Dylan on Letterman - 3 March?

Report via Expecting Rain:

http://www.jambase.com/search.asp?venueID=20490

Short and Sweet - set those recorders! Or not....>>
http://www.cbs.com/latenight/lateshow/show_info/index.shtml

Another false start!

Bob Dylan World Tours 1966-1974 DVD

I've now had a chance to view this DVD (thanks to Joel) and it's another interesting addition in the canon of Dylan related DVDs. By 'Dylan related' I mean no significant new video footage is included - though we do get some nice photographs and from Barry Feinstein's collection. I guess you'd normally expect these to appear in book format, but there's no shortage of Dylan books at the moment so this makes a thoghtful change and will keep us amused until Scorses's documentary airs in July. Certainly not essential, but not without it's good points either!

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The same company that brought us the interesting 1966 Home Movies now has a new Dylan DVD about to be released. this time it's called "Bob Dylan World Tours 1966-1974, Through the Camera of Barry Feinstein." It was screened as a World Premiere event at Experience Music Project's "Bob Dylan's American Journey" in Seattle, Washington on November 19th.

Reviews and photos are on their website at www.bobdylan66-74.com.

"Barry Feinstein was the exclusive tour photographer on Bob Dylan and The Band's legendary 1966 and 1974 World Tours. In this documentary feature film, Feinstein and Director Joel Gilbert chronicle these epic Bob Dylan tours, featuring over 150 selections of Feinstein's finest portraits - most revealed for the first time - in this extraordinary document of Bob Dylan and rock music history.

For the years in between, Gilbert visits Woodstock and Greenwich Village, New York, where he investigates Dylan's secluded life before his return to the road in 1974. Gilbert recreates the singer-songwriter's 1966 motorcycle accident, pays a visit to Big Pink, examines Dylan's first encounter with The Beatles, and even confronts fanatic Dylanologist A.J. Weberman. Interviews with filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker, rock journalism godfather Al Aronowitz, Band drummer Mickey Jones and surprise guests help reveal Bob Dylan's hidden history behind Feinstein's astonishing images' ".

60 Minutes Interview 2004

Bob Dylan on CBS' "60 Minutes"

Bob Dylan is to appear on 60 Minutes. It marks his first television interview in 19 years. The music icon talked to reporter Ed Bradley about his career, the burden of his fame, and his difficult relationships with his family and the media. The "60 Minutes" interview with Bob Dylan will air Sunday, December 5, from 7 to 8 p.m.
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Folk-rock legend Bob Dylan has given his first TV interview in 19 years.
The New York Post reports that the reclusive 63-year-old star was interviewed by CBS, to be aired on December 5.
Dylan spoke to reporter Ed Bradley for 90 minutes about his career, fame, troubled relationship with the media and his affiliation with his dad.
Dylan was notorious in the sixties was famed for his despondency with interviewing. He often refused to answer interviewer’s petty questions and often resorted grilling the reporter himself.
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Bob Dylan, the great American Bard, will appear on "60 Minutes" — his first television interview in more than 19 years. Dylan sat with correspondent Ed Bradley for 90 minutes last Friday while on tour in Northampton, Mass. — the interview is slated to air on Dec. 5.
In the broadcast, Dylan talks about his career, fame, his difficult relationship with the press and his relationship with his father. The singer has recently written a memoir called "Chronicles Volume One" and it is believed that he agreed to sit for the interview to help sell the book.
A CBS News press release to promote the interview noted that the book's publisher, Simon & Schuster, and CBS News are subsidiaries of Viacom.
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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/12/02/60minutes/main658799.shtml
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http://cbsnewyork.com/topstories/topstoriesny_story_340193923.html

Dec 5, 2004 7:36 pm US/Eastern
NEW YORK (AP) There is no living musician who has been more influential than Bob Dylan. Over a 43-year career, his distinctive twang and poetic lyrics have produced some of the most memorable songs ever written. In the '60s, his songs of protest and turmoil spoke to an entire generation. While his life has been the subject of endless interpretation, Dylan has been largely silent. Now, at 63, he has written a memoir called "Chronicles, Volume One." Correspondent Ed Bradley got to sit down with this music legend in his first television interview in nearly 20 years.
Dylan is mysterious, elusive, fascinating – just like his music.
Over more than four decades, Dylan has produced 500 songs and more than 40 albums. Does he ever look back at the music he's written with surprise? "I used to. I don't do that anymore. I don't know how I got to write those songs. Those early songs were almost magically written," says Dylan, who quotes from his 1964 classic, "It's Alright, Ma."
"Try to sit down and write something like that. There's a magic to that, and it's not Siegfried and Roy kind of magic, you know? It's a different kind of a penetrating magic. And you know, I did it. I did it at one time."

