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84 years ago today Bob Dylan was born. At his Nobel Prize winning best, from 1961 to 1966, he challenged us (and still challenges) to rethink everything with everything he wrote. Donald Trump, born about 5 years after Dylan, in 1946, looks to me like he is just entering into a period of his Dylanesque…
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In my opinion, the great artistic acts for freedom of speech in American artistic history include: Mark Twain opposing racist bigotry through The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn. Walt Whitman’s life long Hymn to America a.k.a Leaves Of Grass. Chaplin Celebrating the male capacity for Parental Love in his first feature film The Kid. Hank Williams…
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On January First, 1953, Hank Williams died of heart failure in the back seat of a car on the way to a gig. (He had hired a student to drive him from Alabama to West Virginia to be there. Dedication.) Hank liberated the pop music voice to sound wholeheartedly and powerfully American with unparalleled directness…
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(“…… the men who were haters of war are mounting the platform./An idiot wind blows; the conscience dies.” – Weldon Kees.1940) “IDIOT WIND” recorded by Bob Dylan December 27, 1974 50 years old today. A masterpeice a messterpeice of fractured emotions and traces of deep love (“Sweet lady ……. a lone soldier on the cross…