Daltrey, Townshend, McCartney, the Beach Boys, Elton, Billy Joel. They made perfect records, so they have to play them perfectly ... exactly the way people remember them. My records were never perfect. So there is no point in trying to duplicate them. Anyway, I’m no mainstream artist.
Robert Zimmerman had released a long interview to Bill Flanagan. We publish an extract which you can read full on Dylan official website: Bobdylan.com - Here some extracts.
An old rock-and-roll legend has it that Bob Dylan and George Harrison were supposed to record with Elvis Presley, but The King was a no-show. As Dylan tells it, though, Presley “did show up, it was us that didn’t”. (Bob Dylan) "I liked Elvis Presley. Elvis Presley recorded a song of mine. That's the one recording I treasure the most... it was called Tomorrow Is a Long Time. I wrote it but never recorded it," Dylan told Rolling Stone in 1969.
"I liked Elvis Presley. Elvis Presley recorded a song of mine. That's the one recording I treasure the most... it was called Tomorrow Is a Long Time. I wrote it but never recorded it," Dylan told Rolling Stone in 1969.
"Phenomenal Ebbtide by Frank Sinatra never failed to fill me with awe. The lyrics were so mystifying and stupendous. When Frank sang that song, I could hear everything in his voice - death, God, the universe – everything."
"His repertoire was beyond category. Songs made my head spin, made me want to gasp, for me it was an epiphany. It was like I had been in the dark and someone had turned on the main switch of a lightning conductor."
"I keep a close watch on this heart of mine... I must have recited those lines to myself a million times. Johnny's voice was so big it made the world grow small."
I don't Know his music very well. I like “Lawyers, Guns and Money.” “Boom Boom Mancini.” Down hard stuff. “Join me in L.A.” sort of straddles the line between heartfelt and primeval. His musical patterns are all over the place, probably because he’s classically trained. There might be three separate songs within a Zevon song, but they’re all effortlessly connected. Zevon was a musician’s musician, a tortured one. “Desperado Under the Eaves.” It’s all in there.
Yeah, Randy. What can you say? I like his early songs, “Sail Away,” “Burn Down the Cornfield,” “Louisiana,” where he kept it simple. Bordello songs. I think of him as the Crown Prince, the heir apparent to Jelly Roll Morton. His style is deceiving. He’s so laid back that you kind of forget he’s saying important things. Randy’s sort of tied to a different era like I am.
Prine’s stuff is pure Proustian existentialism. Midwestern mindtrips to the nth degree. And he writes beautiful songs. I remember when Kris Kristofferson first brought him on the scene. All that stuff about “Sam Stone” the soldier junky daddy and “Donald and Lydia,” where people make love from ten miles away. Nobody but Prine could write like that. If I had to pick one song of his, it might be “Lake Marie.” I don’t remember what album that’s on.
Bill Flanaghan: A lot of the acts from your generation seem to be trading on nostalgia. They play the same songs the same way for the last 30 years. Why haven’t you ever done that?
BD: I couldn’t if I tried. Those guys you are talking about all had conspicuous hits. They started out anti-establishment and now they are in charge of the world. Celebratory songs. Music for the grand dinner party. Mainstream stuff that played into the culture on a pervasive level. My stuff is different from those guys. It’s more desperate.
"Aaron is one of the world's great singers, a figure of rugged power, built like a tank but has the most angelic singing voice. A voice that could almost redeem a lost soul. It seems so incongruous. So much for appearances. There's so much spirituality in his singing that it could even bring sanity back in a world of madness."
