1978 BASS PLAYER'S WEARING A TIE - NORTH AMERICA NOVEMBER & DECEMBER

(Pink Panther Records)

Co-produced by Detective Inspector Jacques Clouseau, President Vladimir Putin,
Mr/The/Maybe President Donald Trump & newcomer Boris Johnson.

Boris is at a bit of a loose end now that he is no longer Lord Mayor of London,
& with Vladimir so busy personally flying bombing missions in Syria
in between buzzing US air force & navy assets in the Baltic,
along with The Donald busy taking over the republican party & laying bricks on the Mexican border, '
we need to spread the work load a bit & who better than Boris.
Jacques, of course, is horrified at the prospect of working with the British.

Mastered at Lubyanka Sound Studios, KGB Headquarters, Moscow.

Another absolutely brilliant production from Jacques, Vladimir, The Donald, Boris
and the death metal specialists at Lubyanka.

***

The final piece of Pink Panther's five part 1978 world tour,
which consisted of 114 concerts (not the 115 often quoted by writers).
This has only been bettered by the 120 concerts in 1999 & 116 in 1995.
The year would take Bob to 10 countries -
USA, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, UK, Netherlands, Germany, France, Sweden & Canada.

This final North American leg seems like it is light years away from the Japanese "greatest hits" shows.
It was not a happy time for Bob (as had been the American concerts in September & October),
but Bob did make some radical decisions on how he would move forward & out of his situation.

The journalists were unrelenting in their criticism, Street Legal did not sell well,
Renaldo & Clara was a commercial disaster,
the single Baby Stop Crying flopped & was all but dropped from the setlist.

I have no idea what was going on in his head, but the rants about geeks, gypsy kings,
& an old man on a train in Mexico with glowing eyes (God?, devil?) give some insight.

Whether the stories about crosses thrown on stage or hotel room visits from God are reliable is debatable,
but he did play Slow Train at soundchecks & Do Right To Me Baby (Do Unto Others) on the final tour night in Hollywood, Florida.

However, when you listen objectively to the best examples of the circulating tapes, you get some wonderful music.
The setlist is fairly static but the night by night variation is amazing.
Despite everything, the standard of performance is very high - he does not give up.
Improvisation is the order of the day & the band & backup singers give their all.
It is far looser than September & October - to the point of being feral & unpredictable.

The music soars all the way to heaven - literally.

Sound quality is mostly excellent, but there are some lo-fi tracks of the rarely played songs
(Baby Stop Crying was only played twice before being abandoned in mid-November).

A note on sound quality - Jokerman usually does a great job with sound ratings, but not here.
imo, Vancouver & LA are under-rated, Charlotte is over-rated, & Madison is incredible
(although I concede that there are cuts & dropouts on some songs - most of which do not appear here).
I have never liked (& still don't like) Charlotte -
I know everyone raves about it but all the versions I have heard are harsh, processed & clipped.
There are 11 Charlotte tracks here - the performances are great, but imo there are better examples of most of the songs.

Generally, there are two examples of each song (one each from November & December) but not always.

The title comes from bootlegger comments at 11-15 LA just before Shelter From The Storm (but I had to clean it up a bit).

Have fun. Blame Boris Johnson if you don't like it.

***

FLAC from best available sound sources.

***

Statistics for this compilation (yes, lies, damn lies & statistics masquerading as facts)

75 ball-tearing, sensational tracks
37 different songs
14 concerts are represented here (from the total of 32 concerts)
5 hours & 44 minutes of music
1 bob

***

All songs played on the tour leg are represented here.

Sound quality is, for the most part, very good to excellent.

***

DO RIGHT TO ME BABY (DO UNTO OTHERS)

Don�t wanna judge nobody, don�t wanna be judged
Don�t wanna touch nobody, don�t wanna be touched
Don�t wanna hurt nobody, don�t wanna be hurt
Don�t wanna treat nobody like they was dirt

But if you do right to me, baby
I�ll do right to you, too
Ya got to do unto others
Like you�d have them, like you�d have them, do unto you

Don�t wanna shoot nobody, don�t wanna be shot
Don�t wanna buy nobody, don�t wanna be bought
Don�t wanna bury nobody, don�t wanna be buried
Don�t wanna marry nobody if they�re already married

But if you do right to me, baby
I�ll do right to you, too
Ya got to do unto others
Like you�d have them, like you�d have them, do unto you

Don�t wanna burn nobody, don�t wanna be burned
Don�t wanna learn from nobody what I gotta unlearn
Don�t wanna cheat nobody, don�t wanna be cheated
Don�t wanna defeat nobody if they already been defeated

But if you do right to me, baby
I�ll do right to you, too
Ya got to do unto others
Like you�d have them, like you�d have them, do unto you

Don�t wanna wink at nobody, don�t wanna be winked at
Don�t wanna be used by nobody for a doormat
Don�t wanna confuse nobody, don�t wanna be confused
Don�t wanna amuse nobody, don�t wanna be amused

But if you do right to me, baby
I�ll do right to you, too
Ya got to do unto others
Like you�d have them, like you�d have them, do unto you

Don�t wanna betray nobody, don�t wanna be betrayed
Don�t wanna play with nobody, don�t wanna be waylaid
Don�t wanna miss nobody, don�t wanna be missed
Don�t put my faith in nobody, not even a scientist

But if you do right to me, baby
I�ll do right to you, too
Ya got to do unto others
Like you�d have them, like you�d have them, do unto you

***

Michael Gray

Dylan began to hint that he must have undergone some kind of conversion to Christian faith
halfway through the North American and last leg of his 1978 world tour, when Street Legal was his current album.
This section of the tour ran from 28 October 1978 (Carbondale, Illinois) through to 16 December 1978 (Hollywood, Florida).
On 24 November 1978 (Fort Worth, Texas) he wore a metal cross around his neck,
which had been thrown onto the stage for him from the audience in San Diego on 17 November 1978.
On the 26 November 1978 (Houston), he began to perform what became a series of re-writes of a passage in Tangled Up In Blue:
instead of �She opened up a book of poems and handed it to me / Written by an Italian poet from the thirteenth century�,
Dylan sang �She opened up the Bible and started quotin� it to me / Gospel According to Matthew, verse 3, Chapter 33.�
This was either a mistake or a tease � there is no Chapter 33; nor does it work the other way round � there is no verse 33 in Chapter 3.
But at the next concert, two nights later, Dylan cited a passage that made a most pertinent sense,
singing �She opened up the Bible, started quotin� it to me / Jeremiah Chapter 31, verses 9�33.�

This passage states Jeremiah�s prophecy of a new covenant.
As Rod Anstee notes, �As a Jew, Dylan understood this to mean a remaking, a renewal of the old covenant of Moses.
But in 1978, when he read or was shown this passage his heart and mind was struck by the Christian interpretation of the passage,
which is that it is a prophecy concerning the coming of Christ.�
Its core is the verse Dylan would reproduce on the sleeve of his 1980 album Saved,
�Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah� (31:31).
This is repeated verbatim in the New Testament, in Paul�s Epistle to the Hebrews 8:8.

Dylan�s tour continued. On 2 December 1978, in Nashville, he sang an early version of Slow Train at the pre-concert soundcheck,
and then during the final concert, he debuted another song later to appear on the Slow Train Coming album, Do Right To Me Baby (Do Unto Others).

