Bob Dylan

[Joe]

When he was living with Joan Baez she said he would write in the mornings from the time he got up, chugging coffee, then switch to red wine around 1:00 pm, edit a bit, and knock off around two. This was 1963/4 or so.
He wrote prodigously, one song/poem after another. This was quite a departure because up until this time (with a few exceptions) folk singers were litterally that: they sang traditional folk songs. Songs by Wooody Gunthrie, Pete Seeger, and songs that went back to early Americana that were discovered by musicologist Alan Lomax in the 1930's as part of a WPA Arts Project.
Joan Baez got her start singing primarily old English and Irish ballads within the Cambridge MA scene which was emerging simultaneously with the Greenich Village scene.
She was an activist, but not an intellectual. A family joke in the Baez household was that anyone who gave her a book as a present didn't know her very well. Joan did not write much either, like most of the people performing then she was an, 'interpretative troubour.'
Joan got her first hit of an original song, "Love Is Just A Four Letter Word," by fishing it out of Dylan's trash can. Which she did each day when he was napping in the afternoons. He liked it, but could not remember writing it.

[Slingah]

hey Joe......looks like Bob is under a little scrutiny again....just in a different medium this time...
Dylan Paintings Draw Scrutiny - NYTimes.com

[Joe]

He's been doing that his whole career - I'm surprised this was so heavy handed though. T.S. Elliot, and themes from Emily #^&#^&#^&#^&inson poems, have been favorite appropriations over the years.
I think his brain is fried at this point. With the exception of Blood on the Tracks and Desire, since the motorcycle crash, most of his work has been uneven, to downright terrible. I don't think Modern Times compares to his best work, though the critics heaped on the praise.
You have to understand that he’s a ‘darling’ of the NYT. People whom they are loathe to criticize because it has come back to bite them ass so many times. These artists were ahead of their time and the critics were blind and it looked bad that the critics lacked the sophistication to pick up on it. Meryl Streep, Robert Deniro, Woody Allen, David Byrne, Jeff Koons, Debbie Harry, Patti Smith and a host of other prominent artists also hold darling status – it’s almost like they can do no wrong.
He lost about 10 years of what could have been great creativity, to alcoholism.
People who read tremendous amounts can sometimes inadvertently plagiarize - that's what happened to the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin about five years or so ago - and she was always meticulous about citing sources. It’s possible to get original ideas mixed up with ones you’ve read in the distant past. But in Dylan's case, he was often seen in NY Public Library reading original Civil War journals, so that was intentional to be sure.

[Tagger]

Still love pre electric Dylan ... good stuff Matt .. A great gift squandered ? Not the first time with an artist . Seems to happen most the time .

[rphud]

The light that burns twice as bright burns for half as long" - Tyrell, from "Blade Runner" (or the preferred "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep")

[Slingah]

Bob Dylan Awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom | Music News | Rolling Stone