Bob Dylan live playing bass

Westerly Wood

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What's this? Bob Dylan playing bass at a live concert. Does it look like he plays about the same as any beginner? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jS3BMd7JwDc

I know in a photo in an album i had of his, a pic of inside recording studio, he was playing a bass. I think he did a lot of the instruments on the early albums, on some songs. kind of like stills did. Stills played nearly every guitar/bass/piano instrument on the first CSN album. he would tell Graham and Dave to leave for a while...LOL Pretty much know who wore the pants in that family...
 

adorshki

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I know in a photo in an album i had of his, a pic of inside recording studio, he was playing a bass. I think he did a lot of the instruments on the early albums, on some songs. kind of like stills did.

Believe this is from Blonde on Blonde sessions:
Dylan_studio_1965.png


Stills played nearly every guitar/bass/piano instrument on the first CSN album. he would tell Graham and Dave to leave for a while...LOL Pretty much know who wore the pants in that family...

Yeah he wasn't too shy in Buffalo Springfield either.
Young complained once about how he took home the tapes for "Bluebird" and laid down all the solos before Neil had a chance at 'em.
As for Crosby and Nash they certainly had no problem finding ways to occupy their time together...busted together on Crosby's boat in Santa Cruz harbor in '70, I think it was.
Cocaine and hash, and Crosby reported to be crawling around on the floor of the cabin in his fur coat mumbling incoherently.
My high-school freshman buddies and I were all over that story...
:biggrin-new:
 

Westerly Wood

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yes Al, that is the pic! cool. I had that album at one time.
I think I have stated before, I was at that concert in Bristol RI, Colt State Park, Crosby shows up late, totally drugged out. This was like '85 or '86. Think summer of '85. Definitely if you read his book, he talks about it, the really dark times. Anyway, Nash tells the audience to yell at him when he gets on stage. Nash was livid. They did Carry On just the 2 of them, Stills and Nash. So David joins them, then tells them he wants to do one of his songs. Nash was not having any of that. He screamed at him and Dave just looked so defeated. Like a child. It was really sad to watch.
 

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Stills played nearly every guitar/bass/piano instrument on the first CSN album. he would tell Graham and Dave to leave for a while...LOL Pretty much know who wore the pants in that family...

Yeah, if you listen to the beginning of their cover of "Blackbird" (from the CSN box set), you get that idea:

 

adorshki

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yes Al, that is the pic! cool. I had that album at one time.
I think I have stated before, I was at that concert in Bristol RI, Colt State Park, Crosby shows up late, totally drugged out. This was like '85 or '86. Think summer of '85. Definitely if you read his book, he talks about it, the really dark times. Anyway, Nash tells the audience to yell at him when he gets on stage. Nash was livid. They did Carry On just the 2 of them, Stills and Nash. So David joins them, then tells them he wants to do one of his songs. Nash was not having any of that. He screamed at him and Dave just looked so defeated. Like a child. It was really sad to watch.
And to think they were sailing buddies, once.
Frrom here:
"It was the autumn of the ‘summer of love’ and David was effectively unemployed after being fired from The Byrds. He was back in South Florida retracing steps made back in his days as a teenage itinerant musician fresh out of Greenwich Village when he arrived on a Greyhound bus. This time around, though, things were different and he was able to purchase the Mayan – a distinctive John Alden-designed 356-B centerboard schooner built in Honduras in 1947 – for $22,500, money borrowed from the Monkees’ Peter Tork. (my emphasis, never knew that before)
'It’s the best money I ever spent. The Mayan stands for the good things in my life: health, sanity and freedom – all the positive values.
I had been unceremoniously tossed out of the Byrds, and I had some time on my hands. I was down there just goofing off, looking for a sailboat. I’d been a sailor all my life, and I wanted to find a big wooden sailboat that I could go and start voyaging. And I did. It was a joy.'
David Crosby, Sun-Sentinel 2015
A few years later, after losing his lover Christine in a tragic accident, David decided that he wanted to bring Mayan around to the West Coast.
Graham Nash, self-confessed city boy and fellow member of Crosby Stills and Nash, was one of the crew that set sail from Fort Lauderdale on January 23rd 1970. He recalled “Once we boarded the Mayan David’s ghosts were tamed. He was transformed on that boat. All the pain and anguish began melting away as he slipped into the role of an emotionally healthy person, Captain Croz. Man he was in his element, pulling up sails and coil ropes, navigating through treacherous shoals.”
 
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Westerly Wood

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great background story Al. Crosby was a genius, and probably had the best voice of the 3. but his demons, wow, they were many.
 

idealassets

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I know in a photo in an album i had of his, a pic of inside recording studio, he was playing a bass. I think he did a lot of the instruments on the early albums, on some songs. kind of like stills did. Stills played nearly every guitar/bass/piano instrument on the first CSN album. he would tell Graham and Dave to leave for a while...LOL Pretty much know who wore the pants in that family...
Interesting to know about Stephen Stills. He created many great songs. For CSN that's amusing, the other 2 were rhythm players and background singers until then.
 

idealassets

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Al, Roger McGuinn claims that Croz was paid $50,000 as severance for being fired from the Byrds, and he was all too glad to get it. This happened supposedly after too many disagreements in the studio during the making of the Notorious Byrds Brothers album. That was a lot of money back then. McGuinn also stated that Croz bought a large boat with the money. Don't know why or how Peter Tork would lend $22,000, but I'm in on that scenario any way.