Dylan�s move towards Christian faith was encouraged by at least three musicians in his band
(though this was only possible if he were receptive to their persuasion).
It may be that this process goes right back to the 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue,
on which T-Bone Burnett and Steven Soles were guitarists and David Mansfield played violin, mandolin and steel guitar.
All three were �born-again� Christians, and Soles and Mansfield were back in the band that toured with Dylan all through 1978.
Most of the backing singers were members of conventional black churches, with strong faiths.

***

Dane County Memorial Coliseum
Madison, Wisconsin
1 November 1978

1.My Back Pages
2.It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
3.Tangled Up In Blue
4.Ballad Of A Thin Man
5.Like A Rolling Stone
6.I Shall Be Released
7.Se�or (Tales Of Yankee Power)
8.It Ain't Me, Babe
9.Am I Your Stepchild?
10.One More Cup Of Coffee (Valley Below)
11.Blowin' In The Wind
12.Girl Of The North Country
13.Masters Of War
14.Just Like A Woman
15.All I Really Want To Do
16.Forever Young

Concert # 34 of the 1978 US Fall Tour.
1978 concert # 83.
Concert # 60 with the 1978 World Tour

Band: Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Billy Cross (lead guitar), Alan Pasqua (keyboards),
Steven Soles (rhythm guitar, backup vocals), David Mansfield (violin & mandolin),
Steve Douglas (horns), Jerry Scheff (bass), Bobbye Hall (percussion), Ian Wallace (drums),
Helena Springs, Jo Ann Harris, Carolyn Dennis (background vocals).

My Back Pages instrumental without Bob Dylan.

Bob Dylan (harmonica) on:
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue;
Just Like A Woman

Bob Dylan solo (vocal, harmonica & guitar) on It Ain't Me, Babe.

LB-7674;
Compiler Les Kokay (LK);
from LK 78 series;
Equipment: Audience Master Cassette > PCM >
Betamax > PCM > HHBCDR-800 (pass thru) >
Panasonic SV3700 DAT Recorded >DAT;
Transfer: DAT > TCD-D10 proII > S/PDIF >
Audiomedia III PCI card > Powermac7200/80 >
Protools 3.4 > copied to Power Mac G3 >
Protools 4.1.1 > .WAV files > Flac

Jokerman: Good sound [B].

PP: Excellent sound [A-] but there are occasional dropouts.

***

Hec Edmondson Pavilion
University Of Washington
Seattle, Washington
10 November 1978

17.Mr Tambourine Man
18.Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat)

Concert # 39 of the 1978 US Fall Tour.
1978 concert # 88.
Concert # 65 with the 1978 World Tour

Band: Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Billy Cross (lead guitar), Alan Pasqua (keyboards),
Steven Soles (rhythm guitar, backup vocals), David Mansfield (violin & mandolin),
Steve Douglas (horns), Jerry Scheff (bass), Bobbye Hall (percussion), Ian Wallace (drums),
Helena Springs, Jo Ann Harris, Carolyn Dennis (background vocals).

LB-9353;
Taper: JEMS;
Equipment: Tandberg Model 11 R2R deck with Sony ECM-22P mic;
Transfer: Master Reels @ full track mono > Tandberg Model 11 >
Wavelab 96/24 1ch mono > wav 44.1/16 2ch mono > flac

Jokerman: Excellent sound [A].

PP: Very good to excellent sound [B+].

***

Pacific National Exhibition Hall
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
11 November 1978

19.She�s Love Crazy (Tampa Red)
20.Maggie's Farm
21.I Don�t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)
22.Like A Rolling Stone
23.Rainy Day Women #12 & 35
24.One More Cup Of Coffee (Valley Below)
25.All Along The Watchtower
26.It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)
27.Changing Of The Guards

Concert # 40 of the 1978 US Fall Tour.
1978 concert # 89.
Concert # 66 with the 1978 World Tour

Band: Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Billy Cross (lead guitar), Alan Pasqua (keyboards),
Steven Soles (rhythm guitar, backup vocals), David Mansfield (violin & mandolin),
Steve Douglas (horns), Jerry Scheff (bass), Bobbye Hall (percussion), Ian Wallace (drums),
Helena Springs, Jo Ann Harris, Carolyn Dennis (background vocals).

Helena Springs, Jo Ann Harris, Carolyn Dennis (vocals) without Bob Dylan on Rainy Day Women #12 & 35.

LB-4116

Jokerman: Very good to excellent sound [B+].

PP Excellent sound [A-].

***

Alameda County Coliseum
Oakland, California
14 November 1978

28.Baby Stop Crying

Concert # 42 of the 1978 US Fall Tour.
1978 concert # 91.
Concert # 68 with the 1978 World Tour

Band: Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Billy Cross (lead guitar), Alan Pasqua (keyboards),
Steven Soles (rhythm guitar, backup vocals), David Mansfield (violin & mandolin),
Steve Douglas (horns), Jerry Scheff (bass), Bobbye Hall (percussion), Ian Wallace (drums),
Helena Springs, Jo Ann Harris, Carolyn Dennis (background vocals).

Bob Talk

All right, I don�t know, maybe some of you heard this one or not.
This is a single record. I don't really make singles too much.
But ahh, I've released this as a single. I think it sold 100 copies. 25 in the Bay area.
So seeing as it sold so many up here we're gonna play it.
It's a little ballad called Baby Please Stop Crying.

(plays Baby Stop Crying)

Thank you. Wanna say hello to Van Morrison tonight. I know he's out there somewhere.
Van, I want you to record some of my songs now!

LB-3574

Fair sound [B-].

***

The Forum
Inglewood
Los Angeles, California
15 November 1978

29.My Back Pages
30.Mr Tambourine Man
31.Bootlegger Banter
32.Shelter From The Storm
33.Ballad Of A Thin Man Intro
34.Ballad Of A Thin Man
35.I Shall Be Released
36.The Times They Are A-Changin'
37.Am I Your Stepchild?
38.Girl Of The North Country
39.We Better Talk This Over
40.Masters Of War
41.Bootlegger Banter
42.To Ramona
43.All I Really Want To Do
44.It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)

Concert # 43 of the 1978 US Fall Tour.
1978 concert # 92.
Concert # 69 with the 1978 World Tour

Band: Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Billy Cross (lead guitar), Alan Pasqua (keyboards),
Steven Soles (rhythm guitar, backup vocals), David Mansfield (violin & mandolin),
Steve Douglas (horns), Jerry Scheff (bass), Bobbye Hall (percussion), Ian Wallace (drums),
Helena Springs, Jo Ann Harris, Carolyn Dennis (background vocals).

My Back Pages instrumental without Bob Dylan.

BobTalk

Thank you. You know back in the fifties in the Midwest they used to have these carnivals come through town.
There used to always be this character called a geek. I know some of you may have heard of a geek.
Some of you may not have heard of a geek. Anyway a geek is a man who's working as a job of eating a live chicken.
Bites his head off first and the he eats the rest of him. Head and all. Anyway it cost a quarter to see this dude.
I can tell you if you think you're funky, this dude is low-down all the way.
Anyway I didn�t want to get too tight with him but regardless of that he did tell me one thing which helped me in years later.
He used to always think of other people as being freaks. And that's helped me a lot as I go through life.
(before Ballad Of A Thin Man)

Thank you, that was a new tune, called Am I Your Stepchild?
Anyway I was over in ..., the gypsies have a big festival every a year and it happens to be on my birthday.
They party for a week in the South of France. Anyway I was over there one year an I met the king of the gypsies.
He had 16 wives and 120 children! He still wasn't faithful and true either!
Anyway, I kind of got mixed up with him.
As I was ready to leave next morning and there was all kinds of faces saying do you want anything before you go?
I thought I could have had anything but I just didn�t take the chance, all I said was just,
only thing that came into my mind was one more cup of coffee. I thought I�d play it safe you know.

