The Essex Boy Review: May 2011

Tuesday 31 May 2011

30 Days of Dylan #30: Tangled Up In Blue

May 2011 sees the 70th birthday of Bob Dylan. To celebrate, we're taking you on a journey through the lesser celebrated avenues of his back catalogue. A journey down Highway 61 that won't stop off at 'Blowin' In The Wind', 'All Along The Watchtower' or 'Knockin' On Heaven's Door' but will call by...

Tangled Up In Blue (1974)

And in the end we’ll enjoy an out-and-out Bob Dylan classic, complete with record company approved video footage. It has been a bit galling, I must say, the heavy handed restrictions that Bob’s people seem to have imposed on his music across internet streaming services. I know Bob can pretty much do as he wishes but I personally feel it’s a shame that this is one way in which he hasn’t moved with the times. I mean, I’m someone who ten years ago was a committed record & CD collector looking towards a future where I’d probably need to build seventeen sheds just to house my music collection but nowadays I don’t know if I’ll ever buy music in a physical format ever again. For music fans this new model is simply the best thing ever, the sheer accessibility of everything is mouth watering and it’s just a shame that Bob Dylan and The Beatles have so far resisted full immersion into the new environment; it would be a better place for having them around and in time, they definitely will be. I’ll also hold my hands up and admit there were songs that I’d intended for the 30 day rundown that couldn’t be included because of the lack of availability; 1971’s ‘George Jackson’ and the ‘Infidels’ outtake ‘Tell Me’ spring instantly to mind but there were others. Still, I’m not unhappy with the way these 30 days/30 songs have turned out and in many ways it’s been more fun hunting around for a decent cover version when the original Dylan recording I’d set out for wasn’t available. With ‘Tangled Up In Blue’ itself I’d love to offer up the ‘Bootleg Series Vol. 1-3’ version for your enjoyment, which I genuinely believe to be the better take, but it doesn’t really matter, you can’t go far wrong whichever take you prefer. This is a song head and shoulders above normal standards. For me this is Bob Dylan’s masterpiece, I’ve had a twenty year relationship with the song and it still endures, which for a piece of music in essence so basic is incredible. But every time you go back to this song there’s a chance some new nuance could reveal itself. It works like a great abstract work of art, shifting perspectives that mask heart wrenching revelations about the mess of blues Dylan was attempting to illustrate. But then if the details always slightly escape you, maintaining that elusiveness in the dialogue that’s impossible to nail down with the narrator shifting from first to third person, the feel of the piece reveals all.

Monday 30 May 2011

30 Days of Dylan #29: Sign On The Window

Sign On The Window (1970)

