«My dream was to play bass with Bob Dylan and to produce a record for him. It was the ultimate. But my takeaway is that for Under The Red Sky I wasn’t ready to produce him. On the first session we did, the assistant engineer recorded everything, including all the talking in between songs, on cassette. I was driving home – and I put this cassette in and the spot where it starts, Bob is sitting at a piano telling me something he wanted to do and I’m telling him why it won’t work. And I wanted to throw up, man. I had to pull the car over. I thought, ‘You stupid motherf@cker! You waited your whole life for this moment and here’s Bob Dylan telling you something he wants to do and before trying it you told him it wasn’t going to work?!’ I’ve tried not to make that mistake again. If you’re not willing to chase something down with an artist you shouldn’t be a producer. Because I had some stupid idea about what Bob Dylan should be doing. That I knew better. That I wanted him to remake Blonde On Blonde probably. Meanwhile he was looking forward. If you listen to Under The Red Sky you will see the formation of the musical path he followed, in terms of making records, for the next 20, 30 years» – Don Was, 2022
Who is Don Edward Fagenson: (born September 13, 1952), known professionally as Don Was, is an American musician, record producer and record executive.
