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| Yes | 74% | 422 votes | Total: 567 votes | |
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Add to FavoritesWhen I saw this title I knew I had to write on this one, considering, the powers that be, are trying to sell us into donating money to PBS so we can watch the master at work. Bob Dylan was considered to be a prominent folk singer of his time, but he hated being labeled as such. His words transcend a certain mystical quality that has given people something to believe in for many, many years.
He spoke of what was going on in the turbulent, love-peace, hippie, pot smoking, love the one you're with 60's. He spoke of ending hate, and war for better things such as love and peace. Yes, he was a folk singer; he was prolific for the teenagers, and young adults of that time. His words spoke louder than his actual singing.
By the time I was born, I was a mere baby when the whole love-peace, hippie world domination thing was happening, so forgive me if I don't truly understand the entire "folk singer" jargon thing. I completely agree that Bob Dylan was a folk singer, and yes he was saying what people were feeling, and he was way ahead of his time. He was a true poet, who wanted to spread the word of all the terrible things that were happening in the 60's and the 70's such as the Vietnam War.
After watching some of the PBS special on Bob Dylan I realized that Bob Dylan yes, the folk singer, I'm just going to come out and say it, he couldn't sing. In fact, Bob sounded quite awful, back in his day. Bob looked stoned and he sounded stoned. I do believe the audience they had watching him sing was amazingly stoned also. In fact, to tune in, turn on and actual be able to sit there for a good amount of time to watch Bob one would have had to glue me to the chair, and given me a major sedative.
Several years ago, he appeared on some major awards show and guess what Bob was still stoned. My husband and I only understood one word of what he said. How did anybody understand him back in the sixties? Bob wrote great, meaningful lyrics, but people had to get the album sleeve and read the lyrics to be able to understand them. Bob had a powerful message he was sending to people around the world, and yes people needed to know back in the sixties that war was not the answer. But, don't you think Bob had a bit of a drug dependency problem?
Maybe he should have been thrown in a drug rehab program, to clear up the mumble-speak thing he had going on. So, yes I agree that Bob Dylan was a folk singer; he was a poet who did something none else at that time did. He spoke the truth. Bob spoke for a nation under siege from within. Back in the sixties with the Vietnam War waging continents away, Americans were upset that our army was sent worlds away to fight an internal war that most people felt we shouldn't have been there.
Bob Dylan was a folk singer, a poet trying to get his message across in a gentle, non-violent way. Yes, I agree he was a folk singer, a true hero in his time. But, it does make one think that because he was doing what appeared to be a lot of drugs and several different kinds, doesn't that mean he was using chemicals that clouded his vision? Or did the drugs enhance his visionary stance on world events?
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No
The person at the top of the list stating that Bob Dylan is NOT a folk singer would be Dylan himself. Anyone who classifies Bob Dylan as a folk singer is clearly not a fan of Bob Dylan. The very thing that came out of his music, that time, is that labels are damning and restrictive.
The last time I saw Dylan (of the dozen or more times I've seen him), he came out in Johnny Cash black attire and lit into set after set. I watched the faces on the crowd in the Atlantic City room. Rick Nelson's Garden Party echoed in my head. As I looked at the faces of the people, I heard Nelson's words: "They didn't hear the music. We didn't look the same."
During that concert, Bob was on a country binge...not Wilbury, not renegade, not railing, just some pure country. Seriously not my cup of tea, but as a fan of Dylan, I loved it. He can pull it all off. The only other artist who falls into that genre is Paul Simon. By the end of the night, Dylan had played two songs, one of them "I Shall Be Released" which I'm positive no one recognized.
My first Dylan concert came after years of reading his writings and hearing what the outside world deems as folk music. He was surrounded by what I call "do whop" girls or his version of Ray Charles' Rayettes. He was going through is Born-again-Bob phase.
That is the beauty of the body of music that belongs to Dylan. It transcends genres. He uses his music to speak to stages in his life. He's no different than the rest of us-except that he has this wonderful talent for putting into words what so many of us are thinking as we go through those changes in our lives.
Folk music is certainly a facet, a huge facet. People were annoyed during his 60 Minutes interview in which Ed Bradley asked him if he would be capable of writing Blowin' in the Wind Again. He said he really didn't think so. People were devatstated. Why? They called him the voice of a generation. Again, that's a label WE gave him, not one he wears well. And from a personal standpoint, I think of him as the voice of a generation-or at least me-the ever-changing me. As I've gone through stages my life, I've found a Dylan song to correspond. As a teen, Masters of War fit, as did Positively Fourth Street. During the Born-again Bob stage, I was in my 20s, and I had lots of question. Gotta Serve Somebody fit the bill. Now I'm coming back to a classic as I'm approaching 50-"I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now." Dylan fan, folk fan, whatever, I know a lot of people my age who relate to this sentiment.
He's a man of music. Good music. You can't/shouldn't label music. You either like it or you don't. You don't need to call it something. That's for the money makers who produce the music, not the artists who create it.
All that said, there is one thing Bob Dylan is that he has never been recognized for: a poet. When the Nobel committee convenes, Dylan's name comes up again and again. Still, they stay what he does are lyrics, so don't qualify. I would argue that the words Bob Dylan has written had moved more people than the poets given the Nobel prize. So, folk singer, no, poet/writer extroidinaire, yes.
Learn more about this author, Kim Remesch.
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