tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52513528342733604882024-03-12T18:41:01.639-07:00Bob Dylan: Album by AlbumCommentary on each Bob Dylan album and other related recordings.Eric Gillilandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778517683750389280noreply@blogger.comBlogger63125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251352834273360488.post-69941929135503866332022-03-28T13:19:00.001-07:002022-03-28T13:19:22.114-07:00Rough and Rowdy Ways: If You're Looking for Immortality<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieQFqG7nS0IFxpzDPeE-fCYK4kuNFhYCDquH9Y1j0x5KVYU6EDrEAu9x_cVM2--mLv8VxFsj1ELQdLvCg4eTTQ_-jtHEphJCeYRZy5JkQWSqmzShWolPMZ6xKVEECtHQi2UPciYeTfQj99CrJklUpmH_aZm796VhGsLXBOLiH-Y1Tu2btwao5guPOyAA/s225/download%20-%202022-03-25T222242.713.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieQFqG7nS0IFxpzDPeE-fCYK4kuNFhYCDquH9Y1j0x5KVYU6EDrEAu9x_cVM2--mLv8VxFsj1ELQdLvCg4eTTQ_-jtHEphJCeYRZy5JkQWSqmzShWolPMZ6xKVEECtHQi2UPciYeTfQj99CrJklUpmH_aZm796VhGsLXBOLiH-Y1Tu2btwao5guPOyAA/s1600/download%20-%202022-03-25T222242.713.jpg" width="225" /></a></div><br /><b>Release Date: June 19, 2020</b><p></p><p><i><b>Track Listing: I Contain Multitudes; False Prophet; My Own Version of You; I've Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You; Black Rider; Goodbye Jimmy Reed; Mother of Muses; Crossing the Rubicon; Key West (Philosopher Pirate); Murder Most Foul</b></i></p><p><i>Rough and Rowdy Ways</i> came out after a not unusual period of Bob Dylan not releasing original material. Instead, we got three albums of the American Songbook in the "Sinatra" cycle of albums, culminating with the 2017 three disc set <i>Triplicate</i>. The single "Murder Most Foul" was released March 27, 2020, as the world entered into lockdown and uncertainty during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. A few months later, <i>Rough and Rowdy Ways</i> was released to great acclaim.</p><p>At this point in Dylan's career anything new is like a gift. In saying that, I find<i> Rough and</i> <i>Rowdy Ways</i> to be derivative of his later cycle of albums from a musical standpoint, but there a plethora of inspired moments of measured brilliance. </p><p>"I Contain Multitudes" is a playful opener with Dylan satirizing his own persona, placing himself where I suspect he prefers on among American arcana fast cars and fast food. After the deep middle age malaise expressed on "Things Have Changed" from the late '90s, Dylan appears content with his cultural status along the likes of Edgar Allan Poe and Indiana Jones. </p><p>The bluesy "False Prophet" captures some of the swagger of "Pledging My Time" from <i>Blonde on Blonde</i>, but musically more in the vein of the 2009 album <i>Together Through Life</i>. The song captures Dylan's fascination with vengeful figures who are fond of poetry, thinking "The Judge" from Cormac McCarthy's novel <i>Blood Meridian</i>. </p><p>"My Own Version of You" is lyrically and thematically the most exuberant on the album. Riffing on Mary Shelley's immortal tale <i>Frankenstein</i>, Dylan uses the literary concept to ruminate on world history. It's all there the hubris and idealism of the creator, pondering what's come before to understand the desire to create, the obsession with living and time passing. Impressive lyrically and musically.</p><p>"I've Made Up Mind to Give Myself to You" sounds like Dylan writing something for an aging Sinatra. Its minimal arrangement sounds like an echo of "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" many decades later tempered with a seasoned romanticism. The lackluster "Black Rider" could be seen as Dylan conversing with a mirror image of himself, not too far off from "Man with a Long Black Coat," another morally ambiguous figure from the netherworld. </p><p>The rollicking "Goodbye Jimmy Reed" suits the record like a well-worn baseball glove. Not a dour nostalgia piece, but nostalgia in the best sense of the term: taking solace and energy from what's come before. </p><p>"Mother of Muses" is a drowsy reflection on the past blended with mythological imagery, a hymn of sorts. Dylan's singsong lullaby vocal creates a mood, but it does stop the album in its tracks after the rocking "Jimmy Reed."</p><p>Julius Caesar must occupy a place in Dylan's conscience, the Roman empire builder who wrote his own story and created his own myth. Shakespeare wrote a play about him, although he's a minor figure in it. A labored track on Dylan's late period obsession with old world values of justice. </p><p>"Key West (Philosopher Pirate) is arguably the best track, a musing on the latter days expressing a pan- spirituality. Some of the cultural references may be too on the nose, but why quibble? Feels autobiographical. Accordion adds a mystical underpinning.</p><p>"Murder Most Foul" took everyone by surprise, a reconstruction and reflection on the John F. Kennedy assassination in the Homeric tradition. Overloaded with cultural references, everything about the song has a long in the tooth feel as it unfolds. Marking the JFK assassination as the watershed of American history is part of boomer mythology, an idea Stephen King wisely unraveled in his novel <i>11/22/63 </i>(Don Delillo's <i>Libra </i>is also great) Not a catchy tune by any means, I'll mark it as a curio in Dylan's voluminous catalog. </p><p>The "Comin' Home Late" feel on <i>Rough and Rowdy Ways</i> gets to be a bit heady at times. It's akin to a late period Kurosawa film or watching an aging Nolan Ryan labor through a masterful shutout on a September afternoon. There's an impenetrable quality to it, at the same time a worldview one will unlikely find anywhere else (or maybe everywhere?). </p>Eric Gillilandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778517683750389280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251352834273360488.post-60192774618962101242021-04-04T20:37:00.001-07:002021-04-04T20:38:39.825-07:00Triplicate: Songs For the Everyday Person<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zepIvSjMGIM/YGpCC-9cgFI/AAAAAAAAD-o/Vha6vNoguAMUvDEfDjTbwDS0stcB2XdtgCLcBGAsYHQ/s220/download%2B%252890%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="220" data-original-width="220" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zepIvSjMGIM/YGpCC-9cgFI/AAAAAAAAD-o/Vha6vNoguAMUvDEfDjTbwDS0stcB2XdtgCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/download%2B%252890%2529.jpg" /></a></div><br /><b>Release Date: March 31, 2017</b><p></p><p><b>Produced by Jack Frost</b></p><p><b>Disc One - <i>Til' The Sun Goes Down</i></b></p><p><i><b>1) I Guess I'll Have to Change My Plans 2) September of My Years 3) I Could Have Told You 4) Once Upon A Time 5) Stormy Weather 6) This Nearly Was Mine 7) That Old Feeling 8) It Gets Lonely Early 9) My One and Only Love 10) Trade Winds</b></i></p><p><b>Disc Two - <i>Devil Dolls</i></b></p><p><i><b>1) Braggin' 2) As Time Goes By 3) Imagination 4) How Deep is the Ocean 5) P.S. I Love You 6) The Best Is Yet To Come 7) But Beautiful 8) Here's That Rainy Day 9) Where is the One 10) There's a Flaw in My Flue</b></i></p><p><b>Disc Three - <i>Comin' Home Late</i></b></p><p><i><b>1) Day in, Day Out 2) I Couldn't Sleep a Wink Last Night 3) Sentimental Journey 4) Somewhere Along the Way 5) When the World Was Young 6) These Foolish Things 7) You Go To My Head 8) Stardust 9) It's Funny to Everyone But Me 10) Why Was I Born</b></i></p><p>After two previous albums of tracks from the American Songbook, Dylan finished this cycle of albums with an unprecedented three-disc release entitled <i>Triplicate</i>.</p><p>"I Guess I'll Have To Change My Plans" opens the first disc with Dylan supported by a horn section. "September of My Years" was the title track of a 1965 Frank Sinatra album about a man dealing with turning 50 and reflecting on the time he's got left. The theme connects with ones that have consumed Dylan since <i>Time Out of Mind.</i> In a moody arrangement "I Could Have Told You" appears to be a third person reflection on heartbreak only to realize halfway through the narrator is speaking to himself. "Once Upon A Time" reflects on lost youth and romance, Dylan's vocal is wistful. The torch song "Stormy Weather" keeps the melancholy mood going. From <i>South Pacific</i>, "This Nearly Was Mine" offers another reflection on lost love. "That Old Feeling" features some nice guitar work from Charlie Sexton in a song about an encountering an old flame. "It Gets Lonely Early" could be called the empty nesters blues, the sentiment in the song embraces the realities of aging rather than running from it. The romantic "My One and Only You" and "Trade Winds" bring the first disc to an end.</p><p>The middle disc opens with the jaunty "Braggin." Dylan's version of the ever popular "As Time Goes By" immortalized in <i>Casablanca </i>(a movie I'm sure he's watched a lot) feels distant but still gets to the heart of the song. "Imagination" revels in innocence, contrasting with the more reflective songs of the first disc. "How Deep is the Ocean" and "P.S. I Love You" express longing. The mood picks up with "The Best is Yet to Come" with a more adventurous arrangement. "But Beautiful" is a tender ballad on the prospect of love, "Here's That Rainy Day" muses on loneliness in the city. "Where is the One" is vulnerable and hopeful, while "There's a Flaw in my Flue" borders on Gothic with its quasi-mystical imagery, with the narrator hallucinating as he gazes into a fireplace. </p><p>The third disc opens with the upbeat "Day In, Day Out" from the swing era. "I Couldn't Sleep a Wink Last Night" reflects on the regret after a quarrel. A favorite of veterans returning home from the Second World War, "Sentimental Journey" muses on returning home "to renew old memories." "Somewhere Along the Way" searches for a past that may never return, "When the World Was Young" also muses on lost youth. "These Foolish Things" looks at every day and how the most random of things can be reminders. "You Go To My Head" is about being in love. Hoagy Carmichael's "Stardust" uses grand imagery of stars and to recall all that was lost. "It's Funny to Everyone But Me" is another torch song with self-deprecating humor in the lyrics. "Why Was I Born" ends the record with an existential message, seemingly encapsulating all the other tracks on <i>Triplicate</i>.</p><p>Dylan gave an <a href="https://www.bobdylan.com/news/qa-with-bill-flanagan/" target="_blank">extensive interview</a> on <i>Triplicate </i>for his website explaining why he recorded these albums, <i><b>"These songs are cold and clear sighted, there is direct realism in them, faith in ordinary life, just like early rock and roll."</b></i> The music of the generation preceding Dylan now generally considered archaic helped shape the pop culture of Mid-20th Century. Clearly, these songs mean a great deal to Dylan since he devoted three albums to them. One could cynically argue he recorded these records of the Great American Songbook (many of his peers have done so the preceding decade) as an appeal to his boomer fan base but these songs pre dated the boomers.</p><p>Dylan is performing a sort of creative excavation with these albums, rediscovering them and searching for their power and essence. He's done it many times in the past from his debut record <i>Bob Dylan</i> with Columbia recorded way back in 1961 to his 1970 double album <i>Self Portrait</i>. During the 1990s during a fallow period in his songwriting he recorded two well received folk records <i>Good As</i> <i>I've Been To You</i> and <i>World Gone Wrong</i>. His 2009 holiday release <i>Christmas in the Heart</i> (a holiday staple for me) was a precursor to the Sinatra records with their immersion in Mid-Century culture.</p><p>Dylan fans and critics generally take a respectacle, but cool, attitude toward his Sinatra cycle of records, probably preferring he continued making albums in the vein of <i>Rough and Rowdy Ways</i> released last year. But he defiantly followed his own muse. At Dylan concerts I attended from 2015-16 crowds would scatter to the concessions and restrooms whenever he began a Sinatra track, but he seemed to revel in performing those songs, taking on a more theatrical pose than usual on stage. Regardless of anyone's opinion, Dylan and his band created an exquisite mood on these albums. <i>Triplicate </i>offers its own fantastical world for anyone willing to enter. </p><p><br /></p>Eric Gillilandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778517683750389280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251352834273360488.post-14786568279548975322020-04-02T15:58:00.000-07:002020-04-02T15:59:23.293-07:00Fallen Angels: Every Treasure on Earth<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3zUgqtT2lJw/XoZLwOI0FYI/AAAAAAAADSg/x_NbX2ebNucJtDksGYaOk5qUOKPv_-ssgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Bob_Dylan_-_Fallen_Angels.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="316" data-original-width="316" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3zUgqtT2lJw/XoZLwOI0FYI/AAAAAAAADSg/x_NbX2ebNucJtDksGYaOk5qUOKPv_-ssgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Bob_Dylan_-_Fallen_Angels.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Released May 20, 2016</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Young at Heart" (Johnny Richrards, Carolyn Leigh) 1953 - A beloved standard and an appropriate one for Dylan who lives up to its advice and knows "it's worth every treasure on earth to be young at heart." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/YT--YHYbwjs/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YT--YHYbwjs?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Maybe You'll Be There" (Rube Bloom, Sammy Gallop) 1947 - Speaks to a painful longing, not too far from some songs on Blood on the Tracks like "A Simple Twist of Fate" and Shelter From the Storm," boiled down to their pure essence. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/BP_pZ841Nqs/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BP_pZ841Nqs?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Polka Dots and Moonbeams" (Jimmy Van Heusen, Johnny Burke) 1940 - At a country dance the narrator meets a "pug nosed girl" wearing a polka dot shirt and falls in love. The song has a happy ending, they live "in a cottage built of lilacs and laughter." Polka Dots were influential in 20th Century fashion going back to the 1920s. Traditionally considered feminine, men began to don them in the 1960s, including Dylan!</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-39OWRRQ8n9I/XoVYgpx98DI/AAAAAAAADSI/Hu_5p7KN1vUv3076XSoQak3c61HPrCnPwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/8792070446_8fdcd92231_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1022" data-original-width="1024" height="319" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-39OWRRQ8n9I/XoVYgpx98DI/AAAAAAAADSI/Hu_5p7KN1vUv3076XSoQak3c61HPrCnPwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/8792070446_8fdcd92231_b.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"All the Way" (Jimmy Van Heusen, Sammy Cahn) 1957 - Written for the film The Joker is Wild starring Frank Sinatra as Joe E. Lewis Dylan recorded as a country waltz, stately with a touch of the mystic. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e6z8qa8InII/XoZKNFB4JII/AAAAAAAADSU/sihCZ_WuEcQwKrm7bJHTXGVo_Iyw8iXwgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Jokerwild.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="390" data-original-width="256" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e6z8qa8InII/XoZKNFB4JII/AAAAAAAADSU/sihCZ_WuEcQwKrm7bJHTXGVo_Iyw8iXwgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Jokerwild.jpg" width="210" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Skylark" (Johnny Mercer, Hoagy Carmichael) 1942 - Country folk version, a love song inspired by Judy Garland, the lyrics are poetic: "Skylark, have you seen a valley green with spring/where my heart can a-journeying/over the shadows and the rain to a blossom covered lane."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/j7HsGBJjilQ/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/j7HsGBJjilQ?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Nevertheless" (Harry Ruby, Bert Kalmar) 1931 - Existential song, the narrator has no idea what life has in store, but he's in love and nothing else matters. The Andrew Sisters recorded a memorable version.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dTRnrrWMito/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dTRnrrWMito?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"All or Nothing at All" (Arthur Altman, Jack Lawrence) 1939 - An early Sinatra hit, dealing with love and ultimatums. Dylan's version swings along, pleasant with its simplicity. The Coltrane Quarter recorded a stunning interpretation. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/thCsu5ZvPlo/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/thCsu5ZvPlo?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"On a Little Street in Singapore" (Peter DeRose, Billy Hill) 1930s - One of the more obscure selections, about a sailor in Singapore. The Manhattan Transfer revived the song in the late 1970s.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/NaO93JXJook/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NaO93JXJook?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"It Had to be You" (Isham Jones, Gus Kahn) 1924 - An amazingly popular song for the entire 20th Century. Used perhaps most memorably in <i>Annie Hall</i> as performed by Diane Keaton. Dylan's vocal is reverent and moves along with an easy pace. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/p32OEIazBew/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/p32OEIazBew?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Melancholy Mood" (Walter Schumann, Vick R. Knight Sr) 1939 - The b-side to Sinatra's first single in 1939. Clearly a favorite of Bob's, performing it live 175 times from 2015 to 2018.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/djkYURenAHI/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/djkYURenAHI?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"That Old Black Magic" (Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer) 1942 - The jazziest song on the record. Another extremely popular song performed in movies by the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Jerry Lewis, Bing Crosby, Kermit the Frog, and many others. Here's the iconic Ella Fitzgerald version.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/cEiNjq0VZEI/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cEiNjq0VZEI?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Come Rain or Come Shine" (Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer) 1946 - <i>Fallen Angels</i> closes with a song about devotion, respect, and loyalty. Also covered by many artists, Ray Charles performed a memorable rendition.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/DSxl8nEEX5c/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DSxl8nEEX5c?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Fallen Angels</i> is a tapestry of American songs from diverse genres. Dylan's vocal style expresses a reverence for the past with his own distinct style. With nostalgia and grace, the album allows for further treasures to be rediscovered - and the artists who brought so much to them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Work Cited</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"A Brief History of Polka Dots" by Chloe Pantazi </span><a href="https://www.thehairpin.com/2013/06/a-brief-history-of-polka-dots/">https://www.thehairpin.com/2013/06/a-brief-history-of-polka-dots/</a></div>
