A new book, tour, art exhibit, CD retrospective, an art film and a DVD. When it comes to Bob Dylan, it's not just a hard rain that's gonna' fall, it pours. Dylan paid no attention to that 65 retirement thing.
Now, at 66, he just keeps on touring and staying busy with a myriad of projects, including the second season of his XM Satellite radio show. Dylan plays a sold out Taft Theatre Monday. The theater date is sandwiched between his big arena tour show with Elvis Costello at Columbus' Schottenstein Center Saturday and Dayton's Nutter Center Tuesday.
Tickets are available for those shows. Cincinnati gets the intimate, small-hall Dylan, but no Elvis. Major Dylan projects this month: A career retrospective, simply called "Dylan," was released Oct.
3. It features a 51-song, three-CD collection complete with 24-page color booklet and liner notes from music writer Bill Flanagan ($27.98).
You can step up to the collector's edition with a cloth-covered box, 40-page book and 10 limited edition postcard-sized prints ($47.98). Or, there is a single, 18-cut CD ($14.
98) that is the stripped- down essential Dylan from "Blowin' in the Wind" to "Forever Young." The 51-track collection plays it pretty straight. There are no rarities, like unreleased material or outtakes.
It's what most fans would agree to be his most important tunes with only a few quibbles - it is perhaps heavier than one would expect from his sometimes forgettable '80's work. It starts with "Song To Woody" and includes tracks from his latest works, such as "Time Out of Mind" and "Modern Times." The real gem for true fans comes Oct.
30 with the release of "The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at the Newport Folk Festival." The DVD features 16 live performances from 1963-'65, including the entire set from the legendary Newport fest when Dylan plugged in on "Maggie's Farm" and "Like A Rolling Stone." (Yes, there were catcalls, but no major booing.
) Some of the footage was used in Martin Scorsese's 2005 PBS documentary, but most of it has never been released as an entire package. There is almost no narration, just the raw black and white concert film. One gets a great glimpse of Dylan's evolution in just a couple years from a nervous, twitchy folkie to an in-charge rock star.
Independent film "I'm Not There" is making the rounds at film festivals before a more major late fall release. (No Cincinnati booking, yet) that features six actors portraying different aspects of Dylan's life. Dylan gave his blessing to the project and allowed nearly three dozen songs to be covered by everyone from Sonic Youth to Ramblin' Jack Elliot for the soundtrack, to be released Oct.
30. Dylan has his first major art exhibit featuring over 200 of his original paintings opening at the Kunstsammlungen art museum in Chemnitz, Germany, on Oct. 28.
Many of the works, some unfinished, were featured in the now out-of-print 1994 book "Drawn Blank." For the bookshelf , released this month is "Million Dollar Bash: Bob Dylan, the Band and the Basement Tapes" by Sid Griffin, an alt-country pioneer in his own right. This focuses strictly on Dylan's time in Woodstock, N.
Y., complete with a map of the region showing where he hung out and the site of the '66 motorcycle accident.
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