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With a new (old) album, a tour with (old) new songs, and a giant new book, Bob Dylan remains a neverending juggernaut
I first began listening to Bob Dylan in earnest in early 1974, with the purchase of the contemporaneous album Planet Waves, a somewhat quiet, unassuming collection of deep, intimate songs – including the color-by-number anthem, “Forever Young” — recorded with The Band before they would go out on tour for the first time since Dylan’s premature retirement from the road in 1966 (the same year, incidentally, that the Beatles quit touring). Dylan’s return to touring after his eight-year layoff would pretty much continue for the rest of his career up to and including today.
I did not get to see Dylan in concert until fall 1978, missing two of his all-time greatest tours – his 1974 “comeback” tour with The Band, captured on the live album Before the Flood, and the following year’s “Rolling Thunder Revue,” the subject of several live concert albums, including 1976’s Hard Rain and the more recent The Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1975 Live Recordings, a sprawling, 14-CD box set, released in 2019. (There was also an official two-CD set in 2002, and many widely available bootleg recordings of the legendary tour, as well as a Dylan concert film, Renaldo and Clara, released in 1978, and Martin Scorsese’s 2019 “pseudo-documentary” about the tour.)
Alas, my introduction to live Dylan was during one of his most bizarre tours, launched in Japan in early 1978 and initially captured on the April 1979 American release of Bob Dylan at Budokan (originally intended as a Japan-only release in August 1978). The 1978 tour was controversial, which Dylan acknowledged right from the stage of the old Boston Garden where I first saw him, when, halfway through the show, he paused and said to the audience, “I hope you don’t think this is Las Vegas music, or disco music, because you know it’s not.”
Bob Dylan, circa 1963 Photo by Ralph Baxter
It was a direct answer to critics’ complaints about the song arrangements and the sound of the band, as well as the overall stage aesthetic, which to some mimicked the tackiness of concerts by Neil Diamond and the recently deceased Elvis Presley. (Some blame manager and concert promoter Jerry Weintraub — who worked with both Presley and Diamond, as well as with Frank Sinatra – for Dylan’s cheesy, lounge-lizard presentation.)
Dylan didn’t help his cause by introducing from the stage such well-known songs as “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” or asking the audience, “Hey, what’s the name of this?” over the opening chords of “All Along Watchtower.” Doubters questioned the need for an eight-piece band (large for the time) and a trio of female backup singers. Some crueler critics even took to calling it the “Alimony Tour,” a nasty way of accusing Dylan of selling out in the wake of his divorce from his first wife, Sara.
Even though Dylan catered to the desires of audiences around the world to hear primarily his “greatest hits” — and this was one of the last tours on which he did so — he couched them in such weird arrangements that maybe he was justified in introducing them by name; otherwise, they may have remained unrecognizable to some. From where I sat in the cavernous, echoe-y Garden, it proved to be an inauspicious introduction to Bob Dylan, concert artist.
And now, 45 years later, Dylan’s label, Columbia Records, has seen fit to give the 1978 tour — as captured in those first two weeks in Japan — the full “Bootleg Series” treatment, with The Complete Budokan 1978, including two complete concerts at Tokyo’s Budokan, newly remixed and spread out over four CDs, featuring 36 previously unreleased performances. (The official release date is Friday, Nov. 17.)
Film still from 1966 European tour, by D. A. Pennebaker Courtesy of Bob Dylan Center
It is an album package for which Dylan fans — other than rabid completists (possibly including myself) — were not clamoring. This, rather than a more complete version of Before the Flood? This, rather than a live album from one of his two tours with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers? This, rather than a live album — or many live albums — capturing the many ups (and downs) of Dylan’s so-called Never Ending Tour, which began in June 1988 and, depending on how you define it, could include concerts as recent as the one I saw a few weeks ago in Schenectady, N.Y.? (Dylan’s current tour is officially billed as the “Rough and Rowdy Ways” world tour, which began in 2021 and is expected to continue into 2024, and marks a rare step forward in truth in advertising, as about half the concert is devoted to songs from the album of the same name.)
Yet this time around, the concerts at Budokan (if not the 1978 tour, which evolved over the course of a year and 114 concerts in Asia, the South Pacific, Europe, and North America) are what we’ve got. And the new package is not without its merits. The remixed and remastered sound is brilliant (which may or may not be a positive, depending upon how you feel about that sound). The recording captures an unusually chatty frontman, by Dylan’s standards (he has been known to utter nary a word in concert for decades), one seemingly in a terrific mood and also one who is downright funny.
