THE SOUNDSCAPE TAP : BOB DYLAN HONOURS

 

'' Forever Bob Dylan. '' The Nobel literature laureate just finished what could be his last tour. But he remains what he always was - a defiant artist forever reinventing himself.

This November, Bob Dylan performed the final concerts of his '' Rough and Rowdy Ways '' tour at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

The tour picked up where Dylan left off just before the Covid-19 pandemic - endlessly on the road since 1988. But now at the age of 83, the concerts might well be Dylan's last.

The Rough and Rowdy Ways tour was billed as running from 2021 to 2024 but, at the time of publication, there seems to be no future tour dates on the horizon. As Dylan himself wondered on his most recent album : '' How much longer can it last? How long can this go on?''

Dylan has danced with death more than once -think of his infamous motorcycle crash in 1966, or serious heart ailment in 1997 - and death has preoccupied his songs increasingly in recent years.

Throughout this tour, Dylan's thoughts have been heavily focused on his own mortality and his own legacy.

If the Albert Hall concerts this year are to be his last on the road, then it's a fitting venue at which to bow out, having first played it nearly 60 years ago.

Back then, Dylan was a restless, hungry artist, reinventing his sound, his image, his voice with every album - sometimes, within months of release.

Between 1962 and 1966, Dylan went from being a Midwest folk singer to the voice-of-his-generation beatnik, via civil rights firebrand, rewriting the popular music songbook as he went.

With each successive regeneration, he seemed determined not only to redefine rock and popular music, but to alienate his audience in the process as well.

He was an artist in search of answers, who didn't give those in his wake time to catch their breath. Sixty years on, and now well into his ninth decade, things haven't changed.

The World Students Society thanks James Fenwick, Senior Lecturer in Creative and Cultural Industries at the University of Manchester in the U.K.