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Bob Dylan AARP Interview

Bob Dylan has released a recording of American Standards and talked about this and a wide range of things in his first interview in several years.

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He say real rock and roll died in the early 60's

Q: Do you mean it’s musical race-mixing, and that’s what made it dangerous?

A: Well, racial prejudice has been around a while, so yeah. And that was extremely threatening for the city fathers, I would think. When they finally recognized what it was, they had to dismantle it, which they did, starting with payola scandals and things like that. The black element was turned into soul music and the white element was turned into English pop. They separated it. I think of rock ’n’ roll as a combination of country blues and swing band music, not Chicago blues, and modern pop. Real rock ’n’ roll hasn’t existed since when? 1961, 1962? Well, it was a part of my DNA, so it never disappeared from me. I just incorporated it into other aspects of what I was doing. I don’t know if this is answering the question. [Laughs.] I can’t remember what the question was.


He also talks about what an amazing talent Frank Sinatra was and how he had a crush on Mavis Staples. Interesting stuff from someone who has been in the music business for a long time.

He also says that corporate companies have taken over America homogenizing many of us

"Recording studios are filled with technology. They are set in their ways. And to update them means you’d have to change them back. That would be my idea of upgrading. And this will never happen. As far as I know, recording studios are booked all the time. So obviously people like all the improvements. The more technically advanced they are, the more in demand they become. The corporations have taken over. Even in the recording studio. Actually, the corporate companies have taken over American life most everywhere. Go coast to coast and you will see people all wearing the same clothes, thinking the same thoughts and eating the same food. Everything is processed."
 
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It was a REAL good read! I especially like the first quote that you pulled out of the interview. Maybe the best question that he was asked. Try to remember how socially explosive the very idea of 'race mixing' was in Eisenhower's America! I'm a Dwight D. Eisenhower fan...but his fan club was a mess at the time...certainly on the issue of race. Toward that end, Jackie Robinson is one of the, IMHO, half dozen greatest, most important Americans who ever lived. Lewis Jordan is not on that list, and I love Lewis Jordan and what his band did in the midst of that musical landscape! Jackie Robinson was the guy who changed the conversation and, the perception of Eisenhower's fans...and made us all better for it. The Bard is 12 years older than me. He grew up under the influence of Jackie Robinson and the change that he and many others wrought. It seems that the interviewer chose the words 'race mixing' carefully and precisely, and gave the interviewee the springboard he needed to give an insightful, approaching-profound answer...laughs aside. I especially like when he uses "city fathers". Everything Old Is New. "All Animals Are Equal....................." Cheers!............Oh Gawd! I forgot about the record! I loved it the first 3 or 4 times, all the way through, more than I've liked it the last two times. Well worth the money!
 
An interesting guy. Never was into his music but I respect that he evolved musically, changing it up. This Sinatra thing has been done...Rod Stewart?
Funny you should mention that :) Bob Dylan talks about that very thing in the interview:

"All through the years, I’ve heard these songs being recorded by other people and I’ve always wanted to do that. And I wondered if anybody else saw it the way I did. I was looking forward to hearing Rod [Stewart]’s records of standards. I thought if anybody could bring something different to these songs, Rod certainly could. But the records were disappointing. Rod’s a great singer. He’s got a great voice, but there’s no point to put a 30-piece orchestra behind him. I’m not going to knock anybody’s right to make a living but you can always tell if somebody’s heart and soul is into something, and I didn’t think Rod was into it in that way. It sounds like so many records where the vocals are overdubbed and these kind of songs don’t come off well if you use modern recording techniques."
 
Here is what Bob Dylan says about Chuck Berry:

"This was before folk music had ever entered my life. I was still an aspiring rock ’n’ roller, the descendant, if you will, of the first generation of guys who played rock ’n’ roll — who were thrown down. Buddy Holly,Little Richard, [Invalid or Expired Link Removed],Carl Perkins, Gene Vincent, Jerry Lee Lewis. They played this type of music that was black and white. Extremely incendiary. Your clothes could catch fire. It was a mixture of black culture and hillbilly culture. When I first heard Chuck Berry, I didn’t consider that he was black. I thought he was a white hillbilly. Little did I know, he was a great poet, too. “Flying across the desert in a TWA, I saw a woman walking ’cross the sand. She been walking 30 miles en route to Bombay to meet a brown-eyed handsome man.” I didn’t think about poetry at that time — those words just flew by. Only later did I realize how hard it is to write those kind of lyrics.

