Barb Jungr Returns Man in the Long Black Coat to New York

Barb Jungr, the fabulous British singer, is back in New York City to perform her widely-acclaimed Bob Dylan show, Man in the Long Black Coat, at the elegant Metropolitan Room for a three-week run starting on April 10th. Barb's unique interpretations of Bob's songs are absolutely Dylanesque. On her latest CD, Man In The Long Black Coat, Jungr seamlessly mixes Dylan's best known songs with offbeat offerings like "Trouble in Mind," "Sara," and "High Water."

Jungr reconstructs "Trouble in Mind," slowly building it from something that sounds like Peggy Lee's "Fever" to a resounding and inspiring gospel hymn—the type of performance that can only be pulled off by an artist that understands the subtleties and nuances of Dylan's rarest compositions. Her rendition of "Man in the Long Black Coat" is sublime. In one verse she snarls like Dylan, then her voice soars like Joan Baez. The arrangement captures the suspenseful tone of Dylan's original with dynamic, rich texture.

In addition to her ten-year affair with Dylan's oeuvre, Jungr is known for her daring interpretations of compositions by Bruce Springsteen, Leonard Cohen, David Byrne, Neil Diamond, Hank Williams and Elvis Presley. Jungr is a dazzling live performer who delivers an indefinable X-factor with each show. This style mirrors what Dylan does with his own songs in concert.

Time Out New York rated Man in the Long Black Coat the top cabaret show of 2011. Adam Feldman wrote, "The extraordinary English singer didn't just cover Bob Dylan's songs, she uncovered them and discovered them with exuberant musical insight."

If you love Bob Dylan's music, or if you love the thrill of a great live performance, Barb Jungr's show is a must see. Barb serves up the all the iconic songs with fresh twists: "Like A Rolling Stone," The Times They Are A-Changin'," It Ain't Me Babe," "Blind Willie McTell." Man in the Long Black Coat performs a total of 15 times: Tues-Fri April 10, 11, 12, 13, all at 7pm; Sat April 14 at 9:30; Tues-Fri April 17, 18, 19, 20, all at 7pm; Sat April 21 at 9:30pm; Tues-Fri April 24, 25, 26, 27, all at 7pm; Sat April 28 at 9:30pm. The music charge is $25, plus a two-drink minimum.

For reservations call 212/206-0440 or order online www.metropolitanroom.com

For those attending the shows on Saturday, April 14th and April 21st, join Barb and prominent Bob Dylan experts for two intimate pre-show Fireside Chats at 8 PM. The shows start at 9:30.There's no additional charge for the Fireside Chats for the first 30 persons who purchase their tickets online. Just use the password Dylanchat .

In addition to meeting Barb, you'll be able to participate in revealing stories, gossip, and gospel with Q 104's KEN DASHOW (April 14) , Dylan author Howard Weiner (April 14 & 21), and another special guest who will be announced for April 21st.

People don't live or die/ People just float

She gone with the man in the long black coat

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Thank You John Hammond

Happy Anniversary Bob!

I'm out here a thousand miles from my home
Walkin' a road other men have gone down

 Few men have walked down as many roads as Bob Dylan. Those lines sung at the beginning of "Song to Woody" capture the essence of the twenty year-old artist, and as Dylan prepares to launch the twenty-fifth year of his Never Ending Tour in Brazil next month, those words still ring true. Dylan's got that restless fever burning in his brain 50 years after his debut album for Columbia Records was released on March 19, 1962.

Fortunately, John Hammond had the audacity to sign an unproven folk talent to a major label, because this self-titled album gives us yet another side of Dylan. With its breathless mixture of folk and blues, the album is a snapshot of an artist in a state of becoming at breakneck speed. In those days Dylan did everything quick. He thought quick, sang quick, learned quick, played quick and recorded quick. Bob Dylan was recorded in two sessions in November 1961.

