Rock Encyclopedia

Monday March 19th is the exact 50th anniversary of the release of Bob Dylan’s eponymous first album.  The anniversary sees the release for charity of a digital single and music video of the classic Dylan song “Forever Young” by one of Dylan’s mentors – legendary folksinger/activist Pete Seeger who is 92. (93 on May 3rd.)  The release is being championed by a grassroots campaign www.ForeverPete.com.

ForeverPete.com – modeled on the successful 2010 fan-based endeavor to get 88-year-old Betty White to host “Saturday Night Live” – is run by admirers wanting Seeger to become the oldest musician to reach the music charts.  Current record-holder in US, UK and other singles charts is Tony Bennett (age 85 in 2011).

Seeger has a long history of chart success.  In the 1950s he was a member of chart-topping folk group, the Weavers.  In the 1960s he was frequently in music charts as composer or arranger of hits such as ”If I Had A Hammer”, “Where Have All The Flowers Gone?”, “We Shall Overcome” and his chart-topping song for The Byrds ”Turn! Turn! Turn!”

Seeger’s song benefits the human rights organization Amnesty International – this year commemorating its 50th anniversary.  Seeger is a longtime supporter.

Seeger’s performance is captured in a new music video ( www.youtu.be/Ezyd40kJFq0) and is also the subject of a mini-documentary (www.youtu.be/PW4XxX06AmA).

Seeger is accompanied by eighteen youngsters (age 9-13) – the Rivertown Kids.  Seeger has mentored this group from his home village of Beacon, NY since 2007. In 2011 Seeger and the Kids won the Grammy for Best Childrens’ Album. (more…)

All Artist’s Royalties to Benefit Millions in Need Through Feeding America and International Charities More Than 4 Million Meals To Be Provided During Holidays

Bob Dylan will release a brand new album of holiday songs, Christmas In The Heart, on Tuesday, October 13, it was announced today by Columbia Records. All of the artist’s U.S. royalties from sales of these recordings will be donated to Feeding America (http://feedingamerica.org/), guaranteeing that more than four million meals will be provided to more than 1.4 million people in need in this country during this year’s holiday season. Bob Dylan is also donating all of his future U.S. royalties from this album to Feeding America in perpetuity.

Additionally, the artist is partnering with two international charities to provide meals during the holidays for millions in need in the United Kingdom and the developing world, and will be donating all of his future international royalties from Christmas In The Heart to those organizations in perpetuity. Details regarding the international partnerships will be announced next week.

“When we reached out to Bob Dylan about becoming involved with our organization, we could never have anticipated that he would so generously donate all royalties from his forthcoming album to our cause,” said Vicki Escarra, president and CEO of Feeding America. “This major initiative from such a world renowned artist and cultural icon will directly benefit so many people and have a major impact on spreading awareness of the epidemic of hunger in this country and around the world.”

Bob Dylan commented, “It’s a tragedy that more than 35 million people in this country alone — 12 million of those children — often go to bed hungry and wake up each morning unsure of where their next meal is coming from. I join the good people of Feeding America in the hope that our efforts can bring some food security to people in need during this holiday season.”

Christmas In The Heart will be the 47th album from Bob Dylan, and follows his worldwide chart-topping Together Through Life, released earlier this year. Songs performed by Dylan on this new album include, “Here Comes Santa Claus,” “Winter Wonderland,” “Little Drummer Boy” and “Must Be Santa.”

Feeding America provides low-income individuals and families with the fuel to survive and even thrive. As the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief charity, our network members supply food to more than 25 million Americans each year, including 9 million children and 3 million seniors. Serving the entire United States, more than 200 member food banks supports 63,000 agencies that address hunger in all of its forms. For more information how you can fight hunger in your community and across the country, visit www.feedingamerica.org.

Bob Dylan’s four previous studio albums have been universally hailed as among the best of his storied career, achieving new levels of commercial success and critical acclaim for the artist. The Platinum-selling Time Out Of Mind from 1997 earned multiple Grammy Awards, including Album Of The Year, while “Love and Theft” continued Dylan’s Platinum streak and earned several Grammy nominations and a statue for Best Contemporary Folk album. Modern Times, released in 2006, became one of the artist’s biggest albums worldwide, selling more than 2.5 million copies and earning Dylan two more Grammys.

Those four releases fell within a 12-year creative span that also included an Oscar- and Golden Globe-winning tune, “Things Have Changed,” from the film Wonder Boys, in 2001; a worldwide best selling memoir, Chronicles Vol. 1, which spent 19 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller List, in 2004; a Martin Scorsese-directed documentary, No Direction Home, in 2005; and several volumes of the best-selling Bootleg Series, which culminated in last year’s highly-acclaimed Tell Tale Signs.

Dylan was awarded a special Pulitzer Prize in 2008 for “his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.” He was also the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 1997, the French Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres in 1990, Sweden’s Polar Music Award in 2000 and numerous other awards and accolades.

Source: Columbia Records

ALBUM MARKS SECOND U.S. #1 IN A ROW

“Beyond Here Lies Nothin’”

First Single & Lead-Off Track From Together Through Life

Featured In HBO True Blood Promotional Campaign

Bob Dylan’s new album, Together Through Life, has entered both the U.S. and UK album charts at #1, marking the artist’s second consecutive U.S. #1 debut and his first chart-topping release in the UK since New Morning in 1970. Together Through Life is a true international hit, as well, achieving #1 debuts in Austria and Denmark, Top 5 entries in Australia, Germany, Ireland, Holland, Norway, Switzerland, Sweden and New Zealand, and Top 10 rankings in Italy, France and Belgium.

“Beyond Here Lies Nothin’,” the first track on Together Through Life, is serving as the soundtrack for a series of on-air and online promotional spots for the highly anticipated second season of True Blood, the smash hit HBO vampire series. The eagerly awaited second season of True Blood launches on HBO on Sunday, June 14.

The True Blood promos debuted on HBO on Saturday, May 2, and are airing in heavy rotation on HBO and HBO’s multiplex channels. The True Blood/”Beyond Here Lies Nothin’” promos premiered online on both HBO.com and BobDylan.com May 4. The promotional spots can be viewed by clicking on the following link: www.hbo.com/trueblood/video.html

“When I heard the song, I knew it would be a perfect fit for our characters and storylines,” said True Blood creator Alan Ball.

A short film for “Beyond Here Lies Nothin’” has been lensed by AFI and Sundance Film Festival award winning director Nash Edgerton, and will be seen on the IFC Channel and on IFC.com, beginning Tuesday, May 12.

Released on Tuesday, April 28, Bob Dylan’s Together Through Life is the artist’s first full-length studio album since 2006′s platinum-certified Modern Times, which also debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top 200. Produced by Jack Frost, Together Through Life, was recorded late last year, prompted by the composition of a new song, “Life Is Hard,” which was written for a forthcoming film by French director Oliver Dahan (La Vie En Rose).

Together Through Life is already receiving worldwide raves:

“Critics Choice! A vibrant new album.”
People Magazine

* * * (out of four)”Dylan’s 33rd solo album lives up to the artistic standards established by a trilogy of career-recharging gems that started with 1997′s Time Out Of Mind. But he deviates from their apocalyptic burdens to spin yarns, wry and real of ordinary folks in the grip of lust, longing and heartache,”

Edna Gundersen — USA Today

“Latter period Dylan is turning out to be some of his deepest, richest work. Together Through Life is another brilliant, sure-handed outing by one of the few certified greats still living up to his legend.”

Joel Selvin — San Francisco Chronicle

* * * (out of four)”His greatest achievement on this, his 33rd studio album, is his ability to shut out the expectations of a world that in recent years has sent his stock skyrocketing, and to assemble his warmest, most unforced, set of songs in recent memory.”

Pete Paphides — London Times

“Dylan has found his 21st century feet in musical touchstones almost 100 years old. And yet, through his growling, puckish delivery and crack band, it comes across fresh and vibrant. Here’s to Dylan finding more of his future in the sounds of the past.”

Jed Gottleib — Boston Herald

* * * (out of four)

Together Through Life is an album that gets its hooks in early and refuses to let go. It’s dark yet comforting, with a big tough sound, booming slightly like a band grooving at a soundcheck in an empty theatre. And at its heart there is a haunting refrain. Because above everything this is a record about love, its absence and its remembrance.

Danny Eccleston – Mojo

“Another genius Dylan disc….Together Through Life continues Dylan’s Indian summer string of masterpieces, and it’s a cut above 2006′s Modern Times.”

Brad Bamberger in the Newark Star-Ledger

“As crafty and moving as anything in Dylan’s catalog”
Corey duBrowa — Paste Magazine

“Together Through Life is the perfect soundtrack for down-but-not-out America, a clear-eyed, often elegant-sounding, road map that notes the struggles, but keeps its focus on making it through – with your sense of humor intact, no less.”

Glen Gamboa — Newsday

www.bobdylan.com

Source: Columbia Records