The whole motivation behind this 30 day trip has been to shed a little light on the less celebrated but no less deserving corners of the Dylan back catalogue. To that end our penultimate offering is a real giant amongst buried treasures. It seems perverse now that there is a hidden masterwork in the man’s back pages but there is and that album is ‘New Morning’. Along with ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’ and ‘Time Out Of Mind’, this was one of the albums deemed unworthy of inclusion on the remastering project imposed on the Dylan catalogue a few years ago, but fewer people questioned the exclusion of ‘New Morning’. Why so is unclear but you can piece together an idea. It followed a matter of months after the legend airbrushing mystery that was ‘Self Portrait’, so expectations on Bob had been significantly lowered by his own hand at this point. Also, the album lacks a defining signature moment, a landmark statement piece or anything that screams ‘major new Bob Dylan work’ from its’ pages. There are great songs here but their charms are subtle, modestly dressed in a coat of laid back production and musical understatement. And let’s not forget, Bob stayed underground almost totally until 1974 without tours or new albums (other than the ‘Pat Garrett’ soundtrack) so the ‘New Morning’ record just kind of got lost amidst the wilderness years that were Bob’s early 70s. It was as if both he and his audience needed a few years grace to properly digest everything that had gone down in the 60s. But important work it is. There are great songs such as ‘If Not For You’ and ‘Time Passes Slowly’ and the rocking ‘Man In Me’; only really appreciated by more than a handful of Bobcats after it featured heavily at the start of the film ‘The Big Lebowski’. And there’s the sound of the album too; all muddy analogue soul, eloquently picked George Harrison guitar parts and pounding Bob piano chords that sound like they’re being bashed on a slightly out-of-tune village hall upright. That’s the 1970-71 sound in essence actually, you hear it on everything from Paul McCartney’s solo debut to Neil Young’s ‘After The Gold Rush’ and this is a period piece to match any of those great records. Then there’s Bob’s voice, huskier again apparently thanks to a heavy cold he was suffering during sessions, but a welcome return after the unsettling country-croon adopted in 1968. And of course the albums centre piece (although you need to live with the record a while before it shows itself to be the centrepiece) is ‘Sign On The Window’, where you can hear the extent of his throat strain on a line like “Brighton girls are like the moon”. Again we’re talking about a restrained little number, one of the few instances on record where Bob’s piano playing takes the lead. Initially we’re dealing with alienation, then an arrival and awakening in the big city. But the songs curveball is in where it ends up, with Dylan concluding that living the rural and domestic idyll with a wife and bunch of kids is really what life is all about. Crucially, at the time it would appear, that’s exactly what it was all about for Bob and in typical fashion he manages to capture that fleeting state of mind magnificently in song.

Free music - Sign On The Window

Sunday 29 May 2011

30 Days of Dylan #28: The Groom's Still Waiting At The Altar

The Groom’s Still Waiting At The Altar (1981)

Notable for two things; firstly that even on one of Bob’s most under-praised records (‘Shot Of Love’) there can be hiding something truly great and secondly, this song was probably the full stop on the Christianity phase. Not just because here was Bob rocking with an abandon and slight aggression that general assumption dictated the religious concerns had erased. Also there’s the apocalyptic imagery of the lyrics, the groom waiting in church for the rising of a new religious age; he’s stated his case but nothing’s happening so he’s about to turn a new page on life rather than stand forever waiting. Don’t forget though, even in 2000 he observed that “if the Bible is right the world will explode” so clearly the biblical concerns still played on his mind years later. Of course you could also take this song literally and conclude that underneath it all Bob just wanted to find another wife.

Saturday 28 May 2011

30 Days of Dylan #27: High Water (For Charley Patton)

High Water (For Charley Patton) (2001)

Because ‘Love And Theft’ might just be Bob Dylan’s best album. If not, it certainly is the one Dylan album you can play to people who haven’t liked him before, but are open to giving him a chance. This album is clinically tried and tested on these types, but remains far from watered down Dylan, if anything it’s his most fully realised LP long statement ever. ‘Love And Theft’.

Friday 27 May 2011

30 Days of Dylan #26: Tweeter And The Monkey Man

Tweeter And The Monkey Man (1988)

With the best will in the world, it’s hard to convince anyone that Bob didn’t go off the boil a bit in the middle of the 80s. I think the problem was partly that he thought he could still compete in the pop market and have another hit. You could look at the songs he inexplicably left off ‘Infidels’, pondered in the last post here, and conclude that at least two may have echoed the Blues too much to be compatible with these speculated mainstream ambitions. But then two other tracks were pretty radio friendly in sound and style so that theory isn’t exactly watertight. Still, the excursions into some of the eras electro production techniques clearly wasn’t a comfortable match and you’d be hard pushed to compile a single great Dylan album from the material offered up between 1984 and 1988. As Bobs autobiography ‘Chronicles’ recounts, it took Daniel Lanois and the vague concept for how the ‘Never Ending Tour’ could pan out to help him relocate a direct route towards the more consistent unlocking of that genius muse; and it also took the Traveling Wilburys. If nothing more than providing a forum for scratching that mainstream itch he’d been irritated by for the past few years, the Wilburys brought Bob some fresh impetus. The other positive knock on effect being that standing shoulder to shoulder with two legends (George Harrison and Roy Orbison in case you weren’t sure) ensured that any new material Bob threw into the mix was anything but sub standard. And so ‘Tweeter And The Monkey Man’ stood out as a highlight of that first Wilburys record, and quietly became one of the often over-looked gems in Bob’s expansive back catalogue.

