By Mansfield Frazier
I never could quite figure out the Elvis impersonator thing, that is until I went to see Bob Dylan at the acoustically magnificent E.J. Thomas Hall in Akron last Friday evening. But sitting there, listening to my iconic hero, my generational idol, the poetic leader of my era, as he growled his way through an almost two-hour set of songs I’d never heard before (and wouldn’t have been able to recognize even if I had), I had an epiphany: I finally understood the Elvis impersonator thing.
Perhaps the most prolific songwriter of his — or anyone else’s — generation, it’s understandable that the master doesn’t want to keep singing “Maggie’s Farm” over and over again … but I distinctly got the feeling that’s what the majority of the graying, bearded and pony-tailed (I’m talking about on the males) wanted to hear. When Dylan finally did break into a barely recognizable version of “Tangled Up In Blue,” the crowd went wild, engaging in the longest and loudest applause of the evening. This is what we came to hear, but we would hear no more of it. It was all his most recent stuff.
I don’t know if it’s even quite cricket for someone to begin impersonating a singer while they are still alive and going strong … but if someone came along and could do a credible rendition of “Subterranean Homesick Blues” or “Jokerman” … I know who I would go to see in the future.
The one compensation was that the music behind the greatest troubadour who ever graced a stage — harmonica in hand — was, as usual, kickass.
Bob Dylan played EJ Thomas Hall in Akron on 4/19/13. http://ejthomashall.com
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.
University of Akron, Akron, OH 44304