Watch the video at the end of this article…. tell us what you think!
A few years ago I worked in radio and had a couple of music shows. In each one I had a joke section where, to great applause, I would introduce: “THE WOOOOORLDDD’S WORSSSST SSSSSINNGERRRR!”
Then we’d play a Bob Dylan song to prove just what a great singer he is! Songs like the live version of When He Returns, Lay Lady Lay, Saro, Drunken Ira Haze, It’s Not Dark Yet, Roll on John… Stay with Me etc etc etc.
Surely, isn’t it time people stopped saying ‘I think he’s a great song writer – but he can’t sing can he!”
Of course he can! He is probably one of the world’s greatest singers! Certainly one of the top three vocal stylists up there with Elvis and Frank!
There is barely a rock singer today who hasn’t been influenced by his phrasing.
Yes Bob Dylan is an unusual singer – in fact forget unusual! There is nobody else like him!
#bobdylan #birthday #japan #orchestra
I saw Bob in concert at the auditorium in Chicago. He sang “the carpet too is moving under you, and it’s all over now, Baby Blue” his voice crackling through the house with such conviction it was hard to even believe. then he blew that little harmonica and filled the entire auditorium with it. That moment blew a hole through my soul. He left us blown over like blades of grass after a tornado on the prairie. this was 1978. i will never forget it.
I saw him at Earl’s Court in London the year after (i’m sure) and equally he was stunning even tho he was dressing a bit like Elvis … then Blackbush happened just a short time after and was just as committed and dramatic but this time top-hatted and wild!
I learned music by listening to Bob. Of course it was clear from album 1, the eponymously titled Bob Dylan in 1962, he was a truly remarkable singer even as the majority in my youth in South Africa rushed to explain he was ‘an awful singer.’
I never got to see Bob live although I knew the albums intimately. And when I was a gigging musician often played Dylan songs.
Then in 2004 I got to see him At Hammersmith Odeon. How exciting.
He had a pub band in tow. The show began with Bob behind a keyboard – posing. With a Stratocaster on a stand lit by a spot.
The first 20 minutes did not include one song. He was exploring the art of challenge. Seeing whether the adoring fans would notice if he just mumbled senseless word salad wavering in tone between a semitone sharp and flat with each phrase, delivered against any recognizable meter. The shows tension built as the tuneless noise continued. With all waiting hopefully for Bob to leave the keyboard pose and take up the guitar and start a song from his catalogue. Around the forty minute mark, people started leaving. The crowd was divided. Half applauded each sorry end to what I hesitate in calling a song in that it had no song like qualities, leaning instead to bashing out chords with no relation to each other on a Rhodes type keyboard, while the band played whatever thought cam to mind within a limited set of opportunities determined by skill, or its absence. By the hour mark the other half had left. Looking confused and disappointed.
I thought it was quite incredible. That this truly great artist who could at any time have played any one of a hundred songs that would have given him the populist applause any lesser artist would die for elected instead to show that as a performer and artist he had nothing to prove.
I especially liked his choice of drummer that night.
A player of limited skill at best, who at one point simply ran out of beans with all the thrashing and had to stop his contribution to the cacophony in order to catch his breath. Not that any of the other players seemed to notice. There were no players on the stage to illuminate the performance with a solo of any merit. Just four guys bashing away independently.
Bobs mumbling was mostly indistinct throughout but I remember phrases like “I’m just making this up. As I go along. It makes no difference.”
It was the only time I saw Bob live. I left the Odeon that night blown away by how he had managed to reinvent himself in performance in a way I could not have foreseen.
I felt sorry for the sector of crowd who did not understand what they were witnessing.
The opportunity to be in the same room with the greatest singer songwriter of them all.
With nothing left to prove.
SC Bryson
You have an exquisite way with words!! Every topic that you have chosen has been delightfully informative and entertaining. I hope you keep writing until you are 150 years of age!!!
Martin Martin Bailey
The worlds best!
Kathy Fortier
Admin
Bob has always been a fantastic singer. his delivery, his emotion, his way with words. there’s charisma in his voice. depth. seductiveness. love. sadness. hope. there’s everything in it. no one will ever convince me he can’t sing.
Nelle White
I certainly do – for me his only American peers are Holiday and Sinatra
Joey Grant
Can’t sing, can’t play guitar..he’s just a song an’ dance man.
Craig Severn
He’s my favourite singer. The range of different vocal styles he’s had over the years is staggering. You can listen to L.A.R.S. , Lay Lady Lay, Tangled Up, and Everything Is Broken and think it was four different singers if you didn’t know better. I don’t know how he managed to change his voice like that. Very impressive.
Doug Thompson
Over the years, I thought that maybe my infatuation with his music colored my impression of his singing skills. Now, I’m utterly convinced Bob is an absolute vocal virtuoso.
John Pike
Singer? No. Songwriter, yep.