 "Song to Woody" is the masterpiece that emerged from those sessions. Oddly, this fabulous tribute never made an appearance on any of Dylan's  greatest hits albums. It's one of the first songs that Bob wrote, but it's the heartfelt performance that makes "Song to Woody" come alive. The singing is honest and attentive. This is a twenty year-old kid paying tribute to his dying idol straight from the heart. It has a timeless feel. A heightened sense of excitement strikes me every time I hear it. In that regard it reminds me of "Mr. Tambourine Man."
"You're No Good," the opening track of Bob Dylan, is a freewheeling blues blast that sets up "Talkin' New York," Dylan's account on his first year in The City. In reality, New York was very kind to Dylan, but that doesn't work in the talkin' blues format. However, through his own experience, Dylan tuned into the universal struggle of the hungry artist arriving on the island of  Manhattan. Whether it was his intention or not, Dylan already had a knack for expressing thoughts for the "countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse."

The rest of the album is a hoot. Dylan's singing and harp playing on "Baby Let Me Follow You Down" is delightful. I hear shades of what's to come  on Nashville Skyline. On "Highway 51" we hear the classic blues riff that Dylan would use on "It's Alright Ma." Throughout this record Dylan's passion for the blues is on display, a passion that would dominate every album since Time Out of Mind."House of the Rising Sun" and "Man of Constant Sorrow" are  intense performances that confirm Dylan was a master student of American Roots music at the age of twenty.

 Happy anniversary Bob! Thank you John Hammond.

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Best of Dylan in the Style of Garcia

Jerry's Top Ten Dylan Covers

 

1. Tough Mama Legion of Mary 7-4-75

2. Tangled Up in Blue JGB 5-28-83

3. All Along the Watchtower GD 3-26-88

4. Quinn the Eskimo GD 12-31-85

5. It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry Jerry and Merl 2-6-72

6. Positively 4th Street JGB 12-21-79

7. It's All Over Now Baby Blue GD 4-12-83

8. When I Paint My Masterpiece JGB 2-29-80

9. Desolation Row GD 9-23-87

10. Simple Twist of Fate JGB 8-11-84 

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Soy Bomb Revisited

Fourteen years ago on this day in 1998, Bob Dylan scooped up his first Grammy for Album of the Year, and he immortalized a party crasher with the words Soy Bomb painted in block letters on his bare chest. Just like so many times before,  this was a mind out of time moment in Dylan folklore.

Seven years before Soy Bomb, as American bombs rained down on Iraq, Dylan bombed on the Grammy stage. Sure, “Masters of War” was a gutsy song choice, but regardless of the spin that any Dylanologist puts on it, Dylan’s 1991 performance was abrasive.  On that night, Jack Nicholson presented Dylan with a Lifetime Achievement  Award.  Dylan’s improvised acceptance speech was a hoot, but it was obvious he had seen better days.

After six more years of touring, and overcoming a freak heart ailment, Dylan released Time Out of Mind to the thunderous roar of writers, critics, and loyalists. Dylan was a shoe in to win at the 1998 Grammy Awards. The only suspense was the live performance: what would Dylan play, and what did the Grammy Gods have in store for him.

Dylan looked dashing in a gray suit as his band broke into “Love Sick,” the tune I was pulling for. A funky crew of hired cool cats circled the band as the Hibbing Hipster let it rip: “I’m walking, through streets that are dead; I’m walking, with you in my head.” Dylan was in the hypnotic zone. TV land was at his command until Soy Bomb burst upon the scene—a half-naked man  with his arms a-flailing. Dylan noticed him from behind and shot him a look of absolute bewilderment.

It took security over a minute to remove the intruder, but the bomb was lit. Dylan laced into the best guitar solo of his career.  Dylan’s focused performance became sublime, the adrenaline rush  elevated the drama for everybody. Dylan’s band was smiling in unison.  Bob closed “Love Sick” with a poignant verse filled with attentive  vocal inflections. By itself, the audio track is a Dylan classic.

 With the Eyes of the World watching, this became one of the most riveting moments in history of live entertainment. And we were yet to hear that gripping acceptance speech where Dylan talked of how he was inspired by Buddy Holly’s spirit during the recording  of Time Out of Mind because of a vibe Dylan had picked up on when he saw Buddy in Duluth as a young man.

