Comrades From The North
Hello once again and a big thanks for staying with us on our journey through all things Dylan and beyond. We hope that any first time subscribers out there enjoy this issue and those to come. As we have said before you won't agree with everything you read in The Bridge, indeed you may violently disagree at times. But that's how it should be. We aim to achieve a mix of factual articles balanced by others which develop propositions or project informed opinions which may well fuel further debate. So long as they are well-written, valid, accurate and stimulating pieces that is that. So let us know what you think.By the time this issue reaches you, Dylan will be deep into his tour of North America which includes his most extensive foray into the Canadian reaches yet, eleven shows in all. It's been a decent break from touring and lets hope Dylan comes back and gives all of you who plan to make a show or two something to remember.
Not that our man was idle during this extended break! He has been taking part in the shooting of a motion picture called Masked & Anonymous. Once again Dylan is being cast as a (faded) musician, in this instance one who is brought out of jail to play a swan-song charity concert. Dylan's character is called Jack Fate. As to the fateof this picture, let's hope it fares better than the last one, Hearts of Fire.
Dylan has further cemented his movie connections by penning a new song for the motion picture Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. The song, Waitin' For You, is based on a waltz theme and no doubt the Dylan industry will be hoping for similar award-laden success as he had with Things Have Changed. There are also reports of Dylan working on another soundtrack ditty, this time for the civil war picture Gods and Generals. They say things come in threes!
It is sad to relate the passing of Alan Lomax in July. He effectively introduced a myriad of blues and folk-blues artists to the world through his dedicated field recording programmes. Without the work of Lomax, the world may never have heard the likes of Blind Willie McTell, Leadbelly, Muddy Waters, Son House, Woody Gutthrie and countless others. And music as we know and love it may have been very different. Many of today's artists owe a deep debt to the pioneering work of Lomax, not the least of which is Bob Dylan.
There is a rumour that Charlie Sexton is about to leave the band at the end of the current tour and be replaced by Dave Alvin who did in fact play on two songs during 31 August show!
On October 23rd the Bootleg Series Volume 5 is due to be released and it will be a two CD live set. No more details are to hand.
We apologise for this issue being late but we decided for the sake of tidiness, to wait for the end of current touring so that all of the set lists could be included.
So now it's time to end this prologue and enjoy what is left of the British summer. Soon the summer days and summer nights will be gonebut there'll be something going on in your very own Bridge.
May you climb on every rung.
Mike and John