Bob Dylan Dance Party

by Kirk Woodward

[I imagine by now that most readers of Rick On Theater know that my friend Kirk Woodward is my go-to guest blogger for anything musical.  Most ROTters also probably know that Kirk’s a longtime and staunch fan of Bob Dylan.  Those two factoids should explain why this post exists on this blog.  Plus the fact that he went to a Dylan concert, the Never Ending Tour at the Upper West Side’s Beacon Theatre from 23 November to 6 December, a few days before Thanksgiving.

[I post Kirk’s reports and discussions of music—there have been quite a few on ROT since I started it almost 11 years ago—because, one, I could never cover musical subjects on my own; I’m entirely ignorant about music.  Two, I always learn something from his writing about the subject.  He not only understands music as an art form, but her knows the performers and their musicianship so he can talk about how they did whatever he heard. 

[That’s what he’s done here, vis à vis Bob Dylan.  Trust me: you’ll gain something from reading his account of the Dylan experience.]

I would go to more concerts if they were as good as the Bob Dylan concert I attended on Tuesday, November 26, 2019, at the Beacon Theater, toward the beginning of a two week residency by Dylan at that theater.

“Good,” not perfect. From where I sat – far back in the upper balcony – Dylan’s vocals were often overwhelmed by the volume of sound from his band. I realize that so many rock concerts do this same thing – that artists whose words are central to their performances often can’t be understood because the overall sound is too loud, and because the lower tones – drums, bass guitar – seem to be the sound operator’s favorites.

Booming sound hardly helps one understand the lyrics sung by Dylan, who is no model of understandability to start with. One gets used to that, though, and I found my ears adjusted – somewhat – as the concert went on. For all I know, the sound was clearer downstairs anyway; I couldn’t say.

In compensation for any trouble understanding his words, Dylan was in terrific voice. His years of recording and singing in concert songs associated with Frank Sinatra seem to be over, but the residue is a clearer voice and much more connection between singer and audience.

For several years Dylan sounded like he had ravaged his vocal chords (smoking? drinking?), and many of us assumed we would be hearing mostly growls from him for the rest of his concert and recording career. As usual, he fooled us. He does that sort of thing. Last year and this, he sings, firmly and securely; his phrasing is excellent, and he seems able to get just about any vocal effect he wants.

Part of the fun of attending multiple Dylan concerts is noticing what has changed from previous ones. His tight, muscular band is usually more or less consistent (Charlie Sexton on guitar, Tony Garnier on bass, Donnie Heron on steel guitar and violin), but Bob Britt, on rhythm guitar, is new this tour, and Matt Chamberlin on drums is a major addition, with a sure, clean style and sturdy support for Dylan’s vocals.

Other novelties and oddities from the concert:

On stage behind the band were three mannequins, two female and one male, in evening dress, and on several locations on stage were white busts of a woman I couldn’t identify from my distance from the stage.

Dylan played a spinet piano instead of a grand.

Only one band member (the bass player) wore a hat.

Last concert, a friend of mine expressed the fervent wish that Dylan would play just one song the way he did it on the record. At this concert he did, substantially, on “Highway 61,” and close enough on “Ballad of a Thin Man.”

Instrumentally, there was more emphasis than before on the violin, which accompanied Dylan on five songs to great effect.

When he left the piano and sang (and sometimes played harmonica, fine as usual) at center stage, he usually backed up until he was surrounded by the musicians, and sang facing “stage right,” as though someone were in the wings of the stage. I gather he’s been doing that this tour. There’s always something.

Dylan played electric guitar twice during the concert. I have not seen him touch a guitar in years; piano has been his instrument, and he’s gotten secure with it. I haven’t read or heard anything authoritative about why he largely abandoned the guitar; anyway, it’s back in limited use. I’ve never thought Dylan was much of an electric guitar player, but at the Beacon he sounded at least adequate, if maybe a bit tentative.