Thursday 26 May 2011

30 Days of Dylan #25: Lord Protect My Child

Lord Protect My Child (1983)

In 1983 Bob Dylan released the ‘Infidels’ album, the pre-release anticipation positively heightened by news that he’d moved away from Christian based material and sessions went down with, the then still on the rise, Mark Knopfler. Then on arrival reaction was underwhelming. The album had a handful of decent songs; ‘I And I’ was a clear stand-out and ‘Jokerman’ a decent stab at a commercial sounding opener. But weaker material appeared too and it became instantly clear that this would not be a record to re-establish Dylan as a creative force in his third recording decade. It lead to a pattern of anticipation and increasingly pronounced frustration on deliverance of each new album in the 80s; a mould only broken in 1989 when ‘Oh Mercy’, with Daniel Lanois’ fairy dust, brought something to legitimately get excited about. Then in 1991 the first of the ‘Bootleg Series’ hit the shops and with it came perhaps the most unfathomable revelation of Bob Dylan’s entire recording career. Four songs had been left off of ‘Infidels’ that, at a stroke, would have made it one of the albums of his career. Better than ‘Oh Mercy’, better than ‘Desire’, better than ‘Nashville Skyline’, it genuinely would have been acclaimed, over time, as one of the top five. The songs were ‘Foot Of Pride’, already heard in our ’30 Days’ journey covered by Lou Reed; ‘Tell Me’, one of Dylan’s lushest moments melodically and a track that just rains down like sweet honey; ‘Blind Willie McTell’, head-and-shoulders above any other Dylan Blues track with a spot-on vocal; and finally ‘Lord Protect My Child’ which, as songs on the subject of parenthood go, is even better than the celebrated ‘Forever Young. It’s in the ache of Bob’s singing, the anguish and anxiety knotted up in a beautiful, soulful song that captures the essence that those with children often struggle to explain. Here is an incredible accapella version by Maria Muldaur, filmed during the making of ‘No Direction Home’.

30 Days of Dylan #24: Thunder On The Mountain

Thunder On The Mountain (2006)

Bob Dylan in the 21^st Century has rocked and rolled like never before. He’s occasionally cracked jokes on stage, become a DJ, thrown random name checks into songs just for the fun of it (hey I’m listening to you Neil Young and Billy Joe Shaver, I’m thinking about you Alicia Keys) and developed a leg-swivel dance of his own eccentric design. He’s even recorded a great knees-up Christmas single and made a video for it wearing a long straight hair wig (for reasons that remain unclear). His records too have been by-and-large swinging barnstompers that have infected their way into your tapping toes as much as they still seap into that subconscious part of your brain. He’s become the song and dance man that he told us he was nearly fifty years ago. When he said that in the 60s everyone laughed; they’re still laughing now in a way, but at least they’re laughing with him. Keep it rolling Bob!

Wednesday 25 May 2011

30 Days of Dylan #23: Gates Of Eden

Gates Of Eden (1965)

You think Bob was full-on when he turned to Christianity in 1979? That was nothing compared to the way he tore religious ideals, beliefs and practices apart only 14 years earlier. Richard Dawkins could use the text of this song in one of his speeches and his atheist persuasive powers would increase tenfold! “Leaving men wholly, totally free to do anything they wish to do but die”. This is Dylan writing on a subject matter that few dare approach and executing it to a standard that even fewer could possibly attain. In a league of his own.

