Dylan's Shadowy Soundtrack & Film Coming Soon

But Little Richard NOW.

Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books and now writer/director of award-winning films, including this one coming to PBS stations in May. He was also a longtime editor of the legendary Crawdaddy.

While a fervent Bob Dylan fan for (ouch) almost sixty years now, and an attendee for at least one of his shows in every decade since the 1960s until the past fifteen years, I didn’t expect much from his streaming “concert” doc Shadow Kingdom back in July 2021. His live shows have been notoriously unpredictable and uneven for decades now, with familiar, fantastic, songs often totally re-worked, not always for the better. Still, he has barnstormed around the country year after year, and released nervy albums from time to time as well. Then Shadow Kingdom came out of nowhere with little fanfare.

So I was enormously pleased when I enjoyed the fairly modest program almost from start to finish, despite an occasional clunker, with a smoky roadhouse rendered in striking black and white. It sometimes seemed like he wasn’t there at all but green-screened in. The musicians were all masked and anonymous. You almost expected to see the ghost of Belle Starr in the corner. But the subdued, bluesy music and the playing and the singing were terrific on unexpected gems like “Tombstone Blues” and “What Was It You Wanted.”

Yesterday his people announced that the soundtrack to the show would finally be released on June 2 and more:

Shadow Kingdom presents Bob Dylan performing revelatory 21st century versions of songs from his storied back catalog — including fan favorites like “Forever Young” and “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” and deep catalog gems like “Queen Jane Approximately” and “The Wicked Messenger.”  The full-length Shadow Kingdom feature film will also be available for download and rental on Tuesday, June 6.

And don’t forget there’s also a major Bob-goes-electric biopic coming, from Cameron Crowe, with Timothee Chalamet playing and even singing Bob (my recent post here).

See the original Shadow Kingdom trailer below along with some of the music (without video). Enjoy, and please subscribe if you have not—it’s still free! But first: wild trailer for long overdue doc on Little Richard (one of Dylan’s first heroes).

Shadow Kingdom Trailer

“Tombstone Blues”

“What Was It You Wanted”

“Most Likely You Go Your Way (and I’ll Go Mine)”

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