Music
I like to spend my free time strumming guitar and harmonica. Here, I play a cover of the beautiful song Mr. Tambourine Man, in Italian. Original words and music are from Bob Dylan, the italian lyrics are from Tito Schipa Jr. In an interview with journalist Cameron Crowe included as notes for the 1984 box set Biograph, Dylan offered thoughts on the creation of the song: Mr. Tambourine Man, I think, was inspired by Bruce Langhorne. Bruce was playing guitar with me on a bunch of the early records. On one session, Tom Wilson had asked him to play tambourine. He had this gigantic tambourine. It was like, really big. It was as big as a wagon wheel. He was playing, and this vision of him playing this tambourine just stuck in my mind. He was one of those characters. I don't know if I've ever told him that.
And here, a multi-instrumental cover of Just Like a Woman. There is a nice story about this song that I read on the book Mixing Up The Medicine. During an interview, drummer Mickey Jones recounted the cirmumstances that led to Dylan and Otis Redding meeting in 1966: ...That night at rehearsal we all took a break and Bob and I were sitting in the little coffee room at Columbia Recording Studios and I said, "So man, you won't believe who I met today: Otis Redding." He went, "Oh, man, I'd give anything to meet Otis Redding." I said, "I can fix that up. He's working the Whisky a Go Go." So he said, "God, let's go down there." I said, "Well, maybe we'll go down for the midnight show." We went to see Otis's midnight show and we had a blast. Afterwards we went upstairs to the dressing room and out of the door walks Otis Redding. I said, "Otis, we made it after all. I want you to meet Bob Dylan," and [Otis] stuck his hand out. If you look on his album, In Person at the Whisky a Go Go, it'll talk about the night that he met Bob Dylan. I remember Bob picked up an acoustic guitar and he said, "I got a great song for you," and he sat down and played Just Like a Woman. And Otis Redding said, "You know what? I'll record that. Tomorrow." But he never recorded it, because he got killed in a plane crash not long after that.
As you might have noticed from the cover, I am a fan of Bob Dylan. Some time ago, I made a presentation about him. The presentation spans Dylan's entire career, with a stronger focus on his early years. It includes some funny stories and anecdotes from relevant musicians that will give you the idea of his artistic genius. If you are curious to know more about him, feel free to watch it.