Eric Gillilandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778517683750389280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251352834273360488.post-31529882350801536312019-12-06T18:53:00.000-08:002019-12-06T18:53:16.319-08:00Shadows in the Night<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Glu8sb_KNXg/XesO7UHUEoI/AAAAAAAADJ0/8Ar88sTT7ag8JTEYqgVFNM4Wv1vH5bxzgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Bob_Dylan_-_Shadows_in_the_Night.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="316" data-original-width="316" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Glu8sb_KNXg/XesO7UHUEoI/AAAAAAAADJ0/8Ar88sTT7ag8JTEYqgVFNM4Wv1vH5bxzgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Bob_Dylan_-_Shadows_in_the_Night.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Release Date: February 3, 2015</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Shadows in the Night</i> would be the first of Bob Dylan's string of mid decade albums to in his words "uncover" songs forgotten by the culture. Full of smooth arrangements, Dylan brings a distinct mood, both romantic and resigned. There's a certain pose, a certain way of looking at the world that gives these records a staying power. <i>Shadows in the Night</i> immerses the listener in mid-century culture and sentiment.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"I'm a Fool to Want You" begins the record, a song about a complicated romantic entanglement. Dylan's also changed his vocal style, enunciating clearly yet subdued at the same time. "The Night We Called it A Day" sets a film noir tone of things coming apart late at night. The video accompanying the song drives home the film noir ambiance, but also adds violence that's only suggested on the surface. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Stay With Me" is a gentle pleading for support. Walking and searching and recurring motifs in Dylan's canon, and this song stands perfectly alongside those. He would often close his shows with "Stay With Me' in 2015. "Autumn Leaves" is another melancholy tune about loss and seasonal depression (the night drops so fast in December). "Why Try To Change Me Now?" asks his lover to accept him despite his eccentric habits, reminding her "I was always your clown."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Some Enchanted Evening" from <i>South Pacific</i> is performed with a light touch. "Full Moon and Empty Arms" ruminates on loneliness tied again to the moon as a recurring symbol. Wishes and dreams, all these songs are tied to interior life. "Where Are You" recollects on lost love, sheepishly asking where's my happy ending? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"What I'll Do" written by Irving Berlin phrases each verse as a question about living with heartbreak. The songs Dylan chose to record accept accept deep hurt as a part of life and never cheapens those feelings. "That Lucky Old Sun" ends the record on an appropriate note of redemption and the promise of inner peace.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In an interview from 2001, Dylan spoke of internal worlds and for people to survive they are going to have to have one. <i>Shadows in the Night</i> takes emotion at face value and to the listener open to them a subtle emotional journey. They are first and foremost about the human heart.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Dylan's band are also to be commended for providing excellent support for him on the record:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Tony Garnier: Bass</span><br />
<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms, sans-serif;">Donny Herron: Pedal, Steel Guitar</span><br />
<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms, sans-serif;">Charlie Sexton: Guitar</span><br />
<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms, sans-serif;">Stu Kimball: Guitar</span><br />
<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms, sans-serif;">George C. Receli: Percussion</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Eric Gillilandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778517683750389280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251352834273360488.post-25471164099643817532019-08-07T19:44:00.000-07:002019-08-08T12:15:33.978-07:00The Bootleg Series Vol. 12: The Cutting Edge<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1fnK3Pvv4tw/XUth6U6evFI/AAAAAAAADD8/7jk7BYvso0Msnd7doFnbstSKrNqxiRtpwCLcBGAs/s1600/The_Bootleg_Series_Vol._12_-_The_Cutting_Edge_1965%25E2%2580%25931966_%2528Front_Cover%2529.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="316" data-original-width="316" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1fnK3Pvv4tw/XUth6U6evFI/AAAAAAAADD8/7jk7BYvso0Msnd7doFnbstSKrNqxiRtpwCLcBGAs/s1600/The_Bootleg_Series_Vol._12_-_The_Cutting_Edge_1965%25E2%2580%25931966_%2528Front_Cover%2529.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Release Date, November 6 2015</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">From 1965-66 Bob Dylan's recordings encompassed three albums that continue to be dissected, deconstructed, taken apart, scrutinized, and put together all over again. On <i>Bringing It All Back Home</i> Dylan divided the album into an electric and acoustic side. The follow up <i>Highway 61 Revisited</i> released a few months later introduced a bigger sound courtesy of Dylan's handpicked session musicians. For <i>Blonde on Blonde</i>, Dylan changed locale from New York to Nashville where he found the ideal group musicians to bring his surreal lyrics to life. Despite all the books and articles on these songs, a record of the evolution of these records remains minuscule. The official Bootleg release <i>The Cutting Edge</i> excavated the vaults to provide insight into the evolution of these essential recordings.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Disc 1</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A pleasant acoustic version of "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" opens the first disc. More lyrical and than the love songs on the early Beatles' records, Dylan's striking imagery paints a compelling portrait. Although Dylan gave "I'll Keep it With Mine" to Nico, his performance here on the honky talk piano is staggering. An acoustic version of "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" remains an underrated one from the era. "She Belongs To Me" sounds like Dylan putting the lyrics to music for the first time. "Subterranean Homesick Blues", "Outlaw Blues" and "On the Road Again" are also in the early stages. The somber "Farewell Angelina" is a transitional song from the romantic balladry of "Girl From The North Country" and the surreal "Gates of Eden." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"If You Gotta Go, Go Now" is Dylan doing a playful rock song, a Beatles parody and a sophisticated jukebox number. "You Don't Have To Do That" is a mere fragment of a blues ballad. "California" has a smooth swagger that recalls "Black Crow Blues" from <i>Another Side of Bob Dylan</i>. An incomplete version of "Mr. Tambourine Man" backed by a The Band moves along well enough, but The Byrds would turn it into pop perfection. "It Takes a lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" captures the ramshackle blues Dylan was going for on <i>Highway 61 Revisited</i>, although he would modify it into a slow ballad on the record.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Two rehearsals of "Like A Rolling Stone" speaks to how iconic the original recording remains. "Sitting on a Barbed Wire Fence" sounds like a discarded single, a blues number dissected into several other songs as Dylan was wont to do. "Medicine Sunday" features fragments from "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" and "Temporarily Like Achilles" Two spare versions of "Desolation Row" follow, neither better than the electric version on the <i>No Direction Home</i> release.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Disc 2</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">An effective version of "Tombstone Blues" opens the second disc, while not as conniving, it's lumbering and potent. "Positively 4th Street" is performed without the iconic organ in the background. "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window" never quite took off as a single, it's always been a curio from this period. Lyrically I would argue it's one of Dylan's more surreal songs that's full of defiance, a masterwork of content matching the form. "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" is slowed down into a subtle calypso beat. An alternate "Highway 61 Revisited" flirts with a Phil Spector wall of sound feel; then a late night lounge act performance of "Queen Jane Approximately." An early version of "Visions of Johanna" has the feel of a psychedelic epic to contrast with the "late night country music station" style of the <i>Blonde on Blonde</i> version. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"She's Your Lover Now" never made it on to <i>Blonde on Blonde</i>, but its manic point of view set the template for the album. A loose version of "Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat" and "One of Must Know (sooner or later)" are not quite there yet, the thin wild mercury sound was still elusive. "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" was a jaunty pop song in its original incarnation. "Absolutely Sweet Marie" matches the original, but the tempo is a little slower. "Just Like A Woman" sounds a little awkward with Dylan's detached vocal and lazy support from the band. "Pledging My Time" is a bluesy highlight from <i>Blonde on Blonde</i>, the early take here is more rooted in R&B. "I Want You" sounds like a twisted love song emanating from that calliope in the Ray Bradbury novel <i>Something Wicked This Way Comes</i>. Then a fragment of "Highway 61" with the police siren added in for good measure, Dylan and everyone in the studio are having a good time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>The Cutting Edge</i> serves as en essential appendix to Dylan's music in the mid 1960s.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Eric Gillilandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778517683750389280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251352834273360488.post-10924153654708440322019-06-15T16:09:00.001-07:002019-06-16T11:45:14.167-07:00Bonus Post: Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Oqz5Ky-als4/XQVT5ntt4hI/AAAAAAAADAA/MziCK2Le60Usqg8t5_OvH5yi73GG0C85ACLcBGAs/s1600/MV5BZjNlODJmY2QtYWI3MS00NmY3LTg0NmItMjAyOTBiOWMyNGFiXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjg2NjQwMDQ%2540._V1_UX182_CR0%252C0%252C182%252C268_AL_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="268" data-original-width="182" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Oqz5Ky-als4/XQVT5ntt4hI/AAAAAAAADAA/MziCK2Le60Usqg8t5_OvH5yi73GG0C85ACLcBGAs/s1600/MV5BZjNlODJmY2QtYWI3MS00NmY3LTg0NmItMjAyOTBiOWMyNGFiXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjg2NjQwMDQ%2540._V1_UX182_CR0%252C0%252C182%252C268_AL_.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A spiritual sequel to Martin Scorsese's 2005 film on Bob Dylan <i>No Direction Home</i>, <i>Rolling Thunder Revue</i> follows Dylan on his tour of the East Coast during the fall of 1975. Dylan had been on hiatus from touring since 1966, but in 1974 he came back and toured for a few months with the Band. Those shows were played in large venues and are captured on the <i>Before the Flood</i> live album. The Rolling Thunder Revue would push against the arena rock scene of the 1970s. Spontaneity, variety, and theatricality would be the guiding lights. Besides being a great film featuring amazing music and performance, <i>Rolling Thunder Revue</i> is a stunning vision on the possibilities of art in a time fraught with cynicism and despair.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Scorsese's film mimics the carnival atmosphere of the tour. By piling on layers to the mythology, Scorsese jumbles truth, fiction, and reality together into pop art. A lot of the footage was also used in the Dylan's 1978 film <i>Renaldo and Clara </i>which starred himself and his then wife Sara - who's mysteriously absent in <i>Rolling Thunder</i>. If <i>Renaldo and Clara</i>, a four hour art film, attempted to tell a complex love story in the style of a Dylan song like "Visions of Johanna", <i>Rolling Thunder</i> takes an alternate approach, inviting the audience into the party. The cipher Dylan of <i>Renaldo </i>is reconstituted into a new identity, a swashbuckling troubadour from either an idyllic past or a dystopic future. He's also the man who drives the bus.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U3TaR8CgQQ8/XQWpLIgiP5I/AAAAAAAADAM/H4l723k6AnkiOQhYv1JwxewANuMcyUiXACLcBGAs/s1600/SCAN_7_V2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="980" data-original-width="1490" height="210" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U3TaR8CgQQ8/XQWpLIgiP5I/AAAAAAAADAM/H4l723k6AnkiOQhYv1JwxewANuMcyUiXACLcBGAs/s320/SCAN_7_V2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Literary allusions populate the film. Allen Ginsberg, a founder of the Beat Movement, joined the tour as a Socrates watching his student overtake the teacher. Dylan and Ginsberg visit the grave of Jack Kerouac in Lowell, Massachusetts. While the symbolism of the scene may appear a little too on the nose, it was all in the spirit of the Revue. Excursions into kitsch America like the Mayflower Museum or Niagara Falls were done with same sentiment - taking in the entirety of the experience. The Revue evokes <i>On the Road</i>, but also the showbiz savvy of a Bob Hope or Freddie Blassie. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The band Dylan assembled gave the tour a unique sound and style. Some had a history of within Dylan's orbit like Joan Baez, Bob Neuwirth, and Ramblin' Jack Elliot. Dylan infamously jilted Baez on camera in the 1967 documentary <i>Don't Look Back</i>, but they appear to have mended their relationship here. Others ended in the tour through happenstance. Dylan spotted violinist Scarlet Rivera on the street and invited her to come along. Patti Smith appears at a key moment, sort of providing the overture. Larry "Ratso" Sloman provides comic relief as the sycophantic <i>Rolling Stone</i> reporter. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Robert Altman's <i>Nashville </i>would make a perfect double bill with <i>Rolling Thunder</i>. Released in 1975, <i>Nashville </i>is a panoramic view of America in the mid 1970s, specifically the country music scene as the Bicentennial beckoned. Ronee Blakely starred in the film and was also part of the Revue. Clearly Scorsese is paying tribute to Altman with all the references to his unverse in <i>Rolling Thunder.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Rolling Thunder </i>treads the line between being a cinematic Rube Goldberg machine and a poignant statement on art and politics in America then and now. Dylan remains as enigmatic as ever in his interview, shedding another layer of skin to reference his 1983 song "Jokerman" as he downplays the importance of the Revue. The film challenges anyone who watches not to be moved by the words and by the rock and roll. Music is the instrument to take on everything from corrosive power structures to the conflicts of the human heart. "Hurricane" and "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" are achingly relevant, targeting the systems of injustice. The personal songs "Simple Twist of Fate" and "Tangled Up In Blue" project into the universal.