Flagging Down The Double Es Newsletter | TANGLED UP IN BLUE - RAY PADGETT

Now It Goes Like This: "Tangled Up in Blue"

Tracking the song's live arrangements from 1975 through 2018

RAY PADGETT JAN 25 ∙ PREVIEW

Photo by Guido Harari

So far, two of the three songs for which I’ve done Now It Goes Like Thispieces—the series where I track a single song’s live arrangements—come from Blood on the Tracks. And I swear I’ll branch out again eventually, but, with the album’s 50th anniversary upon us, I thought I’d do one more. The big kahuna. The song he’s performed 1,725 times. “Tangled Up in Blue.”

Since Bob Dylan first performed it in 1975, on a tour also turning 50 this year, “Tangled” has borne a lot of different arrangements. Below, I go chronologically through them all.

Well, “all” depends on your definition. There are so many performances that I am focusing on major rearrangements. Not, like, he played it in the key of A one night and in the key of B the next, or he added a harmonica solo. Dramatic new musical arrangements that turn the song inside out. Which he did a lot.

read on here . . .

Bob Dylan - Tangled Up In Blue (Official version)

Flagging Down The Double E’ - RAY PADGETT Interview with Paul Till cover artist for Bob Dylan Blood on The Tracks (50 years old)

Photographer Paul Till Tells the Story Behind the 'Blood on the Tracks' Cover

Plus a tour through four more decades of Till's live Bob Dylan photos

RAY PADGETT

Blood on the Tracks came out 50 years ago today (sic). For ages, I thought the cover image was a painting. Judging from chatter I’ve seen online, I’m not the only one. But it isn’t. It’s a photo, heavily manipulated, taken at the Toronto stop of Bob Dylan’s tour with The Band the year before (I noted it in the Toronto entry of my Tour ‘74 series last year).

The photographer, and photo-manipulator, was Paul Till. At the time he was a 20-year-old college dropout who mailed the Dylan office his concert photo on a whim. Months later, he got a letter back. It began, “Dear Paul, Your photograph of Bob Dylan has been chosen for use on Bob’s next album cover…” (see actual letter below).

Today, 50 years later, Till shares on an in-depth look at how that photograph and album cover came about, and tells me about some other photos he’s taken of Dylan in concert over the years, several of which were also licensed for official Dylan products (songbooks, Bootleg Series installments, etc). He also shares some Dylan photos that haven’t been seen before.

Paul Till

read on here . . . .

Dylan of The Day | Ray Padgett’s Flagging Down The Double E’s Newsletter | Bobby plays Harmonica

Breaking Down Bob Dylan's Harmonica Solos

Analysing 23 different harp solos from a peak Never Ending Tour era

RAY PADGETT OCT 21 ∙ PREVIEW

Listening to today’s subscriber-requested show in Denver, October 21 2001 (thanks Charles!), inspired me to finish a project I started months ago before getting sidetracked.

Bob Dylan goes through periods where he plays a lot of harmonica, and periods where he plays little to none. For most of the Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour, he was in the latter mode; as I chronicled in my tour-harp report, most nights the best you could hope for was, maybe, a solo in “Every Grain of Sand.” But now the pendulum has swung back. As I’m writing this intro on October 11, last night he played harmonica on eight different songs. A Rough and Rowdy record, I think.

He was in that same harp-happy mode in Fall 2001, on a US tour with what some consider his greatest Never Ending Tour band: Larry Campbell, Charlie Sexton, David Kemper, and, of course, Tony Garnier. Over the course of those two months, he played harmonica on 23 different songs. I don’t mean he played it just 23 times; I mean he picked 23 different songs to play harp on. Some just once, some night after night.

Many tours, the designated “harp songs” are fairly well defined, like those Rough and Rowdy “Every Grain”s. But during this Fall-‘01 era, he was just whipping it out (the harmonica, that is) whenever inspiration struck, whatever song they happened to be playing at the time. They played “Visions of Johanna” nine times, but he only added a harp solo once. That’s nothing compared to “Like a Rolling Stone,” a song he played 34 times harp-less, but then, the 35th time: bam, harmonica.

