Bob Dylan, the thin line between child and genius

This is a story of some time ago. A history of the eighties, indeed of 1984, when Mike Campbellthe guitarist of Heartbreakers Of Tom Pettysketched a new song using a drum machine and a synthesizer. But since Petty did not believe that the song adapted to the spirit of the album on which he and the group were working at that moment, “Southern Accents” which was published in 1985, the manufacturer Jimmy Iovine He suggested to Campbell to try to show her to the drummer of the Eagles Don Henleywho, at the time, was working on his second solo album.

Sometimes life knows how to be wonderful when you least expect it. That song was nothing more than “The Boys of Summer”a song that filmed up high until it reached the top five of the US sales ranking and to be the most successful Henley soloist.

The song made Henley known to a new audience, more mainstream and distant from the sounds of
Eagles
but he also captured the attention of a colleague,
Bob Dylan
. In an interview with the magazine Vulture,
Mike Campbell
He revealed that Dylan was so impressed by the success of the song so as to ask Campbell as follows. “One day I was at a session and he said to me, ‘Wow, The Boys of Summer is a big hit. Did you use the drum machine to do it? You still have it?’ I said, ‘Of course’. And he could bring it tomorrow?

Unfortunately, Campbell recalls, a drum machine was not enough to have a hit, and then
Bob Dylan
He was not at ease with the ‘canned drummer’. Campbell continues his story: “He did not play together with the drum machines and gets nervous. I don’t know how he did not understand him. He played freestyle. After a few minutes Bob and the sound engineer look at me and Bob says, ‘he doesn’t play well’. He looked at me as if it were my fault. I replied, ‘Well, bob, when you turn on the car, you have to follow it in the way. who does not follow me? It was very serious.