Dylan keeps on keepin’ on.  If Soy Bomb hadn't existed, somebody would have had to an invent a Soy Bomb Theory  to explain Dylan's career renaissance that is still raging fourteen years later.

Tangled Up in Tunes: Ballad of a Dylanhead

available at www.tangledupintunes.com  

A Special President's Day Post

Minneapolis, Minnesota 11-04-08
Excerpt from Tangled Up in Tunes: Ballad of a Dylahead

As showtime neared, anticipation and expectation swelled inside Northrop Auditorium. The Prodigal Son had returned. This was Dylan’s debut concert on the campus of the college he had dropped out of to claim fame in New York. Dylan’s past was present: folks from his hometown of Hibbing, Minnesota, who knew him as Bobby Zimmerman; peers from his Dinkytown days; academics and professors who scrutinized his oeuvre. The poet laureate of American music, our Jewish homeboy from the Iron Range, was serenading the faithful on the evening that an African American born in Hawaii would break the ultimate color barrier.

I settled into my twentieth-row seat. Right behind me were two affable young ladies in Minnesota Gopher attire. They were studying biophysics, and I was studying them. Their approach to this concert was simple: they didn’t know any of Dylan’s tunes, but they were psyched to see a legend. I told them I was from Manhattan, and I was writing a book on Dylan. They just might be impressed by a mystery man on a scholarly quest. How else could I smoothly explain why I’d traveled cross-country to see one Dylan concert when I’ve already seen ninety-two?  I was thrilled these girls were my friends for the evening. They looked like cast members from the Real World: one a natural California blonde; the other a sultry Asian beauty. One smelled like magnolias, and the other banana bread. My scalp was bare, but with my baby face and sturdy physique, I hoped to pass for thirty-five.

The sultry Asian student with jeans torn at the knees placed her dainty fingers on my shoulder, leaned over my neck, and whispered, “We’re, like, so excited for the concert, and that’s, like—ah, so cool that you’re writer and you live in Manhattan. We don’t have any ID. If we give you money, can you buy us beers?”

I refused the money with a nonchalant wave of my hand and returned with three jumbo beers as the lights dimmed.

Dressed in black with a wide-brimmed, white top hat, Dylan exuded alpha maleness despite his slender frame. His bandmates wore fine tailored suits, Obama pins, and serious expressions. The audience cheered lustily when they identified “The Times They Are-A-Changin’” and “Masters of War.” Playing keyboards most of the night, Dylan aroused the crowd whenever he grabbed his harmonica and blasted away, tip-toeing across the stage. Rapturous applause erupted at the beginning and ending of Dylan’s idiosyncratic harp solos.

The reality girls yahooed and shook their hips as Dylan twisted away behind his keyboards to the electrified swing of “Summer Days.” The blonde one tapped me on the shoulder, cupped her hand to my ear and said, “This is sooooo amazing.” Her tongue ever so slightly grazed my earlobe. Good vibrations surrounded me. I was relieved that these college cookies were digging the groove because Dylan’s voice was gruff like an old carnival barker at the end of a double shift. Either you were drawn to the rumbling or you were repulsed, but everyone listened. Dylan’s mysterious web of charisma hypnotized the audience.

Dylan muffed some lyrics and his vocals were more jagged than usual, but the audacious fifteen-song set made up for any performance hiccups. Hopscotching across his canon, Dylan offered sketches of America that represented all five decades of his career. When Bob grunted, “Even the President of the United States must sometimes have to stand naked,” it sounded more like a warning shot for Obama than a eulogy for Bush. Revolution was in the air. It was the sentimental “Shooting Star,” however, that jingle-jangled indelibly in my mind.