So today I wanted to celebrate one of Dylan’s wildest harmonica tours by showcasing every different song he played it on over those two months in Fall 2001. He played it on fast songs, slow songs, new songs, old songs, acoustic songs, electric songs. No song was safe from an impromptu harmonica solo. (One thing they have in common though: In every case, he used the solo to conclude the song.)

Below find a brief overview of each song, with an embed of a sample solo. I’ve posted a download of the full songs at the end, if you want to hear the full performances rather than what sounds like a Dylan bootleg accidentally set to Whoops: All Harmonica mode. (Though, if you do want that energy, just wait ’til the medley…)

read the entries here

Now that’s FAST! BOB DYLAN Last Night in Prague! | Flagging Down The Double E’s | RAY PADGETT

Tonight in Prague (by Matthew Ingate)

2024-10-04, O2 Universum, Prague, Czech Republic

RAY PADGETT OCT 4

Photo by Hermann Rechberger

A few hours ago, Bob Dylan’s Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour resumed in Prague, six months after we last saw it (and six months after many of us—present company included—assumed it was done for good).

But, judging from opening night, the Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour of Fall 2024 looks quite a bit different than it did before its Outlaw-imposed hiatus. New songs. New band members. Rougher and rowdier.

Matthew Ingate was on the scene and reports in with astonishing speed.

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Note: Current-tour reports usually go out to paid subscribers only—and we’ll have a bunch more of those from Europe this fall, including my three dispatches from the Royal Albert Hall, so hop aboard if you want them—but I’m making this opening-night report available to all.

now over to Matthew . . . .

CONGRATULATIONS TO RAY PADGETT @ Flagging Down The Double E’s on their second daughter (Big Jim!)

Bob Dylan ft. Wilco, My Morning Jacket, and More Surprises

2013-08-03, Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre, Irvine, CA

RAY PADGETT AUG 3 ∙ PREVIEW

Programming note ICYMI: Our second daughter, Maya Rose Padgett, was born a few days ago! (I wanted to name her “Big Jim” but my wife wouldn’t let me for some reason.) So I’m taking some paternity leave this month. You can probably guess what Street-Legal song will be playing in my head while I’m away.

What does that mean for the newsletter? Not much honestly. I’ve pre-written a full month’s worth of posts so they’ll still be hitting your inbox at the usual cadence—some free, some paid—even without me there to press the button. Some good ones scheduled too, including new interviews. I might be slower to respond to emails and comments, but otherwise you shouldn’t notice anything amiss.

Okay, on to today’s newsletter! 

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In 2013, Dylan went on the road for the awkwardly-named Americanarama tour alongside Wilco, My Morning Jacket, and more (at different dates: Bob Weir, Richard Thompson, Beck, and Ryan Bingham). 

A few months after the tour ended, My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James complained to Rolling Stone about it. “The whole concept of the tour was supposed to be super collaborative,” he said. “We were expecting to be sitting around the campfire with Dylan at two a.m. and go, ‘Let’s cover all of Desire tomorrow!’ We had all these pipe dreams.” 

That didn’t happen. “Bob really wasn’t around,” James continued. “We never talked to him once. He does not hang, which is fine and understandable…or it’s kind of understandable. I don’t know.”

James came in for some grief from Dylan fans for his naiveté. No, obviously a 72-year-old Bob is not going to sit around a campfire with the opening acts jamming on Desire. It seemed ridiculous to expect he might. (Lest this reminder trigger another round of annoyance, later on in the interview, James did add, “The whole tour was a huge honor and I’ll never forget it.”) 

The real surprise: At times, the tour actually did get pretty close to living up to Jim James’ vision. Especially during today’s subscriber-requested show in Irvine, California, which featured a whole host of surprise guests.

