When a BBC documentary crew working in Greece invited Bob Dylan to jam with Van Morrison, on a hot summer morning of June 1989, the chosen setting was the hill facing the Acropolis monument. This place -called the Hill of the Muses- was full of symbolism, and although Dylan and Morrison would duet many times in the following years, "they never quite captured the intimate magic they shared that day in Greece", according to Rolling Stone magazine.
After all, the muses always seemed to stand by the side of these two musical icons. Everywhere in their lyrics and music, one can find the modern manifestation of the epic and heroic poetry of the muse Calliope, the lyrical poetry of Terpsichore, the tragedy of Melpomene, Euterpe’s flute melody or Erato's love poetry.
Three decades later, on another June day, June 19th 2020, Bob Dylan released his 39th studio album, Rough and Rowdy Ways, which includes the song Mother of Muses. In its lyrics, he makes direct references to the ancient Greek influences of the Muses, and in fact states that he’s "falling in love with Calliope".
Another symbolism of this place, according to the Greek mythology, is that this Hill was in the 6th century BC the burial ground of Musaeus. Musaeus was not only a poet himself, but also - according to some ancient writers - the son of Orpheus, the mythological figure of the art of singing and guitar.
Dylan was in Athens to give the last concert of his 1989 European tour, at the Panathinaikos stadium, on a central avenue in Athens, the night after this sunny summer day. It was the first time in his then almost thirty-year career that he would play in front of the Greek capital's audience.
Van Morrison happened to be in Athens in those days for the shooting of the BBC documentary "One Irish Rover - Van Morrison in Performances". That day, the two emblematic songwriters sang Morrison's classics Crazy Love, And It Stoned Me and One Irish Rover together, while Dylan accompanied Morrison on his harmonica in the legendary Foreign Window.
Some hours later, they would play together the first two above songs, at the encore of Dylan's concert that evening, where Morrison made a guest appearance unexpected by the crowd. The two musicians haven’t been on stage together since Dylan's 1984 European tour, and were not scheduled to meet again before their joint tour in 1998.
According to Vangelis Germanos, the musician who opened the concert in Patras two nights earlier, as in Athens on June 28, 1989, "the heat was so unbearable that sweat ran down on the cement. [Dylan] approached tightly in a winter black suit, cowboy hat, white shirt, lace tie, heeled boots, makeup. He was not in the mood, and it was obvious. Later, Sachpasidis (ie: the organizer of the concert) told me that [Dylan] had his daughter together, and she had ran out alone in Psilalonia and the port, without giving signs of life. And Dylan was obviously worried."
Not familiar with Dylan's ways and habits, as they first saw him up close (at least on Greek soil), the editors of a major Greek newspaper the next day would express their displeasure that the American music legend did not address the audience even once. Twenty-five years later, in 2014, during his last appearance in Greece until this day, he still wouldn’t address the audience.
Following that day, Dylan would come back to Greece for a concert in 1993, while Morrison would return in November 2000 for two shows in Thessaloniki and Athens with Linda Gail Lewis & The Red Hot Pokers.
[Sources]
-Rolling Stone magazine (rollingstone.com)
-Dimitris Kalokyris, ‘Parasagges, Volume B’, Agra Publications, 2016 / (Δημήτρη Καλοκύρη «Παρασάγγες, Τόμος Β», εκδόσεις Άγρα 2016)
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