The first girl I ever loved is in the house tonight. You know I wrote a song about her and she left me for an older man.
But in case I, ... How old? 21.
(before Girl From The North Country)

On the drums tonight, give him a warm hand, from Kingston, Jamaica, Ian Wallace.
All right, on the bass guitar, Jerry Scheff. On the keyboards, the one and only Alan Pasqua.
All right, on lead guitar, the oldest member of this group, born in 1921.
Anyway born in 1921, ladies and gentlemen, dangerous Billy Cross. He keeps himself in excellent shape.
On rhythm guitar, from Bogota, doesn't speak any English, but he plays his heart out, doesn't he?
Ladies and gentlemen, Steven Soles.
All right, on the violin, young violin player, been with me for five years now, he's only fifteen years old.
Give him a warm hand. He doesn't smoke dope, drink whiskey or go out with women. He's very cute and very boring.
Ladies and gentlemen, David Mansfield. All right, on the tenor saxophone, a man who's really a legend in his own time.
He used to play with Duane Eddy and made many of Phil Spector�s great records. Ladies and gentlemen, the phenomenal Steve Douglas.
On the backup vocals, three girls I can't do without. I just don't know what I'd do anymore without them.
My ex-girlfriend on the right, Jo Ann Harris. I like to eat and Jo Ann doesn't like to cook.
Anyway, she's Billy Cross' girlfriend now. My girlfriend�s in the middle, Miss Helena Springs.
And on the other side, my fianc�e, Carolyn Dennis. All these girls can sing. You know they really can.
On the conga drums, from Detroit, the most amazing Miss Bobbye Hall. This is an old song I wrote.
I know it doesn't need any introduction, called It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding.

LB-3738;
At The Forum (dylantree);
Equipment: Uher 240 Stereo Porta Deck with 2 Sennheiser MKH 404 Mics

Jokerman: Very good to excellent sound [B+].

PP: Excellent sound [A-].

***

Nigel Williamson

The news that Dylan had undergone a �born-again� conversion in 1978 was for many fans the ultimate betrayal.
At almost precisely the same moment, the Reaganite �moral majority� of Christian conservatives and fundamentalist reactionaries
as planning its takeover of American politics. Did not organised religion represent everything Dylan had always stood against?
How could the most eloquent and articulate opponent of dogma now suddenly embrace it? In any case, was not he meant to be Jewish?

It happened in San Diego on 17 November 1978.
But it could have been any other station of the cross as he was winding up the hectic world tour that had seen him play 115 live dates in 1978.
He was not feeling too good. The set he was playing was perfunctionary. He was going through the motions and he knew it.
And then someone threw a small silver cross on stage.

The first surprise was that Dylan even noticed. The second was that he bent down to pick it up.
The next night, in Tucson, he took the cross out and examined it in his hotel room,
undergoing a full-blown religious experience in which he claimed �the King of Kings and Lord of Lords� appeared to him.

Less than a week later, Dylan was wearing the cross (or another like it) when he appeared at a concert in Fort Worth, Texas.
On 2 December 1978, during the soundcheck for a gig in Nashville, he unveiled a new song called Slow Train, which spoke of his new faith.
On the last date of the tour in Miami on 16 December 1978, he performed another new song that spoke of his religious conversion,
Do Right To Me Baby (Do Unto Others).

***

A.S.U. Activities Center
Tempe, Arizona
18 November 1978

45.True Love Tends To Forget

Concert # 45 of the 1978 US Fall Tour.
1978 concert # 94.
Concert # 71 with the 1978 World Tour

Band: Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Billy Cross (lead guitar), Alan Pasqua (keyboards),
Steven Soles (rhythm guitar, backup vocals), David Mansfield (violin & mandolin),
Steve Douglas (horns), Jerry Scheff (bass), Bobbye Hall (percussion), Ian Wallace (drums),
Helena Springs, Jo Ann Harris, Carolyn Dennis (background vocals).

This concert contains the first version of the long introduction to One More Cup Of Coffee (Valley Below),
describing his visit to a gypsy festival in Saintes-Maries de-la-Mer in France on his 34th birthday in 1975.
Dylan uses the expression �high holy gypsy holiday�. A �high holy day� or a �high holiday� is in Judaism, Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur.
The expression �high holy days� refers to the period from Rosh Hashanah until the end of Yom Kippur, often spent in penitent self-examination.
So Bob Dylan is here actually referring to the gypsy equivalence to Yom Kippur!

LB-7736;
Compiler: Les Kokay (LK);
from lk 78 series

Good sound [B].

***

LLoyd Noble Center
Norman, Oklahoma
23 November 1978

46.Watching The River Flow

Concert # 48 of the 1978 US Fall Tour.
1978 concert # 97.
Concert # 74 with the 1978 World Tour

Band: Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Billy Cross (lead guitar), Alan Pasqua (keyboards),
Steven Soles (rhythm guitar, backup vocals), David Mansfield (violin & mandolin),
Steve Douglas (horns), Jerry Scheff (bass), Bobbye Hall (percussion), Ian Wallace (drums),
Helena Springs, Jo Ann Harris, Carolyn Dennis (background vocals).

BobTalk

I wanna play a request. We don't usually do this one.
(before Watching The River Flow)

LB-7741;
Compiler: Les Kokay (LK)

Fair sound [B-].

***

Paul Williams

On 24 November 1978, at a Fort Worth, Texas concert,
Dylan could be seen wearing a large metal cross around his neck.

***

Paul Williams

And in Houston, 26 November 1978, he made a lyric change in Tangled Up In Blue;
the book of poems the woman shared with him was no longer the work of an Italian poet from the 13th century.
Instead: "She opened up the Bible, and started quoting it to me / The Gospel according to Matthew, Verse 3, Chapter 33."

There is no such chapter, and the next night he changed it to Jeremiah,
but the Bible stayed in the song right up through the last show of the tour, Hollywood, Florida, 16 December 1978,
later im�mortalized in Caribbean Wind ("I was playing a show in Miami in the Theater of Divine Comedy").

A change was in the air.

***

Mid-South Coliseum
Memphis, Tennessee
1 December 1978

47.She�s Love Crazy (Tampa Red)
48.Tangled Up In Blue

Concert # 54 of the 1978 US Fall Tour.
1978 concert # 103
Concert # 80 with the 1978 World Tour

Band: Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Billy Cross (lead guitar), Alan Pasqua (keyboards),
Steven Soles (rhythm guitar, backup vocals), David Mansfield (violin & mandolin),
Steve Douglas (horns), Jerry Scheff (bass), Bobbye Hall (percussion), Ian Wallace (drums),
Helena Springs, Jo Ann Harris, Carolyn Dennis (background vocals).

LB-0263;
Taper: BS;

Equipment: 3-head portable cassette recorder and electret condenser mic

Poor sound [C].

***

Municipal Auditorium
Nashville, Tennessee
2 December 1978

49.It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
50.I Don�t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)
51.I Shall Be Released
52.One More Cup Of Coffee (Valley Below) Intro
53.One More Cup Of Coffee (Valley Below)
54.To Ramona
55.All I Really Want To Do

Concert # 55 of the 1978 US Fall Tour.
1978 concert # 104
Concert # 81 with the 1978 World Tour

Band: Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Billy Cross (lead guitar), Alan Pasqua (keyboards),
Steven Soles (rhythm guitar, backup vocals), David Mansfield (violin & mandolin),
Steve Douglas (horns), Jerry Scheff (bass), Bobbye Hall (percussion),
Ian Wallace (drums), Helena Springs, Jo Ann Harris, Carolyn Dennis (background vocals).

