Sue Katz: Consenting Adult

I Saw Dylan Perform Live Saturday Night

All around us in the Wang Theater, the buzz was building. About 20 minutes later than the concert had been scheduled to begin, those in the front rows started screaming. The wave of adulation as he came out on the stage was profound and heartfelt. What kind of impact, I wondered, would a steady diet of that degree of fan-love do to the mind of an entertainer?

In Bob Dylan’s case, it seems to have made him… well, a rude and parsimonious performer. His musical styles may have changed over the decades, but not his attitude towards his audiences. Perhaps he’s of the “treat them mean; keep them keen” persuasion. He certainly wasn’t going to give us any sense that he was happy to see us, too. No, he was going to ignore us, never speak one word to us, never show the slightest emotion, excitement or passion.

My partner had surprised me with tickets to the Bob Dylan concert this weekend. I used to see him in the ‘60s at Club 47, an intimate basement folk club in Harvard Square. He was a curly-haired, rosy-cheeked lad in those days – and taciturn even then.

Here at the Wang, we sat in the center of the orchestra section. Luckily I had brought the Russian opera glasses that had been a present from my late friend Nina.

But what a bummer. The sound sucked. It was like a wall of noise, making every song a bit of a homogeneous jumble. Dylan’s band had been so highly praised that I was expecting music, not mud. Other than “Lay Lady Lay,” – which I really liked – Dylan’s reinterpretations of favorites turned them into a comfort-food-like sameness that was, at the same time, quintessential Dylan, for when we could hear it, that gravelly rasp gave it all a familiarity.

His show is very professional – even slick. There’s not a spontaneous moment, not a glance towards the audience or a lead-in anecdote to any song. There is only the playlist.

The set-up of the stage is calculated to isolate Dylan and the band from the audience. The band is spread across the stage, in a kind of rising semi-circle (the drummer is at the apex) with Dylan to the audience’s right. All the instruments and mikes are set in Dylan’s direction and the band members rarely look at anything but Dylan. They are a function of him – even when they’re doing a solo. It’s aimed to him, never to us. Not a one of them is having fun. There is no smile, ever. It is an especially dour group of white boys.

Dylan is crazy skinny, but dressed up and dapper in a hat, fancy shirt, dark vest and jacket. He stands with a certain elegant grace and while his movements are subtle and diminutive, they are also cool. When he’s not on an electric keyboard (most often) or guitar (a few times), he stands with his legs apart, knees slightly bent, feet parallel, and gesticulates with a muted version of crooner gestures, opening his arms wide, pointing his finger.

After each song, the lights go down. They huddle in the dark and decide on the next composition and are back in their places when the lights go up – all the musicians riveted on Dylan. They are supposed to play for 2 ¼ hours, but they play for 1 ¾ hours. It is enough for me. They don’t do an encore, but by the end of this cold, alienating set, the audience of multiple generations is no longer quite so adoring.

Here is a clip from a different town a few days earlier this week on their tour. His style is the same and the music is just as muddy. People paid big bucks in these hard times to see him, but he wouldn’t give us a thing. Not love. Not recognition. Very little nostalgia. Not a modicum of clarity in the music. It was a demonstration of constipated rote. My question: Why is the man touring when he obviously dislikes his work?

Happy 50th Birthday Motown

Motown (along with Doo Wop) has been the soundtrack of my life. It’s the 50th anniversary of the founding of Motown and I have been lost in YouTube-ville digging out my favorites. I’d love to serve you up a dozen clips, but I’ve controlled myself. Here are three that are meaningful for me.

DUSTY AND MARTHA
Dusty Springfield was a brilliant British talent, tortured by the need to hide her lesbian sexuality. A white convent girl from small-town England, her biographer Lucy O’Brien wrote of her: “In true diva style, she had a succession of wigs that she named Cilla, Sandie and Lulu, and a host of gay fans who appreciated the fact that she modeled herself on drag queens. During a Gay Liberation march in the late 1960s, for instance, about 20 gay men led the parade dressed up as Dusty.”

Martha Reeves, of Martha and the Vandellas (“Dancing in the Street”) was a brilliant Motown artist who became very close to Dusty. As one of the top-selling Motown groups (1963-72), Dusty admired them from afar. The feeling was mutual. Wikipedia reminds us that, “Martha often cites her performance highlights as one being a performance with Vandellas worshiper, Brit soul singer Dusty Springfield, on the UK show, Ready, Steady, Go!”

Here is a clip (3:06) from that loving performance:

GLADYS KNIGHT AND THE PIPS
After I moved to California in 1972, I got to see Gladys Knight and the Pips (1953-89) live a number of times. I was mesmerized by her backup singers, the Pips: her brother Merald "Bubba" Knight and their cousins Edward Patten and William Guest. As an old Doo Wop freak without much of a voice, I always identified with the backup dancers. Few were slicker than the Pips and I imagined myself in those matching white or rhinestone suits doing the steps with the other guys. It was like my favorite cross-dressing sexual fantasy.

Here’s a clip (5:29) from a 1972 performance for “Save the Children” that shows some of those fine shuffles:

MARVIN GAYE

Finally, I have been a life-long Marvin Gaye fan. Besides the moisture-producing sensuality of his music, especially all those astounding duets with Kim Weston, Mary Wells and most of all Tammi Terrell, Marvin was a brave political innovator whose number one Motown ranking helped him fight to break Motown’s restrictions. His anti-war “What’s Going On,” his urban critique "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)" and his sexual liberation song “Sexual Healing” cut new ground. But I have played Marvin’s “Let’s Get it On” in almost every seduction scene I’ve mounted since he brought it out in 1973.

Marvin had his demons – he wrestled with drugs and sexuality. In 1984 Marvin Gaye’s fundamentalist father murdered him (don’t get me started). Here he is (6:26) in 1980 at the Montreux Jazz Festival: