Thursday, March 26, 2009

Losing momentum

Rain on Monday.

Rain on Tuesday.

Snow on Wednesday.

Snow on Thursday.

Here is what is often referred to as the first music video. It is the trailer for Don't Look Back, the D. A. Pennebaker documentary film covering Bob Dylan's 1965 concert tour of the United Kingdom.

Pennebaker is also the film maker for Monterey Pop, the film documentary of the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival.

Note to any young people looking in. Before there were "hippies" there were people called "beatniks". The balding person standing off to Bob's right during the video and then exiting across the street at the end is Allen Ginsberg, originally a New York beat, but probably best known as a San Francisco beat poet, one of the originals.

It may seem a bit hard to believe in 2009, but at the moment of filming of this clip, Ginsberg was considerably more famous than Bob. He was lending his personal fame and cachet to an upcoming obviously very promising talent.

Everyone should be reminded that art is hard work.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow. I have seen this Dylan video many times, but still find it hard to believe about Ginsberg being more famous. Plus, I love seeing the word cachet used properly in a well-written sentence.
BB
PS Rock and roll (music in general?) has saved many lives.

Santini said...

My first music video was "If You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It." Maybe not art.

Anonymous said...

Not art at all. More Yogi-like. TT