Free music - Gates Of Eden

30 Days of Dylan #22: The Ballad Of Frankie Lee And Judas Priest

The Ballad Of Frankie Lee And Judas Priest (1967)

Here we have one of the essential Dylan story songs; told with just the right balance of narrative and poetic mystery. The dialogue between Frankie and Judas at the songs opening is fascinating enough, but then events take a stranger turn. The song concludes with two major question marks; why is the little neighbour boy who tells us “nothing is revealed” concealing such guilt? Also, is the stated moral of the story really the moral at all? It has been speculated that Judas represents the music business, with its take it now or it’s gone forever negotiating practices and baiting of gullible, dependent subjects with promises of all earthly pleasures on a plate. That could explain why Dylan feels that everything is kept under wraps by those shamefully in the know as yet another victim loses his life, soul or both. Certainly one of the more plausible theories I’ve encountered. Ultimately it doesn’t really matter; as is so often the case the pleasure is in the exquisite articulation of the tale. So skilfully executed is it that Dylan even gets away with rhymes like mouse and house!

Thea Gilmore has given Bob a major heads up by covering the whole of the songs parent album ‘John Wesley Harding’ to coincide with his three score and ten landmark. I am in no way going to question Thea’s motives, there’s nothing to suggest it’s nothing more than a totally sincere gesture. Sadly however, for me it proves that simply covering a classic album in itself does not automatically generate another classic album. The original record is one of a very few that I can play all the way through then instantly return to the first track and start again. The depth of the imagery and layers upon layers of meaning in every song, coupled with the raw urgency of the delivery make it an album that always leaves you wanting more. My initial feeling upon hearing Thea’s version is that I’d have preferred her adhering to Dylan’s recording policies as well. That is, get a small combo together, possibly on purely acoustic instruments, and get them to play the album through straight in one day without any rehearsal. As it stands this is just a bit too over-produced and it renders an exceptional set of songs a bit dull in places. I’m just not sure you’re doing ‘All Along The Watchtower’ any favours by playing it akin to ‘A Horse With No Name’. By no means a bad record obviously, and the version of todays song as featured below is a fair effort, but the genius of the original remains untouched.

Free music - The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest

Tuesday 24 May 2011

30 Days of Dylan #21: If You Gotta Go Go Now

If You Gotta Go Go Now (1964)

This is the third in a trio of examples of 1960’s bands taking Dylan’s music into the mainstream and this is definitely my favourite. Fairport Convention’s take on folk music reached back much further than Bob’s material; taking in British Isles traditional tunes from centuries earlier and giving them a ground breaking electric spin. But that didn’t stop them from dipping into the Dylan catalogue a little, especially in radio sessions and they were among the privileged few who were able to cherry pick from Basement Tapes acetates doing the rounds in the late 60s. This 1964 song, already taken into the charts by Manfred Mann, the Convention had some fun with. They translated the lyrics into French and gave the performance a distinctly Cajun flavour. So loose was the actual issued take that at one point near the end careful listeners can hear a stack of chairs fall over; a mistake left uncorrected. Rightly so, this is a delightful rendition that brings the gorgeous vocals of Sandy Denny to Bob’s work for the first time (dig out an exceptional version of ‘Tomorrow Is A Long Time’ on her ‘Sandy’ solo album) and also marries the UKs only serious challenger to Dylan’s crown, Richard Thompson, to a Bob track, one of the only times the two legends would be associated on record. Above all though, this track is a rollicking bit of fun!

Free music - Si Tu Dois Partir

30 Days of Dylan #20: Quit Your Low Down Ways

Quit Your Low Down Ways (1962)

We jump from a combo of acclaimed Dylan interpreters to a group who were tainted with criticism in 1969 when they decided to devote an entire album to his material. With hindsight it seems strange that The Hollies should be considered inferior purveyors of Bob’s work, by 1969 they’d already expanded their musical palette with Graham Nash at the helm leading them on a very British Psychedelic trip; albeit quite a light one! Still it is the embarking of the ‘Hollies Sing Dylan’ album that is thought to have been a major factor in Nash’s quitting the band before the studio sessions commenced. The worst you could say about the record as a whole is that there are a couple of instances where it is over-produced; overall though they proved, as The Byrds had before them, that some well executed harmony singing can enhance certain Dylan material considerably. The best moments are where they tackle lesser covered material, such as the then unreleased early track ‘Quit Your Low Down Ways’, played here with some satisfyingly twangy guitar.

