FROM THE ARCHIVES:Bob Dylan's first Irish concert, in Dublin in 1966, was reviewed by The Irish Timesjazz critic, George D Hodnett, who was a well-known eccentric as well as a musician and composer of satirical songs. His best-known composition, Take Me Up To Monto, about Dublin's red-light district around Montgomery St, which was shut down in the 1920s, was made famous by Ronnie Drew and the Dubliners. Hoddy, as he was known, thought Dylan was a bit of a poet but, as a musician, he sucked when he should blow and vice versa. – JOE JOYCE
BOB DYLAN is a phenomenon. That statement, like many others one might make, has been worn down to meaninglessness by publicity material about popular stars of every sort, so I had better explain what I mean.
His long-awaited concert at the Adelphi Cinema, Dublin, was revealing. Audience reaction, though very enthusiastic, of itself meant little, for most of those present were patently pre-conditioned, like a Beatle audience; one had to like Dylan, so one obediently did; this social conformity might or might not coincide with what one would have liked had one’s tastes been left to themselves, and the odd genuine rebel who said he didn’t would have narrowly escaped lynching.
The preliminary publicity-barrage read like Peter Simple in places - e.g. “He was regarded by his audience as a leader of a campus religion who preached a sermon of anger, protest, nihilism, hope, anti-convention. For a time, his every word and action was weighed as if all were part of a charismatic catechism. In four years, Dylan’s songs, records and concert appearances have earned him nearly a million dollars.” As a colleague of mine says, the present age is unfair to satirists.
How, then, does Dylan measure up soul-wise? In these days of professional protest and showbiz “rebellion” one cannot be sure about this. But one can be sure about the merit of many of his lyrics, though usually in detached phrases and images. In short, Mr. Dylan is a poet, and though he might be but a minor one were he to publish in slim volumes without the assistance of guitar, harmonica and publicity machine, it is something to sell poetry to a mass-audience at all.
“Baby Blue” has lines that stick in the mind like burrs on a coat; likewise “Desolation Row”, if one can discount the unhappy relationship between harmonica and guitar, resulting (to put it simply) from sucking when one should blow, and vice versa. There was the brandimage [sic] “Mr. Tambourine,” of course; and in “Ballad of the Lampshade” Dylan took over the piano. Here the backing-group were quite good, the organ “remarks” being notable, though most of the group numbers were rather a blur. Also, there was some over-amplification. But I forgot; this isn’t music, but something else; something sociologically interesting even after allowing for the admen, and anyway, a man who can write such a line as “like a fire in the sun” whatever it means, has something.
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