Bob Dylan (harmonica) on It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

BobTalk

Thank you. I was over in France for about four or five weeks, I don�t remember how long.
My particular, ah the day I was born just happens to be the high holy gypsy holiday.
I know it sounds strange but it's true.
Anyway, I went over there to see what they were doing on my birthday, seeing it was some kind of holiday.
So, they all meet, all the gypsies from all over Europe.
From France, England, Holland, and ah, Romania, all these different countries come and meet in the South of France.
So I stayed over there with them for about a week, they partied for a week.
I was fortunate enough to meet a young man who was the king of the gypsies.
A young man who had 16 wives an 120 children and a whole lot of girlfriends.
He held court every day, and he kind of took me under his wing,
but sooner or later it got time to go, so I was heading off this way and he was going down that way.
He said, "Well Bob, we have to go our separate ways, what would you like?"
And I had done everything that week at least twice.
Anyway I said, "Just One More Cup Of Coffee".
He said , "All right, black?" And he put it in a bag for me and give it to me, and I headed off down the road.

Slow Train was played at the soundcheck.

LB-4407;
Taper: BS

Good sound [B].

***

Municipal Auditorium
Mobile, Alabama
5 December 1978

56.One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later)

Concert # 57 of the 1978 US Fall Tour.
1978 concert # 106
Concert # 83 with the 1978 World Tour

Band: Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Billy Cross (lead guitar), Alan Pasqua (keyboards),
Steven Soles (rhythm guitar, backup vocals), David Mansfield (violin & mandolin),
Steve Douglas (horns), Jerry Scheff (bass), Bobbye Hall (percussion), Ian Wallace (drums),
Helena Springs, Jo Ann Harris, Carolyn Dennis (background vocals).

LB-7766;
Compiler Les Kokay (LK);
from LK 78 series

Poor sound [C+].

***

Greensboro Coliseum
Greensboro, North Carolina
7 December 1978

57.Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat)

Concert # 58 of the 1978 US Fall Tour.
1978 concert # 107
Concert # 84 with the 1978 World Tour

Band: Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Billy Cross (lead guitar), Alan Pasqua (keyboards),
Steven Soles (rhythm guitar, backup vocals), David Mansfield (violin & mandolin),
Steve Douglas (horns), Jerry Scheff (bass), Bobbye Hall (percussion), Ian Wallace (drums),
Helena Springs, Jo Ann Harris, Carolyn Dennis (background vocals).

LB-8724

Good sound [B].

***

Civic Center Arena
Savannah, Georgia
8 December 1978

58.Is Your Love In Vain?

Concert # 59 of the 1978 US Fall Tour.
1978 concert # 108
Concert # 85 with the 1978 World Tour

Band: Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Billy Cross (lead guitar), Alan Pasqua (keyboards),
Steven Soles (rhythm guitar, backup vocals), David Mansfield (violin & mandolin),
Steve Douglas (horns), Jerry Scheff (bass), Bobbye Hall (percussion), Ian Wallace (drums),
Helena Springs, Jo Ann Harris, Carolyn Dennis (background vocals).

LB-4823

Jokerman: Excellent sound [A-].

PP: Very good to excellent sound [B+].

***

Charlotte Coliseum
Charlotte, North Carolina
10 December 1978

59.My Back Pages
60.She�s Love Crazy (Tampa Red)
61.Shelter From The Storm
62.Ballad Of A Thin Man Intro
63.Ballad Of A Thin Man
64.Se�or (Tales Of Yankee Power) Intro
65.Se�or (Tales Of Yankee Power)
66.The Times They Are A-Changin'
67.Am I Your Stepchild?
68.We Better Talk This Over
69.Masters Of War
70.All Along The Watchtower
71.Changing Of The Guards

Concert # 61 of the 1978 US Fall Tour.
1978 concert # 110
Concert # 87 with the 1978 World Tour

Band: Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Billy Cross (lead guitar), Alan Pasqua (keyboards),
Steven Soles (rhythm guitar, backup vocals), David Mansfield (violin & mandolin),
Steve Douglas (horns), Jerry Scheff (bass), Bobbye Hall (percussion), Ian Wallace (drums),
Helena Springs, Jo Ann Harris, Carolyn Dennis (background vocals).

My Back Pages instrumental without Bob Dylan.

Bob Dylan (harmonica) on Am I Your Stepchild?

BobTalk

Thank you. You know when I was coming up in the fifties, not the sixties,
but the fifties there used to be carnivals a coming through all the towns most of the towns.
Every carnival had what they call a geek.
I don't know if they still have them, but they used to have what they called geeks.
And a geek is a man who eats a live chicken, right before your eyes. He bites the head off an eats that.
Then he continues to eat the rest of them, sweeps all the feathers up with a broom.
Back then it cost a quarter to see him. Now it probably costs about 10 to 15 bucks.
But by then before inflation it only cost a quarter. Anyhow, nobody would hang out too much with the geek.
Nobody much. Left him alone to himself. And one day I was having breakfast with the bearded lady, she was telling me.
�You know the geek he's really funky. He's more low-down than low-down.
He doesn't like anybody and not only does he keep to himself, but he considers everybody else as being very strange an very freaky.�
I said, "hmmm hmmm". Later on, as I was traveling around making my money, it came back to me at a certain point in time,
and I put it into this particular song.
(before Ballad Of A Thin Man)

I was riding on a train one time from Durango, Mexico to San Diego.
I fell asleep on the train and woke up in this town called Monterey. And there was, I guess it was about past midnight.
Not too much happening, but just maybe around that time. And a family was getting off the train.
An old man was stepping up on the platform to get up on the train.
And he came down the aisle and took a seat across the aisle from me. Meantime the train was still in the station.
Anyway, I was watching this whole thing through the window which was turned into a long mirror.
And finally I felt a strange vibration and I had to turn to look at this man. He wasn't wearing anything but a blanket.
So I turned my head to look at him. Both his eyes were on fire, I could easily see that, and there was smoke coming out of his nostrils.
I said well this is the man I had to talk to. So I turned back to look out the mirror again.
I finally got up the courage to talk to him. And the train started moving an the conversation went something like this.
(before Se�or (Tales Of Yankee Power))

Thank you. I was over in France a few years back. On the particular day that I was born it happens to be a high holy gypsy holiday.
For the gypsies it's like Christmas time. So I went over there to check it out one time. And it was everything it�s supposed to be.
All the gypsies from Europe, and Hungary, Romania, England, Germany, France, Spain, all them different countries.
And they all go there for a week and they party. They just party. Happens every Spring.
So the first day I got there I met the king of the gypsies, that's right.
The king of the gypsies, he was a young man, but I noticed he had, 16 wives and they said 130 children.
And he was quite somebody, couldn't have been more than 35. Anyway, I�ve seen a lot of people in my time.
Some of them have power and they don't deserve it. And other people that do deserve it, don't have it.
Of all the people I've seen this man definitely did deserve it and he had it. So anyway, I stayed there for a week. Partied.
I stayed ..., longest party I ever attended. And about time to leave they said, ..., I'd done everything twice, just about,
in that week and I hadn't slept for a week, so they were pretty much aware of all this.
So they said, "What you want to take with you while you go?" I had to make my way out of there somehow.
So I just said, seeing that I had to stay up for a week, I just needed to stay up a little bit longer.
And, so I asked for one more cup of coffee for the road. And they were nice enough to put it in a bag for me.
They said, "How you want it?" I said, "Black". They gave it to me and I headed out.
(before One More Cup Of Coffee (Valley Below))

Thank you, all right. We gotta get out of here now. Thanks for coming out,
I hope we played something right. All right. (plays Forever Young)
Thank you for being so kind and understanding.
I'm not ready for the pasture yet so, we will be back. Goodnight!

