03/08/2004

Dylan… Miles Davis… and Segovia

Ian Woodward writes:

"I could probably go on and on about Dylan books, but one I've not spotted on your list is Larry Sloman's On The Road. It covers the 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue tour and I think the Helter Skelter UK reprint is still available. It makes a great accompaniment to Dylan's own Live 1975 CD release of a couple of years back.

"Like you, I am not overly impressed by huge outdoor festivals. I have said to others that they could not pay me to attend the Fleadh in Finsbury Park. Since I live in the very north of England, however, I might accept a helicopter flight and corporate seating but only because I'd like the experience. As it happens, I was in the London area when Dylan was in Glasgow and did fly up for the two shows there. This was mainly because I had an excellent seat for the first show (the SECC is like an aircraft hanger) but, by queuing early enough, I got a good position at the all-standing second show (which was in a 1900 capacity venue).

"As for Miles Davis, I prefer the pre-fusion stuff (especially the work he did with Gil Evans). I never got to see him and that's probably just as well because, by then, he was on the way to the fusion stuff anyway. However, I did see the Duke Ellington Orchestra twice in the mid-1960s, though I have almost no recordings by him/them. It was a period when I didn't buy records and so I have little by many of the jazz greats I saw then.

"Moving to the classical side, I've never really got into opera but have a small collection of classical guitar CDs, particularly Segovia, who is astounding, but also quite a few others. In my view, the "clean" sound of the CD is well suited to guitar music. Real guitar music collectors swear by 78s, saying that even LPs don't reproduce the real sound of the guitar as well as 78s. For my part, I'm very happy to have these old 78 rpm albums and LPs collected on to CD, as I couldn't afford the original discs anyway.

"I notice you mention The Wicked Messenger in your Dylan booklist. I'm still doing it, over 20 years later."

(Editor: Ian Woodward is a highly regarded Dylan chronicler. His The Wicked Messenger column appears in the fanzine, Isis, published every two months. Subscribers also receive a small supplement in the intervening months with a news update and a bit more. Each issue of Isis has around 60 pages and there are colour photographs on the covers. Subscriptions cost £20 (£23.50 in Europe, £25.50 in North America and £30 elsewhere). The webpage is www.bobdylanisis.com

The latest issue, #115, has a 1965 colour photograph of Dylan on the cover (off-stage), two colour photographs of Dylan playing with Muddy Waters in 1975 on the inside front cover and nine colour photographs of Dylan getting his honorary degree in St Andrews on the rear cover. As well as the latest issues of The Wicked Messenger, there's an interview with Mavis Staples, a discussion of the links between Dylan and Muddy Waters, an article about Dylan, Guthrie and transcendentalism (!), plus regular columns on Dylan books, unofficial CDs, audience-shot videos and unofficial DVDs, overviews of Dylan's touring activities and so on: a Dylan cornucopia. Gerry Smith)

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