Does he think he can do it again today? No, says Dylan. "You can't do something forever," he says. "I did it once, and I can do other things now. But, I can't do that." Dylan has been writing music since he was a teenager in the remote town of Hibbing, Minn. He was the eldest of two sons of Abraham and Beatty Zimmerman. How was his childhood? "I really didn't consider myself happy or unhappy," says Dylan. "I always knew that there was something out there that I needed to get to. And it wasn't where I was at that particular moment." In his book, Dylan writes that he came alive at 19, when he moved to Greenwich Village in New York City – which at the time was the frenetic center of the '60s counterculture movement. Within months, Dylan had signed a recording contract with Columbia Records.

"You refer to New York as the capital of the world. But when you told your father that, he thought that it was a joke," says Bradley. "Did your parents approve of you being a singer-songwriter? Going to New York?"
"No. They wouldn't have wanted that for me. But my parents never went anywhere," says Dylan. "My father probably thought the capital of the world was wherever he was at the time. It couldn't possibly be anyplace else. Where he and his wife were in their own home, that, for them, was the capital of the world." So what made Dylan different? What pushed him out there? "I listened to the radio a lot. I hung out in the record stores. And I slam-banged around on the guitar and played the piano and learned songs from a world which didn't exist around me," says Dylan. He says that he knew even then that he was destined to become a music legend. "I was heading for the fantastic lights," he writes. "Destiny was looking right at me and nobody else."

What does the word "destiny" mean to Dylan? "It's a feeling you have that you know something about yourself - nobody else does - the picture you have in your mind of what you're about will come true," says Dylan. "It's kind of a thing you kind of have to keep to your own self, because it's a fragile feeling. And if you put it out there, somebody will kill it. So, it’s best to keep that all inside." When Bradley asked Dylan why he changed his name from Robert Zimmerman, he said that was destiny, too. "Some people – you're born, you know, the wrong names, wrong parents. I mean, that happens," says Dylan. "You call yourself what you want to call yourself. This is the land of the free." Dylan created a world inspired by old folk music, with piercing and poetic lyrics, in songs such as "A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall." These were songs that reflected the tension and unrest of the civil rights and anti-war movements of the '60s.

It was an explosive mixture that turned Dylan, by 25, into a cultural and political icon - playing to sold out concert halls around the world, and followed by people wherever he went. Dylan was called the voice of his generation – and was actually referred to as a prophet, a messiah. Yet Dylan says he saw himself simply as a musician: "You feel like an impostor when someone thinks you're something and you're not." What was the image that people had of him? And what was the reality? "The image of me was certainly not a songwriter or a singer," says Dylan. "It was more like some kind of a threat to society in some kind of way." What was the toughest part for him personally? "It was like being in an Edgar Allan Poe story. And you're just not that person everybody thinks you are, though they call you that all the time," says Dylan. "'You're the prophet. You're the savior.' I never wanted to be a prophet or savior. Elvis maybe. I could easily see myself becoming him. But prophet? No." He may not have seen himself as the voice of the '60s generation, but his songs were viewed as anthems that sparked a moment. "My stuff were songs, you know? They weren't sermons," says Dylan. "If you examine the songs, I don't believe you're gonna find anything in there that says that I'm a spokesman for anybody or anything really."

"But they saw it," says Bradley. "They must not have heard the songs," says Dylan. "It's ironic, that the way that people viewed you was just the polar opposite of the way you viewed yourself," says Bradley. "Isn't that something," says Dylan. Dylan did almost anything to shatter the lofty image many people had of him. He writes that he intentionally made bad records, and once poured whiskey over his head in public. He also writes that, as a stunt, he went to Israel and made a point of having his picture taken at the Wailing Wall wearing a skullcap. When he went to Israel, he writes that newspapers changed him overnight into a Zionist. How did this help? "If the common perception of me out there in the public was that I was either a drunk, or I was a sicko, or a Zionist, or a Buddhist, or a Catholic, or a Mormon – all of this was better than 'Archbishop of Anarchy,'" says Dylan, referring to being considered the voice of a generation.

