Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Neil Young and The Rolling Stones are all defying Father Time and continue to deliver the goods.
If you’re a middle-to-senior-aged person it’s highly likely that some, or all, of the following artists have had some influence on your life. Whether it’s where you were, what was happening or when it occurred, these guys were part of the soundtrack at some stage.
To have written, recorded and toured for over 50 years is an extraordinary feat in anyone’s language. You would need to be extremely fit like Mick Jagger or Bruce Springsteen, or have an iron-fisted constitution like Neil Young, Keith Richards or Ron Wood. Bob Dylan? Well, he fits in there somewhere but who would know? He may well be a mystic.
It’s impossible to deep dive into these careers in under a thousand words so I just wanted to highlight a few elements of each of them that have had a significant influence in my life. I hope it might lead to someone from a younger generation to explore in more detail.
Bruce Springsteen – 1964 to now. I’m a late starter with Bruce but the standout album for me is Nebraska (1982). Stark and moody, it was a departure for him at the time and a commercial failure. What it did do was demonstrate what a talent he was. The beauty of this album was reinvented faithfully in 2008 by Melbourne band Pony Face.
Here is Pony Face covering Atlantic City:
It doesn’t matter if you hate music or you’ve stepped off a space ship, to witness Bruce and the E Street Band live is something you have to do once! We saw him a few years ago with Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine on lead guitar. See below the incredible version of The Ghost of Tom Joad from Madison Square Garden in 2009.
A Springsteen concert will often exceed three hours with no intermission or encore. I’m convinced the reason for this is that he would surely seize up with a break and be incapable of returning to the stage! Bruce is arguably the world’s greatest stadium performer. The secret is his capacity to engage everyone at the show including his unique way of taking requests from the audience. His unremitting energy is utterly contagious and is always backed loyally by the brilliant E Street Band.
An example of Bruce live:
Neil Young – 1963 to now. I’ve loved Neil’s music as far back as the mid-70s and have seen him live twice. Neil can take you on a dreamy and melancholy journey with his acoustic albums or just plain blast your ear drums out with Crazy Horse. If I had to make a quick decision on albums I would look at both those genres and recommend his triple album from 1977, Decade, which is a terrific compilation and introduction to Neil’s first decade which contained so many classics.
Fast forward to 1979 and experience the force of nature that is Crazy Horse on Rust Never Sleeps. Then maybe skip another decade to 1990 and another Crazy Horse ‘ear bleeder’ Ragged Glory. To put a full stop to the Crazy Horse experience, watch Jim Jarmush’s 1997 ‘warts and all’ documentary, Year of the Horse. Crazy Horse are improvised, almost meditative, in their approach and require little to no engagement from the audience!
Neil is notoriously grumpy, self-indulged and frankly the fact he left his wife Pegi for Daryl Hannah has left a sour taste in the mouths of devotees like myself. He is however one of the most influential artists of all time and has over 40 albums that span soundtracks, studio, live and concept as well as a couple of films. His website (https://neilyoungarchives.com) is the most comprehensive collection of archives that any artist could possibly compile and a lot of fun to navigate.
Here is the trailer for Year of the Horse:
The Rolling Stones – 1962 to now. The recent passing of drummer Charlie Watts actually emphasized that the Rolling Stones are mortal after all! It won’t be fully realised until we see Keith leave this mortal coil and one suspects that will be on stage somewhere, trusty Gibson in hand, strumming one final riff in his last act of defiance.
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When I think Stones, it’s Exile on Main Street that hits me immediately. When Brian Jones died and blues virtuoso Mick Taylor was introduced to the band, there was a definite change in direction that encompassed more blues and country, both major influences on the young Jagger/Richards.
After the brilliant Sticky Fingers in 1971, the band retreated to the south of France to a rented villa in 1972 to avoid the insane British tax laws and record ‘Exile’. If Sticky Fingers was a leap into an unabashed, dirty sound then the double album, Exile, invited you to take a shower after listening!
The events of the French recording have been captured beautifully in the 2010 documentary, Stones in Exile. This was Keith’s album. Utterly debaucherous and sleeping most days due to his heroin addiction, he would call for the band at all hours to put down some tracks in the basement of the villa.
The results are extraordinary. Exile on Main Street is now one of the greatest rock albums of all time. Incorporating rock, blues and country, Mick Taylor’s guitar pedigree is allowed to flourish and it feels like the ultimate jam session. As close to perfection as it gets.
We had two Rolling Stones concerts cancelled during their last tours. I’m not holding my breath for another one, although judging by what they are delivering in the US currently, anything’s possible. One of my favourite songs on Exile is Keith’s only vocal track, Happy. Great that they were able to keep him upright for three minutes!
This is the trailer to Stones in Exile:
Bob Dylan – 1961 to now. When I look back on the when, where, etc of hearing Bob Dylan I’ll never forget my old friend Dave Chambers who up until his passing a couple of years ago was the classic aficionado. Whilst on a bus trip to a place called Yanchep in WA at age 16, ‘Chambo’ sang Hurricane word perfect. It was our first post-season footy trip, and a time and place you would expect to be devoid of any art. ‘Chambo’, a guy who was as rough and tumble as they came, just sang it with such accuracy and gusto we were soon accompanying him on the chorus.
It’s difficult to define Dylan fans. He has influenced millions and even been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Much has been written about him but little is truly known. Up until COVID he had been touring ceaselessly since 1998. Incredibly he plans to start again in 2022.
His records are iconic and how many artists get referred to in ‘periods’ like some civilization? We saw him a few years ago and it was a huge thrill. No interaction with the audience other than the odd ‘thanks’ and 80 minutes later he was gone, off to another city somewhere. He is the epitome of an enigma.
My partner Lynda is another aficionado of Bob and I’ll no doubt cop a challenge or two over this, but my favourites out of his 40-odd studio albums are The Freewheeling Bob Dylan (1963), Blonde on Blonde (1966), Nashville Skyline (1969) and Blood on the Tracks (1975). His Bootleg Series is magnificent also and is up to volume 16. My two favourite documentaries are the sensational Rolling Thunder Review and No Direction Home, both directed by Martin Scorsese.
Thank you to all these great artists for enhancing my life. No women I hear you and my daughters say? Not over a 50-year span, but I reckon a few favourites, Lucinda Williams, Patti Smith and Rickie Lee Jones with be pushing through that barrier in the not-too-distant future. I’ll get back to you then. Cheers.
*You can read more of Ian Wilson’s work at WWW.ISOWILSON.COM
Gee thanks. I was referring to 50+ years which is where those extraordinary women who aren’t relegated if you chose to read it properly, will be shortly. Your thoughts on my daughters aren’t appreciated. They can think for themselves thanks very much.
Patronising, ignorant, lazy rubbish re the exclusion of women from this list. Have you ever heard of Joni Mitchell? Some rate her a superior poet and musician to Dylan, one perhaps even more influential in terms of her use of language. There are more women’s names I might mention, but you’ve already relegated some of them (despite their maturity) to yet to be recognised status. This is how the patriarchy works, by leaving out the women. Your daughters should insist on a rewrite and an apology for your erasure of their kind.