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bpjuG5TG4Zw/XQWpbDA-2QI/AAAAAAAADAU/nQgZkhYp5C4sInRoPOHie6ZvRIM4uDcbQCLcBGAs/s1600/regan_1975_slide_e-500_003_016_r.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1086" data-original-width="1600" height="217" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bpjuG5TG4Zw/XQWpbDA-2QI/AAAAAAAADAU/nQgZkhYp5C4sInRoPOHie6ZvRIM4uDcbQCLcBGAs/s320/regan_1975_slide_e-500_003_016_r.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Dylan rearranged his material from the Sixties into anthemic rock and roll, "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna-Fall" gets reworked into a fever dream vision; "Isis" a hallucinatory journey into a land of pyramids of ice. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Dylan's duets with Baez recaptured the spirit of the folk revival of the early Sixties. In a showstopping scene, Joni Mitchell performs a spellbinding version of "Coyote" with Dylan supporting her on guitar.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Songs from the 1975 record </span><i style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">Blood on the Tracks</i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">, also took on a new life through live performance. The energy from the Revue led to the recording of </span><i style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">Desire</i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">, another classic album in the Dylan canon.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Narrative shenanigans aside, </span><i style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">Rolling Thunder Revue</i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> points the way to new possibilities. In terms of profit the tour was not a success, while the second leg of the tour in 1976 played bigger venues, but excess and exhaustion set in. For a brief moment the possibilities and the ideal were in harmony - that's the magic the </span><i style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">Rolling Thunder</i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> manages to conjure.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Eric Gillilandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778517683750389280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251352834273360488.post-78822514205929375812019-05-22T19:39:00.000-07:002019-05-22T19:43:16.567-07:00The Basement Tapes Raw:The Bootleg Series Vol.11<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-O6ZaLj1139w/XOYCHV-JeuI/AAAAAAAAC-w/pTtdRhH4aywm4q6GflR3UQh5r9pCzI2QgCLcBGAs/s1600/R-6329017-1428792293-8533.jpeg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="297" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-O6ZaLj1139w/XOYCHV-JeuI/AAAAAAAAC-w/pTtdRhH4aywm4q6GflR3UQh5r9pCzI2QgCLcBGAs/s1600/R-6329017-1428792293-8533.jpeg.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Release Date: November 4, 2014</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The fall of 2014 finally saw the release of the Complete Basement Tapes, close to 50 years since their initial recording. While the complete set consisted of nine discs, the <i>Raw </i>collection was more affordable, featuring 38 tracks considered highlights.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The 1975 release opened a new aspect of Dylan's work that had only been available through bootlegs. Many of the songs had already been covered by other artists, popularized by The Band. The sessions began with Dylan and the Band performing some of their favorite songs, but as the sessions evolved more original work worked its way in. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Here are some of the new tracks that stood out for me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Disc 1</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Open the Door, Homer </b>- One of the most moving songs from the Basement Tapes: haunting harmonies with poignant lyrics.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>One Too Many Mornings</b> - A song that was a staple of Dylan and the Band's live set during their 1966 tour. In this striped down version, Dylan's weary vocal is complimented by Robbie Robertson's guitar. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Tears of Rage</b> - A dark, strange song that appears to deal with a parent/child tragedy (on the surface anyway). Richard Manuel provides back up vocals, and would sing lead on it for <i>The Band</i> LP in 1968.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>I'm Not There</b> -A song that came to prominence in the 2007 Todd Haynes film of the same title. Another dark love song about a mysterious women that has the narrator caught between divine ecstasy and insanity. Griel Marcus wrote at length on how the song is about the failure of language to express the most deep seated of feelings. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Quinn the Eskimo</b> - The only song from the sessions to produce a Top Ten hit (for Manfred Mann), captures the jocular atmosphere of the sessions.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Disc 2</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>You Ain't Goin Nowhere</b> - Two different versions appear. The first was an early take with different lyrics that were more grotesque, more gallows humor than warmth. The second version sounds more familiar, a sure fire camp fire song for decades to come. There's a multitude of awesome covers of this one as well!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Goin' to Acapulco</b> - Not to dissimilar from other releases, still one of Dylan's best vocals ever.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>900 Miles From My Home</b> - Great folk song, with some nice harmonies from the Band.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Blowin' in the Wind</b> - Dylan revisited one of his early songs and transforms it into lumbering blues piece and transforms into gospel in the fadeout. One of the most unique renditions of the song Dylan has ever performed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>This Wheel's On Fire</b> - Another song full of coded imagery with mystical overtones. Somewhere between counterculture alchemy and millennial apprehension. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Sign on the Cross</b> - One of the most anticipated Dylan songs to finally get a release. With some heavy Christian themes, a tale of redemption from the colonial days in the wilderness.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A worthwhile collection, but a dream come true for the <i>Basement Tapes</i> completist. With the growing number of releases fro the Bootleg Collection, the line between musical archaeology and Dylan appreciation starts to blur. Nevertheless, these songs are no longer in the vaults. </span>Eric Gillilandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778517683750389280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251352834273360488.post-31140479494120274432019-02-18T12:24:00.002-08:002019-02-18T12:27:29.163-08:00Bob Dylan: Fort Collins Stadium Radio Broadcast, Colorado, May 23rd 1976<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8NFpUZnrBy0/XGo8a0fh9rI/AAAAAAAAC6E/TCJNGfv1uSs1FTWsG3IMyv1lqMT1gV7ngCLcBGAs/s1600/81cFUObQXfL._SY355_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="355" data-original-width="354" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8NFpUZnrBy0/XGo8a0fh9rI/AAAAAAAAC6E/TCJNGfv1uSs1FTWsG3IMyv1lqMT1gV7ngCLcBGAs/s320/81cFUObQXfL._SY355_.jpg" width="319" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A 2017 limited release vinyl for the EU market, the <i>Fort Collins Stadium Radio Broadcast</i>, features material left off <i>Hard Rain</i> live album 1976, as well some extra tracks from the concert. The penultimate show of the second leg of the Rolling Thunder Revue, it was taped for a TV special that aired September 14, 1976 on NBC to disappointing ratings. The album was released on the same day, except four of the tracks from a concert at Fort Worth performed a week before. Although the limited release does contain the full concert, all the material is from that particular show.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Side A</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><i>A Hard Rain's A-Gonna-Fall</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><i>Blowin' in the Wind</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><i>Railroad Boy</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><i>Deportee</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><i>I Pity the Poor Immigrant </i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">All five of these tracks did not appear on the original release. Joan Baez contributes background lyrics, all of which have a political bent. A plodding version of "Hard Rain" hints at the exhaustion setting in on the tour, this was actually the closing number. An acoustic version of "Blowin' in the Wind" follows. "Railroad Boy" tells a tragic love story, a song usually credited to Baez. "Deportee" was a Woody Guthrie song dealing with the use of Mexicans for hard labor by wealthy Americans. Here's a verse</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">S<i>ome of us are illega, and others not wanted</i></span><i><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Our work contract's out and we have to move on</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">But it's six hundred miles to that Mexican border</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222;">They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.</span></span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222;">"I Pity the Poor Immigrant" from <i>John Wesley Harding</i> is given a more upbeat arrangement</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222;"><b>Side B</b></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222;"><b><i>Shelter From the Storm</i></b></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222;"><b><i>Maggie's Farm</i></b></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222;"><b><i>One Too Many Mornings</i></b></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222;"><b><i>Mozambique</i></b></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222;"><b><i>Idiot Wind</i></b></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222;">With the exception of "Mozambique" all these tracks appeared on the 1976 <i>Hard Rain </i>release. "Shelter From The Storm" is a far cry from the <i>Blood on the Tracks</i> version, here Dylan is full of anger, hope, and desperation. "Maggie's Farm" features some ferocious guitars. "One Too Many Mornings" is a reworked into a soulful rock ballad accompanied by Scarlet Rivera's violin. "Mozambique" is played at a Ramones style pace. "Idiot Wind" borders on emotionally draining, perhaps the purest expression of that song.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Most critics agreed the excitement of the fall '75 tour had collapsed into excess and backstage drama for the '76 tour. After one last performance in Salt Lake City, Dylan would take a 21 month hiatus from touring. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-28nW1jN97wk/XGsS3lALHxI/AAAAAAAAC6Y/blaH21VGz0wedGgcD9Vh9nKb1m-1id04wCLcBGAs/s1600/bob-dylan-today-tv-guide-cover-sept11-17-1976.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1188" data-original-width="793" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-28nW1jN97wk/XGsS3lALHxI/AAAAAAAAC6Y/blaH21VGz0wedGgcD9Vh9nKb1m-1id04wCLcBGAs/s320/bob-dylan-today-tv-guide-cover-sept11-17-1976.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>Eric Gillilandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778517683750389280noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251352834273360488.post-39582362291657440842019-02-16T14:52:00.000-08:002019-02-16T14:57:15.277-08:00Bob Dylan: The New York Tapes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-x-tHJq5aBj0/XGiM083mLtI/AAAAAAAAC54/6luJ4qH2gU8ii1OKNbufIYfvs43W32LpACLcBGAs/s1600/R-7455641-1441828789-9380.jpeg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="498" data-original-width="500" height="318" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-x-tHJq5aBj0/XGiM083mLtI/AAAAAAAAC54/6luJ4qH2gU8ii1OKNbufIYfvs43W32LpACLcBGAs/s320/R-7455641-1441828789-9380.jpeg.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A limited release from 2015, <i>Bob Dylan: The New York Tapes</i> features some of Dylan's earliest studio recordings as well as his first single for Columbia, "Mixed Up Confusion." Many of these tracks would appear in a more polished form on the debut record <i>Bob Dylan</i>, while others are rare outtakes, including some radio performances from the early 1960s.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Side A</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Smokestack Lightening - A blues traditional made famous by Howlin' Wolf.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">You're No Good - Another blues recording, would be the first track on the first album.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Roll On, John - Not the tribute to John Lennon that appeared on <i>Tempest</i>, but another blues number.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Talkin' New York - One of Dylan's first originals that's appeared on many releases.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Hard Travelin' - Sounds rough, but features a passionate vocal.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">HIghway 51 - The guitar riff sounds like a primordial version of "It's All Right Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Standing on the Highway - A rushed and fragmented Guthrie pastiche. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Side B</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">House of the Rising Sun - A favorite from the early days that according to Dave Von Ronk Dylan stole from his repertoire, but the Animals would record the definitive rock version.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Dylan's rough vocals are almost in the grunge style made popular in the 1990s.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Mixed Up Confusion - The first single that features guitar, bass, and drum that never quite took off upon release. Still a fun record with Dylan making an early attempt to stretch his sound.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The Death of Emmett Till - Performed on a radio show, the song's power grows with each verse.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Man of Constant Sorrow - Another standout from the debut record, very much in the Woody Guthrie tradition.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Corrina, Corrina - A bit looser than than the official release on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, always an underrated song.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Song to Woody - Maybe Bob's first great song about saying goodbye his idol and going his own way.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">All in all, <i>The New York Tapes</i> presents a vivid portrait of early Dylan emerging as a songwriter and performer. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Eric Gillilandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778517683750389280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251352834273360488.post-38572479081972238832019-02-14T19:11:00.000-08:002019-02-14T19:17:45.059-08:00Bonus Post: Bob Dylan in the 80s Volume One<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CYADhQ6fYyc/XGYmoMuEPWI/AAAAAAAAC5s/QABD5FffEIA58t9UyxCuVNDt6qW8VxO_wCLcBGAs/s1600/ATDD120.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CYADhQ6fYyc/XGYmoMuEPWI/AAAAAAAAC5s/QABD5FffEIA58t9UyxCuVNDt6qW8VxO_wCLcBGAs/s320/ATDD120.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Release Date: March 25, 2014</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In 2014 ATO records unveiled a collection of Bob Dylan songs from the 1980s featuring reinterpretations by an assortment of Indie Rock artists. Novelist Jonathan Lethem contributed the liner notes. As Lethem explains, Dylan was a sort of "bad companion" to his fans during the 1980s, as each album left even his most ardent admirers with varying degrees of disappointment. The project was made with the intention of sparking some discussion on Dylan's work during this period.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The decade began with Dylan recording religious music. The born again fervor of <i>Saved </i>(1980) faded into more upbeat <i>Shot of Love</i> (1981). <i>Infidels </i>in 1983 signaled a renewed interest in Judaism and world events. At the same time <i>Infidels </i>became known for what did not appear on it like "Blind WIllie McTell" and "Foot of Pride." Dylan shed his born again image for good with a triumphant appearance on <i>Late Night With David Letterman </i>backed by the L.A. punk band The Plugz. In 1985 Dylan took part in the iconic "We Are the World" session and recorded the excessive <i>Empire Burlesque</i>. He toured with The Grateful Dead and Tom Petty, yet many were wondering if Dylan had much left in the tank after two unremarkable records of mostly covers, <i>Knocked Out Loaded </i>(1986) and <i>Down in the Groove </i>(1988) both flopped with critics. Then <i>Oh Mercy</i> arrived in 1989 to high acclaim, featuring some of Dylan's strongest material in years. So the 1980s were wild ride of different personas combined with the uncomfortable reality of becoming an elder statesman of rock.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The collection begins with "Got My Mind Made Up" from <i>Knocked Out Loaded.