Would you say that to Bob Dylan?

[Tango]

Apparently Joni Mitchell would. Buckle your seat beats, cause Joni's on a tear (again)!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36741933/ns/entertainment-music/

Mitchell: Dylan’s a ‘fake’

‘Bob is a deception,’ musician tells L.A. Times

by Melinda Newman



http://musicsojourn.com/AR/Folk/img/m/MitchellJoni/PI/JoniMitchell_Wolman_300.jpg

born November 7, 1943

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2010/04/joni-mitchell-on-bob-dylan-hes-a-plagiarist-his-name-is-fake-his-voice-is-fake.html

[TrueFaith77]

Geniuses are allowed to talk that way about other geniuses.

[vermicious knid]

Roger Ebert did a review of some movie he was in (1/2 star awarded - half of a single star!) , and he seemed completely unimpressed with the man also. It's kind of funny, and very astute.




Bob Dylan idolatry is one of the enduring secular religions of our day. Those who worship him are inexhaustible in their fervor, and every enigmatic syllable of the great poet is cherished and analyzed as if somehow he conceals profound truths in his lyrics, and if we could only decrypt them, they would be the solution to--I dunno, maybe everything.
.
.

I have always felt it ungenerous to have the answer but wrap it in enigmas. When Woody Guthrie, the great man's inspiration, sings a song, you know what it is about. Perhaps Dylan's genius is to take simple ideas and make them impenetrable. Since he cannot really sing, there is the assumption that he cannot be performing to entertain us, and that therefore there must be a deeper purpose.
.
.

That Dylan still exerts a mystical appeal, there can be no doubt. When "Masked and Anonymous" premiered at Sundance 2003, there was a standing ovation when the poet entered the room. People continued to stand during the film, in order to leave, and the auditorium was half empty when the closing credits played to thoughtful silence.
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20030815/REVIEWS/308150303/1023

[LukeA]

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I don't know.. check out his acting chops at :50. Who else could make "I'd hit that" so pensive & evocative?

[LikeAWillow]

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/IfEcrJfJtxM&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/IfEcrJfJtxM&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

I don't know.. check out his acting chops at :50. Who else could make "I'd hit that" so pensive & evocative?

Why would you do this to me? ^

On topic- I love Joni. She's one of three artists whom I would be willing to travel across the country for, and Bob Dylan isn't one of the other two. I can't help but read this as jealous and resentful, though. "My name's less not Joni than his name is not Bob..."

... seriously, Roberta, seriously? I think that she's upset about a ton of double standards she's faced in her career, and I think that's fair. What I don't think, though, is that implying Dylan is talent-less is going to give her the recognition she deserves.

[bluefox4000]

I don't like either of these artists at all......but that is sour grapes on Joni's part. Oh well.

Mick

[Miss Vicky]

Wow. What a... No, I won't say it. You fill in the blank.

I never much cared for her music anyway, but this is just beyond simple disrespect.

[LikeAWillow]

Firstly, I love Bob wholeheartedly but you can't dismiss what she says altogether, in many ways he is a fraud. Since he first emerged in Greenwich Village he's been telling tall tales about himself. He's an enigma for sure, no one knows the real Bob, he's invented his own mythology - but that's part of what makes him great. The film I'm Not There sums it up pretty well. And a lot of his early songs are pretty much reworks of old traditional songs but really that's happened throughout the history of music, it's nothing new.
Also, Joni and Bob used to be friends, she joined him on the Rolling Thunder Revue tour in the 1970s, as recently as 1999 called him her favourite lyricist. And note, nowhere in that quote does she call him untalented.
But the way she says it does come across very bitter, and there's probably some truth in it that she feels she hasn't had her dues (in fact there's a lot of truth to that) but I can't help but think there's also something personal to this too.

I thought someone was going to call me on that :) I went back and forth on whether to post it or not, and obviously I decided to go ahead. To me, that's what saying that someone is a plagiarist without giving examples is. Without defining the word to an incident "He plagiarized in his earlier material when he was doing re-workings, etc," you have to read it as in reference to his work as a whole.

[vermicious knid]

What was it that Stevie said one time about Joni? She said something like Joni is bitter because her career hasn't gone the way she wanted it to.

[TrueFaith77]

Roger Ebert did a review of some movie he was in (1/2 star awarded - half of a single star!) , and he seemed completely unimpressed with the man also. It's kind of funny, and very astute.




Bob Dylan idolatry is one of the enduring secular religions of our day. Those who worship him are inexhaustible in their fervor, and every enigmatic syllable of the great poet is cherished and analyzed as if somehow he conceals profound truths in his lyrics, and if we could only decrypt them, they would be the solution to--I dunno, maybe everything.
.
.

I have always felt it ungenerous to have the answer but wrap it in enigmas. When Woody Guthrie, the great man's inspiration, sings a song, you know what it is about. Perhaps Dylan's genius is to take simple ideas and make them impenetrable. Since he cannot really sing, there is the assumption that he cannot be performing to entertain us, and that therefore there must be a deeper purpose.
.
.

That Dylan still exerts a mystical appeal, there can be no doubt. When "Masked and Anonymous" premiered at Sundance 2003, there was a standing ovation when the poet entered the room. People continued to stand during the film, in order to leave, and the auditorium was half empty when the closing credits played to thoughtful silence.
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20030815/REVIEWS/308150303/1023


Roger Ebert: wrong... about everything.