Gordon Lightfoot Forums - If Dylan why not Lightfoot

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Mar. 13, 2004. 01:00 AM

HECTOR MATA/AFP FILE PHOTO
Already slated to play the Ricoh Coliseum Friday, Dylan added a second gig two nights later at Kool Haus. A week later, he filled in the opening Saturday night slot by booking himself into the Phoenix Concert Theatre.

Dylan's famous, but he's no celeb

VIT WAGNER

Bob Dylan's storied musical biography is littered with signal events — from his controversial and much-debated "gone electric" appearance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival to his provocative performance of "Masters Of War" during the height of the Gulf War at the 1991 Grammy Awards.

In a more mundane and far less mythical sense, however, few occasions better illustrate Dylan's later career than the 2001 Academy Awards.

It was not by chance the legendary singer, then on tour with his band in Australia, was not in Los Angeles to personally receive an Oscar for the song "Things Have Changed," which was featured in the movie Wonder Boys. It was by chance that the location was Australia; it could as easily have been Denmark or Argentina. But being on the road was hardly happenstance.

Unlike Woody Allen, who has made a repeated point of snubbing the Oscars, Dylan intended no disrespect. He performed "Things Have Changed" live by satellite from Sydney, then reacted graciously when his victory was announced.

"Oh, good God, this is amazing," he said, later adding, "I want to thank the members of the Academy who were bold enough to give me this award for this song." No, it wasn't that Dylan didn't like idea of getting an Oscar. Nor is it likely that Dylan, who has only won a half-dozen Grammys under his own name, had become inured to receiving awards.

It was just that he had somewhere else to be, something else to do. And, typically, that something was playing music.

A celebrity would have organized his schedule differently. But Bob Dylan may be the most famous entertainer in the world who is not a celebrity.

It's an important distinction. Celebrities trade on who they are, rather than on what they do. Their stardom might be rooted in past accomplishments, but having crossed the line into celebrity their creativity — to say nothing of their artistic credibility — often suffers.

Dylan, who plays three shows in Toronto next week, is first, foremost and forever a musician.

At 62, he is no longer the culturally iconic figure who released the era-defining The Times They Are A-Changin' four decades ago.

But no one would accuse him of coasting on his past, as endlessly fertile as that past remains.

(A new book, A Simple Twist Of Fate: Bob Dylan And The Making Of The Blood On The Tracks, documents the recording of his brilliant 1975 comeback. Meanwhile, Bob Dylan Live 1964, the sixth CD in the bootleg series, is due at the end of this month.)

Dylan's most recent studio albums, 2001's Love And Theft and 1997's Time Out Of Mind, rank alongside some of his best work. Through tireless touring, he has solidified his reputation as the most enduring artist of his generation. In doing so, he has become the rock era's best example of how to remain relevant by staying true to your craft.

As someone who emerged during the 1960s, Dylan is most often lumped in with the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and other early contemporaries revered by boomers. Forty years later, as the length and breadth of his career continue to unfold, comparisons to predecessors such as childhood hero Woody Guthrie and the recently departed Johnny Cash seem more apt. And fans at Dylan's shows are as likely to be in their 20s as they are to be in their 50s.

There is no simple calculation that explains Dylan's apparent appeal with younger fans. It lacks the obvious, generational touchstone of Cash's covers of Nine Inch Nails or Beck. Dylan, when he isn't playing his own stuff, mainly covers songs by people who are older than he is or dead.

It's possible Dylan's willingness to reinterpret his own catalogue links to the current fondness for jam bands. And then there is an entire generation of listeners who grew up sifting through their parents' record collections. Or, at the risk of using a dangerously overused word, maybe the music is timeless.

This is not to say our ongoing fascination is exclusively related to the man's musical accomplishments. Dylan has had a hand in cultivating his own mythology, whether through wilful autobiographical fabrications — such as his claim to being raised as an orphan when he actually enjoyed a conventional, middle-class upbringing in suburban Hibbing, Minn. — or the cryptic remarks made during his increasingly infrequent interviews.

In the unlikelihood that anyone still cares about the recent movie Masked And Anonymous a decade from now, it will be because Bob-ologists are still mining clues from Dylan's somewhat self-deprecating and partially self-referential performance as a washed-up folk singer.

It is anyone's guess whether Far From Heaven director Todd Haynes will be able to set the record straight with his recently announced biopic. Dylan has licensed rights to his music for the project, suggesting co-operation. Then again, he has happily led biographers astray in the past. Remember, this is someone whose first significant public act involved changing his name.

It is often assumed that Dylan's way of keeping us interested is to keep us guessing.

It's also possible that he is just trying to throw us off the scent. And doing an impressive job of it, too.

By the time the media learned a couple of years ago that Dylan had secretly wed one of his backing singers, the marriage had already been over for 11 years and the daughter produced by the union was 15 years old.

This is not conventional celebrity behaviour.

It is impossible to picture Dylan sitting courtside at a Knicks game or joining Sting at a network televised Victoria's Secret fashion show.

However, you could hardly call him reclusive. Private, yes, but not reclusive. On any given night, he's up there onstage for all to see, reinterpreting his life's work and, by extension, adding to it.

When he plays in Milwaukee tonight, in Detroit on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, in Toronto on Friday, next Saturday and Sunday, and in Boston, Philadelphia and Washington the week after that, it is not because he has a current album to promote or because he has emerged from a lengthy dormancy — a la the Rolling Stones — to ring up a fresh batch of receipts.

Unlike the Who, he has never said "never again" and then changed his mind. Dylan's idea of a farewell trek is the Never-ending Tour, which began in 1988 and has continued, more or less uninterrupted, to this day — including three visits to Toronto since 2000.

Already slated to play the Ricoh Coliseum Friday, Dylan recently added a second gig two nights later at Kool Haus. A week later, he filled in the open Saturday night slot by booking himself into the Phoenix Concert Theatre.

According to the promoter, he's interested in playing in different sized venues. It's also possible he looked at his schedule and said, "What am I doing on the road with four nights off?"

During his initial heyday back in the 1960s, Dylan liked to tell reporters he was "just a song and dance man," which his audience dismissed as another of Dylan's typically enigmatic utterances.

Turns out, he meant it — although "just" is probably a tad too modest.