Touring is Dylan’s destiny
Published 9:00 pm Thursday, March 3, 2005
It was nearly 34 years ago that Bob Dylan picked up $50 for playing harmonica on Harry Belafonte’s “Midnight Special.”
This week, he comes to Seattle as a true music legend in his fourth decade of captivating audiences with unique, if imperfect, vocals and a vast catalog of eloquent and meaningful lyrics.
Dylan, 63, kicks off a 34-show, 13-city tour with three performances at the Paramount Theater on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. All three shows are sold out.
Country legend Merle Haggard and 27-year-old folk music newcomer Amos Lee open.
Dylan is one of the few remaining icons of an era that marked pop music’s high point in significance and influence.
He began his career by writing and recording seminal tracks that immediately were bigger hits for others than for himself, including “Blowin’ in the Wind,” which Peter, Paul &Mary took to No. 2 on the charts, and “Mr. Tambourine Man,” with which The Byrds flew to No. 1.
But it wasn’t long before he emerged with his own breakout albums, “Bringing it All Back Home,” “Highway 61 Revisited” and “Blonde on Blonde.”
The mid-’60s were a quick ride, though, which took a turn in 1966 when Dylan was in a motorcycle accident.
He re-emerged with a country twist with the albums, “John Wesley Harding” and “Nashville Skyline.”
And Dylan’s tales of heartbreak after his divorce led to another classic, 1975’s “Blood on the Tracks,” and “Desire” the following year.
The quarter of a century since has been a roller coaster of some low lows in the 1980s and yet another re-emergence in the 1990s.
He won a Grammy for “World Gone Wrong” in 1994, and three Grammys in 1997 with “Time Out of Mind,” which featured another vocal turn for Dylan with a more dark and gruff sound. Another Grammy had his name on it for “Love and Theft” in 2001.
He made headlines with his pen yet again recently, but this time his words weren’t set to music.
Dylan’s first installment of memoirs, “Chronicles, Vol. One,” was released in October to enthusiastic reviews. It has spent weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. But, rest assured this new journey isn’t a book tour. The famously reclusive Dylan is limiting, if not prohibiting, publicity around the show.
And its title, “The Bob Dylan Show,” seems like a not-so-tongue-in-cheek nod to his image of himself as a performer rather than a philosopher.
“I think of myself more as a song-and-dance man, you know?” he once said.
He told Ed Bradley on “60 Minutes” in December that he keeps performing because it’s his destiny.
“I made a bargain with it, you know, a long time ago,” Dylan said, “and I’m holding up my end.”
Associated Press
Bob Dylan performs at the Newport Folk Festival in Newport, R.I., in 2002.