“This is an unrecorded song – see if you can guess which one it is,” he says to the audience before launching into “Is Your Love in Vain,” which would not be released until Street Legal came out four months later. The humor – some of it mocking and self-deprecating – that Dylan evinces even suggests that he was fully aware that he was presenting himself as something akin to a Las Vegas showman.
From Left: Rick Danko, Robbie Robertson, Bob Dylan, Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson and Levon Helm, 1974 Photo by Barry Feinstein
If so, it would not be the first time nor anywhere near the last time that Dylan was playing a character — no less a fictive version of Dylan than Renaldo in Renaldo and Clara nor Jack Fate in his 2003 film, the aptly-titled Masked and Anonymous. (There is a whole school of thought that “Bob Dylan” himself is a put-on, a fictional character invented by a savvy youngster from Hibbing, Minnesota, named Robert Allen Zimmerman.)
But the context of where he had been and, with the benefit of hindsight, where he was headed musically might be the strongest reason to spend time with these glitzy tracks and their unusual arrangements. The use of backup singers, especially ones whose vocals were stylized in gospel-like call-and-response, offered a hint that Dylan was beginning a journey that would see him explore different aspects of Black music in subsequent albums.
Steve Douglas’ dominant saxophone lends many of the numbers a jazzy, R&B feel. A few songs are recontextualized as reggae numbers. In the years immediately following the 1978 tour, Dylan would dive deep into gospel music on several albums, into Motown and R&B on 1981’s “Shot of Love,” and reggae on 1983’s Infidels, which even saw Dylan hire Robbie Shakespeare and Sly Dunbar, famed Jamaican reggae producers, to play bass and drums.
The new Budokan collection is not the only new Dylan product seeing release this season. Bob Dylan: Mixing Up the Medicine is a fabulous new doorstop of a book whose 610 pages serve as a kind of portable version of the Bob Dylan Center and Archive in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which opened in May 2022. The volume spans Dylan’s entire life and career, featuring over 1,100 images from the archives — everything from concert ticket stubs to handwritten lyric sheets to rarely seen backstage photographs — all duly captioned by editors Mark Davidson and Parker Fishel, both curators at the Dylan Center.
The book also does a terrific job of contextualizing the many objects, images, and ephemera in 30 new essays by writers including Sean Wilentz, Greil Marcus, Lucy Sante, Tom Piazza, Richard Hell, Greg Tate, and Larry Sloman. Sonic Youth cofounder Lee Ranaldo uncovers the mystery of the very first recording featuring the voice of a teenaged Robert Allen Zimmerman and a couple of his hometown friends, “a casual lark for three Jewish boys on Christmas Eve.”
The 610-page ‘Mixing Up the Medicine’ serves as a kind of portable version of the Bob Dylan Center and Archive in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Courtesy of Callaway Arts & Entertainment
Marvin Karlins, who gave free folksinging and guitar lessons to students at the University of Minnesota’s Hillel, recounts meeting and tutoring an unassuming first-year student named Zimmerman, pointing him towards the thriving folk club scene in the Dinkytown section of Minneapolis. Griffin Ondaatje does yeoman’s work tracing the influence of Joseph Conrad in Dylan’s songs, and the New Yorker’s Amanda Petrusich reevaluates Dylan’s first book, Tarantula, in a short essay that should rightly renew interest in Dylan’s imaginative work of prose-poetry, “as deep a piece of literature as anything else he wrote.”
So much territory is covered in the book, including Dylan and Johnny Cash, Dylan and the Band, Dylan and the Beatles (especially George Harrison), Dylan and the Grateful Dead, Dylan on the silver screen, even Dylan’s ill-fated collaboration with Archibald MacLeish. You would have to arrange a multiple-month residency at the Dylan archive to soak in all that is presented in this volume, as attractive as it is informative. It isn’t pitched toward the general or casual reader, but if you have a Dylan fan in your life, your holiday gift-giving dilemma is solved.
Three weeks ago, the big news in popular music was the first album of new music by the Rolling Stones in 18 years, with plans for a 2024 tour. Last week, the Beatles — who broke up in 1970 — released their much-touted “final” single, “Now and Then,” reconstructed from a demo cassette John Lennon made in the late-1970s, featuring overdubbed parts by the three other Beatles (with a little help from “machine-assisted learning,” which sounds an awful lot like AI to me).
Given the fact that the 82-year-old Nobel Prize-winning rock poet Bob Dylan continues to tour incessantly, swinging through the Northeast most recently (and playing three shows in New York City next week), you can be forgiven if you wake up some mornings wondering what year it is, and perhaps more to the point, what world it is. That one’s easy: it’s Bob Dylan’s world, and we just happen to live in it. Lucky us.
