u/TyroneSnodgrass

Dylan’s duets with Joan Baez are remarkable. Bob would handle the melody and Joan, with her mind boggling musicality, would create harmonies. But she soon found out that singing with her erstwhile vagabond was going to be more challenging than anyone would have expected. Dylan would sing the song one way in rehearsal, but then for the actual performance start singing it in a totally different way. In her inimitable style of communicating, Baez says this was in keeping with Dylan’s usual behavior, “he just enjoyed fucking people up.” So Joan had to adapt.

One of the first things Joan Baez improvised was keeping her eyes on Dylan’s lips. Since she already knew the words, she found that in this way singing in complete syncopation with Bob was possible. Dylan would catch her with her eyes focused on his lips and it was all he could do to keep from breaking out into laughter. This dynamic added a lot of spontaneity and fun to the performance. As they began to perform together more an more, another adjustment Baez found she could make was lowering her voice, especially on the more upbeat numbers. With Dylan spitting out some angry lyrics with the melody, she found singing some angelic soprano harmony didn’t sound right. So Joan would drop down an octave and imitate his delivery. This, too, tended to crack Dylan up and made for some priceless moments on stage.

As we all know, the two became very close. So after the release of BLONDE ON BLONDE Joan Baez accompanied Dylan on the tour of Great Britain which followed. Each show was split into two parts, the first an acoustic set with Dylan accompanying himself on guitar to present the new songs off the album. The second part was electric in which Dylan was accompanied by the musicians who would later become known as The Band. This is also well known so please bear with me because I’m nearing the point of the post.

Put yourself in Joan’s shoes. You’re standing back stage watching Dylan perform acoustic renditions of the BoB tracks, many of which have beautiful melodies, and never does Bob bring you onstage to put on a harmony or two. Not once. You do not forget that you brought Dylan on stage for the first time during your set at the Newport Folk Festival. Hardly anybody there even knew who he was, and it exposed him to a massive new audience. It was only three years ago. Now here’s a chance for Bob to return the favor and… nothing. How would that make you feel?

Dylan would later try to shed some light on the situation, saying sometimes you have to choose between being in love and being smart. This didn’t do much to justify his behavior. But personally, I think there was more to it than that. There was enormous pressure being applied on the young man by a large block of his fans not to pursue the musical direction he had chosen. I believe Dylan felt he had to be true to his art. Literally had to. I believe for Dylan there was no choice. He couldn’t bring Joan onstage because that would be conceding to fans who were against the change. Literally couldn’t. For him, those folky days of Newport were over. Bob Dylan stood between heaven and earth, and crossed the Rubicon.

When Joni Mitchell famously said Bob Dylan “borrowed” his voice from old hillbillies, I pretty much rejected the statement out of hand. The first word that comes to mind when considering Dylan’s voice is authentic. However, recently I’ve been finding some merit to her comment. Here’s why:

It started on a road trip listening to my Spotify playlist when a Ralph Stanley tune came on. My wife asked me, “why does this remind me of Bob Dylan?” Taken aback I mumbled something about Stanley being an influence. If there’s one person who qualifies as an old hillbilly it’s Ralph Stanley who hailed from the mountainous area of Virginia.

Later I recalled reading a quote of Johnny Cash saying the first time he heard Bob Dylan he thought it was an old Country singer, which is a polite way of saying old hillbilly singer. Then I thought about Dylan’s “Talking New York” in which the singer relates taking the stage at a Greenwich Village open mic event, only to have the moderator tell him in no uncertain terms not to come back: “You sound like a hillbilly!” This line would invariably reduce my brother and me to stitches the summer we wore out BOB DYLAN. We’d be like, what a jerk, this guy! Now I’m wondering, was the moderator right? Was Joni Mitchell right?

People are always trying to put these two records into a trilogy, but neither BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME or JOHN WESLEY HARDING belongs with them, —not for any inherent weaknesses, BIABH and JWH are just two very different kinds of albums. As much as Dylan professes to be drawn to trilogy, I think his discography demonstrates much more a capability for combinations, one-two punches that send you to the canvas hard. First it was FREEWHEELIN’ and THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’; next of course HIW61R and BoB; ten years later BLOOD ON THE TRACKS and DESIRE; and topping it off with LOVE AND THEFT and MODERN TIMES. All devastating combinations.

Recently while reading an article on the Expecting Rain site, I learned something that links HW61R and BoB with LAT and MT. The latter are well known for the transparent way Dylan based many of the tracks on legendary delta blues songwriting, in some cases keeping the original titles. What I found so intriguing about this article, though, was its clear demonstrations that HW61R and BoB songs are also imbedded with delta blues. Two examples:

From a Buick Six
Milk Cow Blues — Sleepy John Estes (1930)

I got this graveyard angel yunno she keeps
my kids
But my soulful mama yunno she keeps me hid

Now ask sweet mama let me be your kid
She says I might get buggies I couldn’t keep it hid

Pledging My Time
Come On In My Kitchen — Robert Johnson (1936)

Well, they sent for the ambulance
And one was sent
Somebody got lucky
But it was an accident
Now I’m pledging my time to you
Hopin’ you’ll come through, too

Ah, the woman I love took from my best friend
Some joker got lucky stole her back again
You better come on in my kitchen
Baby, it's goin' to be rainin' outdoors