Dylan was especially opposed to the media, which he says were always trying to pin him down. He wrote, "The press, I figured, you lied to it." Why? "I realized at the time that the press, the media, they're not the judge - God's the judge," says Dylan. "The only person you have to think about lying twice to is either yourself or to God. The press isn't either of them. And I just figured they're irrelevant." Dylan tried to run away from all of that. In the mid-'60s, he retreated with his wife and three young children to Woodstock, N.Y. But even there, he couldn’t escape the legions of fans who descended on his home, begging for an audience with the legend himself. He says people would actually come to the house, wanting to "discuss things with me, politics and philosophy and organic farming and things."

What did Dylan know about organic farming? "Nothing," he says. "Not a thing." What did he mean when he wrote that "the funny thing about fame is that nobody believes it's you"? "People, they'll say, 'Are you who I think you are?' And you'll say, 'I don't know.' Then, they'll say, 'You're him.' And you'll say, 'OK, you know, that – yes,'" says Dylan. "And then, the next thing they'll say, 'Well, no, you know? Like are you really him? You're not him.' And, you know, that can go on and on."

He says he doesn't like to eat in restaurants because of all the attention he gets. And he says he has never gotten use to it. At his peak, fame was taking its toll on Dylan. He was heading toward a divorce from his wife, Sara. And in concerts, he wore white makeup to mask himself. But his songs revealed the pain. About his ex-wife, Dylan says: "She was with me back then, through thick and thin, you know? And it just wasn't the kind of life that she had ever envisioned for herself, any more the than the kind of life that I was living, that I had envisioned for mine." By the mid-1980s, Dylan felt he was burned out and over the hill. He wrote some pretty harsh words about himself: "I'm a '60s troubadour, a folk rock relic. A wordsmith from bygone days. I'm in the bottomless pit of cultural oblivion."

"I'd seen all these titles written about me," says Dylan. "I believed it. You know? I wasn't getting any thrill out of performing. I thought it might be time to close it up. … I had thought I'd just put it away for a while. But then I started thinking, 'That's enough, you know?'" But within a few years, Dylan said he had recaptured his creative spark, and went back on the road. He performed more than 100 concerts a year. And he won three Grammy awards in 1998 for his album, "Time Out Of Mind." At 63, Dylan remains a voice as unique and powerful as any there has ever been in American music. His fellow musicians paid tribute to him when he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, joining him in a rousing rendition of his most famous song, "Like a Rolling Stone." That song was recently named by Rolling Stone magazine as the No. 1 song of all time. And he has 12 other songs on their list of the Top 500. "That must be good to have as part of your legacy," says Bradley. "Oh, maybe this week. But you know, the list, they change names, and you know, quite frequently, really. I don't really pay much attention to that," says Dylan. "This week it is. But who's to say how long that's gonna last?" His success, however, has lasted a long time. Dylan is still performing all of his songs on tour, and he says he doesn't take any of it for granted.

So why is he still out there? "It goes back to that destiny thing. I mean, I made a bargain with it, you know, long time ago. And I'm holding up my end … to get where I am now," says Dylan. And with whom did he make the bargain? "With the chief commander," says Dylan, laughing. "In this earth and in the world we can't see." Dylan has been nominated this year for the Nobel Prize in literature for his songwriting. His new book has been a bestseller for the past seven weeks. It was published by Simon & Schuster, which is owned by Viacom, the parent company of CBS. Dylan is planning to write two more volumes of his memoirs.
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John Cohen - Early Film - 1962

Public Showing for Cohen Film
The Cohen rooftop film received its first public airing at the North Carolina Folk Music Film Festival on 28 August 2004. Presented by Cohen himself and described as 'the first footage ever shot of Bob Dylan, never before screened'.

John Cohen's Rooftop - Spring 1962
Early Bob Dylan silent footage shot by John Cohen. Two short rolls of silent movie film capture the antics of a young Dylan on Cohen's rooftop in New York City. In one we see Bob trying on assorted hats, and in the other,playing his guitar. Certainly the earliest films of Dylan know to have survived (though one of the reels is missing). One was to be included in another filmmaker's documentary a while back but hasn't surfaced yet as faras I'm aware. However, we do now have John Cohen's book Young Bob, which reproduces dozens of stills from the reel.

