When or perhaps just before Bob Dylan turns 80 on May 24, Salut! Live will publish a special article by the noted Anglo-Canadian journalist Bill Taylor, a good friend, former colleague and fellow Sunderland supporter.
Since he attended the Newcastle upon Tyne gig of the 1966 world tour on which Dylan aroused equal measures of outrage and acclaim for "going electric", and is barring childhood a lifelong fan, Bill is well placed to take responsibility for such a piece.
And he has done his subject full justice.
Ahead of that, readers with with their own thoughts on the "rock 'n roll beatnik bard" of Minnesota are warmly invited to offer their contributions, as articles or comments. Comments are easy – just post them below – and articles can be sent to Salut! Live at this e-mail address.
A few short items will also appear here in the build-up to the birthday, a sort of Cover Story sub-series presenting great Dylan songs that others have done, according to taste, as well as or better or worse than the original.
I'll kick it off as Cover Story No 65 and Dylan Neat or Dylan Beat No 1 with his epic 11-minute Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.
This demonstrates Dylan at the peak of his poetic powers. It first appeared on his double album Blonde on Blonde, released a month after Bill Taylor listened and watch in awe at the Newcastle Odeon.
Although I was an ardent admirer of the acoustic Dylan, I loved the album and treasured its place in my record collection though only until I was obliged to use it to settle a debt with Mike Amos, then my chief reporter at the Bishop Auckland office of the Darlington Evening Despatch.
Our old friend Wikipedia tells us: "Many critics have noted the similarity of 'Lowlands' to 'Lownds', the name of Dylan's wife Sara, and Dylan biographer Robert Shelton wrote that Sad Eyed Lady was a 'wedding song' for Sara Lownds, whom Dylan had married just three months earlier."
The scene and the tone are set by the stunning opening lines:
With your mercury mouth in the missionary times
And your eyes like smoke and your prayers like rhymes
And your silver cross, and your voice like chimes
Oh, who do they think could bury you?
At the time, Dylan considered it the best song he had written. I'd certainly put it among the top six or seven. And having just listened again to his own version, I was as enthused as when I first heard it 50-odd years ago. It is a wonderful example of music whatever the genre and whether we call it folk-rock or rock or something else entirely does not trouble me at all.
In journalism, I often say that however well written a piece may be, a fresh pair of eyes can invariably improve it, even if the writer feels indignant at the least interference.
And so with music. Perfection in the delivery of Sad Eyed Lady comes, for me, in the form of another of Dylan's past lovers.
Joan Baez's rich, expressive voice has always been suited to Dylan songs (except, oddly enough, in duets I have heard where her purity and his edge seem to clash). Others will disagree. Baez is not to everyone's taste. But this is one of my all-time favourite musical moments (if a track lasting so long can be described in such a way). I have overlooked it in the past but this would be on any Desert Island Discs choice I would now compile.
See also:
* an evening with Joan Baez in Marseille
** Bob Dylan: The Ballad of the Gliding Swan *** Use the Salut! Live Amazon link to buy Joan Baez's album Any Day Now here and/or Dylan's Blonde on Blonde here. Both feature this song.
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