Tom Palaima, "Bob Dylan Across the Borderline," TODD Austin 1 :3 July 2009, p. 8 Gavin Lance Garcia, "Sefior Dylan Bridging the Americas," TODO Austin 1 :3 July 2009, p. 9 Paul Minor, "Bob Dylan Master of Musical Cultural Assimilation," TODO Austin 1 :3 July 2009, p. g BoeDYLAN ACROSSTHE by Tom Pataima ·rm an honorary Texan,· Bob Dylan said character named 'Alias· in "Pat Garrett and Billy recently, while discussing what gives his latest the Kid." Dylan's films have titles like 'Masked CD 'Together Through Life· its clear Texas­ and Anonymous," "Don't Look Back," and ·rm Mexico borderland feel. ·Irs no small thing I Not There: Small wonder then that he Is drawn take it as a high honor· 10 songs that capture the lives of men, women and children whose identities and worlds Dylan has long felt a connection with our two change when they cross the borderline. Many big parts of Nueva Espana. His sincere shout­ live namelessly or with false identities. fearfully out to Billy Joe Shaver on "Together Through and honestly outside the law Life's" ·1 Feel a Change Comin' on· is Just one sample of the Tex-Mex flavors in his lyrical Dylan was drawn to the borderland early on. and musical spice box When he hit New York City in 1961, the ailing Woody Guthrie was his guiding spirit. Guthrie In 1972, he played with Doug Sahm and had written a poem 'Deportee· or "Plane Band on their self-named album. helping to Wreck at Los Gatos (Deportees)" in I 948. On achieve what Dylan scholar Michael Gray January 28 thal year. twenty-eight Mexican calls a "fusion of loose yet sinewy Tex-Mex migrant workers died in a plane crash while country-rock music," At the end of that year. being deported to Mexico. after the ·Norking Dylan moved with his wife and five children season. Newspapers did not even list their for three months to Durango, Mexico to names. Humanly offended. Guthrie wrote act in Sam Peckinpah's movie "Pat Garrett "You won't have a name/ when you ride the and Billy the Kid," Dylan and Jacques Levy's big airplane./ All they will call you will be/ 1975 "Romance in Durango· is full of images Deportee," He called out their names as he bid that Dylan absorbed while, in his own them farewell: 'Goodbye to my Juan, goodby•s words, "deep in the heart of Mexico·: Aztec Rosatita; adiOs. mis amigos. Jesus y Maria. - ruins, blistering dusty heat "hoofbeats like castanets on stone." and places ·where our Guthne·s words were finaHy set to music grandfathers stayed I When they rode ,·,ith a :jecade later. Pete Seeger 1,vasmaking Villa into Torreon: ·oeportee· popular Just when Dylan was using Guthrie as a role model Dylan s later concert David Hidalgo's accordion now gives Dylan·s versions of "Deportee· with Joan Baez are music what Flaco Jimenez gave Dylan and incandescent. Sahm's twenty-seven years ago Seven years earlier, in 1965, one song stood out from the Twenty-five years before going to Houston groundbreaking electric music on Dylan s on 'Together Through Life," Dylan made us "Highway 61 Revisited" album see and feel our part of the plantation south through an old bluesman's sightless vision On "Desolation Row· Charlie McCoy and ·1 traveled through east Texas / where many Dylan was drawn to the borderland early on. When Dylan intertwined what Oliver Trager calls martyrs fell / And I know no one can sing the the ·stately, Spanish-tinged sound" of two blues/ like Blind Willie McTeI1.· · he hit New York City in 1961, the ailing Woody acoustic guitars. Their playing still takes us , - right down south of the border. In 'Just Like Across three decades, beginning with a tape Guthrie was his guiding $pirit. Tom Thumb's Blues· on the same album, Bob recording in the New Jersey home of good sets the scene 'in the rain in Juarez." In 1969. friends of Woody Guthrie in 1961 to a concert Dylan wrote ·wanted Man· for Johnny Cash. at West Point In October 1990, Dylan sang Dylan sang the song many times on his tour a seat right across from Dylan. "He must have taking the Man in Black to El Paso, Juarez and his own takes on the 19th-century folk song with Tom Petty. been a hundred and fifityyears old ...his eyes Abilene, ·wonderin' why the hell I'm wanted/ "Trail of the Buffalo," In Dylan's version, the were on fire and there was smoke coming at some town halfway between." 'young cowboy' hero calls Jacksboro. Texas And when Dylan came down to Austin to out of his nostrils. I said, Well, this is the man I home. And in 1992-93 when Dylan produced celebrate Willie Nelsons sixtieth birthday in want to talk to.