provides the leading endorsement for an Italian wine…
NO OTHER DYLAN: DESPITE COUNTLESS PERMUTATIONS, TIMELESS SINGER/ SONGWRITER IS ALWAYS HIMSELF
JOHN BECK THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
727 words
2 April 2006
Press Democrat
Copyright © 2006 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved.
One of the most telling moments in Martin Scorsese’s 1995 documentary “No Direction Home” arrives near the end.
Bob Dylan is waiting backstage. It’s 1966. He’s been on the road for what feels like years. Pondering his future, he says, “I think I’m gonna get me a new Bob Dylan next week, get me a new Bob Dylan and use him – use the new Bob Dylan, see how long he lasts.”
Forty years later, while everybody’s still looking for the new version (Bob 2.0), the original model is holding up just fine. Critics and corporate wags have promised the “new Bob Dylan” for decades. A thousand imposters have tried on the mask, but it never really fit.
Bob is Bob. And there is no other.
More than 600 songs later, he still plays 100 shows a year. Along the way, he’s been accused of plagiarism, spousal abuse and singing out of his nose. To the diehard legions, it doesn’t matter.
At this point, the only sure thing about Bob is you can’t predict what he’ll do next. Just when you think he’s gonna zig, he zags. He goes electric. He goes country. He looks like Vincent Price.
Just when you think it’s another Victoria’s Secret TV ad for the push-up bra, there’s Bob Dylan – the voice of a generation – grinning with a bevy of babes.
In the pop cultural world of five minutes ago, such calculated reinvention of character is just as trivial and effective as Madonna’s deciding if she’ll be Asian, Indian or Wild West for her next album. Or Prince changing his name to a symbol.
Born a Jew, Dylan jumped the fence and became a born-again Christian in 1979. Twenty years later, he gave new meaning to “The Times They Are A-Changin” when he sold the hit song for background music to an ad for the Bank of Montreal. Fans freaked out. Surely it was copyright infringement. But to paraphrase Pete Townshend, it’s his song, he can do whatever he wants with it.
These days, just keeping up with his latest nom de guerre takes a little work. He produced the album “Time Out of Mind” under the pseudonym Jack Frost. He co-wrote the widely panned film “Masked and Anonymous” under the pseudonym Rene Fontaine. Early in his career, it was the stage name “Elston Gunn.”
A closet cork dork, Dylan even sells wine these days. He’s not actually a vintner, but he signs his name to bottles of the Italian collection Fattoria Le Terrazze Planet Waves, named after his 1974 album.
Last year, he cut an exclusive deal with Starbucks to produce and release “Bob Dylan: Live at the Gaslight 1962” in cafes all over the world. In May, he launches an hourlong weekly radio show, playing his favorite songs and interviewing guests – the first time he’s ever been on the other side of the mike – on XM Satellite Radio.
To predict what Bob will do next – to get inside his head for just a glimpse – is the secret wish of fans around the world. Filling the void, a Web site known as the Dylan Pool has been created. It’s fantasy football for Dylanologists, where nearly 10,000 subscribers from 139 countries go head to head every time he goes on tour. The goal is simple: Guess what songs he’ll play at the next show. The more obscure the song, the more points you get.
So before Dylan takes the stage Tuesday night for a sold-out show at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds, log on to pool.dylantree.com and take a stab at the set list.
After all, it’s what Bob would want. As he told an interviewer two years ago, “The performer is here and gone. The songs are the star of the show, not me.”
You can reach Staff Writer John Beck at 521-5300 or jbeck@pressdemocrat.com.