Free music - Quit Your Low Down Ways (1999 Digital Remaster)

Monday 23 May 2011

30 Days of Dylan #19: You Ain't Going Nowhere

You Ain’t Going Nowhere (1967)

The Byrds were touted as Americas answer to the Beatles in 1965. It’s important to remember too that they were a pretty credible proposition in that field. If a simple justification of The Beatles greatness can be read into the statement that George Harrison (composer of ‘Something’, ‘Here Comes The Sun’ and ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’) was only the third best songwriter in the band, then so too can be said of The Byrds Gene Clark. Iconic figure and writer of the sublime early single ‘I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better’, Clark was overshadowed in writing terms in his own band by the efforts of Roger McGuinn, David Crosby and to some extent Chris Hillman (check out his contributions to ‘Younger Than Yesterday’ to substantiate that claim). In fact so potent was the songwriting arsenal of this band that it’s surprising that they turned to the songs of Bob Dylan as much as they did. Still they raided the Dylan catalogue so regularly that he was almost their Brian Wilson figure, the shadowy non-performing creative genius and unseen sixth band member. Despite their own creative pool they even pushed forward Dylan tunes for their flagship hit singles such as breakthrough ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’, ‘My Back Pages’ and todays selection ‘You Ain’t Going Nowhere’. The Byrds alone ensured Dylan’s constant presence in the mid-sixties mainstream pop consciousness, their importance cannot be underestimated and fortunately they had enough about them to always serve the material supremely well. All evidence points to this being a mutual appreciation too; seek out Bob’s own version of this song on the 1971 hits compilation where he name-checks The Byrds leader with the altered line “pack up your money pull up your tent McGuinn, you ain’t going nowhere”.

Free music - You Ain't Going Nowhere

Saturday 21 May 2011

30 Days of Dylan #18: Guess I'm Doing Fine

Guess I’m Doing Fine (1963)

‘The Whitmark Demos’ album didn’t really add anything to the familiar material in Bob’s catalogue. A chance to hear some early stage, raw versions of certain classics yet nothing to usurp the standard versions. Again though the must-hear stuff was found in the pool of yet more previously unreleased Dylan compositions. Those stories you hear about him in the early 60s just writing and creating all the time had to be true. Nobody could have maintained that output on a part time basis, and a long lost tune like ‘Guess I’m Doing Fine’ would have been elevated to main album status if from the pen of many of Bob’s peers.

Friday 20 May 2011

30 Days of Dylan #17: Most Of The Time

Most Of The Time (1989)

Having extolled the virtues of Daniel Lanois’ production on the ‘Oh Mercy’ album a couple of days ago, I’d now like to turn your attention to another outstanding song from that album but in a vastly stripped back form. There’s evidence as far back as ‘Empire Burlesque’, with its back-to-basics closing track ‘Dark Eyes’, that Dylan was itching to explore his single acoustic guitar and harmonica mode again. He contributed outstandingly to the Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly tribute ‘Folkways A Vision Shared’ in 1988 with that set up and finally indulged himself fully with the two wholly acoustic covers albums in 1992 and ’93. He clearly toyed with the possibilities around the time of ‘Oh Mercy’ too and, whilst you can’t knock the way that record turned out, for me this simple reading is the definitive version of ‘Most Of The Time’. The intimacy is exactly right for the song, just listen to the way Bob gets inside those words with a sensitivity that’s hard to resist.

