New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Fifty years ago
Bob Dylan set American popular music on fire by going "electric" with two incendiary back-to-back albums and live performances that put audiences on notice to shut up, listen and open their ears and minds.
The Complete Unknowns will pay tribute to what Dylan once called his "thin, wild mercury sound" on Thursday, July 30 at 7:30 pm at B.B. King Blues & Grill's Lucille's room here with a set placing special emphasis on Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited, as well other mid-1960s masterpieces.
Returning to B.B. King's where The Complete Unknowns just played in honor of Dylan's 74th birthday this past May (the third consecutive year it's done so), the band will mark the July 20, 1965 anniversary when Dylan released as a single "Like A Rolling Stone."
Five days later, Dylan led an electric band at the Newport Folk Festival, stunning the audience - at least half of which reportedly booed - and prompting folk guru Pete Seeger purportedly attempting to wield an axe backstage to cut the power.
While The Complete Unknowns most likely won't reenact that mythical anecdote (nor is the B.B. King audience expected to boo), there's no doubt, the band, especially guitarists Randolph Hudson III and Klyph Black, as well as organist
Stuart Sherman, will capture every nuance played previously by Mike Bloomfield and Al
Kooper a half-century ago at Newport.
Fronting the band, Michael Weiskopf is sure to recite Dylan's every brilliant lyric and vocal mannerism, while Taka
Shimizu on bass fills
Harvey Brooks's slot and
James Benard keeps the beat on drums and percussion, as Sam Lay did in 1965.
Like Dylan at Newport, The Complete Unknowns will perform at B.B. King some acoustic numbers from The Times They Are A-Changin' and Another Side of
Bob Dylan that remain as relevant today as when they were first written.
Dylan is still mesmerizing audiences at least half the year, marching the beat of his own drum, as evidenced by his Sinatra tribute album earlier this year. With septuagenarian Dylan being as active as ever, Weiskopf is even more convinced The Complete Unknowns make it their mission to celebrate this great American songsmith's voluminous catalog while he's still with us.
Tickets - $20.00 in advance, $25.00 at the door - are available at: https://www.bbkingblues.com/bio.php?id=5626. B.B. King Blues Club & Grill is located at 237 West 42 St., New York, NY 10036, between 7th & 8th Avenues.
