By Aaron Galbraith and Tony Attwood
Aaron: The idea of this article, and possibly series if all goes according to plan, is to cover Bob Dylan tracks and performances both officially released and unreleased, which otherwise have not been mentioned previously on the site and don’t really fit in on any other ongoing series. (Or which occasionally have been included before but we now want to mention again).
They are not always going to be undiscovered classics in fact some are going to be downright awful!! But should always be fun in any case! As usual, I can provide the details and Tony can provide commentary on the actual tracks.
Let’s start with the tracks Bob released on the two Vanguard albums covering the Newport Folk Festival in 1963.
Here is a live Blowin in the Wind from the album The Newport Folk Festival 1963 – The Evening Concerts: Vol. 1
Tony: Right from the start Bob had the ability to hold the stage. And of course he has done it in so many different ways, from standard introductions through to rambling stories through to saying nothing at all.
This really is an extraordinary piece of archive footage that I’ve never seen before. And I just wonder what Joan Baez thinks of being used as a backing singer? She seems to grow into it!
The guitar accompaniment isn’t up to much, but then I am not sure it needs to be given the luminaries on stage. What a fantastic moment to have captured on film.
Aaron: The second album, called Newport Broadsides contained two tracks from Dylan. Firstly a duet with Joan Baez of With God On Our Side (Skip to 2:25 on this video)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Uez8EeBHGss
Tony: Another one I’ve never heard before. Joan has that magnificent ability to create harmonies that no one else has ever thought of – and this is a perfect example, even if she doesn’t know what verse is coming next.
Wow, this is incredible. Aaron can you keep this up for a whole series? I’m really loving this. Dylan again is keep the guitar accompaniment dead simple, and the guitar is fractionally out of tune. Quite a difference from Mr Guitar Man of the Never Ending Tour that Mike Johnson has commented on. If you are reading Mike, what do you make of this guitar style?
Shame the video is not related to the performance but well, you can’t have everything, can you?
Aaron: The next one I think has already appeared on the site but let’s include it now for completeness here – Bob with Pete Seeger – Ye Playboys & Ye Playgirls
Tony: So, another one done just on the spot. It is amazing that Bob could at such a young age persuade those who had been around for much longer to go with his style and approach.
Actually, I don’t remember this from earlier on the site, which shows how in old age my memory is going. You’ve got this to look forward to Aaron, the pleasure of finding something you knew about in the past, and feeling it is a new discovery! It makes old age more acceptable.
Aaron: Interestingly Bob’s three tracks were also released on a series of EP‘s by Fontana Records along with tracks from Joan Baez and Pete Seeger. The EPs were quickly withdrawn from sale because of legal problems with CBS Records (the then trading name of Columbia in the UK) who had licensed Bob’s appearances on LPs only.
Footnote from Tony:
Coming up with ideas for series is open to everyone. Whether it is just an idea for a series of articles or whether you would like to write the whole thing, or indeed co-write, I always love to have suggestions, not least because it usually means less work for me. Please write to Tony@schools.co.uk