</i> Langhorne Slim took a blue grass approach with a primal vocal performance. Built to Spill gave "Jokerman" a post punk treatment that enhances the song's fantastical imagery. Reggie Watts does a complete reworking of "Brownsville Girl" into a Reggae beat box hymn. Craig Finn of The Hold Steady offers a playfully rocking version of "Sweetheart Like You" and even changes the lyrics.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ivan and Alyosha bring a modern folk sound to "You Changed My Life", an outtake from <i>Shot of Love</i>. A rarity from Dylan's 1987 film <i>Hearts of Fire</i> "Night After Night" gets a 60s pop overhaul from Deertick. "Dark Eyes", the sadly beautiful closing track on <i>Empire Burlesque </i>is wonderfully recreated by Bonnie Prince Charlie with a stirring vocal from Dawn Landes, totally changing the impact of the song. "Waiting to Get Beat", an obscure outtake from <i>Empire</i>, gets a makeover from San Francisco jam band Tea Leaf Green.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Not all the songs are from the 80s, two from Dylan's 1990 LP <i>Under the Red Sky</i> also appear. "Wiggle, Wiggle" with Aaron Freeman and featuring Slash on guitar (who also played on the original) is a tad slight. Blitzen Trapper provide a lo-fi version of "Unbelievable." Singer-Songwriter Elvis Perkins added a fairly standard rendition of "Congratulations" Bob wrote for the Traveling Wilbury's. An instrumental version of "Every Grain of Sand" by Marco Benevento speaks to the song's sense of peace and renewal. Hannah Cohen delivers a dreamy vocal of "Covenant Woman" and Glen Hansard performs a soulful version of "Pressing On."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Series of Dreams" performed by The Yellowbirds sounds close to Dylan's own version, a tough one to cover since its one his most modern sounding tracks. One of the most inspired moments comes from Lucius in their rousing version of "When the Night Comes Falling From the Sky," reimagined as a New Wave epic of melodic jangle rock. Appropriately, the collection concludes with "Death is Not The End" from Carl Broemel (former member of My Morning Jacket) played as a gentle folk ballad.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Bob Dylan in the 80s</i> is a worthy collection of eclectic interpretations of some of Dylan's lesser discussed work. By now it's passe to claim the decade was a lost one for him. These songs hold up and are amenable to a new generation of artists taking inspiration from their inspiring and sometimes strange power. The spiritual songs sound more secular and the secular ones seem more spiritual. A worthy project, <i>Bob Dylan in the 80s</i> will allow any fan to look at decade in a new light. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
Eric Gillilandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778517683750389280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251352834273360488.post-86931175073842505822018-12-27T16:59:00.000-08:002018-12-27T20:40:03.081-08:00The Bootleg Series Vol. 10: Another Self Portrait (1969-1971)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0lsrFt1AR30/XCVs5WHHifI/AAAAAAAAC04/zqB36xRPOx4uKqT0X7SljLhRrSB3xMwTwCLcBGAs/s1600/Another_Self_Portrait_Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="317" data-original-width="313" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0lsrFt1AR30/XCVs5WHHifI/AAAAAAAAC04/zqB36xRPOx4uKqT0X7SljLhRrSB3xMwTwCLcBGAs/s1600/Another_Self_Portrait_Cover.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Release Date: August 27, 2013</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Another Self-Portrait</i> covers an often neglected era in Dylan's recording career. Between 1969-1971, Dylan released three albums that meant with mostly tepid responses. <i>Nashville Skyline </i>seemed the antithesis of <i>Blonde on Blonde</i>, a 30 minute record featuring Dylan singing in a croon, biding farewell to the amphetamine driven vocals of the mid-60s. <i>Self-Portrait</i> was the first Dylan release of 1970s, a double album of mostly covers, some engaging, others less so. Critics took the bait and declared Dylan finished, but the album aged well, prescient in its lo-fi style that dominated 90s indie rock. <i>New Morning</i> appeared in late 1970, a more focused album of all original material. </span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Another Self Portrait</i> is one of my favorites of the bootleg series. The original recordings included on the release sound fresh and vibrant, worthy improvements on the original versions of these songs, many of which were never released. Excerpts from the Isle of Wight concert and demos made with George Harrison are also highlights. The sound on these records weaves between the more "homespun" sound of the early Paul McCartney albums and the ambitious production Simon and Garfunkel's <i>Bridge Over</i> <i>Troubled Over Water</i>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">These are some of the highlights.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Disc 1</b></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSdVOEKW5YA" target="_blank">"Pretty Saro" </a>An English traditional that features a a haunting vocal from Dylan.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Spanish is the Loving Tongue" Set to piano, one of the best renditions of another tradtional, much better than the version on the 1973 "revenge" album released by Columbia (outtakes from<i> Self-Portrait</i> released in response to Dylan's brief time at Asylum records).</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Time Passes Slowly #1" One of the great songs on <i>New Morning</i>, here it sounds like a lost track from the Beatles White Album (George Harrison provided backing vocals).</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Only a Hobo" A song Dylan recorded many times in the very early days, this performance was intended for inclusion on <i>Greatest Hits Vol. II</i>.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Thirsty Boots" Another pristine recording, a cover of Eric Anderson's 1966 song inspired by the Civil Rights Movement.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"This Evening So Soon" Another outtake from <i>Self-Portrait</i>, focused and well produced.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Disc 2</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"If Not For You" Dylan's collaboration with Harrison includes a stately string arrangement. The song appeared on Dylan's <i>New Morning</i> and George's <i>All Things Must Pass</i>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Wallflower" A song Dylan passed on to Texan Doug Sahm, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy79rhPrGcU" target="_blank">Diana Krall's version</a> is also excellent.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Sign on the Window" A magisterial version of a pivotal track on <i>New Morning</i>, possibly the best indicator of Dylan's state of mind in the early 1970s.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Tattle O'day" A joyful tune Dylan about a dog with Harrison on guitar. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"New Morning" The album's title track gets completely re-imagined as a four minute epic with horns reminiscent of Simon and Garfunkel's "Keep the Customer Satisfied."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Went to see the Gypsy" On an electrical piano, Dylan does a lounge act performance of a song about a mythical meeting in Las Vegas. I discussed this one on the podcast <a href="http://fireandwaterpodcast.com/podcast/pod-dylan-46-went-to-see-the-gypsy/" target="_blank">Pod Dylan.</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Time Passes Slowly #2" Another exceptional take with Al Kooper on organ.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Conclusion</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Another Self Portrait</i> does a great job of shedding light on an often misunderstood period in Dylan's career, the myth being he didn't care about the quality of the albums he was putting out. In many ways these records are a continuation of the Basement Tapes, a blend of traditional songs with new songs, often blurring the line between the two. The production on <i>Another Self-Portrait</i> are far more adventurous than what appeared on the official releases.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
Eric Gillilandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778517683750389280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251352834273360488.post-59631086181931252142018-12-21T12:05:00.002-08:002018-12-21T12:08:53.622-08:00Tempest: Shine Your Light<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1OkiPiSbsjY/XBxaosM9UTI/AAAAAAAAC0s/MNcPk8Wsj8001BkvAgm8sSY_07VSJejygCLcBGAs/s1600/220px-Bob_Dylan_-_Tempest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="220" data-original-width="220" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1OkiPiSbsjY/XBxaosM9UTI/AAAAAAAAC0s/MNcPk8Wsj8001BkvAgm8sSY_07VSJejygCLcBGAs/s400/220px-Bob_Dylan_-_Tempest.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Release Date: September 10, 2012</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><b>"We are such stuff that dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep." </b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><b>- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act IV, Scene I</b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As of this posting, <i>Tempest </i>is the latest album of original songs released by Bob Dylan. Released in the fall of 2012, the collection of ten songs returns to themes familiar to Dylan's late period: time passing, mortality, romance, violence, and the ghosts of history. Does <i>Tempest </i>feel like a final album? One could say that about every Dylan album since <i>Time Out of</i> <i>Mind </i>in 1997, for a time considered Dylan's "death album." For all we know Dylan could release some new songs tomorrow, nevertheless one cannot deny sense of finality floating through <i>Tempest </i>from the title (considered Shakespeare's final play) to the achingly reflective opening track "Duquesne Whistle" to the elegiac tribute written for a contemporary "Roll On John."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Tempest </i>begins with what sounds like calliopes that conjures sights from a distant past, a literary method Ray Bradbury used to great effect in the haunted nostalgia of his novel<i> Something Wicked This Way Comes</i>. Then "Duquesne Whistle" kicks in for real and we're back in Dylan's America of endless railroads and roving gamblers. The sound of the train "blowing at his Chamber Door" like Poe's raven conjures the past, moments that may have happened yet exist only in dream, "you smiling through the fence at me, just like you always smiled before."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Soon After Midnight" has easy going doo-wop and late night ambiance, except that part about dragging two-timing Slim's corpse through the mud. "Narrow Way" could be outtake from either <i>Love & Theft</i> or <i>Modern Times </i>with its steady blues rhythm and vortex of emotion, "if can't work up to you, you'll surely have to work down to me someday." "Long and Wasted Years" tells the story of a failed marriage, one that's lost all meaning except for what it used to be. "Pay in Blood" was rated the best rock song of the year by <i>Rolling Stone</i>. Uncompromising in its old world values, Dylan sings "I pay in blood, but not my own." Here Dylan's the unrepentant judge/prophet/outlaw archetype, he's been through hell, "but what good did it do?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">With "Scarlet Town" starting off the second half of the record, the tone of <i>Tempest </i>begins to shift with Dylan leaning towards an omniscient perspective. Now Dylan's the storyteller, the songs are full of references to ancient poetry. Thematically, the songs take on greater weight.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Scarlet Town" has inspired the most analysis of all the tracks on <i>Tempest, </i>a song<i> </i>that must be important to Dylan since he's played it live <a href="https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/scarlet-town/" target="_blank">over 300 times</a>. "Desolation Row" comes up as an immediate comparison, as the places Dylan describes are in stasis. Musically, the mournful strings recall "Ain't Talkin'." Life goes on, but moves slowly and sadly: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>In Scarlet Town you fight your father's foes</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Up on the hill a chilly wind blows</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>You fight em' on high and you fight em down in</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>You fight em with whisky, morphine, and gin</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The town's full of the good, the bad, and the ugly wading through the quagmire of an eternal conflict going on since before recorded memory. Lyrically "Scarlet Town" is rich with metaphor and open to many interpretations. For myself, the song conjures the Graham Greene novel <i>The Power and the Glory</i>, dealing with spiritual dearth in a fallen paradise. "Scarlet Town" could be a purgatory, "I'm staying up late and I'm making amends/while the smile of heaven descends." It may not the be the type of place to visit , you don't have to, you're already there. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Early Roman Kings" lifts a Muddy Waters riff from "Mannish Boy" in a song about Bronze Age gangsters. "Tin Angel" returns to Dylan's fascination with complex love triangles prevalent in songs like "Visions of Johanna" and "Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts." "Tin Angel" is a lengthy 9 minute song of a shadowy triangle that ends in bloody violence. I like the hypnotic melody, but the narrative gets convoluted.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">For those who survived the Jacobean theatrics "Tin Angel," the last two songs are surprisingly sentimental. "Tempest" retells the sinking of the <i>Titanic</i>, a historical tragedy Dylan referenced on "Desolation Row," imagining Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot fighting in the captain's tower. "Talkin' Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues" gave a comical account of a shipwreck. Dylan positions the <i>Titanic's </i>sinking as the precursor to 20th Century chaos:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>It was the fourteenth day of April</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Over the Waves she road</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Sailing into tomorrow</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>To a Golden Age Foretold</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A cinematic account follows with characters appearing, mostly archetypes from previous Dylan songs and one that came before him. The definitive film about the <i>Titanic, A Night</i> <i>to Remember,</i> came out in 1958 when Dylan was in High School, the 1997 James Cameron film <i>Titanic </i>is also referenced.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Roll on John" eulogizes the life of John Lennon, a key figure in Dylan's life and the 20th century. Many have speculated on the influence Dylan and Lennon had on each other. If Dylan had a musical soulmate in the Beatles it would be George Harrison since they recorded and wrote songs together many times, most notably in The Traveling Wilburys. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Dylan and Lennon spent time together occasionally in the 1970s and would sometimes attend each other's concerts. In 1980 Lennon recorded a demo titled "Serve Yourself" when he parodied Dylan's Christian song "Gotta Serve Somebody." Lennon's murder in 1980 shook up the rock community and I'm sure Dylan felt the loss. Despite the slights Dylan always spoke kindly of Lennon. Despite their differences in style and temperament, Dylan, the survivor, pays homage to a friend and friendly rival. A connection bound by fate.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Thus ends <i>Tempest</i>, a weighty record with a bit of everything. <i>Tempest </i>may not have the sonic punch of <i>Love & Theft</i> nor the rollicking sweep of <i>Modern Times</i>, it's the <i>words </i>that are placed front and center. The songs are less grounded in Americana, concerned more with the convergence of mythology, history, and literature.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Eric Gillilandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778517683750389280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251352834273360488.post-62186868942698612602018-11-18T21:03:00.002-08:002018-11-18T21:06:31.648-08:00Bob Dylan: In Concert Brandeis University 1963<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EN9ljDb0bGc/W_IdFcyEeqI/AAAAAAAACyg/WM9Oee-uHxQifLlHL9upTll7u-xfCRB5wCLcBGAs/s1600/Bob_Dylan_-_In_Concert_-_Brandeis_University_1963.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="313" data-original-width="318" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EN9ljDb0bGc/W_IdFcyEeqI/AAAAAAAACyg/WM9Oee-uHxQifLlHL9upTll7u-xfCRB5wCLcBGAs/s1600/Bob_Dylan_-_In_Concert_-_Brandeis_University_1963.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Release Date: April 11, 2011</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A tape of a Bob Dylan concert performed on May 10, 1963 at Brandeis University was found among the belongings of <i>Rolling Stone</i> co-founder Ralph Gleason and the quality was good enough for Columbia to release it as an album. In a few months <i>The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan</i> LP would be released and propel Dylan to fame. A wonderful historical artifact, the record provides insight into Dylan's early performing style, specifically, his blending of humorous and serious material. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The first side begins with "Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance," which would appear on the <i>Freewheelin</i>' LP. "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues" was performed much to the college crowd's amusement, a song Dylan planned to perform on <i>The Ed Sullivan</i> <i>Show</i> but walked off when the CBS requested a less controversial song. The Midwest Gothic "Ballad of Hollis Brown" followed. The first set closed with the stunning "Masters of War."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The second set features Cold War themed "Talkin' World War III Blues,", the introspective "Bob Dylan's Dream," and the comical "Talkin' Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">With Dylan about to reach a national audience, the set featured his early folk influences and newer compositions that addressed contemporary concerns.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