LB-4625;
Equipment: Taped using a 3-head portable cassette recorder and electret condenser mic
which was possibly above-average equipment for the typical audience stealth taper in those days;
Stereo master cassette tapes for Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte LB-7099

Jokerman: Excellent sound [A-].

PP: Very good to excellent sound [B+].

***

Interview with Lynne Allen, Atlanta, 12 December 1978

If I'd thought about it I never would have done it
I guess I would 'a let it slide
If I'd 'a lived my life by what others were thinkin'
This heart inside me would 'a died
I was just too stubborn to ever be governed by enforced insanity
Someone had to reach for the risin' star
I guess it was up to me

Dylan is a legend in his own time. Not a full-fledged commercial superstar,
for he doesn't make platinum records nor sell out all of his live performances,
Dylan is merely a legend, enigmatic and mysterious. Familiar, yet strange.

It has been said that Dylan is not half the myth he believes himself to be and that he himself is the myth-monger,
selling us his every new phase while, like his descendant in style, David Bowie,
he casually discards each old mask with the ease of an actor changing roles.
He has also at various times been accused of having sold out, of being too removed, aloof, of not revealing enough,
of being cold and calculating, allowing us to see only what he wishes and no more.
No matter, in the final analysis he is what he has created.

If the 1960s were his formative years, the 1970s have seen Dylan subject to many changes in his life.
From the laid-back family man of Nashville Skyline and New Morning,
Dylan slowly turned and headed back into the more complex reaches of his mind,
starting with Planet Waves, which signalled the return within,
and following with Blood On The Tracks, which brought him even closer to his anima, his muse,
who finally appeared to him as Isis on Desire.
(In a dream-scape not unlike Robert Graves' White Goddess, who could be found "among pack ice or where the track had faded,"
Dylan united with his goddess after he "came to the pyramids all imbedded in ice.")

With Desire in the stores, Dylan took to the road with his own gypsy troupe.
The Rolling Thunder Revue brought to mind the "Indiani Metropolitani," groups of young people who do street theatre in Italy.
They toured the U.S. playing moderately sized halls, picking up and dropping different performers along the way.
Renaldo And Clara, Dylan's mammoth and controversial movie, was filmed on the road with Rolling Thunder,
during a tumultuous period in which his marriage reportedly took a turn for the worse and his life
(along with his newly-built dream house) began to slide. Seemingly none the worse for wear and tear,
Dylan embarked on the most extensive tour of his career early in 1978.
Beginning in Japan, New Zealand and Australia, it finally wound up matters in the southeastern United States in December 1978.

The first time I saw Dylan was in Binghamton, New York, in September 1978. I had always admired him.
How could you not? No matter how one views Dylan and / or his music, it's difficult to deny the charismatic mystique
that has afforded him widespread recognition and critical acclaim.
Personally, I had always responded favorably to whatever courses Dylan had chosen to take,
so approaching him live, I was already biased in favor of the man. I was shocked at his appearance.
He seemed ragged and worn (which later proved to be deceptive. Make-up, heavy black around the eyes,
cast strange shadows over his face under the lights). The music, though, was even more startling.

My initial reaction was thoroughly negative, to put it mildly. In comparison to what was then currently happening in rock,
the music seemed, bluntly, quite lame. The new arrangements seemed clumsy and awkward,
overriding the simplicity that had originally made the songs work. But as I listened closer it rang with a clear resonance.
The sound in the hall was exceptional, and the musicians excellent.
This was certainly not, as many reviews and reviewers had suggested, "Las Vegas" nor was it disco.
It was just Dylan, older, to be sure, scraggly and unkempt as always, even in his new black and white stage suit,
his band playing behind him like a mini-orchestra in perfect synch.

I met Dylan a week later, at a typical record company bash held for him and his band after one of the Madison Square Garden shows.
A friend introduced me to him and, sitting at an adjacent table, I had ample opportunity to observe him at close quarters.
I sensed no animosity from him, no aggression nor defense; indeed, he seemed rather shy.
His expertise at deterring conversation from himself, at keeping the talk light and meaningless, was obvious.
He chain smoked and drank red wine all night. He appeared drunk at times, slurring words and laughing a lot,
but it could easily have been an act, a way of retaining his one-upmanship in any situation.
Dylan, the enigmatic cynic, the infallible put-on artist remained in control.

Three months later, I caught up with the Dylan tour once again, this time, down south in Birmingham, Alabama.
Looking disheveled as ever, the Jack of Hearts had once again trumped those in his audience
who had been led to believe press reports of his new "slick" image.
The tour had almost reached its end and the band was much tighter than they had been earlier.
The songs no longer felt stiff, they were flowing now, having settled into their new forms.
Dylan spoke to the crowd a lot that night, introducing songs with brief stories or parables,
breathing new life into songs ten, even 15 years old. He ended the show with Forever Young, which he dedicated to one of his children.
"This is our last - look for us," he said, "We may be back. I'm not quite read to be put out to pasture just yet!"

On the way out of town, I left a note for Dylan with the desk clerk of his hotel, saying that I wished to interview him,
that I had no ulterior motive at all other than an interest and a desire to talk. I left a number for him to call and headed back home to Atlanta.

A week later, backstage at the Omni in Atlanta, an hour before going onstage, Dylan sat alone in his dressing room,
strumming an old Martin guitar that had yellowed with age, the wood around the pick-guard chipped from years of use.
Dressed in a green flannel shirt, black leather pants and boots, his eyes hidden behind dark aviator shades, he was relaxed and friendly,
the antithesis of the guarded creature which the media so often portrays him as.
His old black leather jacket lay crumpled up on one of the chairs, a small notebook peeked out of one of the pockets.
What appeared to be chicken scratchings made their way across the open page.
"I'm always writing something" he explained as he continued to pick a haunting blues melody on the guitar.

I mentioned to him that I had noticed a definite theme running through his more recent albums, culminating on 'Desire'.
He didn't seem too happy with the idea, though, and emphasized his disagreement with a forceful strum.
"That album didn't have a concept. It didn't have that type of concept.
Of course I wrote it with somebody else too, but I always kept it kinda on the track of where I thought it should be going.

I can look back on it just like anybody else...but when that particular album was happening, I didn't know what was happening at the time.
We tried it with a lot of different people in the studio,
a lot of different types of sound and I even had back-up singers on that album for two or three days, a lot of percussion, a lot going on.
But as it got down, I got more irritated with all this sound going on and eventually just settled on bass, drums and violin.
"That was new," he stressed. "I didn't take that out as far as I wanted to, I didn't have a chance to do that.
I wanted to do more harmonica and violin together but we never got a chance to do that.
But, yeah, all that time, those songs like 'Isis' and and all that - gee, I haven't done that for a long time - I used to do that song all the time..."

Desire, Dylan's collaboration with writer Jacques Levy, was a deeply mystical statement, the violin capturing the free, gypsy spirit
so inherent in the songs and later in the whole Rolling Thunder idea. "Yeah, it was that. It definitely was that.
Oh you know, we did it all night long, into the morning. I never slept when I made that album, I couldn't sleep.
I would have to listen to it again to really answer these questions in a coherent way."

