MUSICAL SPEAKER Bob Dylan expert Michael Gray presents to students at English Department event 0 n Oct. 3 in Cone Chapel, author Michael Gray gave a multimedia presentation on the influence of the post-war blues on singer and songwriter Bob Dylan's poetry. Gray, a world-renowned expert on Dylan's biography and music, gave a timeline of Dylan's musical career and how Dylan used blues music to inspire millions, citing influences such as Memphis Minnie and Blind Willie McTell. The English Department sponsored the event. Department Chair Dr. John Williams invited Gray to give a presentation to a group of English students and anyone who was interested in the topic of the evening. "We invited Michael Gray here ... because of my own personal love of Bob Dylan's work, and I thought it was a unique opportunity for our student body and the members of the community to get a look at the scholarship that is available on this important American art form, the blues," Williams said. Senior English major Jordan Sunkel attended Gray's presentation. Sunkel was surprised by all of the knowledge Gray had about Dylan and the extensive research he had done. It gave her a new appreciation for Dylan's words as poetry. "Bob Dylan's writing just blew me away," Sunkel said. "The style of his writing and how creative he was were really interesting to me, and I really liked listening to his lyrics as Gray read them to us." Sunkel also learned how Gray's passion for his writing could be beneficial to her in the future. "I'm an English major, so it's good to see that kind of creativity in writing and just the different kind of things he pulled together and the allusions he used from older stuff" Sunkel said. "If I ever want to dabble in writing, that would be a good source to look back on." Gray summed up his presentation by reading a paragraph from his book, "The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia." "Bob Dylan inhabits the blues as the best of the old bluesmen themselves did," Gray said. "It follows, then, that the more you know of the blues corpus, the more you'll appreciate Bob Dylan's extraordinary regenerative use of it; and the better you know Dylan's output, the better placed you'll be to hear the blues coursing through it." Students who attended the event came away with a greater appreciation of Dylan's artistry and his inclusion of other artists' work and cultural influences within his lyrics. Gray combined storytelling, music, images and humor to deliver an engaging presentation. He delivered his wealth of knowledge in a clear way. "I have a greater appreciation for the literary value of Dylan's poetry," senior Jackson House said. "The beauty of his music is that it can inspire, even if someone doesn't fully understand it. His music is powerful enough to move us and touch us on multiple levels. Because he gave the oldest and purest American music new life, he should be considered a folk historian as well as a folk artist." Kelsey Pierce 7 DEPARTMENTS 460 songs written 38 universities by Bob Dylan visited by Gray 40 years of experience 87
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