Eric Gillilandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778517683750389280noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251352834273360488.post-38435165586725451412018-11-16T13:48:00.000-08:002018-11-18T14:19:37.577-08:00The Bootleg Series Vol. 9: The Witmark Demos: 1962-1964<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V7YgD4-VumI/W-5sJ9Y_m5I/AAAAAAAACyU/P3QiDNlFIaYUjSDxnQc6MQqGDyzQtorxgCLcBGAs/s1600/81-JIqs3eRL._SX355_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="308" data-original-width="355" height="277" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V7YgD4-VumI/W-5sJ9Y_m5I/AAAAAAAACyU/P3QiDNlFIaYUjSDxnQc6MQqGDyzQtorxgCLcBGAs/s320/81-JIqs3eRL._SX355_.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Release Date, October 19, 2010</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>The Witmark Demos</i> were recorded by Bob Dylan from 1962-1964 for the Leeds and Witmark publishing companies. These recordings were never intended for public consumption, but were produced to attract other artists to Dylan's original material. And it reaped major benefits. Dylan's early career got a major boost when his song "Blowin' in the Wind" became a smash hit for Peter, Paul, and Mary. While some of the performances are pedestrian at times, they're a crucial artifacts that dosument Dylan's development as a songwriter.</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Two versions of "Man on the Street" appear, an early Woody Guthrie pastiche inspired by New York street scenes. "Hard Times in New York Town" is a jaunty composition about life in New York sung in a 1930s cadence. "Poor Boy Blues" is about a young person struggling to survive in the city, the type character that would be on the receiving end of "Like A Rolling Stone." "Ballad for a Friend" laments the loss of someone close who bought it on a Utah highway. A tall tale song, "Rambling, Gambling Willie" is about a gambler who's exploits were known all over, he gave all his winnings to the sick and poor and meets a tragic end. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Talkin' Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues" was based on an actual incident Dylan read about in <i>The New York Herald-Tribune</i>. A ship overloaded due to counterfeit tickets, Dylan spun the incident as a series of tragicomic imagery told from the point of view of a hapless survivor. The version here is improvised, cluing us into Dylan's early performing style, although "Bear Picnic" was left off his debut album with Columbia, <i>Bob Dylan</i>. According to Clinton Heylin, "Standing on the Highway" was a reworking of Robert Johnson's "Crossroads," an artist Columbia producer John Hammond brought to Dylan's attention. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The early recording of "Blowin in the Wind" is the sound of history in the making, one he would perform over 1500 times live (and counting). "Long Ago, Far Away" has a drive to it, the lyrics are similar in theme to "Blowin' in the Wind," but sang with more anger and irony. Dylan's direct, almost child like vocal, gives it power. "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna-Fall" displays his ability to create memorable imagery. "Tomorrow is a Long Time" was an early love song. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"The Death of Emmett Till" dealt with the brutal murder of a 17 year old African-American man from Chicago who was visiting relatives in the South. It was claimed Till whistled at a white woman, which was grounds for justifiable homicide in the Jim Crow South. Dylan's concern with social justice is at the forefront of his compositions from this era, an issue he would return to many times. The first four verses retell the awful crime and its aftermath, while the last two address the listener. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Let Me Die in My Footsteps," proselytizes existentialism towards the nuclear threat. "Hollis Brown" would appear on <i>The Times They Are-a-Changin' </i>LP, a tragic tale set in Dylan's Minnesota.<i> </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Quit Your Low Down Ways," "Baby, I'm in the Mood For You," "Bound to Lose, Bound to To Win," "All Over You", and "I'd Hate to be you on that dreadful day" are all nods to the blues. "Long Time Gone" has a Western flavor. "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues" lampoons Cold War paranoia, a stand by of Dylan's early concert repertoire. "Masters of War" prophesied the coming of Vietnam. "Oxford Town" commented on Civil Rights, specifically the ordeal of James Meredith at the University of Mississippi. "Farewell," another folk standard, would be immortalized at the end of <i>Inside Llewyn Davis</i>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Disc Two begins with "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right," sounding very similar to the <i>Freewheelin</i>' version. "Walkin Down the Line," features a jaunty guitar and harmonica. "I Shall be Free" was always an early favorite of mine, a comical snapshot of the early 1960s. "Bob Dylan's Blues" and "Bob Dylan's Dream" both continue in the Guthrie condition. "Boots of Spanish Leather" was another stunning early composition written about Suze Rotolo, the version on this disc is especially striking. "Girl From the North Country" appears in a more subdued performance. More folk and spiritual ballads appear including: "Gypsy Lou," "Seven Curses," "Whatcha Gonna Do," and "Ain't Gonna Grieve." "Hero Blues" sounds like an early version of "Black Crow Blues" from <i>Another Side of Bob Dylan.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"John Brown" never appeared on an album, but Dylan resurrected it in the late 1980s, his striking performance for the 1994 <i>MTV Unplugged</i> special is a highlight. "Only A Hobo" is another 1930s tune Dylan sings with wistful defiance. A piano accompanied version "When the Ship Comes In" is another masterpiece Dylan wrote, one that will always be relevant. A priceless early version of "The Times They Are-A-Changin" also on piano follows. Although less quoted, "Paths of Victory," also invokes the Civil Rights Movement. "Guess I'm Doing Fine" sounds like a classic Hank Williams record.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Baby Let Me Follow You Down" appears minus the talking introduction. Disc Two ends with piano versions of "Mama, You've Been On My Mind," "Mr. Tambourine Man," and "I'll Keep It With Mine." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>The Witmark Demos</i> are essential listening for anyone interested in Dylan's development as a songwriter, as he moved away from the early influences and discovered his own voice.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/US-50inEiuw/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/US-50inEiuw?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Works Consulted</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Heylin, Clinton. <i>Revolution in the Air: The Songs of Bob Dylan, 1957-1973</i>. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2012.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Untold Dylan - https://bob-dylan.org.uk/</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
Eric Gillilandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778517683750389280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251352834273360488.post-13748086873830916542018-07-05T15:31:00.000-07:002018-07-05T15:31:14.627-07:00Christmas In The Heart: Mid-Century Oasis <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pD59PARylLo/Wz2HprCmtFI/AAAAAAAACow/LWWRTw_PrO4z6QvbOqAuNtacmdGMPg7FACLcBGAs/s1600/220px-Bob_Dylan_-_Christmas_in_the_Heart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="220" data-original-width="220" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pD59PARylLo/Wz2HprCmtFI/AAAAAAAACow/LWWRTw_PrO4z6QvbOqAuNtacmdGMPg7FACLcBGAs/s1600/220px-Bob_Dylan_-_Christmas_in_the_Heart.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Release Date: October 13, 2009</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When Dylan released <i>Christmas in the Heart</i> many wondered if it was serious. Was he cajoling the public by releasing a mostly kitsch collection of Christmas carols? Considering his recent immersion in the American songbook, the answer is a clear No! In actuality, the album signaled the next era of Dylan's career. The majority of the fifteen carols are from the middle of the 20th century, including four traditional songs rooted in Christianity. The sweet nostalgia spirit on these songs evoke an endearing retro warmth of holidays long gone by. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The festivities open with "Here Comes Santa Claus," a hit for Gene Autry back in 1947. The mood is light hearted and nostalgic. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">"Do You Hear What I Hear" was written during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 by Noel Regney and Gloria Shayne Baker, a plea for peace that became a staple for Christmas seasons to come -written around the same time as "Blowin' in the Wind." Dylan's performance is dramatic with production value projecting grandeur and majesty.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">On "Winter Wonderland" Dylan delights in the subversive subtext of the song, backed by a coed choir. "I'll Be Home For Christmas" was a hit for the Christmas season of 1944, a quintessential World War II song and certainly one Dylan heard on the radio as a youngster. "The Christmas Song" written by Mel Torme and Bob Wells and most famously performed by Nat King Cole also calls back the WWII era. "Have Yourself a Merry Christmas" debuted in 1944, a hit from the film <i>Meet Me in St Louis</i>. "Silver Bells" originated from the 1950 Bob Hope comedy <i>The Lemon Drop Kid</i>. "Little Drummer Boy" is another perennial favorite. Check out the Norman Rockwell/psychedelia video for Dylan's version.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/JcXW0Se4HMs/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JcXW0Se4HMs?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Novelty Christmas songs also get their due. "Christmas Blues" was once performed Dean Martin for all the Christmas lonely hearts. "Christmas Island" pays tribute to Christmas in Hawaii, a 1946 chart topper for the Andrew Sisters. Perhaps "Must Be Santa" is the most obscure track on the album, one with an interesting recording history, a German drinking song that Mitch Miller performed in 1960 and made popular by the Texas Band Brave Combo. Dylan made it into one of his best music videos - and added some of his own lyrics.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/a8qE6WQmNus/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/a8qE6WQmNus?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The traditional songs on <i>Christmas in the Heart</i> include "Hark, The Herald Angels Sing," "The First Noel," O, Come All Ye Faithful," and O Little Town of Bethlehem" are less compelling than the other tracks, but provide substance. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Dylan's fascination with the American song book was no passing phase, for the past decade he's worked on keeping the standards alive and introduce them to a new generation mostly unfamiliar with pre-rock and roll culture. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">All proceeds from the <i>Christmas in the Heart</i> were donated to charities dedicated to ending hunger. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Eric Gillilandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778517683750389280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251352834273360488.post-16050672976307760032018-06-19T10:21:00.003-07:002018-06-19T12:52:28.790-07:00Together Through Life: Shadows and Doors<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1PXw8KY2Fm8/WyXXRpIrJ3I/AAAAAAAACnU/4QK5A2-oY7Q0U3yGNHkcX1nMVa9FLqmfwCLcBGAs/s1600/Bob_Dylan_-_Together_Through_Life.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="316" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1PXw8KY2Fm8/WyXXRpIrJ3I/AAAAAAAACnU/4QK5A2-oY7Q0U3yGNHkcX1nMVa9FLqmfwCLcBGAs/s1600/Bob_Dylan_-_Together_Through_Life.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Release Date: April 28, 2009</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">After recording three albums with enough depth for countless doctoral dissertations, Bob Dylan's 2009 LP <i>Together Through Life</i> appears a smaller scale effort at first, yet carries more heft almost a decade later. There's a satisfaction in its existential despair, a despair assuaged through earthly joys and staying low when things get out of control. Working with The Grateful Dead's lyricist Robert Hunter on nine of the ten tracks, the locale shifts to the fringes of American civilization. The first verse of "Beyond Here Lies Nothin" captures this spirit:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Oh Well I love you pretty baby</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>You're the Only Love I've ever known</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Just as long as you stay with me</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>The whole world is my thrown</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Beyond Here Lies Nothin</i>'</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Nothin' we can call our own</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The world may be cruel and meaningless, but love makes it worth saving. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Together Through Life </i>sounds more contemporary in theme and content than <i>Love and</i> <i>Theft </i>and <i>Modern Times</i>, Dylan's addressing the current state of the nation. Released a few months after the inauguration of President Obama, at the height of the bruising Great Recession, these songs allude to the decline of Middle America, something Dylan witnessed firsthand during his tours through the decades, playing venues most of his status would not play. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The closing track "It's All Good" revels in gallows humor, hinting at a dormant populism pining not for a savior, but a destroyer:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Big politician telling lies</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Restaurant kitchen are full of flies</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Don't make a bit of difference, don't see why it should</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>But it's all right, cause it's all good</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>It's All Good</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>It's All Good</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A later verse projects visions of cities on the down slide:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>People on the country, people on the land</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Some of them so sick they can hardly stand</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Everybody would move away if they could</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>It's Hard to Believe, but it's all good</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Yeah</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Hidden in plain sight by a myopic media and pop culture, the middle of the country is suffering innumerable economic and social ills. The land has always been hard and torn between forging newer, better communities or devolving into conflict, a tension running throughout the <i>Together Through Life</i>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Life is Hard" was written for the 2010 film <i>My Own Love Song</i> in which post-Katrina New Orleans plays a peripheral role. "My Wife's Hometown" provides comic relief, but taps into the angry mood cascading the world, "State's gone broke, the county's dry/Don't be lookin' at me with that evil eye." "If you ever Go To Houston" hits the nostalgic sweet spot, a play on Leadbelly's "The Midnight Special" as an aging desperado recalls the Mexican War as he searches for his gal through Texas. "Forgetful Heart" continues the intense woe of "Life is Hard" with one of Dylan's bleakest closing verses:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Forgetful Heart</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Like I Walk in Shadow in My Way</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>All Night Long</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>I lay awake and listen to the sound of pain</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>The door has closed thru forever more</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>If indeed there ever was a door</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Jolene" lightens the mood with a bluesy ride through Beale Street. "This Dream of You" is a Mexican influenced love song, melancholy and eloquent. "Shake Shake Mama" reverts back to swaggering blues. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"I Feel a Change Comin' On" is a highlight of <i>Together Through Life</i>. For years I thought Dylan sang his baby was walking with the "village priest," but it's beast! Dylan's vocal performance is top notch, channeling Fats Domino. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The dystopian tone of <i>Together Through Life</i> stays rooted in the blues, the form Dylan returns to again and again. Carlos Hidalgo and Mike Campbell were a welcome addition to Dylan's studio band, each bringing their musical ingenuity to the album. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Eric Gillilandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778517683750389280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251352834273360488.post-33248260784870469932018-06-08T14:46:00.000-07:002018-06-08T23:43:35.649-07:00The Bootleg Series Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs: Rare and Unreleased 1989-2006<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JEODiQYHHgU/WxibizCoELI/AAAAAAAACnI/Pv8Lswp6oqAeFbNDh8bU4r90Y08BzTOkgCLcBGAs/s1600/71Ects39o6L._SX355_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="355" height="300" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JEODiQYHHgU/WxibizCoELI/AAAAAAAACnI/Pv8Lswp6oqAeFbNDh8bU4r90Y08BzTOkgCLcBGAs/s320/71Ects39o6L._SX355_.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Release Date October 6, 2008</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">With <i>Tell Tale Signs </i>Bob Dylan released a wealth of material recorded from 1989-2006, one of the most productive periods of his career. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Disc 1</b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A stripped down version of "Mississippi" opens the disc, a song first recorded during the <i>Time Out of Mind </i>Sessions. Dylan later gave the song to Sheryl Crow for her 1998 album <i>The Globe Sessions.</i> "Most of the Time" is more upbeat than the "swampy" production that appeared the official release on <i>Oh Mercy</i>. An early version of "Dignity" features Dylan on piano with some early lyrics, my favorite being, "soul of the nation is under the knife." A far more effective song without the snappy production that appeared on <i>Greatest Hits</i> <i>Vol. III.</i> "Someday Baby" is more restrained than the straight blues entry on <i>Modern Times</i>. "Red River Shore" was another outtake from <i>Time Out Of Mind</i>, a Western epic within the folk tradition, that tale of an elusive muse.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Almost under the radar, Dylan wrote many songs for films during this period, even winning an Oscar for "Things Have Changed" from the 2000 movie <i>Wonder Boys</i>. "Tell Ol' Bill" was written for <i>North Country</i> starring Charlize Theron. A smoothed out version of "Born in Time" from his 1990 album <i>Under the</i> <i>Red Sky</i> is another highlight. An alternate version of "Can't Wait" minus the Daniel Lanois production lacks the sense of existential dread of the album version. "Everything is Broken" sounds similar to what appeared on <i>Oh Mercy</i>, only less intense and angry. "Dreamin' of You" was recorded in during the <i>Time Out of Mind </i>period, snippets of the lyrics would appear on "Standing by the Doorway" and "Can't Wait," providing a brief glimpse into Dylan's songwriting process. "Huck's Tune" was another one written for filmmaker Curtis Hanson, in this case the forgettable 2006 film <i>Lucky You</i>. The gospel tinged blues of "Marchin to the City" is a throwback to the Christian era with an updated sound. Disc One ends with a live version of "High Water (for Charley Patton)" displaying Dylan's ability to chisel his songs during the never-ending tour.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Disc 2</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Another version of "Mississippi" kicks off the bonus disc in an effective mid tempo performance. "32-30 blues" from the <i>World Gone Wrong</i> sessions pays tribute to Robert Johnson. "Series of Dreams" sounds similar to the version on <i>Bootlegs Vol. 1,2, and 3</i>. "God Knows" also appears, although I wish they had included the stunning live version <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXtIb9kO12I" target="_blank">Bob and his Band performed at Woodstock '94.</a> "Can't Escape From You" is a masterful song (written for a film that was never made) from <i>Modern Times</i> is melancholy and beautiful, more akin to the songs that would appear on <i>Tempest </i>a few years later. Then a finished version of "Dignity," that lacks the urgency of the piano demo on Disc 1. A stirring performance of "Ring Them Bells" from the legendary New York Supper Club shows Nov. 16-17 1993. The murder ballad "Cocaine Blues" was recorded for a 1997 show. A guitar driven version of "Ain't Talkin" made me think the song would be right at home on a Metal album. "The Girl on the Greenbrier Shore" and "Miss the Mississippi" from the <i>Good As I've Been To You</i> illustrate Dylan's re-engagement with folk during the 1990s. A blistering version of "Lonesome Day Blues" follows. A jaunty duet of "The Lonesome River" with bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley is another highlight. "Cross the Green Mountain" was written for the Civil War film <i>Gods and Generals, </i>an era that's long fascinated Dylan. A live performance of "Love Sick" closes the second disc. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Tell Tale Signs</i> is comprehensive yet at the same time feels like the tip of the iceberg. While it's compelling to hear these songs develop in the studio, as Dylan has said many times, it's in the live performances where they take shape. On a more profound level, the collection places Dylan's evolution in some perspective: culture hero of the 1960s, searching for meaning in the 1970s with obsessions ranging from <i>I Ching</i> to <i>The Late Great Planet Earth</i>, adrift in the 1980s, and, finally, a wistful seeker into the New Millennium. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
Eric Gillilandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778517683750389280noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251352834273360488.post-71049021818433255422018-06-01T17:22:00.001-07:002018-06-01T17:23:03.360-07:00Modern Times: The Writing's on the Wall<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-drGz-bBb5_s/WxHGXDHcUWI/AAAAAAAACm8/iWmUPsdAdQQZrv2wxx4jbNO2k0_BiO7ywCLcBGAs/s1600/modern_times_Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-drGz-bBb5_s/WxHGXDHcUWI/AAAAAAAACm8/iWmUPsdAdQQZrv2wxx4jbNO2k0_BiO7ywCLcBGAs/s320/modern_times_Cover.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Release Date: August 29, 2006</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Recorded over a few weeks in early 2006, Bob Dylan's <i>Modern Times </i>stands as a worthy follow up to "<i>Love and Theft" </i>from 2001, building and expanding upon the themes of the latter album. Replete with historical references and nods to ancient poets, Dylan also inserted commentary on the 21st Century and where it's going. As the title suggests, Dylan took inspiration from Charlie Chaplin's 1936 film <i>Modern Times</i>, Dylan despairs and revels at life in the 21st Century. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Thunder on the Mountain" gets things off to a rousing start, featuring a retro intro that invokes the birth of rock and roll. The first verse heralds the coming of end times, then the second pays tribute Alicia Keys. The final lyrics may be a direct reference to Chaplin's 1918 short <i>A Dog's Life</i>. The attitude, sound, and imagery of "Thunder on the Mountain" suggest an alternate way of looking at the modern world, one for staying sane. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Spirit in the Water" is an epic love ballad. An epic tale of unrequited love that's been going on for centuries that's much akin to Dante's Beatrice. Each verse packs a punch that alternates between humor, violence, desire, hope, loss, and melancholia. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Rollin and Tumblin" returns to the blues, a tribute to Muddy Waters. "Someday Baby" continues along in the same vein of classic blues. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"When the Deal Goes Down" and "Beyond the Horizon" are theological laments on mortality, produced in the style of 1930s Cole Porter, foreshadowing Dylan's work in the next decade. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Workingman's Blues #2" encapsulates the class struggle, a preoccupation of Dylan's going back the early Woody Guthrie influenced material.The first verse proclaims "the buying power of the proletariat gone down" refers back to old left 1930s politics. Along with "Thunder on the Mountain" there are numerous references to the tragicomic adventures of Chaplin. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I always find "Nettie Moore" to be the most impenetrable song on <i>Modern Times,</i> perhaps due to Dylan's repetitive delivery. The imagery is bleak, full of regret, betrayal, and tragedy. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"The Levee's Gonna Break" was recorded with Hurricane Katrina fresh on everyone's mind, another track about a flood and tragedy on a biblical scale in a call back to "High Water" on "<i>Love and Theft"</i>, here the tone is less defiant and more resigned to fate. The last lyric, "some people are still sleeping; some people are wide awake" reads like a warning.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Ain't Talkin" revels in apocalyptic imagery, seemingly a continuation of the motif set up in "Thunder on the Mountain." A spiritual warrior walks through a desolate landscape and reflects on many things and speaking of "practicing a faith long abandoned." The past was glorious, the present is depressing, and the future lays in the balance. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Although <i>Modern Times </i>lacks the electric swagger of "<i>Love and Theft" </i>and borders on being derivative at times, it contains some of Dylan's best work . "Thunder on the Mountain," "Spirit on the Water," and "Workingman's Blues #2" are all diamonds in his catalog. All ten songs would sustain Dylan's live concerts in the years to come, an impressive feat in itself. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The old world perspective, feelings of loss and faint hope, and a sense of the mythical American landscape all define <i>Modern Times.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Eric Gillilandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778517683750389280noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251352834273360488.post-42913098860635957432017-12-28T21:13:00.000-08:002017-12-28T21:17:00.434-08:00Bob Dylan Live At Carnegie Hall 1963<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VYuhklqt2fw/WkXJZ_R3bhI/AAAAAAAACfM/wMDntsN06-sBRnTUncBdpoJ2PEEf37pyACLcBGAs/s1600/i-18-f.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VYuhklqt2fw/WkXJZ_R3bhI/AAAAAAAACfM/wMDntsN06-sBRnTUncBdpoJ2PEEf37pyACLcBGAs/s320/i-18-f.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Released November 15, 2005</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In 2005, Columbia Records released a six song EP composed of songs from Dylan's Carnegie Hall concert that took place on October 26, 1963. The year had witnessed Dylan's meteoric rise with the release of the <i>The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan</i> and his historic debut at the Newport Folk Festival. "The Times They Are-A-Changin'" opens the disc in a sedate, but earnest, call to arms for the new generation. "Ballad of Hollis Brown" followed; a version that matched the stark intensity that would appear on the LP <i>The Times They Are-A-Changin</i>. Dylan introduced the melancholy "Boots of Spanish Leather" as a song about "settling for less." Next "Lay Down Your Weary Tune", which according to Dylan's official website is the sole live performance. The version here is slower and more meditative than the studio recordings available on the Bootleg Series. It's deeply moving and effective. Then "North Country Blues," a song that paints a portrait of the mining industry's decline in Dylan's hometown of Hibbing, Minnesota. Interestingly, Dylan wrote the song from the perspective of a miner's wife who watches her family come apart after the company decides to close the mine because in South America people "work for almost nothing." An intriguing song to compare with Dylan's 2006 track from <i>Modern Times</i> "Workingman's Blues #2" as a foreshadowing of globalization. The EP concludes on "With God On Our Side." War's always been a fascination with Dylan, in his memoir he credited Von Clauswitz's <i>On War</i> as an influence on his songwriting. Few songs better encapsulated the horror of 20th Century conflict (and the scourge of Cold War propaganda). Overall, a worthwhile record of Dylan performing his early songs as he was finding his voice as an artist.</span>Eric Gillilandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778517683750389280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251352834273360488.post-72555120490919578642017-12-08T18:13:00.001-08:002017-12-08T18:13:42.349-08:00The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dxdvT5ssDB0/WitFgk_eFxI/AAAAAAAACc8/mL6DUvxu3NYC5TR8qTY7CrFuPu--UydOgCLcBGAs/s1600/Bob-Dylan_001.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="349" data-original-width="349" height="319" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dxdvT5ssDB0/WitFgk_eFxI/AAAAAAAACc8/mL6DUvxu3NYC5TR8qTY7CrFuPu--UydOgCLcBGAs/s320/Bob-Dylan_001.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Released August 30, 2005</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>The Documentary</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Martin Scorsese was called into service to edit the documentary that would cover the first 25 years of Dylan's life. <i>No Direction Home</i> is arguably the best documentary made about Dylan and offers an excellent introduction to anyone unfamiliar with his work. Dylan granted over ten hours of interviews with his manager Jeff Rosen, adding compelling commentary to his own life story. Many who knew him in the early days also appear: friends from Minnesota, Suze Rotolo, Dave Von Ronk, Liam Clancy, Joan Baez, Allen Ginsberg, and many others. The true magic in <i>No Direction Home</i> is Scorsese's impeccable editing skills. The film begins with footage of Dylan performing in 1966 with the Band at the height of his powers, then shifts back to the early years. The effect builds a suspense and significance to the narrative. Access to Dylan's archive allowed for lots of rare footage never seen by the public.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>The Soundtrack</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Overall, a worthy addition to the Bootleg Series. Although a few of the tracks had appeared on previous releases (and would appear on future ones), there's a wonderful collection rare recordings and alternate versions. Highlights on the first disk include "When I Got Troubles," one of the earliest Dylan recordings. A live version of Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" is another highlight, with Dylan beginning the performance sounding melancholy, but gradually adding a majesty to each verse. "Dink's Song" is another stirring early performance. An early version of "Mr. Tambourine Man" with Ramblin' Jack Elliot providing on backup vocals. Several live tracks are included, including an early performance of "Chimes of Freedom," with Dylan delivering a soulful vocal.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The second disk illustrate's Dylan transition into folk rock, symbolized by the performance of "Maggie's Farm" at the Newport Folk Festival. An alternate version of "Desolation Row," played with electrical instruments adds a psychedelic quality. "Visions of Johanna" is also supported by the Band, casting light on the early version of <i>Blonde on Blonde</i>. Much more would come on the 2015 release <i>The Cutting Edge</i>, but the <i>No Direction Home</i> soundtrack is a worthy companion piece to the series and its narrative arc. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Eric Gillilandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778517683750389280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251352834273360488.post-29465900569020049892017-12-06T14:51:00.003-08:002017-12-06T14:51:37.839-08:00The Bootleg Series Volume 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964, Concert At Philharmonic Hall<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Jm6DSm0mH60/WieXeJz7FCI/AAAAAAAACcs/YFtf4vJq6okCG--rzuiuEyQ_5cVj2VOUwCLcBGAs/s1600/Bob_Dylan_-_The_Bootleg_Series%252C_Volume_6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="293" data-original-width="339" height="276" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Jm6DSm0mH60/WieXeJz7FCI/AAAAAAAACcs/YFtf4vJq6okCG--rzuiuEyQ_5cVj2VOUwCLcBGAs/s320/Bob_Dylan_-_The_Bootleg_Series%252C_Volume_6.