If Dogs Run Free – Happy Birthday Bob!
On this day in 1941, Bob Dylan was born. I first heard this song from the album New Morning when I was 17 and a freshman at NYU. This song fragment contains one of my favorite lines: ‘Just do your thing, you’ll be king.’ This beat jazz homage featured Bob Dylan’s spoken word poetry, scat-singing Maeretha Stewart and Al Kooper on piano.
Kooper was known for organizing Blood, Sweat & Tears, providing studio support for Bob Dylan when he went electric in 1965, and bringing together guitarists Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills to record the Super Session album (BTW, if you haven’t listened to this album, then do!)
I thought the jazz intro was just so cool, and Dylan’s mysterious and, as always, inscrutable words were among his best (where to start?) such as ‘my mind weaves a symphony and tapestry of rhyme’ and ’to each his own, it’s all unknown’.
Anyway, Happy Birthday Bob!
Enjoy,
Dr. Weiss
This was dedicated to Luis.
Related video:
Bosendorfer piano sound – For this recording I’m playing a Yamaha Clavinova – which has the same keyboard action as a traditional acoustic piano, but there are no strings. Pressing a key activates (in this case) a sound which was sampled from a Bösendorfer Imperial Concert Grand piano. Try listening to it with a good set of headphones! It sounds better than any piano I’ve ever owned!!
Comments are closed.