Croz had many bad years in the 80's. I recall reading in USA today in '83 that he was jailed somewhere in Texas after being nabbed with various drugs and a loaded pistol in his hotel room around the time of playing concerts in some dive places.

He is however definitely a talent, and excelled quite well through it all.
 

fronobulax

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Does it look like he plays about the same as any beginner?

A bass only player would need some time to develop that right hand technique. However an experienced guitarist could bring that technique from guitar. I wouldn't use "beginner" to describe that and would mumble something about multi-instrumentalist instead.
 

adorshki

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Interesting to know about Stephen Stills. He created many great songs. For CSN that's amusing, the other 2 were rhythm players and background singers until then.
C, S&N actually first met at Mama Cass' house in the Canyon and the binding glue was the magic harmonies.
C & N were both already well-respected song-writers for their part as well ("So You Wanna be A Rock'n'Roll Star", "Carrie Ann")
But from the start it was all about the vocals, so I suspect Crosby and Nash were OK with Stills' taking on the bulk of the actual playing tasks.
Their performance of "Judy Blue Eyes" at Woodstock is a magnificent demonstration of the original "vision" and does show Stills as the primary instrumentalist and the other 2 (well, 3 since Young was on board by then, too, thus sewing the seeds for the same creative tensions that had dragged on Buffalo Springfield), as more than competent rhythm backing.

Al, Roger McGuinn claims that Croz was paid $50,000 as severance for being fired from the Byrds, and he was all too glad to get it. This happened supposedly after too many disagreements in the studio during the making of the Notorious Byrds Brothers album. That was a lot of money back then. McGuinn also stated that Croz bought a large boat with the money. Don't know why or how Peter Tork would lend $22,000, but I'm in on that scenario any way.
Even though I've read Crosby's bio I've forgotten if I read that and the bit about Peter Tork besides, if it was in there.
Was just quoting the story in support of my memory of the timing of his bust with Nash, actually couldn't find any references to that on the 'net....a cover-up, perhaps?
:highly_amused:
Re "how" Tork could afford to make the loan: He was doing well with his Monkees royalties, and "why"?:
There was a known connection already between Stills and him, and Tork was actually one of Laurel Canyon's most notorious party animals back in the day.
Ahhh, here we are: CS&N having one of their notorious "practices", "waving the freak flag" for the neighbors, as Crosby used to say, at the house Stills and Tork shared at the time:
1704466.t.jpg

d97f2c6352b2cf1e3da9dab7b61f92ea.jpg

I do see the story about that payoff confirmed on the Byrds' Wiki page, so either Crosby's "misremembering" (as seems to be common with rock stars of a certain age and experience, let alone us everyday folks); or perhaps he really did borrow the money while waiting for his payout?
 
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adorshki

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great background story Al. Crosby was a genius, and probably had the best voice of the 3. but his demons, wow, they were many.
I actually prefer Stills' voice.
Right up there with Lennon, and John Kay (Steppenwolf), and Mickie Dolenz (!), probably my favorite male vocalists as a kid.
Oh, Jack Bruce too.
But Crosby could nail the high parts like nobody else and was a hell of a writer besides.

A bass only player would need some time to develop that right hand technique. However an experienced guitarist could bring that technique from guitar. I wouldn't use "beginner" to describe that and would mumble something about multi-instrumentalist instead.
Yes, "mumble".
In the best Dylan tradition.
:biggrin-new:
 

Westerly Wood

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I actually prefer Stills' voice.
Right up there with Lennon, and John Kay (Steppenwolf), and Mickie Dolenz (!), probably my favorite male vocalists as a kid.
Oh, Jack Bruce too.
But Crosby could nail the high parts like nobody else and was a hell of a writer besides.

oh i always heard Crosby as the in between voice. His voice melded the other 2 together and really was the glue.
interesting. so did Grace Slick however, think the same thing.

Stills, yes, his voice is a lead vocal for sure. Cros, not so much a lead vocal, a blender.
 

adorshki

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Stills, yes, his voice is a lead vocal for sure. Cros, not so much a lead vocal, a blender.
Forgot to follow up a couple of other of Ideal's comments:
Croz had many bad years in the 80's. I recall reading in USA today in '83 that he was jailed somewhere in Texas after being nabbed with various drugs and a loaded pistol in his hotel room around the time of playing concerts in some dive places.
And not just once, in fact.
His bio recounts some absolutely incredibly stupidly dangerous actions taken in pursuit of his crack addiction, even using a mini-torch on his crack pipe in the oxygen-enriched cabin of a private plane in flight.... I guess when he was writing it, "confession was good for the soul".
He is however definitely a talent, and excelled quite well through it all.
Y'know what one of my favorite Crosby career moves was?
When he played John Larroquette's AA sponsor in the John Larroquette Show.
Talk about art imitating life and vice-versa besides!
:highly_amused:
John_Larroquette_Showdavidcrosby3077947.jpg
 

idealassets

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A bass only player would need some time to develop that right hand technique. However an experienced guitarist could bring that technique from guitar. I wouldn't use "beginner" to describe that and would mumble something about multi-instrumentalist instead.

I am corrected, "multi-instrumentalist". To boot, what an original voice he has?
 
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