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Released March 30, 2004</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">One of my personal favorites in the Bootleg Series is Bob Dylan's Halloween Concert at the Philharmonic Hall. A pivot point in his early career, the show showcases his early songs and suggested what was to come. The concert, performed in two sets, featured songs from his first four albums and new material that would appear on <i>Bringing It All Back Home</i>. On this particular evening he appeared relaxed and good natured before a packed house, joking "I'm wearing my Bob Dylan mask tonight."</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Dylan began the show with "The Times They Are A-Changin" in an almost jaunty heralding of a new age. Next came the only live version on record of "Spanish Harlem Incident." "Talkin John Birch Paranoid Blues" was a staple of Dylan's early live shows, still a crowd pleaser in 1964 (once again relevant in the current climate). "To Ramona" displayed Dylan's interest in writing daring love songs that were also political. "Who Killed Davey Moore" was another early effort that never appeared on an album, a song about a boxer who tragically died after a fight. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The next three songs offered something new, even revolutionary, for the audience. What on earth did they make of "Gates of Eden"? Was it a protest song? Beat inspired poetry? Dark and mysterious lyrics suggested abstract art as folk song. "If You Gotta Go, Go Now (or else you gotta stay all night) could be a Top 40 pop song with its playful lyrics, a possible Beatles parody. And then another showstopper with "It's All Right Ma (I'm Only Bleeding), a terrifying secular sermon that was a different from anything Dylan had written up to that point.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The first set closed with more familiar songs. Dylan forgot the lyrics to "I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Met) and got some help from the audience. "Mr Tambourine Man" and "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" were performed with precision and passion.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">After a brief break Dylan began the second set with some familiar favorites. "Talkin' World War III Blues" got a thunderous applause. Then stirring performances of "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" and "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll." </span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Joan Baez joined Dylan for "Mama, You've Been On My Mind," one of their favorite songs to sing together. Baez took lead vocals on the traditional "Silver Dagger" with Bob on harmonica. "With God On Our Side" was another duet they performed together many times. An exuberant "It Ain't Me Babe" could almost be a dialogue between Baez and Dylan at that particular moment in time. Dylan closed the evening on a light note with "All I Really Want to Do."</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The Dylan of late 1964 would be vastly different than the Dylan of 1965, the Dylan of 1966. The Philharmonic Hall concert showcases the artist coming into his own, signaling a new direction.</span></div>
Eric Gillilandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778517683750389280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251352834273360488.post-79152331548696166292017-12-03T12:28:00.000-08:002017-12-03T12:28:32.349-08:00The Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Bob Dylan Live 1975, The Rolling Thunder Revue<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vb_5ISW0okE/WiNevWaSBFI/AAAAAAAACcc/oQGadtXP_YwFUuh-pIA6KYn_eo7Gq-imQCLcBGAs/s1600/81wXb3-NjrL._SL1500_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1325" data-original-width="1500" height="282" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vb_5ISW0okE/WiNevWaSBFI/AAAAAAAACcc/oQGadtXP_YwFUuh-pIA6KYn_eo7Gq-imQCLcBGAs/s320/81wXb3-NjrL._SL1500_.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Released November 26, 2002</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">During the autumn of 1975 Bob Dylan embarked on an impromptu tour known as the Rolling Thunder Revue. Each show was designed to be a theatrical extravaganza, going against the grain of the arena rock that dominated the decade. This edition in the Bootleg Series features performances from the autumn of 1975. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The CD opens with a rocking version of "Tonight I'll Be Staying Home With You," from the 1969 album <i>Nashville Skyline</i>. The guitars of Mick Ronson and T-Bone Burnett combined with Dylan's excitable vocal brought new life to the song. In fact pretty much every song Dylan performed on the tour got a major reboot, no longer recording stuck in amber on a record, but live bytes of creativity being rediscovered and redefined. "It Ain't Me Babe," is a defiant song of lament from the the 1964 LP <i>Another Side of Bob Dylan</i> that gets converted into a rally cry of personal liberation. The solemn poetics of "A Hard Rain's A- Gonna Fall" is now driving rock and roll song with dizzying apocalyptic imagery. "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" reminded audiences Dylan still cared about social justice (detractors still took him to task for not writing protest music).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Next followed two from the yet to come <i>Desire </i>album: "Romance in Durango" and "Isis." Then two acoustic numbers the classic "Mr. Tambourine Man" and the moving "Simple Twist of Fate" from <i>Blood on the Tracks</i>. Joan Baez joined Dylan for "Blowin' in the Wind" and then one they performed many times a decade earlier, "Mama, You've Been on My Mind." The first CD concludes with Dylan and Baez doing a duet of "I Shall Be Released" with a country music twang.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The second CD starts with two more acoustic numbers, both songs from <i>Bringing It All Back Home</i>, "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" and "Love Minus Zero/No Limit." Then "Tangled Up in Blue" an instant classic with some slightly revised lyrics. Baez joined Dylan again for the traditional song, "The Water is Wide." An impassioned version of "It Takes a Lot to Laugh (It Takes a Train to Cry)" captured the spirit of <i>Highway 61 Revisited</i>. When someone from the crowd demanded a protest song Dylan responded with "Oh Sister." A lawsuit settlement prevented Dylan from performing "Hurricane" so this particular bootleg is one of few live versions out there (although it doesn't come close to the stirring version on <i>Desire</i>). "One More Cup of Coffee" and "Sara" would also both appear on <i>Desire</i>. Dylan even took audience requests and played "Just Like A Woman." The CD appropriately closes with "Knockin' on Heaven's Door."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">At best, this volume in the Bootleg series captures a sense of the excitement of the Rolling Thunder Revue. The tour produced two immediate albums <i><a href="http://www.bobdylanalbumbyalbum.com/2015/09/desire-into-wild-unknown-country.html" target="_blank">Desire </a></i>and a live album that caught the tail end of the tour entitled <i><a href="http://www.bobdylanalbumbyalbum.com/2015/10/hard-rain-end-of-tour.html" target="_blank">Hard Rain</a></i>. The 1978 film <i>Renaldo and Clara</i>, Dylan's lone directorial effort, also resulted from the tour. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">These shows were a Dylan no had ever seen before: interactive, political, theatrical, and completely possessed with the spirit of the music. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Eric Gillilandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778517683750389280noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251352834273360488.post-90124953288614767592017-10-02T14:14:00.000-07:002017-10-02T14:16:35.401-07:00Love and Theft: A House of Mortar and Brick<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VErJspU1p7Y/WdHA_4umgBI/AAAAAAAACYI/vUCMz0xHh5sfVhjGxgMZEVO_VD-iHG9UwCLcBGAs/s1600/bob-dylan-love-and-theft-9aa0af54-d3d9-426d-ba48-e609f2a05c89.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VErJspU1p7Y/WdHA_4umgBI/AAAAAAAACYI/vUCMz0xHh5sfVhjGxgMZEVO_VD-iHG9UwCLcBGAs/s320/bob-dylan-love-and-theft-9aa0af54-d3d9-426d-ba48-e609f2a05c89.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Released September 11, 2001</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Everyone of the records I’ve made has emanated from the entire panorama of what America is to me. America, to me, is a rising tide that lifts all ships, and I’ve never really sought inspiration from other types of music.</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-bacb2998-db51-98c9-2088-d056fc22792f" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">-</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bob Dylan quote from</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Interview with </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rolling Stone</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, 12/21/2001</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Love and Theft"</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> glides through the past, present, and future in alternating timelines. Like </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Highway 61 Revisited</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, the album boldly traverses through vast landscapes; shifting terrains and existential cul-de-sacs. Historical eras flip on a dime: one line in the civil war, the next the Great Depression, then uncertain futures.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Tweedledum and Tweedledee" tells of two disreputable characters who leave wreckage and chaos everywhere they go. As Dylan relates their dubious adventures that range from running a brick and tile company to stealing pecan pies - it's clear they are amoral opportunists. There's a Gothic touch to the song, hints of Flannery O'Connor, as the duo swindle their way through a vapid existence (Robert Johnson and Tennessee Williams are also referenced). Despite their dubious enterprises; their stupidity and cruelty win out in the end; welcome to the new century, says Bob.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If life teaches us anything, it’s that there’s nothing that men and women won’t do to get power. The album deals with power, wealth, knowledge and salvation . . . Rolling Stone Interview 12/21/2001</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Mississippi" had a long recording history, originally intended for the 1997 LP </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Time Out Of Mind. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dylan gave the song to Sheryl Crow for her 1998 LP </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Globe Sessions</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. One of the central tracks of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Love and Theft</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, "Mississippi" celebrates wondrous landscapes and individuality. A love song of sorts of well with line like, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>"All my powers of expression and thoughts so sublime/Could never do you justice in reason or rhyme."</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> "Mississippi" hints at autobiography with its themes of time passing and endless traveling.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Summer Days" sounds like a jukebox hit from the early 1950s, a gumbo of blues, rockabilly, and swing. The sense of abandonment and malaise in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Time Out Of Mind</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> seems a distant memory; the mojo is back. "Bye and Bye" is the album's most placid song, a romantic ballad that recalls the 1930s.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Lonesome Day Blues" burns down the house in a blistering onslaught of blues fury. Despair and defiance come in form of blunt declarations from a world weary character. "Lonesome Day Blues" could the basis of a lost film with Warren Oates. The mention of the Captain always makes me think of the Civil War battle in</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">sending his troops to die with an indifferent fatalism. A lyric confesses, "I tell myself something's comin', but it never does." It's a Beckett play set in some God forsaken space in anytown America (where everyday gets more absurd).</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Floater (Too Much To Ask)" may be the most perplexing song on "</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Love and Theft</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">." Sherwood Anderson's </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Winesburg. Ohio</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> comes to mind. The opening stanza speaks of "another endless day" of banality. Once again we're in Main street USA with all its exhausting power struggles, unrequited love, violent outbursts. Even Romeo and Juliet are bickering in a surreal aside. The narrator wonders if his pioneer grandparents had hopes or dreams and confesses he dreamed of</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i> "going with all the ring-dancin' Christmas carols on all the Christmas Eves."</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Well, Bob would release a Christmas album with a cover suggesting such imagery. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then magisterial "High Water (for Charley Patton)" plays with Southern mythology: the Mississippi River flooding, the emotional toll of looming apocalyptic threat, and a gallows humor that careens into social commentary. The verses weave from the tragic to the absurd:</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">High water risin’, the shacks are slidin’ down</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Folks lose their possessions—folks are leaving town</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bertha Mason shook it—broke it</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then she hung it on a wall</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Says, “You’re dancin’ with whom they tell you to</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Or you don’t dance at all”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s tough out there</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">High water everywhere</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And the lyrics get even darker, taking on a new resonance considering the fateful day it was released:</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">High water risin’, six inches ’bove my head</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Coffins droppin’ in the street</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Like balloons made out of lead</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Water pourin’ into Vicksburg, don’t know what I’m goin' to do</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Don’t reach out for me,” she said</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Can’t you see I’m drownin’ too?”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s rough out there</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">High water everywhere</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With a lynch mob ready to pounce on Charles Darwin and angry preachers threatening to put out your eyes, it's indeed getting rough out there. The fade out is one of my favorite moments on the record; the banjos are the only defense against tomorrow.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Moonlight" is the most romantic song on </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Love and Theft</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, a throwback to Cole Porter and foreshadowing Dylan's recent interest in American standards.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Basically, the songs deal with what many of my songs deal with - which is business politics, and war, and maybe love interest on the side. Rolling Stone Interview, 12/21/2001</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Honest with Me" is the closest "</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Love and Theft"</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> comes to a modern rock sound, the pre-rock and roll influence gives way to a more industrial arrangement with the aggressive guitars that open the track. Each stanza is addressed to a woman and includes asides hinting at a never ending power struggle:</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d1d1d; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m here to create the new imperial empire</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d1d1d; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m going to do whatever circumstances require</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d1d1d; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I care so much for you—didn’t think that I could</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d1d1d; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I can’t tell my heart that you’re no good</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #1d1d1d; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The tenth track "Po Boy" bristles with a quiet, elegiac tone. The song follows the nameless "Po Boy" through many misadventures as he traverses the South, </span><span style="color: #1d1d1d; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Been workin' on the mainline-workin' like the devil/The game is the same- it's just on a different level."</span><span style="color: #1d1d1d; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> He survives by traveling here, there, and everywhere, taking wage labor where and when he can, occasionally fomenting trouble, and tries to find peace. Despite it's short length, there's an epic scope to the Homeric travels chronicles in "Po Boy."</span></span></div>
