Post by Edman on Sept 29, 2005 13:52:10 GMT
In the American Masters documentary this week on PBS Bob Dylan admits he sold his soul to the devil.
The Devil and Robert Zimmerman
The Devil tells Robert Johnson: "That hound belong to me. He ain't mad, he's got the Blues. I got his soul in my hand."
It goes unstated for the first hour of Martin Scorsese's amazing bio-doc "No Direction Home," then it does get stated. When the skinny kid born Robert Zimmerman left Minnesota for New York at the dawn of the Sixties, he wasn't anything special. Average maybe, doing what five or six other folkies were doing. He was enthralled with Woody Guthrie and visited him on his sickbed. But the kid wasn't writing songs himself. He wasn't so hot on guitar. And his voice certainly wasn't magic.
And then, after just two months in New York, he transformed...into...Bob Dylan, voice of a generation, songwriter supreme and, arguably, behind only Elvis, the most important artist rock ever produced.
There's a legend that bluesman Robert Johnson found his mojo after he paid the Devil-man a visit at the crossroads.
Said the Devil-man:
"You know where you are, Robert Johnson? You are standing in the middle of the crossroads. At midnight, that full moon is right over your head. You take one more step, you'll be in Rosedale. You take this road to the east, you'll get back over to Highway 61 in Cleveland, or you can turn around and go back down to Beulah or just go to the west and sit up on the levee and look at the River. But if you take one more step in the direction you're headed, you going to be in Rosedale at midnight under this full October moon, and you are going to have the Blues like never known to this world. My left hand will be forever wrapped around your soul, and your music will possess all who hear it. That's what's going to happen. That's what you better be prepared for. Your soul will belong to me. This is not just any crossroads. I put this "X" here for a reason, and I been waiting on you."
New York Times film reviewer Vincent Canby wondered whether Michael Cimino made much the same deal when he struck it big with "The Deer Hunter," then crashed back to earth with "Heaven's Gate":
"'Heaven's Gate' fails so completely," Canby wrote, "that you might suspect Mr Cimino sold his soul to the Devil to obtain the success of 'The Deer Hunter,' and the Devil has just come around to collect."
And George Lucas, the creator of "Star Wars," admits he was a terrible student in high school, then survived a bad car accident. When he recovered, his slacker attitude was suddenly replaced with astonishing commercial instincts as a filmmaker. Lucas says "...so I was at this sort of crossroads."
And what about the man they taunted as "Judas!" when he went electric?
Robert Johnson's name comes up in the Scorsese movie.
"That's when I went to the crossroads and made a big deal," Dylan says. "You know, like phoooo, you know, one night, and then (I) went back to Minneapolis and like, hey, where's this guy been? He went to the crossroads."
Dylan never lets on he's kidding, and then he moves on.
more links
www.mudcat.org/rj-dave.cfm
www.vagablogging.net/archives/002438.shtml
topshelfit.com/cgi-bin/myron/news/dailynews/daily.cgi?pands=&url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,1423347,00.html
www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/luc0int-1
The Devil and Robert Zimmerman
The Devil tells Robert Johnson: "That hound belong to me. He ain't mad, he's got the Blues. I got his soul in my hand."
It goes unstated for the first hour of Martin Scorsese's amazing bio-doc "No Direction Home," then it does get stated. When the skinny kid born Robert Zimmerman left Minnesota for New York at the dawn of the Sixties, he wasn't anything special. Average maybe, doing what five or six other folkies were doing. He was enthralled with Woody Guthrie and visited him on his sickbed. But the kid wasn't writing songs himself. He wasn't so hot on guitar. And his voice certainly wasn't magic.
And then, after just two months in New York, he transformed...into...Bob Dylan, voice of a generation, songwriter supreme and, arguably, behind only Elvis, the most important artist rock ever produced.
There's a legend that bluesman Robert Johnson found his mojo after he paid the Devil-man a visit at the crossroads.
Said the Devil-man:
"You know where you are, Robert Johnson? You are standing in the middle of the crossroads. At midnight, that full moon is right over your head. You take one more step, you'll be in Rosedale. You take this road to the east, you'll get back over to Highway 61 in Cleveland, or you can turn around and go back down to Beulah or just go to the west and sit up on the levee and look at the River. But if you take one more step in the direction you're headed, you going to be in Rosedale at midnight under this full October moon, and you are going to have the Blues like never known to this world. My left hand will be forever wrapped around your soul, and your music will possess all who hear it. That's what's going to happen. That's what you better be prepared for. Your soul will belong to me. This is not just any crossroads. I put this "X" here for a reason, and I been waiting on you."
New York Times film reviewer Vincent Canby wondered whether Michael Cimino made much the same deal when he struck it big with "The Deer Hunter," then crashed back to earth with "Heaven's Gate":
"'Heaven's Gate' fails so completely," Canby wrote, "that you might suspect Mr Cimino sold his soul to the Devil to obtain the success of 'The Deer Hunter,' and the Devil has just come around to collect."
And George Lucas, the creator of "Star Wars," admits he was a terrible student in high school, then survived a bad car accident. When he recovered, his slacker attitude was suddenly replaced with astonishing commercial instincts as a filmmaker. Lucas says "...so I was at this sort of crossroads."
And what about the man they taunted as "Judas!" when he went electric?
Robert Johnson's name comes up in the Scorsese movie.
"That's when I went to the crossroads and made a big deal," Dylan says. "You know, like phoooo, you know, one night, and then (I) went back to Minneapolis and like, hey, where's this guy been? He went to the crossroads."
Dylan never lets on he's kidding, and then he moves on.
more links
www.mudcat.org/rj-dave.cfm
www.vagablogging.net/archives/002438.shtml
topshelfit.com/cgi-bin/myron/news/dailynews/daily.cgi?pands=&url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,1423347,00.html
www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/luc0int-1
