# Happy Birthday Bob Dylan



## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

70 today






Any Dylan fans here?

Love all his stuff up to _Desire_ then I just sort of went off him.


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

Yes, I'm a Dylan fan. I think he's still doing great, Annie. A lot of his work of the last dozen years or so is as great (or close anyway) as his material of the 60's and 70's. 

Happy Birthday Bob!


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

I like him when he's not too country/rock/pop-like. Blood on the Tracks and earlier albums up to, uhm, Highway 61 is what I prefer.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

From my blog entry just now:

Today Robert Allen Zimmerman, better known as Bob Dylan, turns 70. Although I don't particularly care for his voice, there is no denying that he wrote some terrific songs - especially when covered by others. By far the best interpretation of his work is also one of the most unlikely: a complete album (Leopardenfell, 1996) by BAP singer Wolfgang Niedecken. Seventeen covers of Bob Dylan songs, translated into German, or to be more precise, into Koellsch, the dialect of the city of Cologne. Niedecken is the singer of BAP, my favourite German band. He achieves the impossible on this album: he makes you forget that these are Dylan songs (even though he takes some of the most famous ones like A hard rain's a gonna fall and Mighty Quinn) and makes them sound like his own work. Absolutely brilliant is his version of It's all over now, baby blue, which translated becomes Jeder's manchmol einsam, net nur du (Everyone is sometimes lonely, not just you). Sandwiched between some of the best sax playing this side of Baker Street, this sensitive ballad unfolds to great effect. A simple video, but worth playing just to explore this beautiful music. Happy birthday Bob!
Art Rock score: 10/10 (brilliant masterpiece, one of 200 best songs of all time)


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

Big time Bob Dylan fan...I play many of his songs...gonna play me a 'mama, you've been on my mind' to celebrate


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

mcamacho said:


> Big time Bob Dylan fan...I play many of his songs...gonna play me a 'mama, you've been on my mind' to celebrate


I just listened to this. Always makes me smile.


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## Il_Penseroso (Nov 20, 2010)

I don't like his voice at all. But he was a very good songwriter of the 1960s. Each time I've enjoyed Dylan's songs like "Don't think it twice, it's alright" , "Masters of War" and "Blowin' in the wind" , they were covered by other singers such as Joan Baez, Julie Felix or Peter/Paul/Mary.


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Missed this a few days ago, but better late than never.

The point about Bob is that he's an 'on the road' adventurer. You never know what he's going to get up to next, and one consequence of that has been the sudden outpouring of immensely fine work at intervals, like lightning from a clear sky. My favourite Bob period was not from the 60s, nor was it the _Blood on the Tracks_ period, but much later, from about 1995 to 2003, focusing almost exclusively on the live performances he was doing on tour, night after night. His voice during that time had the character of sandpaper to it (of various degrees of coarseness - soft in 95, harder in 98/99, and then different again, richer perhaps, in 2000/2001. My bootleg collection of live shows from that period may seem obsessively large, but there was always a freshness to every one, each song being reinvented on different nights. He had a stunningly fine band at that time too - Charlie Sexton and Larry Campbell, on guitars, somehow framing his performance, keeping it tight whenever he took one risky step too many. The way he phrased the vowels as he sang was extraordinary; sometimes a single word could bring goosebumps, so expressively was it shaped.

By 2003 though, his voice was getting too ragged even for me to cope with, and to disguise it he was turning up the volume in his shows to frighteningly loud levels. I valued my hearing too much to continue going to them, and the last show I actually attended was in 2003, in Birmingham. I spent most of the time with my hands over my ears, hoping my hearing hadn't been permanently damaged.

But he gave me some fantastic music while it lasted, and in many ways changed my conception of what musical performance could be. Meanwhile, His Bobness goes on, and on. And the day he stops will be very, very sad.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Bob speaks the truth! I have a handful of albums I wouldn't part with. Long live Dylan!


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## Conor71 (Feb 19, 2009)

Belated happy birthday wishes Bob!


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Happy 80th, Zimmy!


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Only COVID stopped him touring! The never-ending tour flame burns eternal. Far from being a man of constant sorrow, Bob has been a source of constant joy for me since I was 13 and I imagine he will continue to be so until I breathe my last.


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

Belated happy birthday! I do love "Love and Theft" from his later period works.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Hard to believe he's 80 years old. Rave on, Bob Dylan ...


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I met Pete and Maura Kennedy in a Syracuse University building elevator about 17 or 18 years ago. A sweet couple!


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Happy Birthday Bob!
Keep on keepin' on!


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

It's not everyday one can celebrate a Nobel Prize winner by listening to great classic songs. But today is such a day. And Bob Dylan is the man.

I have quite a few Dylan discs in my collection, thanks in part to having invested some years back in the big CD box set, Volume 1, of Dylan's _The Complete Album Collection_ on Columbia/Legacy/Sony Music ‎88691924312, a true treasure box containing 41 albums spread over nearly 50 discs.









Still, I prefer Dylan by way of vinyl, which my stereo rig is especially tweeked to play back with fullest fidelity. So it is to my dozen or so Dylan black discs I will turn for Dylan magic today on his birthday.

I'm currently listening to _Nashville Skyline_, which opens with Dylan and Johnnie Cash singing "Girl From the North Country". I've already surveyed sides from _The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan_ and _Blonde On Blonde_, two of my favorite Dylan discs, certainly more to my liking than _Nashville Skyline_. But today is no day to be critical of Dylan. Rather, today is a day to enjoy this masterful poet/songmeister. And I have much more Dylan to spin, including, before this day is over, his first ever commercial recording (as I understand it to be), which features Dylan on harmonica (for which he was paid 50 buck for a single take) on the title track to Harry Belafonte's 1962 album _The Midnight Special_, which I'll probably get to round about midnight of this celebratory day.

For those who can't wait, there's this:






I hope Bob makes it through at least a couple more decades. We all deserve that.


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