"You've left it behind in a way," I said.

"No, I haven't left the songs behind. I never leave the songs behind.
I might leave the arrangements and the mood behind, but the songs, I never leave them behind."

At Newport in 1965, he unleashed his new-found electricity on an unsuspecting audience.
Or as he put it in Atlanta, when introducing Maggie's Farm: "I was invited to Newport in 1965.
I had been invited there before and never caused too much fuss, but I was invited in 1965 and I went and I played this particular song.
Anyway, people booted me out of town, actually, for playing this particular tune and it was hard to believe that this song caused such a disturbance,
but it did! It's called "I Ain't Gonna Work on Maggie's Farm No More.'"

Years later, after a seemingly endless flow of changes in direction, he is still meeting with the same type of criticism.
Dylan steps in and out of musical forms these days with an unusual ease, echoes of carnival music blend harmoniously
with primitive jungle rhythms and Chicago blues, while Dylan the Folksinger and Dylan the Newport Electric Poet still exist.
As at Newport, Dylan has not met with much favourable response to his new sound. People are disturbed by the strange changes. The unfamiliarity.

He refuses to stagnate, to be pinned down, categorized: "Art is the perpetual motion of illusion," he once observed. And he truly lives his belief.
I mentioned a line from Idiot Wind: "Your chestnut mare shoots through my head and is making me see stars!"
(Dylanologist AJ Weberman claims that equine references in Dylan songs refer to heroin.)

Interestingly, Idiot Wind was written before Dylan's teaming with Jacques Levy, co-writer (with Roger McGuinn) of Chestnut Mare years earlier.
"That's right! Yeah!" He laughed delightfully. "I'm sure it's all connected up y'know, way down the line."

"But yeah, I had a couple of years there, where I went out to be by myself quite a bit of the time,
and that's where I experienced those kind of songs, on the Blood On The Tracks album � I'll do anything to write a song." he laughed. "I used to anyway."

Street Legal seems to backtrack through all the aforementioned albums. It is an acknowledgment of changes, both internal and external.

"You're right. Let's say with a song like True Love Tends To Forget.� He lit a cigarette. "The mood I was in on that song is �
I mean, that means a lot, if you think about it, y'know. True love tends to forget �
it isn't like a possession trip, when you've been wronged, that type of thing � I was trying to ge the most out of that.
I thought that was my best album." I agreed.

"I hear it sometimes on the radio or a record player and I see that it's badly mixed and it doesn't sound very good, but what can you do?

I've got, on Columbia Records alone, 21 or 22 albums out. So every time you make an album, you want it to be new, good and different,
but personally, when you look back on them--for me--all my albums are, are just measuring points for wherever I was at at a certain period of time.
I went into the studio, recorded the songs as good as I could, and left.

Basically, realistically, I'm a live performer and want to play onstage for the people and not make records that may sound really good."

I mentioned how the current show had changed each time that I had seen him, and how much tighter the band had become as the tour progressed.

"Yeah, well it's never gonna be the same two nights in a row."

Dylan has made many comments in the press recently about the 1980s. In his Rolling Stone interview with Jonathan Cott he said,
"Anyone who's going to be doing anything will have his or her cards showing. You won't be able to get back in the 1980s."

What did he mean by that? "I don't know what I meant by that," he chuckled. "Me and Jonathan, every time he does an interview, we just get drunk.
I don't think you should show all of your cards all of the time, I didn't mean that."

He continued: "It's like, when I started out playing � it's hard to put into words � I don't know what the �80s are going to be like.
I imagine a lot of the glue is gonna hold a lot of things together which are sort of scattered now.
Appearances of people you know, some wearing blue uniforms with badges,
they are probably going to be standing side by side with housewives with their hair up in curlers, wanting the same things.
All these different elements are going to � I think � be molded together.
I think people are going to be more honest in the 1980s." Like the '60s, I wondered?

"No, never. I don't think so." He answered adamantly. Dylan remembers the '60s very well.
They were years that shaped him, that produced the inspiration for him to create some of the most potent art of the decade.
His strange song-poems mirrored the turbulence and chaos of the times.
He spoke for an entire generation, it seemed, and then suddenly he wanted no involvement with the movement he had given voice to.

Some say it was the motorcycle accident. That it almost killed him, sent him crashing headlong into a nightmare of his own making.
Others just say that he fell in love, settled into a more even existence in which politics and protest had not part.
Radical critics like Weberman flatly accuse him of "drifting into indifference during a period whe resistance was called for."

"I was always more tied up with the Beat Movement," he admits. "I don't know what the hippie movement was all about,
that was a media thing, I think, �Rent A Hippie� �I don't know what that was about.
A lot of people, people that I knew, were in the early 1960s up 'til 1965 or 1966. There was a different comradeship.
There was drugs, but drugs were something that was just a playful thing or something which wasn't that romanticized.
Drugs were always in the folk clubs and in the jazz clubs, but outside of those places I never really saw too many drugs."
"The drugs at the end of the 1960s were artificial. They were those � ah � L.S...acid, all that stuff made in a laboratory.
Well I guess it's all make in a laboratory one way or another. I don't know. I was never involved in the acid scene either."

By 1968 the Beatles had released Sgt. Pepper.
Rock and roll had moved primarily into studios and electronics began to become more and more a part of the music.
Acid rock flourished on the West Coast and the new art form was just becoming self-consciously aware of itself
with a little help from its friends (often in the form of a little Kool-Aid).
Dylan chose this time to put out the album he had been working on since the cataclysmic accident.
'John Wesley Harding' totally contradicted everything happening musically at the time.
The deceptively simple folk melodies only served to draw one's attention even closer to the intensity of the lyrical message.

Eventually, the 1960s came to a close, The Beatles broke up, the war ended in a stale-mate and we stumbled into the 1970s in a catatonic daze.
The music reflected the times. Rock had a few casualties of its own. Madison Avenue and Wall Street moved in as the voice of the people
turned into a multibillion dollar industry. A few couldn't handle it, and destroyed themselves by becoming victims of their own myths.
Others, like Jagger and Dylan, survived.

"People are always talking about the 1960s and now we are almost into the 1980s and everybody wants to know what happened back then.
Well," he answered himself, "in the 1960s, everything that happened you did because you wanted to.
You didn't do it because you thought you should do it or because it was the thing to do. Something inside of you told you you wanted to do it.
There was a network all across the country--really.

Very small, but very close, I still see those people travelling around y'know, they're still hanging in there.
But as far as what happened, it will always be felt just the same as the Civil War was always felt into 1870 and 1880.
It was just something which was felt by everyone whether they knew it or not and a lot of people in the '60s started all this which is happening now.
They just don't realize it, you know."

He put down the guitar, lit another cigarette. "But the 1950s gave birth to the 1960s too, don't forget, and in the 1950s it was even rarer...
like in the 1960s it was people caught up on all the be-bop and the beat movement, or the subterranean culture that was going on,
but it was home-like and it gave you identity."

It is interesting that Dylan's material has always dealt with the opposing forces of black and white, whether on a material level �
as during the 1960s when songs like The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll clarified the issues of the civil rights movement �
or on the spiritual level of his most recent work. Dylan has taken to wearing black and white on stage of late, costuming his entire band in the same.
The effect is one of total balance. Yin and yang, darkness and light.

"Well, I think I'm more of an extremist. But no, I'm more active than someone who is balancing," he said.
"If you play the game all by yourself and you're the only one playing the game, then you want to balance the game,
but if you're playing the game with someone else, you've got to ride up when it's time for someone else to ride down." Like a see saw?
"Yeah right, and then you get the same kind of balance, but if you're playing by yourself then you've got to move to the middle." Which you don't do.