Free music - Most Of The Time

Thursday 19 May 2011

30 Days of Dylan #16: Song To Woody

Song To Woody (1962)

We’ve reached the half way stage of this 30 day trip and shall mess with the format just once for today’s entry. You might need to free up about an hour to fully enjoy this bumper fun musical feast! This time we’ve got a themed playlist for you that uses Dylan’s early stand out composition ‘Song To Woody’ as an entry point. This sort of flags up the theme actually, for as the opening Woody Guthrie tune will reveal, Dylan’s ‘Song To Woody’ isn’t a straightforward Bob Dylan composition at all; more an ode to his hero that uses Guthrie’s own ‘1913 Massacre’ as a blatant musical backbone. In the same way that Hip-Hop culture will use elements of other songs already in existence to mix, match and create something new, so Bob knew how to utilise this folk tradition to his advantage. The playlist goes on to highlight some songs Dylan has covered either on record or in concert over the years. But that’s not all; it also demonstrates that the magpie instinct remains true to this day. That’s why a song like Etta James ‘I Just Want To Make Love To You’ appears, because the tune was acquired to such an extent for 2009’s ‘My Wife’s Home Town’ that composer Willie Dixon received a writing credit. There’s others here too, songs that Bob took for a starting point on the way to writing a new song of his own; see if you can spot them. Incidentally, as fine as the Mary Lou Lord version of ‘Shake Sugaree’ is, the song’s included here because I believe Bob knew the 1960’s Fred Neil version, but that wasn’t available for this playlist. Also there’s a couple by Joni Mitchell and Simon & Garfunkel numbers that Dylan was accused in the early 70s of sabotaging on record. Would he really feel so threatened by a couple of peers as to stoop that low? I doubt it somehow; I’d prefer to label Bob’s takes on ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ and ‘The Boxer’ as individualistic. Or quirky, or...something...

Free music - Bob On The Tracks

Wednesday 18 May 2011

30 Days of Dylan #15: Man In The Long Black Coat

Man In The Long Black Coat (1989)

The 1989 album ‘Oh Mercy’ was hailed as a return to form with some justification. For the first time in at least ten years he’d put out an LP where every song was an essential part of the puzzle. Perhaps not quite all-killer-no-filler but a set devoid of any of the throw away material he’d allowed to slip into most 1980s releases. Perhaps Dylan should have adopted the more measured work rate used by Leonard Cohen rather than striving for an album-a-year? Then his least celebrated decade could have looked very different. Still, it wasn’t just the regularity that caused problems; the synthetic sound of the era had ruined many a great artists’ audio quality during this time. It wasn’t just Bob who needed to pull back some analogue warmth by 1989; artists like Lou Reed, Neil Young and Eric Clapton all spotted the problem and atoned by putting out their best albums in years. Daniel Lanois was by no means an unknown quantity back then, he’d already seen success with U2 and The Neville Brothers, but still his production appointment was a masterstroke. The aural landscape he applied around Dylan’s increasingly ravaged voice proved to be exactly what the man required. The stand out of the album is undoubtedly the eerily thrilling ‘Man In The Long Black Coat’. Soaked in a shower of cricket sounds that Lanois had previously used on a Brian Eno record, this portrait of a dark sinister figure really gives ‘Oh Mercy’ a dramatic centrepiece. That the man in the long black coat is death seems likely, especially when you consider that live in 2004 Dylan changed the words “people don’t live or die, people just float” to “I went down to the river but I just missed the boat”. This may well be an acknowledgement of his own near death experience with the health scare suffered in 1997. You can enjoy the track here with a seriously well executed 2006 version by ex-Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett. Daniel Lanois also worked with former Genesis singer Peter Gabriel and I wonder if it’s the Gabriel-esque atmospherics of the original that attracted Hackett to the piece?