Chuck Berry could have been anything in the music business. He stopped where he was, but he could have been a jazz singer, a ballad singer, a guitar virtuoso. He could have been a lot of things. But there’s a spiritual aspect to him, too. In 50 or 100 years he might even be thought of as a religious icon. There’s only one him, and what he does physically is even hard to do. If you see him in person, you know he goes out of tune a lot. But who wouldn’t? He has to constantly be playing eighth notes on his guitar and sing at the same time, plus play fills and sing. People think that singing and playing is easy. It’s not. It’s easy to strum along with yourself, as you are singing a song and that’s OK, but if you actually want to really play, where it’s important, that’s a hard thing and not too many people are good at it."
 
"The corporations have taken over."

Thanks for the insight, Bob.

Lol. Good lord, does he even remember making the Superbowl commercial for the Chrysler Corporation?

I like Dylan's music, and I am pro corporation. I just find it funny to hear people lament about something that they are a willing and well paid participant in.
 
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"The corporations have taken over."

Thanks for the insight, Bob.

Lol. Good lord, does he even remember making the Superbowl commercial for the Chrysler Corporation?

I like Dylan's music, and I am pro corporation. I just find it funny to hear people lament about something that they are a willing and well paid participant in.
The world is full of hypocrisy, starting with me. I wish I could always act the way I want others to but I often fail. That doesn't mean what I believe is not true.
Dylan may be a hypocrite like the rest of us but that reason alone doesn't mean what he says is not true.
I'm not saying you are not correct about corporations but your reason to disqualify Dylan to talk about is not good enough. If you are correct about that then most of us had better keep our mouths shut about a lot of things we see in this world.
 
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I hear you on that. Like him or not Dylan always gives food for thought and conversation. He never shies away from saying what he thinks.
......and playing what he believes in. The current album might be a case in point, but the real gutsy move was when he switched from folk to "electric folk" in the mid - late 60s. He was soundly booed playing England and elsewhere touring after he made the switch. I saw a doc where they mentioned Pete Seeger running frantically around backstage at the Monterey festival looking how to unplug him and his band. Dylan gives the impression of just doing what he wants without being effected much by the outcome if he believes in it. In the same doc it mentioned how downcast and discouraged he was after the negative reception he received at Monterey, however. It was considered pretty close to sacrilegious him taking that direction in light of what he'd become to the folk scene (religious icon? lol) I always thought that he had his Christian conversion around the time "Blood on The Tracks" was written, but he mentions being profoundly moved by the Billy Graham rallies he attended in the early 60s, one of the many facets of this interview I found interesting.
 
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The sheer notion of baptizing one's self with "holy water" has me reeling on the floor with laughter...
Someone bought up religion here and I know it is against the rules. Your response is good illustration of why that is so.
I know it is part of who Dylan is but it has a potential to derail this thread and get it locked. Of course, I have NO authority here but is it okay if we don't discuss this here? We can discuss it in the lobby if we like.
Thanks my friends
 
Someone bought up religion here and I know it is against the rules. Your response is good illustration of why that is so.
I know it is part of who Dylan is but it has a potential to derail this thread and get it locked. Of course, I have NO authority here but is it okay if we don't discuss this here? We can discuss it in the lobby if we like.
Thanks my friends

I was more so referring to Chuck's love of water sports than an attack on religion. I don't see anybody canonizing Mr.Berry any time soon.

On the note of Denny's, you eat for free on your birthday. You would use your senior's discount afterwards.
 
Someone bought up religion here and I know it is against the rules. Your response is good illustration of why that is so.
I know it is part of who Dylan is but it has a potential to derail this thread and get it locked. Of course, I have NO authority here but is it okay if we don't discuss this here? We can discuss it in the lobby if we like.
Thanks my friends
and I was referring to how ludicrous Dylan's remark at 1st glance seems to be. On 2nd glance he could well be mirroring his own experience particularly in the 60s where his music went so much beyond the norm. Isaac Newton was commonly thought of as being an "intermediary" between God and man - Bach later so. I've heard the term "touched by God" applied to everyone from Wayne Gretzky to Brian Wilson and Bruce Lee. I might classify Dylan in the same terms but Chuck Berry? Nah. Dylan seems to think of Berry along the same lines so there must be some merit to it. He knows far more about music/pop culture/public perception than I could ever hope to know.
 

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