"No, I'm uncomfortable in the middle, too easily blown down."

When questioned about his unusual relationship with his record company � of being able to release any product he wants �
he became edgy, his answer accompanied once again by the guitar.
(As I am writing this, Bob Dylan is in the process of forming his own record company, Accomplice, to be distributed by CBS.)
"CBS doesn't pay me, except for a royalty rate. They don't support these tours for me so they don't have any say.
It they supported them, maybe they'd have some say in it."

With Renaldo And Clara, Dylan took a new approack by filming the characters of his dreams.
The film was an unconstructed, symbolic comment, a bold and original epic
(its original four-hour length was the major complaint from most of its critics),
visually combining the same elements Dylan uses in the written word.
The actors and actresses, real people from his life, cast in fantasy roles.

American film critics on the whole were not impressed with Dylan's work.
They accused him of over-indulgence and blamed his "careless treatment" of people close to him for the break-up of his marriage,
which followed shortly on the heels of the film's release.
The Village Voice sent an entire battalion of reviewers to see it and they all came back with negative impressions.
However, the film was hailed at last year's Cannes Film Festival as one of the most innovative presentations there,
an honor bestowed on Dylan by Europe's most discriminating cinema elite,
which must have more than made up for the confused and confusing reviews
it received in the US.

Filmed by Sam Shepard, Dylan claims Renaldo And Clara was ten years in the works but has decided that,
"For me, film wouldn't be the right thing to do right now. It's not live enough.
You're acting for a camera, a director, you can't really see the results."
Renaldo And Clara seemed to be spontaneous. "That was great! Yeah, but I can't do that no more.
It costs too much money for one, to make your own movie,
and then if you make a movie for another man who's putting up the money, then he'll want what he wants."

As the 1950s gave way to the 1960s, the age of the media superstar was born.
James Dean gave way to Elvis Presley who gave way to Bob Dylan,
each gigantic myths in their own time. While Elvis found his way into Middle America's heart,
the chasm James Dean left wasn't filled until Bob Dylan formed a new link in the ever-growing chain of super-anti-heroes.
When compared to the people he once strived to be like, he denies all similarity of public persona.

"It's not as heavy as it probably was to deal with being Elvis Presley. Elvis didn't write any of his songs don't forget,
I write all this stuff so I know what I'm saying. I'm behind it so I don't feel like I'm a mystery or anything."
Does he consider himself an artist as opposed to a musician or a songwriter?
"Well yeah, it's like all the artists have had their periods right, and that they've changed �
most people in history that have done anything at all have always been put down � so it don't bother me a bit.
I don't care what people say. Whether I'm an artist, or a musician, or a poet, or a songwriter or just anything."

***

Hollywood Sportatorium
Hollywood, Florida
16 December 1978

72.Love Minus Zero/No Limit
73.It Ain't Me, Babe
74.Do Right To Me Baby (Do Unto Others)
75.I'll Be Your Baby Tonight

Concert # 65 of the 1978 US Fall Tour. 1978 concert # 114.

Concert # 91 with the 1978 World Tour Band: Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Billy Cross (lead guitar),
Alan Pasqua (keyboards), Steven Soles (rhythm guitar, backup vocals), David Mansfield (violin & mandolin),
Steve Douglas (horns), Jerry Scheff (bass), Bobbye Hall (percussion), Ian Wallace (drums),
Helena Springs, Jo Ann Harris, Carolyn Dennis (background vocals).

Bob Dylan (harmonica) on:
Love Minus Zero / No Limit,
It Ain't Me, Babe

Bob Dylan solo (vocal, harmonica & guitar) on It Ain't Me, Babe

Live debut of Do Right To Me Baby (Do Unto Others).

BobTalk

You know in the 50�s they used to have carnivals that came trough town.
I know that you�re familiar with carnivals here.
Anyway, back then every carnival had what they called a geek.
Everyone know what a geek is?
A geek is a man who eats a live chicken.
He bites the head off, and then he bites the rest of it off.
Anyway, he drinks up the blood, eats the heart, everything.
Sweeps up the feathers with a broom.
In those days it cost a quarter to see him.
Nowadays I suppose it'd be 15-20 dollars, back then it was still a quarter.
Anyway, no one much get too tight with a geek, you know?
I was having breakfast one day with a bearded lady
and she tells me that a geek is so low down that he can't be believable.
He thinks that everyone else in the whole crew is freakier than he was. (....).
I remembered that years later when I was walking down a street in Nashville you know,
about 1960 something, when Al Kooper was playing organ for me at the time.
And we were walking down the street, we had long hair, and nobody in Nashville, at that time, did have long hair.
Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, none of those people had long hair at this particular time.
Anyway, we were walking down the street and the buses used to stop,
people would come running out of there tores just to look at us.
I thought this was kind of peculiar really because we hadn't done anything.
Somewhere along the line I put, tried to put all of it into this particular song.
(before Ballad Of A Thin Man)

Thank you. We�re gonna get out of here now. Hit that long road home.
So, here's a song I wrote for one of my babies when he was a baby. He's not a baby anymore but wanny play it anyway.
Thanks for coming. Thanks you for your love and understanding!
(before Forever Young)

LB-0212

Very good to excellent sound [B+].

***

Howard Sounes

Yet on the last night of the tour, in Miami, Florida, on 16 December 1978,
Dylan joined the band for drinks in the hotel and talked about keeping the show on the road into the following year.
He seemed reluctant to get back to his normal life and its problems, just as he had at the end of The Rolling Thunder Revue,
and had been calling Weintraub to book more concerts. In many ways he seemed an unhappy and lonely figure.
�We sat up until the early hours of the morning talking, and he was telling me about all the plans he'd got for 1979,
what we were going to do, and everything,� says Wallace. That was the last he or the other musicians saw of Dylan, however.
Over the Christmas break, Dylan changed his mind and fired the whole band,
having decided to take a radical new direction in both his life and his music.

The 1978 world tour had consisted of a year of frenetic and hedonistic activity,
a diversion from Dylan's failed marriage and wrecked home life.
But in its final stages it was as unsatisfying as Tour '74 had been four years earlier.
Dylan was earning a fortune on the road, but he took little pleasure in playing formulaic greatest-hits shows to football stadium-sized crowds.
At a time when he was feeling low, needing someone or some thing to lift him up, he found himself surrounded by Christians,
particularly Christian women. His girlfriend Carolyn Dennis came from a midwestern gospel background.
Mary Alice Artes had recently been �saved.�
A third girlfriend, Helena Springs, had suggested Dylan pray when he was experiencing doubt and confusion.
Some of the men in the 1978 band, as well as other musician friends, had become Christians in the recent past.
Indeed, there was something of a vogue for Christianity in the music business at the time,
perhaps partly as a reaction to the excess of the 1960s and early-1970s and the fact that many musicians' lives
had been blighted by drug abuse, alcoholism, and other problems in the aftermath of that self-indulgent era.
�Beginning in 1976, something happened all across the world,� says T-Bone Burnett, who was a convert,
as were colleagues David Mansfield and Steven Soles. �It happened to Bono and Edge and Larry Mullens in Ireland.
It happened to Michael Hutchence in Australia, and it happened here in Los Angeles: there was a spiritual movement.�

There were signs during the latter stages of the 1978 tour that Dylan had become caught up in this enthusiasm for Jesus Christ.
Dylan met his old college friend Dave Whitaker after a concert in Oakland, California, in mid-November 1978,
and spoke to Dave's 11-year-old son, Ubi. �Would you send me a guitar?� asked the kid.
The next day a truck pulled up with a gift from Dylan � a brand-new Fender Stratocaster decorated with quotations from the Book of Paul.
A few days later Dylan played a show in San Diego. He picked up a cross that a fan had thrown on stage and started wearing it.
Shortly after this incident Dylan felt what he later described as �this vision and feeling,�
which he believed to be the presence of Jesus Christ in the room. Billy Cross was sitting next to Dylan on the bus
when he looked over and noticed that he seemed to be writing a spiritual song � Slow Train Coming �
the lyrics of which were only partly formed at this time but which described a resurgence of faith in God.
The band played the song at a sound check in Nashville on 2 December 1978.

