Interview with Seth Rogovoy, author of "Bob Dylan: Prophet, Mystic, Poet" (Part Two)

(Scribner)

How did you get into Dylan ? What do you get out of listening to Dylan?

It’s funny, I’m pretty sure when I first got into rock music, when I was about 12 or so, and I first heard Bob Dylan -- my mother had a copy of Bringing It All Back Home, I don’t think I liked him! I think the sound was a little too harsh and jarring for me at a time when I preferred smoother, softer-sounding singer-songwriters like Cat Stevens, John Denver, and James Taylor.

I was in a record store in Pennsylvania, where I was tagging along with my father on a business trip, in early 1974, and I saw a new album by Bob Dylan called Planet Waves. I bought it on a whim. I loved it immediately, and in retrospect it makes sense why -- it was a smoother-sounding album, with the easygoing funk of the Band backing Dylan, with songs that were easy to play along with on guitar and mandolin, which I loved to do.

I was hooked. And what a great time to be hooked on Dylan! Remember that in the course of the next two years, new releases including the live album Before the Flood, which really introduced me to the Band as their own unit, Blood on the Tracks, the first official release of The Basement Tapes, and then of course Desire and the Rolling Thunder Revue. It was arguably Dylan’s richest, most fertile period creatively since the mid-sixties, and I was getting it all in real time, while simultaneously working my way back by playing catch-up with all the records I’d missed.

As far as what I got out of listening to Dylan, it’s hard to say, but I’m sure on a basic level, at the very time when I was an adolescent going through typical adolescent stuff, I related to a lot of the anger and sense of betrayal and confusion in his work (especially at that time). There was still a sense of him as something of an outlaw -- certainly musically, at a time when my peers were listening to Peter Frampton, Fleetwood Mac, and Aerosmith, it was something of a rebellious act to fly the flag of Dylan.

And as a budding singer-guitarist myself, who took easily to imitating Dylan’s voice, it was great fun to get way inside his songs and find the meaning and emotion through performance.

Do you have any favorite Dylan songs or albums, or a favorite "era" ?

That’s such a tough question, and no matter how I answer I’ll turn around and wish I’d said something else as soon as I read this in print. I guess in terms of a favorite era it’d have to be the 1970s, since, as I’ve explained, that was the time I got on the train and began living through it personally and emotionally. I mean, I can appreciate the brilliance of his early protest work and the astonishing electric trilogy in the mid-sixties, and his more recent, late-career work rewards repeated listening. But for me I don’t think you can top 1974 through, say, 1978 or so.

As for favorite albums or songs, those always change. Lately I’ve been grooving to “Dreamin’ of You” from Tell-Tale Signs. That’s an incredible song, probably rates with his near-best. I’ve always been partial to “Idiot Wind,” even before I discovered that the title phrase comes from a Talmudic dictum about the “wind of idiocy.” I just love the song’s blend of raw emotion and its epic sweep. So maybe Blood on the Tracks is my favorite album, although for pure feel-good power, I don’t think you can beat Before the Flood. Crank that up and you’re marching off to follow the prophet.

And to be a totally obscure snob about it? There’s an unofficial recording of a session, or a few sessions, at Rundown Studios that took place between the albums Saved and Shot of Love, much of which is just instrumental noodling, with a few actual songs with lyrics or partial lyrics and wordless vocals, which I find totally fascinating, as it offers a real glimpse into Dylan’s creative process. That could well be my favorite Bob Dylan album.

How often have you seen Dylan in concert ? When was the first time ?

I have no idea how many times I’ve seen Dylan live. Probably more than 50 times and less than 100. I didn’t actually see him first, unfortunately, until the 1978 tour, when a friend got me tickets to see him at the old Boston Garden. As I recall the sound was terrible and echoey, and of course, aesthetically, this was a disappointing introduction to live Bob Dylan (you’ll recall this was the so-called Las Vegas or Disco tour, but you know it really wasn’t either). To think I might have caught him in 1974 or on Rolling Thunder.

I began seeing him more regularly beginning with his 1981, post-Shot of Love tour. He still had a big band and backup singers, but he had Al Kooper on keyboards and a more diverse sound. The 1980s were frustrating for Dylan fans. I saw him with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and I recall that being a great show.

Right around the time the Never Ending Tour began was when I became a nearly full-time rock critic, so I saw him with G.E. Smith and Kenny Aaronson, and pretty much caught him nearly every year, often several times a year, throughout the late 1980s, the 1990s, and into the 2000s. So that included some of the most exciting concerts ever -- and some of the most dismal, when he was hiding inside a hooded sweatshirt seemingly wanting to be anywhere but onstage.

But there were plenty of great shows -- I saw several with that all-time great lineup featuring Larry Campbell and Charlie Sexton. I took my kids to see him and he played their favorite song that night, “Everything Is Broken,” on a tour when he almost never played that song (thanks, Bob). My son is still younger than I was when I first saw Dylan, and he must have seen him nearly a dozen times already.