Tuesday 17 May 2011

30 Days of Dylan #14: Forgetful Heart

Forgetful Heart (2009)

I’ve been enjoying a bit of a Dylan-fest these past couple of months and finding the incredible thing about a back catalogue such as this is the regularity something special reveals itself. Often it’ll be a track such as ‘Forgetful Heart’ that had previously been enjoyed in the context of its parent album without standing out too much. The thing that soon becomes apparent is that there isn’t really a weak period in Dylan’s work, not in the way that popular opinion would have you believe anyway. There isn’t one single era that can be wholesale written off. 1970’s ‘Self Portrait’ remains a puzzle but there’s still tracks like the infectious country-rock of ‘Gotta Travel On’; a cover of a folk tune by The Weavers and many other folky acts too. Besides, in the same year as that notorious record he put out one of his finest ever albums with ‘New Morning’, one we’ll be visiting later on this month. Dylan’s 1980’s are often discarded and yet at times the negative issues are merely centred around some awful period production that has dated badly. For the most part his composing could still hit the mark, although perhaps at a little less prolific rate. Don’t forget though, with the inclusion of four or five harshly overlooked tracks, 1983’s ‘Infidels’ would have basked in the return-to-form-masterpiece plaudits that 1989’s ‘Oh Mercy’ ended up winning. Even the religious period has some treasure for those willing to wade through the Christian fog. Other than a dry couple of years between 1971 and 1973, there hasn’t been an era when you could safely take your eyes and ears off of Dylan; he’s always got something left in the bag. And just how wonderful is it that today that’s still the case? 2009’s ‘Together Through Life’ had a looser vibe on first listen, apparently knocked out quickly with his touring band, sonically breaking from the rolling and tumbling of the previous two records. ‘Forgetful Heart’, like most of the album, was written in collaboration with Gerry Garcia’s former lyricist Robert Hunter and it’s a solid piece of classic Dylan in waiting. As a tune it could one day realise the same kind of mainstream crossover success as ‘To Make You Feel My Love’ if dressed with enough pop sheen. There’s plenty to cherish lyrically as well, my favourite being the closing couplet: “the door has closed forever more, if indeed there ever was a door’.

Monday 16 May 2011

30 Days of Dylan #13: This Wheel's On Fire

This Wheel’s On Fire (1967)

Bob Dylan didn’t really embrace the psychedelic movement. His motorcycle accident occurred right at the moment Psych and Acid were hitting their 12 month UK and US peak and he didn’t make a public re-appearance until the end of 1967 with the ‘John Wesley Harding’ album. In his absence though the probing spirits of the music world still took it for granted that Dylan was on their side, how could they do otherwise? He’d spent eighteen speeding mid-sixties months blowing open the perceptions of what popular music could do and was undoubtedly one of the pioneers of musical open mindedness with boundless poetic wordplay and imagery. All his disciples were doing was carrying on the journey, still knocking down doors while the leader sat out his unplanned sabbatical. How typically Dylan isn’t it then that when he did again come into view he was anything but psychedelicised; instead once more staying a long way ahead of the pack by pre-empting the country-rock, ‘back to our roots’ vibe that swept across a lot of bands in ’68 and ’69. Perhaps it’s true the story that on first hearing ‘Sgt. Pepper’ Bob screamed “take that off, that’s not music”, but I find the idea a little over exaggerated. How could he, having come up against the same narrow minded refusal from sections of his own audience only 12 months previous, express similar tunnel vision himself? It seems unlikely. Nevertheless, it is clear that many of the trademark fads of the period, the sitars, studio trickery, over-elaborate string arrangements and flowery concepts et al, did not appeal to Bob. Other than the ‘Fourth Time Around’ subtle nod to The Beatles ‘Norwegian Wood’, there isn’t a genuine Psych or Acid-Rock moment in the entire Bob Dylan back catalogue (and yes I include the 1980s Grateful Dead collaboration in that). So it was down to Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & The Trinity to give Bob his defining flower-power moment in the technicolor sunshine. Covering one of the standout songs from the ’67 sessions in The Bands basement, what a classic track it is too. Curiously though, the ‘Basement Tapes’ would reveal years later that they really hadn’t strayed that far from the original. Maybe Bob did have kaleidoscope eyes for a short period after all? He just chose to keep it underground.