<b style="background-color: white; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d1d1d; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But it is time now for great men to come forward. With small men, no great thing can be accomplished . . . Rolling Stone Interview, 12/21/2001</span></div>
<b style="background-color: white; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d1d1d; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In "Cry A While" Dylan returns to the blues, with zany one liners, verbal salvos fired into the void. The opening verse sets the tone:</span></div>
<b style="background-color: white; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d1d1d; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well, I had to go down and see a guy named Mr. Goldsmith</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d1d1d; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A nasty, dirty, double-crossin’, backstabbin’ phony I didn’t wanna have to be dealin’ with</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d1d1d; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But I did it for you and all you gave me was a smile</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d1d1d; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well, I cried for you—now it’s your turn to cry awhile</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d1d1d; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #1d1d1d; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Sugar Baby" concludes "</span><span style="color: #1d1d1d; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Love and Theft"</span><span style="color: #1d1d1d; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> on a subdued note, a song filled with mysterious visions and meditations on existence.There's a sense of finality; Gabriel's about to blow his horn to announce the Second Coming. The themes of the album get boiled down to their DNA.</span></span></div>
<b style="background-color: white; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #1d1d1d; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Love and Theft"</span><span style="color: #1d1d1d; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> brought Dylan into the new Millennium with a vengeance. The archaic references and hard earned wisdom resonated with audiences - old and new. The sound was unlike anything he put on record, finally hitting the energy of his live shows. As Dylan’s portrait on the album cover suggests, staring at you as he did on </span><span style="color: #1d1d1d; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Highway 61 Revisited</span><span style="color: #1d1d1d; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, daring the listener to enter and see where it will take you, it's a call to arms of sorts. But the journey is more metaphysical that geographical, more questions are raised than are ever answered.</span></span></div>
<b style="background-color: white; font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d1d1d; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Things will have to change. And one of these things that will have to change: People will have to change their internal world. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d1d1d; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rolling Stone Interview, 12/21/2001</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #1d1d1d; font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #1d1d1d; font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Work Cited</b></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #1d1d1d; font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews</i>. Ed. Jonathan Cott. New York: Warner Books, 2006. Print.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #1d1d1d; font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lyrics from Bobdylan.com</span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span>Eric Gillilandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778517683750389280noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251352834273360488.post-63418250109568840082017-06-11T22:04:00.000-07:002017-06-11T22:05:40.419-07:00Live 1966 "The Royal Albert Hall Concert" The Bootleg Series Vol. 4<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-b44PbLln7B8/WT30yT7xPdI/AAAAAAAACQw/udNo0YzGw1I2o1i3p0hZeAuUnVIeR0G7ACLcB/s1600/1280x1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1280" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-b44PbLln7B8/WT30yT7xPdI/AAAAAAAACQw/udNo0YzGw1I2o1i3p0hZeAuUnVIeR0G7ACLcB/s320/1280x1280.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Released October 13, 1998</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">On May 17, 1966, exhausted and weary after a grueling tour through Europe, Bob Dylan performed before a hostile audience in Manchester, England. He performed a solo acoustic set and was then joined by the Hawks for the electric portion of the show. On that night a spectator famously cried "Judas" when Dylan begin to play "Like A Rolling Stone." Feeling betrayed at Bob's embrace of electric music and abandonment of politically driven songs, fans were divided. Determined to go his own way, Dylan extolled his band "to play fucking louder" as the boos continued. A performance of historic importance in the frenzy of the mid 1960s, an unforgettable confrontation between artistic expression and audience expectation. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><b>Acoustic Set:</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">She Belongs To Me</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Fourth Time Around</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Visions of Johanna</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">It's All Over Now, Baby Blue</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Desolation Row</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Just Like A Woman</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Mr. Tambourine Man</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">The acoustic set is subdued. Filmed by the same crew that followed Dylan around on <i>Don't Look Back</i>, he sits slouched over as he strums his guitar. Dylan's performance lacks the passion he brought to them in the studio, here the effect is more hypnotic. He seems to be serving as his own opening act - or expressing his exhaustion with the folk format. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">I wouldn't single out any highlights from the solo set, except that three of the songs were yet to be released: "Fourth Time Around," Visions of Johanna," and "Just Like A Woman." All was prologue to the explosive electric set. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><b>Electric Set:</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Tell Me, Momma</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Met)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Baby, Let Me Follow You Down</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Leopard-Skin Pillbox-Hat</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">One Too Many Mornings</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Ballad of a Thin Man</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Like a Rolling Stone</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">The second set begins with Dylan's foot stomping as the band launches into "Tell Me, Momma," a song he never recorded for official release. Dylan slurs the lyrics, sort of Ginsburg meets Jerry Lee Lewis, but the energy of the band gets infectious. The lazy harmonica intro to "She Acts Like We Never Met" gives way to a psychedelic jam. An even heavier version of "Baby, Let Me Follow You Down," displays how far Dylan had come since his debut album. Garth Hudson's swirling organ on "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" and Robbie Robertson's guitar perfectly matches the surreal imagery of the lyrics. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">"Leopard-Skin Pillbox-Hat" goes in a more bluesy direction, much more in the style of <i>Blonde on Blonde</i>. "One Too Many Mornings" gets a drastic reinterpretation as well, the drowsy musings from the original give way to an epic lament on longing. "Ballad of Thin Man" is even more blistering than the version on <i>Highway 61 Revisited</i>, as the film shows, Dylan took the negative vibes from the audience and threw it back at them. "Like A Rolling Stone" closes out the concert in one of the best live versions, with Dylan almost breaking his voice as the concert ended. Before leaving he offered a monotone, "Thank you," to the crowd.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">The Manchester show is historically relevant for many reasons. The year 1966 witnessed rock and roll evolving into not just a cultural force, but an art form. Performers like Dylan, The Beatles, and The Beach Boys were refusing to give the public what they wanted, they were going into their own individualistic directions. After completing the tour Dylan would vanish from public view for several years, but continued to record music. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">A highlight of the Bootleg Series, "The Royal Albert Hall Concert" would be complimented by the release of <i>The Real Royal Albert Hall Concert</i> released in 2016, the concert Dylan performed a few days later in London.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span>Eric Gillilandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778517683750389280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5251352834273360488.post-8862718943503889622017-06-07T16:20:00.001-07:002017-06-07T16:48:56.981-07:00Time Out Of Mind: Prisoner in a World of Mystery<div style="text-align: left;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mid7GPvnHUQ/WTcK3WH5j_I/AAAAAAAACQg/agLNe486UbYT2qDjdQAQPJE2Ggcjr7ZfgCLcB/s1600/Bob_Dylan_-_Time_Out_of_Mind.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mid7GPvnHUQ/WTcK3WH5j_I/AAAAAAAACQg/agLNe486UbYT2qDjdQAQPJE2Ggcjr7ZfgCLcB/s320/Bob_Dylan_-_Time_Out_of_Mind.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Released September 30, 1997</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>"I'm walkin' through streets that are dead."</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Thus begins Bob Dylan's 1997 magnum opus <i>Time Out Of Mind</i>. Seven years since his last album of original songs <i>Under the Red Sky</i>, Dylan reunited with his <i>Oh</i> <i>Mercy</i> producer Daniel Lanois in one of his moodiest albums. Drenched in blues and folk mythology with some of Dylan's most straight forward lyrics to date, words that conjure existential dread and defiance in cascading waves.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><i>Time Out of Mind</i> won the Grammy for Album of the Year - a work many critics and fans viewed as not only Dylan's return to form, but a masterpiece.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Dylan's ghostly façade on the cover speaks to the "out of time" feel of the entire album, a record full of ghosts. With the Millennium looming, Dylan seems to be in a race against time itself in a desperate search for meaning, refusing to let the listener off the hook with songs about loss sung with raw emotion.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"> Even though it sounds grim, the listening experience transcends all the gloom that's balanced by a gallows humor, a scorched earth cynicism combined with <i>fin di</i> <i>siècle</i> grace.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">"Love Sick" opens the album with a staccato guitar and the haunting organ of Augie Meyers. Dylan's gravelly singing in the style of a 1930s bluesman. He sings "I'm sick of love, but I'm in the thick of it," sets up the de facto narrative running through the songs.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Abbu5hcH0kk/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Abbu5hcH0kk?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">"Dirt Road Blues" returns to the walking motif in a song that sounds like a lost jukebox standard circa 1957. With the proper promotion it would've worked as a single, who knows?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">"Standing in the Doorway" continues the walking motif works as a companion piece to "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" from <i>Blonde on</i> <i>Blonde</i>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">On "Million Miles" Bob sounds a bit mischievous, "You took a part of me that I really miss." There's a more of a comic quality, especially with the closing stanza:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><i>Well, there’s voices in the night trying to be heard<br /> I’m sitting here listening to every mind-polluting word<br /> I know plenty of people who would put me up for a day or two<br /> Yes, I’m tryin’ to get closer but I’m still a million miles from you</i> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Dylan's growing cragginess and melancholy with the modern world comes out throughout <i>Time Out Of Mind</i>. Especially on "Tryin to Get to Heaven", a wistful musing on existence through observing others:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><i>People on the platforms<br /> Waiting for the trains<br /> I can hear their hearts a-beatin’<br /> Like pendulums swinging on chains</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><i></i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"></span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Loss cannot be avoided, but we are all in the same boat.</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">"Til I Fell In Love With You" is a swinging jukebox jam with the signature Lanois "swamp sound" on full display.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">
</span>
<br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">
</span>
<br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">The majestic "Not Dark Yet," conjures biblical imagery from the Book of Revelation. He can't even hear the "murmur of a prayer" and his "sense of humanity has gone down the drain," telegraphs despair and a touch of the divine. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/RZgBhyU4IvQ/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RZgBhyU4IvQ?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">"Cold Irons Bound" offers more blistering blues, as if a hurricane just blew through the studio, one that will engulf the world. Ragtag turmoil kicks the album up a few gears, futility gives way to rollicking swagger.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/9hO-83CIVKM/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9hO-83CIVKM?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Dylan also included his hit single "To Make You Feel My Love," a song he handed off to Billy Joel and Garth Brooks. Adele also recorded a popular version in 2008.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">"Can't Wait" delves deeper into the darkness, here Dylan sounds even more conniving. The "end of time" has begun, the question is for who? It sounds like 4AM.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">And finally "Highlands," the final track that runs over 16 minutes, a Chaplinesque by way of Godard chronicle of a day in the life of "Bob Dylan." "Highlands" lifted a stanza from a Robert Burns poem and transposed the setting to 1990s America. Even though life remains the "same ol' rat race" he decides to get out of bed and face the day. A comical encounter with a waitress parodies the themes of the album as a final joke. And the last verse:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><i>The sun is beginning to shine on me<br /> But it’s not like the sun that used to be<br /> The party’s over and there’s less and less to say<br /><b> I got new eyes</b><br /> Everything looks far away</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><i><br /></i>
Like the blind man from the Gospels he's "got new eyes" and is determined to keep on living in spite of everything.<br />
<br /><i>
Time Out of Mind</i> propelled Dylan's career into the 21st Century not as a dreaded "elder statesman of rock" but an artist continuing to follow the muse wherever it would lead.<br />
<br />
<i><br /></i>
</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">
</span>
<br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">
</span>
<br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">
</span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">
</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"></span>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span></i></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Eric Gillilandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00778517683750389280noreply@blogger.com4