The post With a new (old) album, a tour with (old) new songs, and a giant new book, Bob Dylan remains a neverending juggernaut appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel Strikes Houthi Targets in Yemen
Smoke rises after Israeli strikes near Sanaa airport, in Sanaa, Yemen, Dec. 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
Israel struck multiple targets linked to the Iran-aligned Houthi terrorist group in Yemen on Thursday, including Sanaa International Airport, and Houthi media said three people were killed.
The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he was about to board a plane at the airport when it came under attack. A crew member on the plane was injured, he said in a statement.
The Israeli military said that in addition to striking the airport, it also hit military infrastructure at the ports of Hodeidah, Salif, and Ras Kanatib on Yemen’s west coast. It also attacked the country’s Hezyaz and Ras Kanatib power stations.
Houthi-run Al Masirah TV said two people were killed in the strikes on the airport and one person was killed in the port hits, while 11 others were wounded in the attacks.
There was no comment from the Houthis, who have repeatedly fired drones and missiles towards Israel in what they describe as acts of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said following the attacks that Israel will continue its mission until it is complete: “We are determined to sever this terror arm of Iran’s axis.”
The prime minister has been strengthened at home by the Israeli military’s campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon and by its destruction of most of the Syrian army’s strategic weapons.
The Israeli attacks on the airport, Hodeidah and on one power station, were also reported by Al Masirah TV.
Tedros said he had been in Yemen to negotiate the release of detained UN staff detainees and to assess the humanitarian situation in Yemen.
“As we were about to board our flight from Sanaa … the airport came under aerial bombardment. One of our plane’s crew members was injured,” he said in a statement.
“The air traffic control tower, the departure lounge — just a few meters from where we were — and the runway were damaged,” he said, adding that he and his colleagues were safe.
There was no immediate comment from Israel on the incident.
More than a year of Houthi attacks have disrupted international shipping routes, forcing firms to re-route to longer and more expensive journeys that have in turn stoked fears over global inflation.
The UN Security Council is due to meet on Monday over Houthi attacks against Israel, Israel‘s UN Ambassador Danny Danon said on Wednesday.
On Saturday, Israel‘s military failed to intercept a missile from Yemen that fell in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa area, injuring 14 people.
The post Israel Strikes Houthi Targets in Yemen first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Controversial Islamic Group CAIR Chides US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew for Denying Report of ‘Famine’ in Gaza
US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew. Photo: Alchetron.
The Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) has condemned US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew for casting doubt on a new report claiming that famine has gripped northern Gaza.
The controversial Muslim advocacy group on Wednesday slammed Lew for his “callous dismissal” of the recent Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) report accusing Israel of inflicting famine on the Gaza Strip. The organization subsequently asserted that Israel had perpetrated an ethnic cleansing campaign in northern Gaza.
“Ambassador Lew’s callous dismissal of this shocking report by a US-backed agency exposing Israel’s campaign of forced starvation in Gaza reminds one of the old joke about a man who murdered his parents and then asked for mercy because he is now an ‘orphan,’” CAIR said in a statement.
“To reject a report on starvation in northern Gaza by appearing to boast about the fact that it has been successfully ethnically cleansed of its native population is just the latest example of Biden administration officials supporting, enabling, and excusing Israel’s clear and open campaign of genocide in Gaza,” the Washington, DC-based group continued.
On Monday, FEWS Net, a US-created provider of warning and analysis on food insecurity, released a report detailing that a famine had allegedly taken hold of northern Gaza. The report argued that 65,000-75,000 individuals remain stranded in the area without sufficient access to food.
“Israel’s near-total blockade of humanitarian and commercial food supplies to besieged areas of North Gaza Governorate” has resulted in mass starvation among scores of innocent civilians in the beleaguered enclave, the report stated.
Lew subsequently issued a statement denying the veracity of the FEWS Net report, slamming the organization for peddling “inaccurate” information and “causing confusion.”
“The report issued today on Gaza by FEWS NET relies on data that is outdated and inaccurate. We have worked closely with the Government of Israel and the UN to provide greater access to the North Governorate, and it is now apparent that the civilian population in that part of Gaza is in the range of 7,000-15,000, not 65,000-75,000 which is the basis of this report,” Lew wrote.
“At a time when inaccurate information is causing confusion and accusations, it is irresponsible to issue a report like this. We work day and night with the UN and our Israeli partners to meet humanitarian needs — which are great — and relying on inaccurate data is irresponsible,” Lew continued.
Following Lew’s repudiation, FEWS NET quietly removed the report on Wednesday, sparking outrage among supporters of the pro-Palestinian cause.
“We ask FEWS NET not to submit to the bullying of genocide supporters and to again make its report available to the public,” CAIR said in its statement.
