Bob Dylan, The #29 Artist of the Rock Era, Part Three

 

(Continued from Part Two)

 

Dylan stayed hot with the 1966 album Blonde on Blonde.  Dylan explained that the first single is about trials of relationships with women and specifically, about a Biblical passage from the Book of Acts. In that passage, it states:

     Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to

     heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus

     standing at the right hand of God...And when

     they had driven him out of the city, they began 

     stoning him, and the witnesses laid aside their robes

    at the feet of a young man named Saul.

The single "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" also reached #2.

 Dylan's follow-up, "I Want You", stalled at #20, and "Just Like A Woman" fell short of that at #33.  In the former, which is featured here, the lyrics "I want you, I want you, I want you so bad" seem simple and mundane, and the music upbeat, but there's a lot more going on here.  Bob weaved those lyrics with other subjects such as a lonesome organ grinder, a guilty undertaker, a drunken politician weeping, the Queen of Spades, Dylan taking someone's flute, and more.

Al Kooper, who played for Dylan for years, loved the song and encouraged Bob to record it.  Guitarist Wayne Moss improvised the great sixteenth-note guitar part.  

 

The album has sold over two million copies, a lot by Dylan's standards.  Bob wrote "Visions Of Johanna" when he was living with his future wife Sara in the Chelsea Hotel in New York City.  

 

One of Dylan's characters in "Stuck Inside Mobile With The Memphis Blues" is the ragman.  Bob told Robert Shelton for his book No Direction Home:  The Life and Music of Bob Dylan, that the ragman is Satan.

 

In "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat", Dylan satirically teases a woman who makes the unfortunate decision to wear a leopard-skin pillbox hat.  Pillbox hats at the time were very much in fashion.

After a tour of Europe and Austria, Bob returned home, but crashed his motorcycle on July 29, 1966.  Although he broke his neck and suffered amnesia as a result, Dylan did not require hospitalization, but he rarely appeared in public and did not tour again for nearly eight years.

In 1967, Dylan recorded the album John Wesley Harding, another Platinum release, which earned a Grammy nomination for Best Folk Performance. 

 

Some of Dylan's best lyrics, in "All Along The Watchtower", are familiar with Jimi Hendrix's version, which became the hit.  

We begin the song in the middle of a conversation between the Joker and the Thief.  The Joker hates his lot in life and hates the values that society has adopted.  Then Bob sings of princes, women and barefoot servants (said to signify established society*)  guarding a castle.  But we are warned that danger is imminent ("Somewhere in the distance, a wildcat does growl"), and then when we hear "Two riders are approaching", we know that the Joker and the Thief are back in the story to confront those established values and give us something different.

 

Dylan followed with the 1969 album Nashville Skyline, which has sold over one million copies.  "Lay Lady Lay", written for his wife at the time, Sarah Lowndes, hit #7. Bob wrote it for the movie Midnight Cowboy, but "Everybody's Talkin'" by Nilsson was chosen instead. "Lay Lady Lay" would be the last Top 10 song Bob would ever enjoy.  

 

One of Dylan's only true love songs is "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You".  He didn't have a full album's worth of material when he began recording in February so he needed a few more songs to complete it.  He wrote this song in a two-day period while staying at the Ramada Inn, but the song required 11 takes to finish.

The song "Nashville Skyline Rag" earned a Grammy nomination for Best Country Instrumental Performance.  Dylan turned down offers to appear at Woodstock, choosing the Isle of Wight Festival in England, where he knew he would have a much smaller crowd.

Bob received an honorary degree from Princeton University in 1970.  He released the albums Self Portrait and New Morning in 1970, each of which went Gold.  Dylan did the artwork for the cover for Self Portrait, which is a reproduction of a painting of a face by Dylan. 

 

Bob landed a role in the movie Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid and recording songs for the movie.  The film flopped, but "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" did well at #12, helping the album sell over 500,000 copies.

In 1971, Dylan released his compilation Greatest Hits Vol. II, which has gone over five million in sales.  He helped George Harrison by performing at Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh, with the project winning the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. 

Dylan re-recorded a new version of "I Shall Be Released", a song he originally wrote for The Band.

Dylan signed with Asylum Records in 1973 and released the album Planet Waves, another Gold album.  

The next year, he returned to touring, enlisting the help of the Band for a tour of North America.  A live double album featuring performances from the tour was released as Before the Flood, a one-million seller.  Unhappy with his new label, however, Bob returned to Columbia.

Part Four is next, exclusively on Inside The Rock Era!