Found at Big Hollywood:
“Bob [Dylan] is not authentic at all. He’s a plagiarist, and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is a deception. We are like night and day, he and I.” — Joni Mitchell, Los Angeles Times, April 22, 2010
Does there need be a winner in this battle?
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You “shouted out who killed the Kennedys?” in a post title recently, Ed. After reading Jonny Whiteside’s measured and thoughtful assessment of Dylan, I worry it might have been him. Everything else he did was nothing less than an abomination, apparently, so why not? That thing read like the typical love letter to Bush, or Palin. In spirit anyway.
It’s not exactly a newsflash that musicians appropriate, borrow, and “steal” ideas, playing styles, melodies, etc. Most are the sum of their influences growing up or starting out. From Elvis to Zeppelin to Dylan to Bowie, no one ever completely reinvents the wheel – yet each one attracts their own histrionic critics with axes to grind.
Dylan created his own music and his own self.
Ankle biters like Joni Mitchell and Whiteside … not so much. Apparently if you can’t build, tear it down.