Count Basie/Bob Dylan

Went thru my old Penguin Jazz Music Guide and getting things from the library from it.(learning on the cheap) Anyways, was going through Count Basie's Complete Decca Recordings and on disc 2, track 3 the song Sent For You Yesterday came on. I'm not exactly the raging Bobcat i once was, but i've read more than my fair share of texts back in the day, and, hey, maybe the attribution slipped by me, but wow, take a listen (@ 1:10):



To say my jaw hit the floor would be putting it mildly!

(for those that ain't hip, here's another vid for ya)(@ 1:04)

Bob Dylan - Lot To Laugh, Train To Cry - Traducción español.flv

 

You realize, don't you, that A) Bob Dylan works often by stitching together bits and pieces of music and words (and sometimes more than bits and pieces) from old sources -- many of his songs are made up of lines that have their sources in blues, gospel, jazz and country songs (and literary sources, and TV shows and movies, etc); and B) blues is often written using "floating verses" that blues writers grab and reassemble?

You want to go down a rabbit hole someday, spend some time with something like John Warmuth's collection of sources and references in Tempest (https://www.pinterest.com/scottwarmuth/a-tempest-commonplace/) or his examination of Dylan's use of Henry Rollins' material -- Goon Talk: Bob Dylan disguised as Henry Rollins

 

Oh, TOTALLY aware, just that i never have seen this mentioned before in connection with It Takes A Lot To Laugh. It's part of his greatness, to make the allusions to things not just within the world of music, but other mediums as well. Dylan IS the rabbit hole!

 

First of all Basie and Dylan are both geniuses. More Basie please.

Secondly, I think that turn of a phrase is sufficiently obvious that two songwriters might have happens upon it independently. However, even if Dylan did like the imagery and adopted it directly, he put it in a context that is extraordinary and completely transformative. It Takes a Lot To Laugh stands on its own unique merits just like Basie’s signature swing.

No artist works in a vacume and Dylan takes inspiration from many sources.

 

Count Basie is a legend!!!

 

oh man, thanks for this, never read about the Rollins connection, amazin'!

 

"It Takes A Lot To Laugh" would make a great cover by a big-band jazz vocalist along the lines of Joe Williams or Billy Eckstine. Or Dinah Washington, or Billie Holiday.

ha ha, I'm hearing a Joe Williams version in my head, right now. He slows it down some. Pretty good horn arrangement, too, swinging along and pushing the tune just right, especially at the "if I die at the top of the hill/if I don't make it/you know my baby will" part.

 

or Jimmy Rushing?

 

After Blonde on Blonde Bob should have hired Count Basie and His Band to back him!

 

Love It!

Reminds me of “...he punched my eyelids, and smoked my cigarette”, and what Bob humorously did to that!

 

of course!

Was Rushing singing on the Basie clip in the original post? I haven't had the opportunity to audition it yet, it would be an interruption. (I suppose I should get over my antipathy to headphones and spring for a decent pair of them.)

 

Yes, exactly.