By Stephen Pate – In 1978 Willie Nelson recorded Stardust, the 1927 Hoagy Carmichael perennial favorite, on an album of the same name. It might have seemed odd at fist for a country singer to record pop standards but the public and critics loved the album.
Updated – see endnote
This month Bob Dylan is releasing Triplicate a 3-CD collection of pop standards including the song Stardust.
This year Dylan and Willie Nelson duked it out over Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album at the Grammy’s. Bob Dylan got the nod for Fallen Angels but Willie Nelson won the Grammy for the clearly superior album Summertime: Willie Nelson Sings Gershwin.
Despite his outlaw image, Willie Nelson has always been a smooth ballad singer, albeit in the country genre. His early songs like Crazy and Funny How Time Slips Away are classics.
Bob Dylan started as a folk singer, a protest song rebel and kept that image going for most of his career. (See end note) He did slip into the country genre during the late 60’s and early 70’s but he only showed his interest in pop ballads to his closest confidants.
Guitarist Ira Ingber (Mothers of Invention) recalled in UnCut Magazine how Dylan insisted he teach him the chords to Ray Charles “Come Rain Or Shine” in late 1984.
He came to me one day and he told me he wanted to learn to play Ray Charles’ ‘Come Rain Or Come Shine’ on guitar. Because it’s arranged for an orchestra, not a guitar, there are some very complex chords. ‘I said, “Wouldn’t it be easier if we just did it and you could sing it and not bother playing?” He was insistent – so I did an arrangement and I don’t even know if we got as far as trying to play it, because the chords involved were a little beyond his comfort level on the guitar, so the whole thing kind of went away.
Not only are pop ballads usually hard to play, they are devilishly hard to sing when your vocal style is as eccentric as Bob Dylan. It takes vocal training to hold the notes as written and Dylan’s career has been made with unusual phrasing, to say the least.
Here’s the Willie Nelson 1978 recording of Stardust, on the album of the same name which is considered one of the greatest records of all time, staying on the charts for 10 years and selling more than 5 million copies.
Here’s the contender, Bob Dylan from Triplicate.
Who wins in your mind?
In any event, Bob Dylan is on a 3-year journey to conquer the Great American Songbook of pop ballads written from the 1920’s to the 1950’s.
Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan have been friends for decades so I don’t think they take this seriously.
End note – the description of Bob Dylan as a “protest song rebel” garnered some criticism which I acknowledge. While Dylan denied the “protest singer” label at times he also told a heckling British audience in 1966 “Oh come on, these are all protest songs.”
Without trying to put too fine a turn on it, I believe Bob Dylan is a rebel and protesting more than war and politics. He has portrayed himself iconoclast, as is true of many unique artists. I won’t speculate if Dylan is the image or one of the several he has adopted in his career or not.
For his fans he has consistently held up the image of someone who critiques the system, the status quo. For Baby Boomers that is one of the singular appeals of Dylan over most of his contemporaries. He represented our dissatisfaction with our parents and the establishment. At each stage of our lives, he has held up a mirror that says we are not satisfied.
Here’s a great link to 50 cover versions of Stardust that are better than Bob Dylan.
Ken Fletcher
“Bob Dylan started as a folk singer, a protest song rebel and kept that image going for most of his career.”
You don’t know much about Dylan, do you?
Stephen Pate
In 1963 an inebriated Dylan offended the human rights establishment with his speech “Just weeks after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the 22-year-old Dylan accepted this award from the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, which recognized his work in the civil-rights movement, by giving a meandering speech criticizing the March on Washington and the United States’ ban on travel to Cuba, before delivering this gem: “I got to admit that the man who shot President Kennedy, Lee Oswald, I don’t know exactly where, what he thought he was doing, but I got to admit honestly that I, too, I saw some of myself in him.” http://www.vulture.com/2016/10/bob-dylan-award-history-nobel.html
In 2016 he snubbed the Nobel Committee when awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature – worth about $1 million – by refusing the say thanks for 2 weeks then saying he was too busy to attend. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/nov/16/bob-dylan-tells-nobel-prize-committee-he-will-not-go-to-sweden-for-ceremony
That’s a guy who wants people to believe he’s a rebel, an iconoclast and not a Paul Harris Fellow Rotarian.
That’s the “image” among others that Dylan has cultivated, his mask. In reality he is probably a very conservative and very rich business man.
Ken Fletcher
Hmmm. The central claim of your comment is that Dylan has fostered this image of being a protest song rebel. In fact, Dylan has always denied being a protest singer even when he was. The image of the gun-slinging rebel has been fostered by the media, not Dylan. Yes, people like you.
If he has been so assiduous in keeping up the rebel protest singer image, why hasn’t he released a single protest album for 53 years! Of his 37 studio albums to date, only two could be reasonably described as protest albums. Since then there have been one or two songs, but none I can think of since 1976 (41 years ago.). Pretty odd way to promote an image – having nothing to do with that image.
I’ll grant the ECLC comments were pretty stupid, but they were coming from an amphetamine and alcohol fuelled rant by a 22 year-old who was under a load of pressure. Who hasn’t said something stupid at some time?
As for the Nobel prize, Dylan is perfectly entitled to refuse it. He wouldn’t be the first. He neither sought or expected it. But that said, he did thank the Nobel committee and explain his initial silence. It seems reasonable not to cancel a string of concerts to pick up the gong in person. These concerts involve hundreds of people (not including the audience) and he could, in fact, be sued for cancellation. He did send a gracious and well-received acceptance speech to be read on his behalf.
Don’t you think it’s rather arrogant to suggest that you know what Dylan “wants people to believe”? You don’t know what he wants, at all. But it sure isn’t to be regarded as a protest singer.
Stephen Pate
I wrote “protest song rebel” which is more complex than protest singer. All Dylan’s denials are a cover-up of his real persona. The religious period was a protest – he harangued audiences with is simplistic end-of-world preaching. While he still sings 1960’s songs that rant against the establishment, he has also introduced new ones like “Political World.” Dylan bobs and weaves around his public persona denying this and then affirming that.
Most Dylan authorities agree he wears a series of masks. Many artists wear masks – all actors do. Fans like to see behind them to learn who the real person is. Dylan is a dissembler, keeping the press and public off balance.
Did he “refuse” the Nobel prize? Not from any reputable press reports I heard. He refused to accept it graciously in person. Alternatively, he could have made arrangements to be there at his convenience. As it was, he generated maximum publicity by treating the prize with deference if not disdain. I’m sure he took the check and gold medal. He likes those trinkets like his little Oscar statute on stage.
I’ve been watching, listening to, studying and writing and writing about Bob Dylan since 1964. I have a pretty good idea of what he wants people to believe but he keeps trying to challenge our perceptions. I’ll stick by my one liner. Thanks for the comments.
RainingAgain
Dylan is very conservative. This is reflected in his most important achievement, his lyrics. Even his earlier songs were far more traditionally moralistic than was perceived to be the case at the time by some who yearned for a protest hero, a role which Dylan was never comfortable with. He clearly and explicitly abandoned any connection with the ‘protest’ movement with the album ‘Another Side’, particularly the song My Back Pages which he has frequently revisited in concert throughout the years. It is dishonest to falsely accuse Dylan of cultivating an image which has been foisted upon him against his will.
Mickey Bitsko
Killer band, killer arrangement.
PolysmonoTechnologist
No Dylan is just another hypocritical self righteous Hollywood liberal not exactly a rare species.
Stefan Meyer
Willie Nelson has a very clear, precise voice, but I prefer Dylan’s faster pace and rougher voice for this song. I think his version is the equal or the better of any other recording of the song that I’ve heard.