By Dan Kennedy • The press, politics, technology, culture and other passions

Happy 70th birthday, Bob Dylan

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7l6sBoPor4?rel=0&w=500&h=390]
He means more to me now than ever. And who would have thought 25 years ago that he’d be so vital and productive in his 50s and 60s?

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11 Comments

  1. happy birthday bob!

  2. Paul Bass

    Can’t wait for his upcoming Hindu phase.

    • Dan Kennedy

      @Paul: I hear he’s making a Hank Williams tribute album. Was Hank a Hindu? Dylan did a great cover of “I Can’t Get You Off of My Mind” a few years back on an album called “Timeless.”

  3. I believe in Zimmerman!

    “May your heart always be joyful
    And may your sung always be sung
    May you stay forever young…”

    Click my url for two Dylan related posts & drawings I did in celebration of his last birthday.

  4. For an alternative, anti-corporate, folk left critical evaluation of 2008 Columbia University Pulitzer Prize winner Dylan’s post-1966 artistic work, Media Nation readers might be interested in checking out the lyrics to the “Poet of PBS” public domain folk song of a few years ago, at the following link. Coincidentally, Dylan is apparently still planning to perform in his 70th year in Tel Aviv in June 2011–despite calls by Palestinian solidarity activists and global BDS anti-war campaign activists for Dylan to support the anti-apartheid cultural boycott of Apartheid Israel (in the same way that Elvis Costello did) by canceling his planned Tel Aviv concert.
    http://wherechangeobama.blogspot.com/2011/05/70th-birthday-folk-song-for-columbia.html

  5. Mike Benedict

    That guy’s only 70?!?

  6. My then-teenage daughter discovered Dylan a couple of years ago and played lots of our old albums, which was wonderful – so we went and saw him in Manchester NH, which was god-awful.

    It was one of the worse concerts I’ve ever seen; he poked a keyboard and grunted and muimbled his way through a dozen interchangeable moments of tedious noise, turned to mush by a second-rate band and repetitive scoring. Nobody had the slightest idea which song was which – and I’m not kidding. Lay Lady Lay, Blowing in the Wind or Boots of Spanish Leather? Your guess was as good as mine.

    It wasn’t just the Verizon Center acoustics, either. Elvis Costello opened as a one-man act and was great: crystal voice, great guitar playing, intriguing song choice. If Dylan had done that, it would have been astonishing. Alas …

  7. M.J.Stevenson

    After his legendary Warhol “Screen Test” Bob asked for and received an “Elvis” (he didn’t like the painting) from Andy. He wanted to be paid for showing up at The Factory.

    He traded it away and it later sold for 750k. It’s probably worth 15+ million now. Not a good move.

    • Dan Kennedy

      @M.J.: Poor Zimmy! Hope he’s got enough left to buy food.

  8. L.K. Collins

    I wonder if he is now using softer, more geriatric-friendly marbles in his mouth?

  9. Mike Rice

    Where have all the years gone? As I’m not that far behind Dylan in age, perhaps I should start thinking about picking out a shroud.

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