BBC Four Bob Dylan Season (2005) Vol. II

D612 BBC BOB DYLAN SEASON VOLUME II ~ BOB DYLAN'S BLUES

On the evening of Monday 26 September 2005, a tribute concert intended to celebrate "Dylan's songs, influence, guitar playing and delivery" and, in addition, "the 40th anniversary of the release of Highway 61 Revisited" was held at the Barbican Centre, London. It was co-produced by the Barbican and BBC Four and screened four days later, under the title Talking Bob Dylan's Blues, as part of the BBC's eight-day Dylan Season. This version of D612 runs 107 minutes and presents 16 of the 18 songs featured in the original two hour programme (absentees* being Odetta's Tomorrow Is A Long Time and Simple Twist Of Fate by KT Tunstall). Opening titles (and possibly a little more?) are also gone. As you might expect, sound and vision are just about perfect (odd pop here and there - no major glitches).

This concert - another tour through D's songbook - is something like a poor man's Bobfest. Why so? Because this time there's no Bob himself to cap things off and the line-up of performers is distinctly less than stellar. All the same, the best here is very fine. What's more it comes early, in the frail but feisty form of Odetta, 74-and-looking-it but indomitable as the tradition she still fearlessly espouses. Her ten minute Tambourine Man is a novel reading of the full song (quite rare to get all four verses) and, as a plaintive plea from aged lips (late in evening's empire, senses stripped, ready to fade, hoping to forget about today's travails) stands up brilliantly well. Dignity never been photographed? Watch this and think again.

Proceedings start with an excerpt from Chronicles read by Kerry Shale and intermittently through the evening come five more of these. Bard of Barking Billy Bragg sings (forgettably) first and last songs and between-times acts as MC. Liam Clancy gives good value, recreating bygone Village days with a knockabout RG Willie then illuminating the pedigree of Restless Farewell (a pity his version was so foreshortened). Martin Carthy's pick of Hattie Carroll is a courageous one, for this is a song Bob has made very much his own. I don’t recall hearing any other cover and from a non-American mouth the words sound distinctly strange. Carthy follows up with Scarborough Fair, second of tonight's three non-D songs. Since this was Bob's source for North Country Girl (beautifully performed here by Roy Harper), there's good justification for its inclusion. 20 year old Willie Mason's Live It Up, however, is less easy to defend – maybe the intention was to illustrate "the passing of the torch" (if so, the point is poorly made) – and, as for Harper's Cricketers, which resonates with the theme of the evening in no discernible way, it's a shame that "England's greatest living beatnik" wasn't dissuaded from this pick. Though not up there with O'Connor's Bobfest transgression, it's a sore thumb all the same. Barb Jungr you'll either love or hate (I'm not saying). Robyn Hitchcock's Not Dark Yet - another brave choice – fails to convince mainly because the song requires a world-weary delivery which in turn, if it's to be authentic, requires an older singer. Still, it's the last arresting performance of the night. Isn't it usual to save the best till last? Not this time, boys. KT Tunstall's Tangled is happy-clappy pap. And when she and Bragg lean into one mike to sing the chorus of Wheel's On Fire you're forcibly reminded of Bob and Joan, Hard Rain '76, and the comparison does the younger and less gifted pair no favours at all. After Wind, Clancy invites Odetta to be maudlin – she, shining star of this luke-warm tribute to a great but sadly absent friend, politely declines.

THANKS Black Cat
STARS Three

(PS: in the early hours of 10 December, the BBC re-broadcast 11 songs in an hour-long cut-down repeat of the original programme. This included Odetta's Tomorrow Is A Long Time: another winning rendition. Let's hope complete versions* of the original September screening start to circulate soon.)

*See D612.rev