Bob Dylan In London - Troubadour Tales
Jackie Lees & KG Miles - McNidder & Grace
A few years back I went to the Water Rats pub in Grays Inn Rood, close to Kings Cross station. Bob Dylan had performed there in December 1962 at a folk night when it was the Pindar of Wakefield and I wondered how they commemorated it. Once there, I saw a display for Oasis playing their first London gig and just one little frame about Dylan. Times move on, and Oasis may mean more to some people than Bob Dylan though I hope not.
Bob Dylan In London - Troubadour Tales is a chatty, informative guide about Bob Dylan in the city stretching from 1962 through to Hyde Park in 2019. We learn about where he stayed, what he played and anything else he did. I am surprised though that he never seemed to visit his record label.
The definition of London is widespread as it includes George Harrison's house in Henley on Thames and Blackbushe Aerodrome; In 1978, the authors tell us, the planes had long departed and the site was normally used for car boot sales.
The tale of Bob Dylan in Crouch End in 1993 was the first subject of Sky's Urban Myths and the real story is investigated. The story of Peter Gallagher's painting on the cover of World Gone Wrong is hilarious.
The two authors curate the Dylan room at the Troubadour in Earls Court where Dylan appeared in both December 1962 and January 1963. There is plenty about other artists playing this venue and I have a Tom Paxton LP in which he sings, "Last night the Troubadour was so full, they barred the door."
The authors say that the fact that Dylan came to London for an appearance on a TV play, Madhouse On Castle Street, in 1962 was "extraordinary "as he wasn't known. No, it wasn't: the BBC had money back then and around the same time, an equally unknown Gordon Lightfoot came over from Canada.
And what about that house in Camden Town where Verlaine and Rimbaud had a stormy love affair. Didn't Dylan help to save it?
It's odd to say this in these Covid times, but this book would have worked better as a walking guide. You can use it that way but the story is told chronologically so you need bookmarks for cross-references. It would have better to do it like The Beatles London (Piet Schreuders, Mark Lewisohn, Adam Smith) or Beatles Guide Hamburg (Ulf Kruger), where you can just go to a venue and start walking. However, the trouble with this is that there are a few miles where you would have to walk with no Dylan references at all. Maybe the answer is a Rock Walking Guide to London and in that way, the Water Rats would feature for both Oasis and Dylan.
Spencer Leigh
Murder Most Foul
Fatea Showcase Sessions
The Fatea Showcase Sessions are a series of downloads featuring acts that we've really enjoyed and think that more people should get the chance to hear.
Corsair is the current session and features 16 fantastic artists check out the website to find out more about them and download your copy
www.fatea-showcase-sessions.co.uk for all the artist information.