A backdrop of a star-cluttered sky unfurled behind the band as they glided into the opening chords. “Shooting Star” is a sacred song that Dylan only breaks out once or twice a tour. Dylan sang with a gentle caress: “Seen a shooting star tonight, and I thought of me. If I was still the same. If I ever became what you wanted me to be.” If ever a singer became his words, Dylan did that night. He was Minnesota’s shooting star. Trekking down memory lane, Dylan moseyed from the organ and snatched an electric guitar. The crowd showered their North Star with love as he stood like a toy soldier and plucked an awkwardly authentic solo.

My mind left the action in Minneapolis when Dylan crooned, “Seen a shooting star tonight, and I thought of you. You were trying to break into another world; a world I never knew.” I reflected back on my twenty-one-year fascination with Dylan’s music. “Shooting Star” is the final tune on Oh Mercy, Dylan’s gloomy 1989 masterpiece. I skipped all my college classes at SUNY New Paltz that semester and held daily Oh Mercy listening parties in my ground floor crash pad. The baby blue house I rented bore a striking resemblance to Dylan’s childhood home in Hibbing. Some folks settle down, but some of us are shooting stars, restless strangers, in a constant state of becoming—lonesome and a long way from home.

New Paltz was my first home away from my parent’s house, but I’ll always remember that town as the place where I was seduced by Blood on the Tracks while driving north on Route 32. After hearing that tape, my brain went berserk. I scored every Dylan album and felt immediate connection to a level of experience that could only be accessed through his songs. I’d seen the Promised Land, and I tried sharing my vision with everybody in town. Time spent studying Dylan played a part in my academic dismissal from SUNY New Paltz. Also factoring into my “downfall” was a predilection for debauchery and hedonism. Many years later, my interest in Dylan’s lyrics brought me back to the classroom. I finally earned an undergraduate degree, and I was now working on my Master’s in creative writing. “Shooting Star” slipped away—nothing left but an illusionary sparkle. Dylan rolled on to his next performance, preaching, “He not busy being born, is busy dying.”

Jimmy Carter quoted that line when he accepted the Democratic Party nomination for President. It’s a daily struggle: either you’re living or you’re dying. Many days you’re on a treadmill, vacillating between the two, no matter how hard you strive. Dylan then warned, “Money doesn’t talk; it swears.” In the midst of a vicious recession, the relevance of Dylan’s poetry was uncanny.
After introducing his band, Dylan offered a rare comment: “I was born the year Pearl Harbor was attacked, and I’ve seen some pretty dark days since then. It looks like things are going to change now.”

Dylan’s declaration was a nod to Obama, even though the statement was vague. When you’re Bob Dylan, every statement you make can and will be scrutinized for eternity. I suppose that’s why Bob lets his songs do all the yapping. However, there was nothing ambiguous about his final entrée of the evening, “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

Inspiration can strike in the strangest of places. I respect this anthem, but I’ve never before detected an emotional connection between the singer and his iconic song. Like so many times before, Dylan asked, “How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?” On this momentous night for America, Dylan answered with a resounding, “The answer my friend is blowing in the wind. The answer is blowing in the wiiiiindd!” The answer seemed tangible, at least for now. There was boundless optimism rippling through this rendition—a sense that this song, which has meant so much to so many, had finally resonated with its creator. The crowd was frenzied when Dylan came out for his final ovation. With a wild smile, the Prodigal Son opened his arms to the faithful as if to say, “How about that? What a night!” Tears of triumph slid down my cheeks.

I was lured into a photo shoot with my fabulous reality girls. They hooted and danced all night while I double-shuffled and plucked air-guitar. One of our neighbors took a snapshot of us. I then posed with each girl individually as they snapped away on their iPhones. Ahhhh, the sensuous smell of magnolias and banana bread. It had been a while since I’d practiced the art of seduction on a twenty-year-old coed, but I had an early flight back to New York. I teetered on the ledge of temptation. I wondered if they lived off campus.

My musings were interrupted by lusty screams and a rumbling roar from the halls. Jumping Jesus! Bob Dylan must be outside greeting fans. As I stepped into the lobby, the hollering and cheering felt biblical. I looked up at the big screen, and there was the face I’d seen all day—honest and promising. The scoreboard read: Obama 297, McCain 188. NBC News had just projected that Barack Obama would be the 44^th President of the United States.

