Mining the Old Weird America: Bob Dylan and Traditional Country Music 

Mining the Old Weird America:  Bob Dylan and Traditional Country Music

 

Jim Clark

 

            Now that Bob Dylan has officially fulfilled his three score and ten, having turned seventy last Tuesday, perhaps it is time to unplug his decades-long apotheosis as symbol, rebel, martyr, poet, prophet, preacher, recluse, generational spokesman, cantankerous crank . . . the list is endless.  Maybe it is time, finally, to examine him, if only briefly and incompletely, as, of all things, a folk singer.  Someone…

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For the Sake of the Song: Townes Van Zandt and the Ballad Tradition 

For the Sake of the Song:  Townes Van Zandt and the Ballad Tradition

 

Jim Clark

 

            Critics have often commented upon the “literary” nature of Texas singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt’s songs, from the carefully crafted metrical formality of his ballads to the experimental, high-flown imagery and wordplay of his lyrics.  John Kruth, in “Struck by Lightnin’, Touched by Frost,” the cleverly titled second chapter of his biography To Live’s to Fly:  The Ballad of the Late, Great Townes Van Zandt

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