You've played Dylan songs in public for many years - when did it start, and do you still get the opportunity ?

I vividly remember my very first solo performance of any song anywhere. I was 15 years old at summer camp, and our camp invited all the other camps over for a summer music festival. And I made my debut before a thousand or so people singing “Tangled Up in Blue.” I know I had an out-of-body experience that night.

I continued that sort of thing on and off for years. We snuck a version of “Blowin’ in the Wind” into our senior high school play so I could perform a Dylan tune. I played college coffeehouses all the time, and when I lived in Israel I played in cafes and on the street, and did a lot of Dylan material.

I stopped doing it for a long time -- probably coinciding with my career as a rock critic, when I thought it best not to perform. But when that ceased to be my main gig, I felt free to get back onstage, plus my son-- who is a fantastic drummer -- and I began playing music together, and it’s so much fun playing with him. So I eased back onto the stage a few years ago, and got connected to the region’s annual Dylan tributes that occur every year around his birthday, in addition to playing selected open mike nights, etc.

(Photo: Scott Barrow)

What are your other interests beside Dylan ?

I’m a big reader and a huge fan of contemporary literary fiction. And hardly a night goes by that I don’t see a movie on DVD or in the theater, and I review films online and for a local cinema’s website. I’m a news junkie and read way too many newspapers and magazines.

In terms of other music, I like plenty of stuff -- a lot of obvious stuff that goes along with liking Bob Dylan, including Joni Mitchell, Lou Reed, Leonard Cohen, and Randy Newman. But I also love the Beatles and David Bowie and Radiohead. And Beethoven and Stravinsky and Brian Eno and David Lang and Steve Reich and John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman and John Zorn. I wrote a book about klezmer, but I don’t listen much to that anymore.

What do you think about Dylan's most recent release, Christmas In The Heart, in the context of Prophet, Mystic, Poet ?

My glib answer to the question, “well how do you explain Dylan recording a Christmas album” is, “He already recorded an Easter album, so why not a Christmas album?”

But seriously, Christmas in the Heart totally fits in the context of where Dylan has been musically the last 20 years -- or the last 40 years -- or so. There’s a great tradition of American popular musicians from all walks of life and backgrounds making Christmas albums, and it bears little to no relationship with any religious tradition. Christmas music is a veritable genre of American popular music unto itself, and it totally makes sense that at this stage in career, Dylan -- who is clearly mining the tradition of American popular music, especially pre-rock styles - would want to try his hand at that. Whether or not he has succeeded on musical or aesthetic grounds is in the ear of the beholder.

 To find some hidden message about Dylan’s religious faith in the fact that he recorded an album of seasonal favorites, few if any of which are about Jesus, is really stretching it. And plenty of other Jewish artists have made Christmas albums and even written Christmas songs, most notably Irving Berlin, who of course wrote “White Christmas.”

I hope Dylan’s Christmas album sells millions of copies, because it’s his first album explicitly recorded as a charity benefit, with all the proceeds going to hunger organizations. Unfortunately, it’s probably one of if not his worst album ever, so it probably won’t sell too many copies.

As I write at the outset, BOB DYLAN: Prophet, Mystic, Poet sets out to make no claims about Bob Dylan’s past or present religious beliefs or self-identification.

 What do you hope people get out of Prophet, Mystic, Poet ?

 I hope that what I do show in BOB DYLAN: Prophet, Mystic, Poet is that the appreciation of Bob Dylan’s life and music can be greatly enhanced by seeing it in the context of the Jewish prophetic tradition, in terms of that tradition’s influence on Dylan and Dylan’s engagement, conscious or otherwise, with that tradition. That engagement is what in large part gives Dylan’s work the heft, the foundation, that puts it leagues above anyone else working in his genre.

To ignore or turn a blind eye toward Dylan’s engagement with Jewish themes, concepts, and texts in his life and work is to miss out on one of the most important aspects of that work, one that makes it resonate far beyond the final chords of “Like a Rolling Stone,” one that fuels anthems like “Blowin’ in the Wind” and hymns such as “Forever Young” and prayers including “If Not for You” and laments such as “Not Dark Yet.”

And as a side note, I think it would be great if  BOB DYLAN: Prophet, Mystic, Poet  also made a few people pick up the Prophets and read them. Besides enhancing one’s appreciation of Bob Dylan, which it inevitably will, reading the Prophets is to engage some of the most profound wisdom literature in human history. Their voices speak with alarming immediacy and their messages are so relevant and applicable to our lives. I’ve already heard from some people that the book has had this effect on them, and while I never had that in mind while writing it, I think it would be fantastic if some readers were turned onto that powerful tradition, whether it be seen as literary, poetic, or religious.

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