In a band where the musicians seldom have much opportunity to shine individually, Charlie Sexton was applauded for a strenuous guitar solo, and Matt Chamberlain had a drum solo! Really! I was there!

And Dylan introduced the band! It’s been a while since I saw him do that. He sounded cheerful and enthusiastic as he introduced each member. Surprise! One can go to concerts for years and not hear him speak, as opposed to sing, a word.

Those are the sorts of things that fascinate Dylan fans.

Basically, the concert’s song list could be divided into two kinds of songs, affecting ballads, and rockers. Among the former, the highlights for me were “Lenny Bruce,” “It Ain’t Me, Babe,” and “Girl From the North Country,” all sung from the piano with reduced accompaniment by the band. Dylan sang those three songs simply and effectively, and the audience seemed to feel those were among the most satisfying moments of the show; I certainly did.

On several other numbers, though, the band just wailed. It was quite a sight to see Dylan standing at the piano, pounding it for all the world like Jerry Lee Lewis – one halfway expected him to lift his leg and start banging the piano with his foot.

On one number, with a traditional rock ‘n’ roll arrangement, Charlie Sexton actually played the melody of the old Moonglows song “Sincerely” (1954, written by Harvey Fuqua and Alan Freed) as the instrumental break.

Dylan, of course, has always been securely connected to the past where music is concerned. It is universally recognized that his knowledge of popular music of all kinds, particularly what’s called “American roots music,” is encyclopedic. I have always felt that he saw his task as one of bringing the values of more obscure folk music and poetry onto the “big stage.”

He continues to make that happen; he’s been doing it a long time. Before the concert I talked with a man who heard him sing in 1961. It was at a folk music club in Greenwich Village, and a very young Bob Dylan sang a couple of songs during an “open mike” evening. He was just warming up.

[My introduction to "Dylan" goes back a pretty long way.  (Both Kirk and I are older than Rock ’n’ Roll.)  I put the singer-songwriter’s name  in quotation marks like that because it wasn’t actually the man himself, but someone who sang one of his songs, which I’d never heard before.

[I don’t remember a lot of the details (like I said, I’m older than R ’n’ R), but it must have been sometime in 1965, probably the summer.  My folks had moved to Bad Godesberg, the home of our embassy to Germany, by that time (my dad had been transferred to the embassy from another post in the spring) and the event took place in someone’s embassy-compound apartment.  

[I don’t remember whose apartment it was or why we gathered there.  I assume whoever the embassy staffer was, she or he had a teenaged son or daughter (I don’t know why, but for some reason I remember a girl) who’d invited a bunch of other embassy brats like me to the home for an evening—there was a small crowd of us, all teens and maybe some college-aged kids as well. 

[I remember sitting around in the living room, listening to a guy sing as he accompanied himself on guitar.  What I recall as the last song was “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” the Dylan song that wasn’t released until the previous year and hadn’t gotten to Europe yet—or, at least, not to my ears.  As I remember the impromptu rock concert, none of us had heard the song—or, I imagine, anything like it.

[I don’t remember who the singer was—for all I know, he became a famous folk-rocker (or maybe he already was and I just didn’t know him).  I assume he wasn’t an official State Department sponsee because, if he had been, my dad would have been his host because Dad was the Cultural Attaché; it would have been his gig!  

[I may have known Dylan’s name by then, or I may not yet.  I just don’t remember.  After my brother and I moved to Germany in 1963, I only went back to the States once, in the spring of ’64 to visit colleges (and the New York World’s Fair with my grandmother!), and American culture didn’t get to Europe in those days until after a gap of maybe six months or longer.  (My American schoolmates in Switzerland mobbed my brother and me when we got there because we’d been “home” more recently than most of them and we knew the songs and dances that had been current when we left that summer!  We were the cultural heralds, so to speak.)  

[So this was my first impression of “Dylan”—by proxy, but nonetheless striking.  Not as avid as Kirk’s, perhaps, but I went on to become a fan, too.]