***

John Aizlewood

It happened in San Diego, but it could have been anywhere.
Dylan, grumpy, road-frazzled and in a generally foul mood, was playing yet another dreary date in yet another dreary auditorium.

The album he was half-heartedly promoting on 17 November 1978 was the muffled Street Legal,
a half-hearted affair despite containing his last British hit single, Baby Stop Crying.
The previously uncritical critical fraternity had berated these shows, the recent four-hour Renaldo And Clara film and Street Legal itself.
The public seemed to agree � despite Dylan not having toured America in four years, these shows rarely sold out,
Street Legal had failed to make the American Top-10 (its three predecessors had reached #1), while Baby Stop Crying did not even reach the Top-100.

That sweaty night, Dylan was not well, which ensured his performance was far from vintage, even by the sloppy standards of this tour.
Midway through a song � nobody quite remembers which one � somebody threw a small silver cross on stage, for reasons nobody has ever quite discovered.
When the song finished, in two somewhat out of character moves, Dylan first noticed it and, second, retrieved it, stiffing it in his back pocket.

After the show, the tour rolled disconsolately on to Tucson, Arizona, where it was even hotter and Dylan felt even worse.
Usually he would seek solace in sultry but God-fearing backing singer and occasional songwriting partner Helena Springs �
or that period�s drug of choice, sometimes marijuana, sometimes cocaine.

That night, alone in his hotel room, he was plumbing the depths of depression once more.
He began fondling his cross and had, he claimed to the Los Angeles Times, a vision.

�I had a �born-again� experience. Jesus put his hand on me. It was a physical thing. I felt it all over me. I felt my body tremble.
The glory of the Lord knocked me down and picked me up. Jesus appeared to me as lord of lords and king of kings.
It�s like waking one day and being reborn, turning into another person. It�s pretty scary if you think about it.�

And that was it. Just, as Tommy Cooper might have said, like that, the Jewish author of With God On Our Side �
who had sneered at the Sermon On The Mount on the Blood On The Tracks reject Up To Me � had suddenly embraced Christianity.

If it seemed unnaturally chilly when Dylan shuffled on the Tucson stage later that night,
that was simply because as he looked towards Heaven and saw Jesus Christ seated beside God, Hell had actually frozen over.

Dylan was not the first to turn to the Lord.
Van Morrison, his British equivalent in so many ways, had dabbled in orthodox Christianity as well as offshoots
such as Scientology and the Jehovah�s Witness movement, without ever becoming less curmudgeonly.

Al Green had taken a ministry, Barry �Eve Of Destruction� Maguire was a bonkers evangelist and,
over in Ireland, U2 were just about to bring their own peculiar brand of confused Christianity to a wider world, but this was Dylan.
People did not only listen to him, they listened to what he was saying.

In truth � and, typically, what the actual truth is will always be yet another Dylan secret �
there had been signs, albeit with the cavert that anyone can read signs of anything in Dylan�s behaviour.

The rustic country-blues of Hank Williams, Leadbelly, Jimmie Rodgers and Howlin� Wolf, which Dylan had been raised to love,
had always had a stark, hellfire, Devil-on-my-tail morality.
It is there, surprisingly overtly, in The Times They Are A-Changin�, and When The Ship Comes In,
which confirm that for someone Jewish, Dylan was awfully familiar with the New Testament�s Revelations.

Once he hit his Christian stride, in clear recognition of Jesus in the Jerusalem temple,
Dylan would coruscate the moneymen, the thieves and the harlots.
Where there is anger in The Bible, Dylan was in simpatico.
Remember, though, that in Woody Guthrie, with his martyr�s death, Dylan had his own distinctly mortal Christ,
before he too occasionally donned the trappings of a martyr.

Initially, Dylan kept touring and kept his peace, consulting gently with Springs and Christian band members
David Mansfield and Steven Soles. He gave Tangled Up In Blue a new religious slant and, by 24 November 1978 in Fort Worth,
he was wearing a showy cross around his neck. He also wrote and performed new songs as he often did while touring.
These songs underlined the rumours of conversion that had seeped out of the tour,
rumours which even the wiliest Dylanologist had simply sniggered at before they became impossible to ignore.

Once the 115 date world tour had run its course, Dylan soon realised there was one obvious catch to his new obsession.
He might have had his experience with Christ; he might have used Biblical imagery throughout his career
and he might have had a Jew�s understanding of the Old Testament, but he did not actually know very much about Jesus Christ.

***

Rock on, Bob!

XXX

Images for all shows as well as full size images for this show.

Images for this show:











BobDylan1978CompilationBassPlayersWearingATie (19).jpg
BobDylan1978CompilationBassPlayersWearingATie (2).jpg
BobDylan1978CompilationBassPlayersWearingATie (20).jpg
BobDylan1978CompilationBassPlayersWearingATie (21).jpg
BobDylan1978CompilationBassPlayersWearingATie (22).jpg
BobDylan1978CompilationBassPlayersWearingATie (23).jpg
BobDylan1978CompilationBassPlayersWearingATie (24).jpg
BobDylan1978CompilationBassPlayersWearingATie (25).jpg
BobDylan1978CompilationBassPlayersWearingATie (26).jpg
BobDylan1978CompilationBassPlayersWearingATie (27).jpg
BobDylan1978CompilationBassPlayersWearingATie (28).jpg
BobDylan1978CompilationBassPlayersWearingATie (29).jpg
BobDylan1978CompilationBassPlayersWearingATie (3).jpg
BobDylan1978CompilationBassPlayersWearingATie (30).jpg
BobDylan1978CompilationBassPlayersWearingATie (31).jpg
BobDylan1978CompilationBassPlayersWearingATie (32).jpg
BobDylan1978CompilationBassPlayersWearingATie (33).jpg
BobDylan1978CompilationBassPlayersWearingATie (34).jpg
BobDylan1978CompilationBassPlayersWearingATie (35).jpg
BobDylan1978CompilationBassPlayersWearingATie (36).jpg
BobDylan1978CompilationBassPlayersWearingATie (37).jpg
BobDylan1978CompilationBassPlayersWearingATie (38).jpg
BobDylan1978CompilationBassPlayersWearingATie (39).jpg
BobDylan1978CompilationBassPlayersWearingATie (4).jpg
BobDylan1978CompilationBassPlayersWearingATie (40).jpg
BobDylan1978CompilationBassPlayersWearingATie (41).jpg
BobDylan1978CompilationBassPlayersWearingATie (5).jpg
BobDylan1978CompilationBassPlayersWearingATie (6).jpg
BobDylan1978CompilationBassPlayersWearingATie (7).jpg
BobDylan1978CompilationBassPlayersWearingATie (8).jpg
BobDylan1978CompilationBassPlayersWearingATie (9).jpg