Delirious students flocked from the dorms to the front of the auditorium, joining revelers who had just seen Dylan. The tribe chanted and danced as one: “O-ba-ma, O-ba-ma, O-ba-ma, O-ba-ma.” I floated into the surging celebration and soaked in the primal exhilaration. It was unlike any group euphoria I’d experienced. It was as is if the crowd had given collective birth. I knew Obama was going to win, but I never envisioned this.

Separating myself from the spontaneous soirée, and forever ending my chances with the co-eds, I walked to the far end of the courtyard and peered in at the ruckus through the tall feather reed grass. The students bounced and howled as one in the warm North Country night. Choked up with emotion, I watched in silence. This was their glory. I shared it from a distance. This land is your land, this land is my land. I’m skeptical of politicians, especially those who reside in the White House. I liked Obama and enjoyed the rush of historical significance, but I didn’t share the unbridled optimism of the students. I lurked in the background until the surreal scene dissipated into the evening haze.

When Dylan stood on the stage on Election Day 2008, the announcer’s intro had reminded us that Bob was “The voice of the promise of the ‘60s counterculture.” Seconds after Dylan took his final bow and disappeared into the darkness, a slice of that promise had been realized.

You might think that traveling from Manhattan to Minneapolis for one Dylan concert is extreme, but as I devoured chicken wings at a Dinkytown dive, I was glad I’d followed my musical instincts again. In the midst of analytical commentary on Obama’s decisive victory, a news agency had projected that Republican Norm Coleman was re-elected to the senate in the tightest race of the night. I was following this contest because Norm’s opponent, Al Franken, of Saturday Night Live fame, was a Deadhead. Chalk it up as another Election Day media blunder. But, after a recount which included absentee ballots, Minnesota elected Franken, a Deadhead Democrat, to represent them in the U.S. Senate. Well, well, well, you can never tell.

Tangled Up in Tunes available in paperback or on Kindle: www.tangledupintunes.com

Johnny Appleseed Strikes Again!

An excerpt from Chapter 16 of Tangled Up in Tunes


A thousand die-hard Dylanheads had a sing-along with Bob during the second tune, “You Ain’t Going Nowhere.” If you didn’t dig Dylan, you were on your way home or headed for the exit. The rest of us were in for an enchanted evening. Dylan slid into a playful “Just Like a Woman.” The precipitation intensified as he yelled, “Nobody feels any pain tonight as I stand inside the rain.” On August, 27, 2006, the Lord said, “Let it rain on that tiny ballpark in New Hampshire.” And so it rained—a relentless downpour, similar to the ending of Grapes of Wrath.

Dylan loves the slop. He could have written the night off as a lost cause and shortened the show, saving his best tunes for another gig with a bigger crowd. However, Dylan felt a kinship with these New Englanders. Dylan performed as if he wanted to put on a poncho and serenade us from the pitcher’s mound. It was a soggy fantasy camp.

Another plane took off from Manchester airport and sailed through the clouds, fifty feet above the stage. Dylan howled, “Where have you been, my blue-eyed son? Where have you been, my darling young one?” Phil, Rich and I moved closer to the stage. There may have been 1,000 fans left to hear “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” Standing in the pelting rain, we were invigorated. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes “Hard Rain” is just hard rain.

“Highway 61 Revisited” left burn marks. “Tangled Up in Blue” was better than any version I’d heard since 1998. Almost every night we get “Like a Rolling Stone,” but Bob was more deliberate with it on this night. Denny Freeman kicked out a great solo. The band was in no hurry to leave. They may never play in front of such loyalists again.

If you were Bob Dylan, how would you say goodnight? Dylan started off with his usual routine, taking bows with his ten-gallon hat in hand and his Cowboy Band stoically lined-up behind him. Suddenly, Dylan reached into his hat and grabbed a fistful of a mystery dust and soft-tossed it at the crowd, as if he was performing a baptism. Johnny Appleseed strikes again!
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