The catch is, most of those surprise guests did not come during Dylan’s set (most but not all—we’ll get there). I was able to track down recordings of all four sets that night in Irvine (thanks soomlos) and, throughout the four-and-a-half hours of music, surprises abound. So, today, I thought I’d highlight all those surprise guests, set by set, with audio/video clips of each.

read on here

Dylan of The Day | Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson: A Musical Timeline Previewing this summer's Outlaw Tour | Flaggin’ Down The Double Es

Flagging Down the Double E’s

OUTLAWS

Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson: A Musical Timeline

Previewing this summer's Outlaw Tour

RAY PADGETT

 Ray posted this  . . . and sad to say Willie has been told not to appear on doctor’s orders . . . 

Tomorrow night, Willie Nelson kicks off his annual Outlaw tour. This year, he’s bringing an old friend along for every single show: Bob Dylan. A big question on every fan’s mind this summer is, will they perform together? 

They have quite a few times over the decades, having known each other now for over 50 years. It’s a clear mutual-admiration society. In Dylan’s latest book, The Philosophy of Modern Song, Nelson is the only person who gets two separate chapters—one for his and Merle Haggard’s version of “Pancho and Lefty,” another for his own composition “On the Road Again.” Dylan writes, “Willie Nelson could, as they say, sing the phone book and make you weep. He could also write the phone book…”

So, in anticipation of the tour, I wanted to look back at all the times they’ve sung together. Below, find an annotated timeline of their many collaborations. I’m limiting it to them actually working together, as opposed to covering each other or otherwise interacting from a distance, which would make this very long indeed (I did write about a run of Bob’s Willie covers in the ‘80s here).

read on with Ray . . . .

here was also some argument over at Facebook Fan Club pages and elsewhere about Bobby’s set for this first gig of the new season and it is here from the Dylan site . . . . . . . . . .  duh?! 

Alpharetta, Georgia

Ameris Bank Amphitheatre

Opening night of the 2024 Outlaw Music Festival 

Bob Dylan - piano

Bob Britt - acoustic guitar, electric guitar

Doug Lancio - acoustic guitar, electric guitar 

Tony Garnier - basses (electric and acoustic stand up)

Jim Keltner - drums

SET LIST

• My Babe
• Beyond Here Lies Nothin’
• Simple Twist of Fate
• Little Queenie
• Mr. Blue
• Pay in Blood
• Cold, Cold Heart
• Early Roman Kings
• Under the Red Sky
• Things Have Changed
• The Fool
• Scarlet Town
• Long and Wasted Years

Dylan of the Day | Ray Padgett Interviews JJ Holiday of The Plugz

Guitarist JJ Holiday Talks Bob Dylan's Iconic Letterman Performance 40 Years Ago Today

Plus the months of jamming that led up to their three songs together on national TV

RAY PADGETT MAR 22

Now we looked at Bob playing with these guys a while back with the interview with Tony the bass p[layer and here’s a follow up with JJ Holiday at Flaggin' Down as well but here’s another take from Ray’s Newsletter and read on over at Flaggin’ Down . . . . . 

L-R: Tony Marsico, Bob Dylan, Charlie Quintana, JJ Holiday

Forty years ago today, Bob Dylan gave one of the most unique performances of his career. He appeared on David Letterman’s buzzy new show with a band several generations younger than him, playing raw and energetic versions of two Infidels songs and one blues cover. “Bob Dylan goes punk” is the shorthand fans use, though one of those “punks” takes issue with that description. 

I recently spoke with JJ Holiday, guitarist for the band that day alongside two members of LA group The Plugz, Tony Marsico on bass and Charlie Quintana on drums (again complicating some oft-used shorthand, “Bob Dylan and The Plugz,” Holiday was never actually in The Plugz). Despite months of on-and-off jamming at Dylan’s Malibu house and vague talk of tours that never came about, they only ever played those three songs together in public. Holiday was just 25 years old.

Last year I spoke to bassist Marsico about the experience. I tried to cover different things with Holiday rather than re-tread the same turf, so after you read this go back and read Marsico’s interview if you haven’t already. That entry also has snippets from a set of rehearsal tapes made at Dylan’s place, which Holiday referenced in our conversation. Here’s me and JJ Holiday…

Read on . . . .