John Cohen's Young Bob - Order it now from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

Live Aid - 1985

How Live Aid was saved for history - BBC News Online

Live Aid, the legendary 1985 charity concert featuring stars from Paul McCartney and Queen to U2 and Madonna, is being released on DVD for the first time. The Live Aid concert was split between London and PhiladelphiaIt was one of the defining events of the 1980s, with an unequalled musical line-up contributing to one of the most memorable TV broadcasts ever made. But Live Aid's transatlantic 16-hour show was almost not recorded at all.
When organiser Bob Geldof was persuading artists to take part, he promised it would be a one-off, never to be seen again. That way, he said, they did not have to worry about contracts or embarrassment if they messed up amid the chaos of the day. If Geldof's plan had been followed, Live Aid would have remained a fond but fading memory.
But BBC Radio 1 concert co-ordinator Jeff Griffin realised history was about to be made - so recorded it anyway

Order from Amazon.co.uk.

The Earl Scruggs Show

You can buy the 1970 on-line from The Hoffman collection:

from Hoffman.com:
Classic BOB DYLAN singing with EARL SCRUGGS
This 90 minute video/dvd is Classic Dylan (Note from TV Talkin' - Dylan segment is only 5 minutes) - at his home with Earl Sruggs picking and singing. It is a gem-- and the only time in recorded film history when they were filmed playing and singing together.
This VHS or DVD also includes Doc Watson & his boy Merle, Charlie Daniels, Bill Monroe and his band, The Byrds, Joan Baez, The Morris Brothers, and more. In this film, Baez performs her famous imitation of Dylan Singing Love is Just a Four Letter Word, It ain't me Babe, and other songs.

NBC Apollo Theater 70th Anniversary show

Apollo Theater Foundation's 70th Celebration Anniversary Coming to DVD
From Rhino Home Video: 'Apollo At 70: A Hot Night In Harlem'
Ashanti; Natalie Cole; Harry Connick, Jr.; Bob Dylan; Vivica A. Fox; Herbie Hancock; Denzel Washington and Others Paid Homage to the Landmark Theater Where Stars Are Born and Legends Are Made; Debuts on DVD September 14
March 2004, some of the biggest names in R&B, Hip-Hop, Rap, Gospel and Latin music gathered at the world-famous Apollo Theater, a national landmark in the heart of Harlem, for a star studded gala benefit event, "Apollo At 70: A Hot Night In Harlem" to commemorate 70 years of the theater's rich musical heritage and now it arrives on DVD September 14 from Rhino Home Video.
Ashanti; Natalie Cole; Harry Connick, Jr.; Bob Dylan; Vivica A. Fox; Herbie Hancock; and Denzel Washington, to name a few, were among the numerous actors, musicians, performers and dignitaries that gathered for the celebration that combined live music, comedy and dance.
"We are very honored to work with the Apollo on this monumental release," said Paul DeGooyer, VP Rhino Home Video. "The rich history and importance of the theater is captured beautifully on this DVD, and celebrated through incredible performances. We are very excited to be a part of it."
"The Apollo received an overwhelming response to the show after it aired in June," said Nicole Bernard, Senior Vice President of the Apollo Theater Foundation, Inc. "We are thrilled with the Apollo/Rhino partnership. The DVD will allow Apollo and music fans worldwide the opportunity to enjoy the program and to share in the Apollo experience as often as they chose."
The DVD is presented in 5.1 audio and includes exclusive performances not seen on the original broadcast, behind-the-scenes footage and more. "Apollo At 70: A Hot Night In Harlem" will be available for the suggested retail price of $19.99.
Read more here
 
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Other celebrities who crowded into the Apollo for this special occasion included Denzel Washington, Bob Dylan, Ashanti, Willie Nelson, Blair Underwood, Angie Stone, Vivica A. Fox, Anthony Hamilton, Chuck Jackson, Shirley Caesar and Natalie Cole.... Suffice it to say for now that executive producers Suzanne DePasse, Don Mischer and the Apollo's Nicole Bernard put together one heck of a great show that featured Dylan and his band performing Sam Cooke's A Change Is Gonna Come.
Onstage at the Apollo Theater on Sunday night, the octogenarian actor and activist Ossie Davis was talking about music and civil rights. When Sam Cooke, an Apollo legend, first heard the Bob Dylan song Blowin' in the Wind Mr. Davis recalled, with its signature line, "How many years can some people exist before they're allowed to be free?," Cooke was moved to write a rallying anthem of his own, A Change Is Gonna Come.