In the year following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, Israel has been repeatedly accused of inflicting famine in Hamas-ruled Gaza. Despite the allegations, there is scant evidence of mass starvation across the war-torn enclave.
This is not the first time that FEWS Net has attempted to accuse Israel of inflicting famine in Gaza. In June, the United Nations Famine Review Committee (FRC), a panel of experts in international food security and nutrition, rejected claims by FEWS Net that a famine had taken hold of northern Gaza. In rejecting the allegations, the FRC cited an “uncertainty and lack of convergence of the supporting evidence employed in the analysis.”
Meanwhile, CAIR has been embroiled in controversy since the onset of the Gaza war last October.
CAIR has been embroiled in controversy since the Oct. 7 atrocities. The head of CAIR, for example, said he was “happy” to witness Hamas’s rampage across southern Israel.
“The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege — the walls of the concentration camp — on Oct. 7,” CAIR co-founder and executive director Nihad Awad said in a speech during the American Muslims for Palestine convention in Chicago in November. “And yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land, and walk free into their land, which they were not allowed to walk in.”
CAIR has long been a controversial organization. In the 2000s, it was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case. Politico noted in 2010 that “US District Court Judge Jorge Solis found that the government presented ‘ample evidence to establish the association’” of CAIR with Hamas.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “some of CAIR’s current leadership had early connections with organizations that are or were affiliated with Hamas.” CAIR has disputed the accuracy of the ADL’s claim and asserted that it “unequivocally condemn[s] all acts of terrorism, whether carried out by al-Qa’ida, the Real IRA, FARC, Hamas, ETA, or any other group designated by the US Department of State as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization.’”
The post Controversial Islamic Group CAIR Chides US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew for Denying Report of ‘Famine’ in Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jewish Civil Rights Group Representing Amsterdam Pogrom Victims Slams Dutch Court for ‘Light Sentences’
Israeli Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters are guarded by police after violence targeting Israeli football fans broke out in Amsterdam overnight, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, November 8, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ami Shooman/Israel Hayom
The international Jewish civil rights organization legally representing more than 50 victims of the attack on Israeli soccer fans that took place in Amsterdam last month has joined many voices in lambasting a Dutch court for what they described as a mild punishment for the attackers.
“These sentences are an insult to the victims and a stain on the Dutch legal system,” The Lawfare Project’s founder and executive director Brooke Goldstein said in a statement on Wednesday. “Allowing individuals who coordinated and celebrated acts of violence to walk away with minimal consequences diminishes the rule of law and undermines trust in the judicial process. If this is the response to such blatant antisemitism, what hope is there for deterring future offenders or safeguarding the Jewish community.”
On Tuesday, a district court in Amsterdam sentenced five men for their participation in the violent attacks in the Dutch city against fans of the Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv. The premeditated and coordinated violence took place on the night of Nov. 7 and into the early hours of Nov 8, before and after Maccabi Tel Aviv competed against the Dutch soccer team Ajax in a UEFA Europa League match. The five suspects were sentenced to up to 100 hours of community service and up to six months in prison.
The attackers were found guilty of public violence, which included kicking an individual lying on the ground, and inciting the violence by calling on members of a WhatsApp group chat to gather and attack Maccabi Tel Aviv fans. One man sentenced on Tuesday who had a “leading role” in the violence, according to prosecutors, was given the longest sentence — six months in prison.
“As someone who witnessed these trials firsthand, I am deeply disheartened by the leniency of these sentences,” added Ziporah Reich, director of litigation at The Lawfare Project. “The violent, coordinated attacks against Jews in Amsterdam are among the worst antisemitic incidents in Europe. These light sentences fail to reflect the gravity of these crimes and do little to deliver justice to the victims who are left traumatized and unheard. Even more troubling, they set a dangerous precedent, signaling to future offenders that such horrific acts of violence will not be met with serious consequences.”
The Lawfare Project said on Wednesday that it is representing over 50 victims of the Amsterdam attacks. It has also secured for their clients a local counsel — Peter Plasman, who is a partner at the Amsterdam-based law firm Kötter L’Homme Plasman — to represent them in the Netherlands. The Lawfare Project aims to protect the civil and human rights of Jewish people around the world through legal action.
Others who have criticized the Dutch court for its sentencing of the five men on Tuesday included Arsen Ostrovsky, a leading human rights attorney and CEO of The International Legal Forum; Tal-Or Cohen, the founder and CEO of CyberWell; and The Center for Information and Documentation on Israel.
The post Jewish Civil Rights Group Representing Amsterdam Pogrom Victims Slams Dutch Court for ‘Light Sentences’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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