·· Texas and Mexico have fired Bob Dylan's two powerful CD's full of traditional folk and creative imagination again and aga,n His blues songs, one standout classic is a tale of a 1993. Willie and he sang together Townes Van Sit down and exp\ore Dylan's borderland debut album "Bob Dylan: recorded in cowboy vvho regrets riding hrs life dway 1n the Zandt''.; ·runcho and Lefty,"::, talf: of outldw music You·11say, ·well, this is the man I want November 1961, struck a powerful Texas pay of a miserly, pompous, Jaw-wagging herd heroism and betrayal. helped along by the to listen to.· chord. The twenty-year-old Dylan covered boss named "Diamond Joe" whose "holdings 'kindness' of the Federales and enriched by Blind Lemon Jefferson's ·see That My Grave are rn Texas.- what myths on both sides of the border mean Is Kept Clean: Before Dylan headed ott to songwriters and singers to New York City, Minnesota folk-music The Ry Cooder-John H1att-J1m Dickinson Dylan has said that his own concert standard University of Texas at Austin aficionado John Pankake had tuned him ,nto classic "Across the Borderline.· has been Senor from ·street Legal' 11978) was inspired Classics professor Tom Pal:1ima the Texas blues legend's stark songs and to covered distinctively by both Flaco Jimenez by what he sav, going on about midr,ight Austin-born music folklorist Alan Lomax s and Willie Nelson Bui Dylan took to the song when he woke up from sleeping on a train In taught 'History of Song i1S Social "Texas Folk Songs· album as soon as he heard 1t.ln 1986. a year bdvre Momerrey. Mexico An old man. dressed in Criticism from Homer to Bob Dylan· Besides playing the cryptic ·everyman Ry Cooder even released h1s own version nothing but a blanket got on board and sat ;n in Spring 2009. 808 Dylan is a master of Senor Dylan Bridging the Americas music.it cultural assimilation. By GavinLance Garc:id ,)/✓hcther it's the union­ Music critics widely acknowledge that Dylan's latest the recollection of ·the hills of old Duluth" bring rousing anthems of Pete CD. 'Together Through Life.· finds the bard·s heart to mind. among other memories. ·oanny Lopez.· 1na Texas 'border-town· 'Echoes of a Tex-Mex Dytan·s association of life·s early stages to a Hispanic Seeger and Woody Guthrie, roadhouse· (USAToday). ·a Tex-Mex feet' !Associated companion underscores a life-long love of the Latin the weary blues of Leadbelly Press). ·a Doug Sahm-like shot of norteiio R&B· (Rolling Stone). ·a Te1anoflavor (New York Post! 1974 "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts·: NPR·s and Robert Johnson or ·embroidered with Tex-Mex accordion· (Chicago Trm Riley calls this 'an intricately evasive allegory the soul-stirring gospel of Tnbunel. ·Tex Mex ballads' (The New York Times) about romantic la,ades that hide criminal motives: ·creole-Lat,no accordion playing sets the mood· Big Jrm spres his rival Jack in a cabaret and believes the Staples, he has taken (Los Angeles Timesi. ·a Tex-Mex atmosphere" {The he has seen him before ~down 1n Mexico· the most culturally potent Obse,verl 1975 "Romance in Durango": Michael Gray states music ever delivered and HERE IS A SAMPLE OF SPANISH/LAT!r, AMERICA!~ this song ·rarsed the pop song onto an undreamt-ol liberally borrowed its most REFEREl,CES FROM THE DYLAN U'.\NON high plane· A tale ot an outlaw and his sweetheart. Magdalena on the run in Mexico. this is the · accessible elements to color 1963 "Boots of Spanish Leather": Tv,o lovers are archetypal Tex-Mex tune. ·No llores. mi quenda and flavor his own powerful at a crossroads as one sails across the Atlantic fer / Dias nos v1gila / Soon the horse will take us to Spain and 'the mountains of Madrid- and ·coast of Durango. / Agarrame. mi vida / Soon the desert will compositions. What would Barcelona.' At the end of a dialogue, the forlorn lover be gone : sings Dylan as he rides "past the Aztec "Desire" be without that left behind realizes his futility and requests a pair of r urns and the ghosts of our people.· boots to likewise go a- ·roam1n.·· haunting gypsy fiddle, 1975 "Abandoned Love·: Written. ostensibly. during or uSlow Train Coming" · 1963 "North Country Blues·: Th,s hrst person a period of marital drscord. the narrator locates narrative (ot a woman whose husband has lost h1:; romance where "The Spanish moon is rising on the without the Muscle Shoals Job due to industry outsourcing) includes scrutiny of hill/ But my heart is a-tellin· me I love ya still: church organ and choir US economic exploitation in South America.