Mr. Davis said he had met Mr. Dylan once, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, when he introduced him to the crowd on the day in 1963 that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the "I Have a Dream" speech. And now, he said, he had the opportunity to do it again. At which point the lights came up on Mr. Dylan, fronting a band at an electric piano. Completing a circular vignette, singing in his unmistakable gravelly growl, he saluted Sam Cooke in a rendition of A Change Is Gonna Come. Perfectly choreographed, it was a goose-bump moment. It was also part of a starry celebration of the Apollo Theater, the musical mecca of Harlem whose famous Amateur Night is 70 years old this year. The performance by Mr. Davis and Mr. Dylan was the program's best illustration of the evening's theme: the present and past coming together to celebrate black popular music. Billed as A Hot Night in Harlem the show, a benefit for the Apollo Theater Foundation, the nonprofit corporation that runs the theater, was filmed by NBC for broadcast in June.
Quincy Jones received one of the longest ovations of the night, surpassed perhaps only by the enthusiastic reaction to a public address announcer after Mr. Dylan's performance of A Change Is Gonna Come, "Folks, we've had a problem," the disembodied voice said. "We need to do that once more, Bob. Very sorry."

Early Films: 1963-64 & 1965-66 VCDs

Two new VCDs of early Dylan films are available on the VCD Trading page.



Early Films: 1963-1964

March 63 - Folk Songs and More Folk Songs TV Special Intro / Blowin' in the wind / Man of Constant Sorrow / Ballad of Hollis Brown / This Land is our Land
July 63 - Civil Rights Rally Only a pawn in their game
August 63 - March on Washington When the ship comes in / Only a pawn in their game / Keep your eyes on the prize
1/2/64 - Quest The Times They are a-Changin' / World War 3 Blues / Hattie Carroll / Girl from the North Country / A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall / Restless Farewell
25/2/64 - Steve Allen Show Interview / The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
12/5/64 - Tonight - BBC With God on our Side
Quality varies from good to excellent - but then these films are now over 40 years old and hard to find in original broadcast quality.

Early Films: 1964-1965
26/4/65 Heathrow Airport TV News (2:47)
30/4/65 Don't Look Back out-takes - To Ramona (3:36)/ Subterranean Homesick Blues (2:20)
24/7/65 Newport Folk Festival - All I really want to do (3:25) / Soundcheck (1:47) / Maggies farm (3:11) /Mr Tambourine Man (2:15)
1965 New York party (0:13)
1965 Andy Warhol The Factory (0:13)
16/12/65 CBS Press Conference - Los Angeles (0:30)
April 1966 - Melbourne Hotel Room (0:17)
27/4/66 Stockholm arrival- Swedish TV News #1 (0:54)
27/4/66 Stockholm arrival- Swedish TV News #2 (1:33)
1 May 1966 - Eat the Document out-takes - Leopardskin pillbox hat (0:20) / I don't believe you (1:58) / Ballad of a thin man (7:26)
26 May 1966 - Eat the Document Out-take - John Lennon taxi ride (20:59)

Many of these clips are very short and some are of poor quality.

Bob receives Honorary Degree

From news.bbc.co.uk: American folk-rock singer Bob Dylan has been awarded an honorary degree by Scotland's oldest university. The University of St Andrews made Bob Dylan a Doctor of Music at this year's summer graduation ceremony on Wednesday. Dylan has only ever accepted one other honorary degree - from Princeton University in 1970.



A garden party which was planned for after the event had to be held in doors because of the bad weather. University principal, Dr Brian Lang, described Dylan as an "iconic figure for the 20th Century". Mr Lang added: "His songs, and in particular his lyrics, are still part of our consciousness. "We are very pleased to take this opportunity of honouring such a major artist."
The St Salvator's Chapel Choir performed its version of the Dylan classic, Blowin' in the Wind, before he stepped up to receive his degree. The singer-songwriter knelt on the stage before the university's chancellor, Sir Kenneth Dover, who performed the ceremony in Latin. Dylan was tapped on the head with the university's graduation cap, a late 17th Century doctor's birretum, which is thought to have been in use for the last 300 years.
He turned and bowed after receiving his degree, to cheers and applause from the audience. Professor Neil Corcoran of the university's school of English said he was "deeply honoured" that Dylan had accepted the university's invitation. "For many of us Bob Dylan has been an extension of our consciousness and part of our growing up," he said. After the ceremony 23-year-old Jennifer Laurens, a graduate in social anthropology, said: "This is a very special day for St Andrews. Considering that this is Bob Dylan's second degree and that he had agreed to travel to Scotland, it makes it an achievement for us all."
Some Dylan fans were able to secure tickets for the event, while others waited outside in the rain in the hope of catching a glimpse of the star. However, he left through a side door after the ceremony. Local TV covered the event and caught Dylan arriving and receiving his award.