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Leamington Letters #33: Dissociated sensibilities

27/10/2012

9 Comments

 
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Like Bob, Michael Gray divides opinion. I know there are many who have issues with him. I am not one of those.

Ever since his seminal Song & Dance Man was published in 1972, Gray’s meticulous and exhaustive excavation of Bob’s work has been a fundamental source of information and inspiration for me. Yes, I have read Heylin and Ricks, Greil Marcus and Paul Williams, Robert Shelton and Howard Sounes, Andrew Muir and Stephen Scobie. I have shelves full of The Telegraph, The Bridge and Isis. But it is to Song & Dance Man and The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia that I return constantly to check a fact or a reference and then find myself, an hour or so later, reading a third or fourth entry and forgetting the nature of my original enquiry.

This is primarily because of the fascination of the subject matter of course; but also because Michael Gray writes very well. As I discovered last night, he speaks very well too.

I was first to arrive in the unprepossessing surroundings of the Bedworth Arts Centre, and embarrassed to be briefly mistaken for the man himself as I stood alone at the bar. By the scheduled start time, we were forty or so only, but if Michael was disappointed, he didn’t show it. With Derek Barker, the founder and editor of Isis, in attendance, he was probably content to settle for quality rather than quantity.

With a 15 minute break for conversation and sales of his Bob Dylan Encyclopedia Greatest Hits CD, Michael spoke for two hours on Bob Dylan and the Poetry of the Blues. (He did this without a note, and it occurred to me as I drove home that David Cameron had won the Tory leadership merely on the basis that he was capable of delivering a speech without recourse to either lectern or script. Ah well.)

Michael’s faultless performance is clearly the result of professional preparation and erudition, as well as a continuing passion for his subject. It is probably true that there was little which was unfamiliar to readers of chapters such as “Even post-structuralists oughta have the pre-war blues”, but his address and well-chosen musical and VT illustrations reminded us of Bob’s borrowings from, allusions to, and reinventions of, those pre-war blues. As Michael said (and I’m not clear if he was quoting or parsing), Leadbelly, Blind Lemon Jefferson et al “were not so much figures of the past, but continually present” in Dylan’s life.

So an interesting evening, an informative evening, an enjoyable evening. But what I loved most were those moments when Michael was suddenly revealed as a fan rather than an academic commentator: when a smile would break out as he noted in one context that “only Bob could write that”; or, when I watched his relish and animation as the audio played the outtake of Blind Willie McTell from the Infidels sessions.

(In which context, I appreciated his point about that song. It couldn’t be “Nobody can sing the blues like, for example, Robert Johnston”: fewer potential rhymes, you see. And I remembered an interview in which Bob was asked to explain the concept, in Man in the Long Black Coat on Oh Mercy, that “people don’t live or die/people just float”. Bob said he was just looking for a rhyme for “coat”.)

I also loved Michael's generosity of spirit, his patient willingness to engage with his audience individually as well as collectively, and his story of being accused of having a “dissociated sensibility” when, at the University of York, he argued the artificiality of the distinction between so-called high and popular culture.

It’s a badge I think he wears with pride. And, as a lover of both Keats and Dylan, so do I.

Today's listening: a passing reference to Planet Waves last night has sent me back to this excellent but oft-ignored album from 1974. Always did prefer Ceremonies of the Horsemen, the original title.

9 Comments
CJ
30/10/2012 03:36:19

Not sure how much relevance Eliot's characterisation of post-Metaphysical poetry has these days. In fact, not sure how much relevance Eliot has full stop. Although Bob would disagree, I'm sure.Sounds an interesting evening. And din't know about Ceremonies of the Horsemen!

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Max
1/11/2012 05:25:05

Hey! We're all modernists or post-modernists these days. As Will Self. Or better, read Umbrella. But One thought: I guess Eliot would approve of Bob's stealings. Talent borrows, genius steals. Or something like that.

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Bob
30/10/2012 05:26:56

The Diderot of Dylanology! love it.

Reply
Max
1/11/2012 05:26:07

Bob? Which Bob? And what're you doing on Facebook?

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Michael Gray link
31/10/2012 07:18:27

Your knowledge and appreciation of my work, and of my Bedworth presentation, made for an especially pleasurable read. And since my events are so seldom reviewed at all, a fine surprise too. Thank you.

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Max
1/11/2012 05:31:59

Thank you, Michael. I haven't forgotten about the need to document the CP engagement with the 66 tour. I will get in touch with some old comrades and see if you can put together something interesting. A bientot.

Reply
Max
1/11/2012 05:39:30

PS. I wonder if anyone has the second version of Song and Dance Man? I have the first edition (in first edition) and the wonderfully definitive Song and Dance Man III. Is it a weird parallel with the Wilburys?

Doc Martin
31/10/2012 08:07:59

I thought Alex Petridis's comment that Bob, with his country blues rockabilly (not exactly his words), appears to be trying to take popular music (probably not his term either) back to what it was before Bob changed everything, was noteworthy.

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Max
1/11/2012 05:34:45

Indeed it is. And so is your judgement that Tempest is at least a two bottle problem. See ya at the jazz in Wilde's. x

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     Max Smith

    European writer, radical, restaurateur and Red Sox fan. 70-something husband, father, step-father. and grandfather. Resident in Warwick, England.

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