Once or Twice. Long Time Gone

By Tony Attwood

 I don’t know what it means either: an index to the current series appearing on this website.

Once or twice: A review of some of the songs that Bob has performed just once or twice on stage, selecting those of which we have a genuine recording (and “genuine” is important here since I have found a few sites that seem to suggest they are a recording of a live version, but I have my doubts.)  Text and video selection by Tony Attwood.

Long Time Gone is shown on the official site as being performed once in November 1962 and again April 1963.  It then turned up on Bootleg 9: The Witmark Demos 1962-4, and it seems likely that the recording below is a live performance although with an out-of-tune guitar.  There is a review of the song and its background on this site.

And for clarity I ought to add that this is nothing to do with the Darrell Scott song “Long Time Gone” – which is great fun but completely different.  Here’s the Dylan version.

The song is probably drawn from Maggie Walker Blues – but I am still unsure of who Maggie Walker was.  Surely not the Maggie Walker (1864-1934) who was the first African American woman to charter a bank and the first African American woman to serve as a bank president.  So just a name chosen at random – just a friend of the original composer of the song?  Who knows.

And just in case you missed it here is the Witmark recording.

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