Dylan does whiskey
TO some the shock still reverberates as though it was yesterday. I am of course referring to the evening of July 25, 1965 when Bob Dylan took to the stage at the Newport Folk Festival carrying a Fender Stratocaster instead of his folky, familiar acoustic.
Dylan, the voice of his generation, had gone electric! Before the stunned crowd had time to absorb the implications The Bob launched into an ear-bleedin: “I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more”.
There were boos and cries of alarm from purists who regarded it as the ultimate betrayal. Some say that Pete “Where Have All The Flowers Gone” Seeger tried to sever the sound cables with an axe.
Since that night Bob Dylan has continued to confound and surprise us, his devoted fans. We have learnt to accommodate his elusive shape-shifting, recognising that it is part of the package even though you sometimes wish you didn’t have to wait until a song is nearly over before you realise that you’ve been listening to it since you were 14 and he’d just fiddled around with it. Because he can.
He has had his Born Again Christian era, his flirtations with psychedelia and country, his style transformation from whey-faced urban hobo to muscular guitar slinger to spry Southern dandy, his 1986 rap duet, his radio show, his Christmas album, his painting career, his ironwork phase, his Nobel Prize for Literature and his Victoria’s Secret commercial for lingerie.
And now… whiskey! Bob Dylan has launched his own brand of whiskey. To some it will be the ultimate sellout (like going electric) while others will just nod understanding that this is Bob being Bob.
What’s more Bob’s brand goes by the name of Heaven’s Door as in Knock Knock Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door, which he wrote in 1973 for the soundtrack of the film Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid. Sacrilege! It’s a song that people earmark for their funerals and play at three in the morning when they’re tired and emotional. But it’s Bob’s song. So he can do what he likes. Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door is beautiful and spiritual, while Heaven’s Door whiskey will be beautiful and spiritual in a Straight Tennessee Bourbon way. Of his Straight Rye, a connoisseur wrote in the New York Times of “a sweet grassiness, cocoa powder, tobacco and a slap of leather”. Oooh missus.
What next? Will Bob go the full Richard Branson with a scattergun portfolio of sink or swim brands, the equivalent of Virgin Media or Virgin Atlantic? Can we look forward to travelling economy on Bob Dylan Airways? Or Bob Dylan Railroads (train hopping optional) or, even – now here’s a thought – Bob Dylan Brides?
The world is Bob’s oyster. As ever.