World Tour, 1966
The Home Movies
Through the Camera of Bob Dylan’s Drummer Mickey Jones
What is it about Dylan, then and now, that makes that voice so damn sexy, so damn workable. I mean, I can listen to “Stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues.” and I practically melt every time, especially when he says Your debutante knows what you neeeeed, but I know what you waaaant…” and that “oh, Mama, or “ahhhugh, mama.” It could even be crude coming from someone else, but from Dylan it is damn sexy.
On anyone else it would sound cheap and stupid, but with Dylan… as I said: never.
He can say pretty much anything and it sounds brilliant and sexy and smart and something I want to repeat and play over and over again, unless he’s messing with some interviewer’s head, which I’ve and you’ve seen him do often, in which case I’m amused and he’s charming but I don’t like that he’s soooo slippery. He could say a few words, just be kind. But that said, if everybody wanted a piece of me (no worries there…), I’d be the same way.
think, though I could be wrong, but the point is, for all of his great and brilliant lyrics, which, if you believe what he said in the Ed Bradley interview, are “over for him” as Dylan essentially was saying, which is bullshit, because if you listen to “Standing in the Doorway” and “It’s Not Dark Yet” the songs and the lyrics are brilliant albeit incredibly sad and the rest of the album, what can I say, likewise, I feel the songs are more than up to par, they are at least as good as the older stuff.
Yes, I’m partial to “A Hard Rain’s a Gonna Fall” and “All I Really Wanna Do” and “Don’t Think Twice” and you get the idea, I like all of those “older” (relative term, note) songs, but I’d be kidding myself and kidding you if said I didn’t like the new stuff as much.
Recently, I’ve been watching DVDs of Dylan, and other DVDs of lead-singer Joel Gilbert of Highway 61 Revisited, the only Dylan tribute band as he says so proudly and I think, hell, that’s sad even if it is true, and I’m not sure it is, because if that’s what you have going for you, that you live your whole life not being yourself, but trying to be Bob Dylan ~ to look like him, act like you think he acts, even try to wear your hair the same way and in one clip of a film I recently saw actually pretending to he is Bob Dylan, ya gotta wonder about the guy.
Article comments
1 - sonny
dylan likes mickey to this day, but mickey was only a fill-in cause levon helm went home. there are plenty of dylan tribute bands.
2 - HW Saxton
Sonny, I'm glad you addressed that. I knew that the Hawks/The Band were backing him at the time but was wondering just where Mickey J. fit in the picture. From what I knew Levon Helm had always been their drummer way back from when they were the backing band for Ronnie Hawkins.
3 - sade
never said that Dylan didn't like Mickey: i dont' htink that's true, as you said. and sure, there are plenty of Dylan tribute bands, but Joel Gilbert tries to present himself, or maybe even is "the official" Dylan tribute band - check out his documentaries, but you prob have, but that's what he says.
I think that in public he impersonates dylan, and i'll be reviewing that documentary as well, is truly out of line and i wonder what the big BD would think of that... maybe he'd be cool w/ it. I dunno.
I obviously am a huge Dylan fan and write about him a lot, so more than a fan, a journalist and a music critic... i think Mickey Jones has a lot going for him, but if you watch this particular video there is a sorry and a melancholy there because even though he was "supposed to play the orient" he says, and maybe so, he never did because of Dylan's bike wreck. So who knows...
either way, this was not a slam against Jones, and i didn't intend to put words in Dylan's mouth to be sure... and i'm sorry if it came across that way. truly ...
But yetah, Levon Helm was their drummer i believe but for 66 it was Mickey Jones who was called in for the job... though i guess by reputation ~~ i don't know how he got the gig really. I would guess by recommendation etc etc.
anyway...blah blah blah.. thanks for reading. hope i've answered some of your points. and they were good ones.
be well,
sadie
4 - Yep, That's Life
Yes, Bob Dylan is very sexy, in his own, unique, non-mainstream way. I remember his movie Hearts Of Fire, (which is so incredibly horrible) but I would rewind over and over the part where he zips up his fly...ah, dang, I was seventeen and he was fourty something...;)