A Complete Unknown--Bob Dylan
Hello Everyone, yesterday, Mrs. Harpsmith and I had the pleasure of attending the premiere of "A Complete Unknown" with Ross Garren and his family. This highly anticipated film delves into the most impactful and contentious moments of Bob Dylan's illustrious musical career.
The film features Timothee Chalamet, a rising star in Hollywood, who convincingly portrays Bob Dylan in terms of appearance, singing, and guitar playing. However, Chalamet's harmonica skills were not sufficient for the film, leading the studio to enlist Ross Garren to provide harmonica coaching (along with Rob Paparozzi) and to overdub the majority of the Bob Dylan and Sonny Terry harmonica parts. Well done Ross! We are proud of you.
Notably, all the harmonicas that Ross played for the film were HARPSMITH Marine Band DeLuxe 2005 and Crossover models.
As for Timothee's harmonicas, the studio hired me to make his authentic Hohner Marine Band 1896 harmonicas unplayable. I removed all the reeds to prevent the harmonicas from being played ;o)
You must see this movie!
Your HARPSMITH, Kinya
HA! That would be waay cool to find and view that vintage footage.
Before this film, like you, I would always tease Bobby's harmonica playing. After discussing the difficulty of mimicking Dylan's playing with both Ross Garren and Buddy Greene, I take back everything I said about Bob Dylan's harmonica playing.
it turns out, Dylan's note selection and rhythmic playing styling is extremely difficult to copy.
Enjoy the movie Rob
Your HARPSMITH, Kinya
You might be interested in this podcast:
It sounds like Timothee might have played a song near the end.
Also they mention Blue Moon Harmonicas, but not you. Did they supply vintage harps which you then modified? Or did they just get it wrong?
Edited to add: ok you are mentioned later on :-)
I listened to the podcast you mentioned, and Ross Garren talked about my involvement. Here's what happened:
In June 2023, I invoiced and delivered authentic Hohner Marine Band 1896 Harmonicas to Diana Burton, the Prop Master with Broadside Productions. She was responsible for providing the props for the upcoming “The Complete Unknown” movie. She mentioned that the director wanted many of the harmonicas to be disabled, so I removed the reeds. Diana even mentioned that my harmonicas were the first items she acquired for the movie "The Complete Unknown."
Our friend Tom Halchak of Blue Moon and sponsor of the Happy Hour Podcast, also provided harmonicas to the studio. As Ross said, HARPSMITH represented the West Coast and Blue Moon represented the East Coast.
We learned from the podcast that Timothee was determined to learn how to play the harmonica, and he did manage to play some notes.
As Rob Paparozzi announced at the beginning of the podcast, Ross Garren played most of the Dylan harmonica parts and all the Sonny Terry parts. For Ross's studio harmonica set, I provided all 12 keys of HARPSMITH Marine Band Deluxe 2005 and Crossover Harmonicas with Pakkawood Combs.
For Ross's recent SNL performance, he played the HARPSMITH Game Changer/Blues/B, HARPSMITH Marine Band DeLuxe/Bb and D with DymaLux Combs.
Your HARPSMITH, Kinya
Having listened to the podcast, now I really, really, really can't wait to see the movie!
Also re the podcast, it was great to hear Ross and Rob giving each other props. As you know, there are some endeavors in life (sadly, some are even musical) where another practitioner will greet you with, "Oh, so you say you _____ too? Well, I've been doing it longer and am certainly much better at it than you are!" But our harmonica community is too small for any of that sort of BS. It never fails that when I meet another harp player, even one who is world famous, award-winning, etc., he or she will be interested in what I'm doing, and will encourage me.
Case in point: Ross Garren. Having met him (at Harmonica Northwest 2023), I can tell you that even though musically he's on an entirely different plane, even if you're just a beginner who's still working on clean single notes for "Mary Had A Little Lamb," he's going to be genuinely interested in what you're doing, and going to be genuinely encouraging.
Here Here!
Thank you Rob.
Your HARPSMITH, Kinya
My wife and I watched the movie in a theatre and although neither of us were huge Dylan fans, we both enjoyed it and I would watch it again. I found the soundtrack very listenable, and appreciate hearing insider information.
The soundtrack on Spotify is about an hour long and I believe that Ross said he recorded over one hundred hours of music!
Two years in the making and 8 Oscar Nominations later!
Your HARPSMITH, Kinya
Kinya:
I'd heard about Ross doing harp work for the movie, but didn't know that you'd also been involved. Very cool. Can't wait to see the movie
I met Ross at Harmonica Northwest in October 2023. He's amazing, and I hope to cross paths again with him sometime.
And finally, while this may not be the nicest thing to say, is it possible that by removing all of the reeds from a Marine Band, one can actually sound better than the early Bob Dylan? (Somewhere out there is an 8 mm movie of me doing my best Bob Dylan impression, performing "It Ain't Me Babe" at a high school talent show in 1966. Playing a big Gibson guitar, and wearing what was my then impression of "beat" clothing. Mercifully it probably does not have sound, but if it ever surfaces publicly ... my chances of Senate confirmation to the US Supreme Court go "poof.")