Sunday 15 May 2011

30 Days of Dylan #12: Love Minus Zero / No Limits

Love Minus Zero / No Limits (1965)

This little 30 day journey isn’t setting out to ignore the trio of ‘wild mercury’ electric albums from 1965 and 1966. Our mission is simply to shine a little light on some often over shadowed moments of songwriting genius. Well where Dylan writing love songs is concerned, it’s normally tunes like ‘I Want You’, ‘Girl From The North Country’ that get the notices or on the broken hearted side of the fence, the whole of the ‘Blood On The Tracks’ album. All worthy of the serious championing they enjoy without a doubt but let’s get this straight; the greatest out and out love song that Bob Dylan ever wrote is ‘Love Minus Zero / No Limits’. Tucked modestly away on his first electric album, unable to give itself a bigger heads up alongside blatant attention seekers ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ and ‘Maggies Farm’. But what a love song, never announcing its intention but nevertheless overwhelming you at the sheer might and veracity of the purest state of love it has expressed. The precision in the structure of each verse is supreme; just look at how it is only the final two lines of each verse that concisely sum up his loves’ elevated handling of every situation around her. And then he tells us at the end that she’s at the window like ‘a raven with a broken wing’, as if to emphasise that it’s not purely the ease with which she endures the world that fuels his love for her, but also the vulnerability that only he can see. There’s thousands of songs that can express a euphoria at being in love and many more that articulate a multitude of feelings that occur when love goes wrong. Here Bob Dylan does something a whole lot rarer, by successfully painting a picture of the altered, heightened state one experiences when being in love this incredible song reaches the parts other songs cannot reach. Incidentally, there’s a lot of speculation going around at the moment that most printed music publications are on their last legs. At Essex Boy Review we’re now able to demonstrate why that could well be true. You see no matter how much we may gush about the genius of ‘Love Minus Zero’ or marvel at the perfection of the original 1965 version; nothing can articulate its greatness with more eloquence than simply saying just click on the link below and listen to it yourself right now.

Free music - Love Minus Zero

Friday 13 May 2011

30 Days of Dylan #11: Tell Me That It Isn't True

Tell Me That It Isn’t True (1968)

Less than three years after bemusing at least half his audience by perverting purist folk music with a backing band and electricity, Dylan was at it again. It wasn’t simply that the ‘Nashville Skyline’ album had a country feel, he also gave a headline slot to Johnny Cash, radically altered his voice into a previously un-heard higher pitched croon and shed all traces of speedball poetic and literate wordplay from his lyrics. This was a set of songs where the subject matter was generally clear on first listen and yet, they are no weaker or less significant in the Dylan canon for that. ‘Lay Lady Lay’ and ‘Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You’ are the best remembered tunes but the album as a whole is full of simply lush songs. The instrumental ‘Nashvillle Skyline Rag’ is perhaps the only weak link but even that, second song in, sets the tone just right. For me ‘Tell Me That It Isn’t True’ is the golden nugget, a gorgeous swaying song of insecurity and vein hope that the rumoured ill-tidings to be dealt by the object of the singers affections are unfounded. This lovingly attentive reading by the band The Rosewood Thieves is well worth a listen as it captures the songs beauty perfectly.

Wednesday 11 May 2011

30 Days of Dylan #10: Simple Twist Of Fate

Simple Twist Of Fate (1974)

Ever since the sixties the search has been on for a ‘new Dylan’, the title being bestowed upon many both credible and unworthy recipients. I mean with Bruce Springsteen I’d say fair enough, even though he’s gone on to enjoy a far more calculated and controlled career than Bob could ever have managed, still a great artist. With someone like seventies troubadour Steve Forbert the comparison was going to always look a little flattering. Other candidates perhaps were the new sixties moulded somebody but not always Dylan; Billy Bragg has always been more a new Phil Ochs than Bob but make no mistake, it’s a creditable thing to be. I’d venture as far as to say that Billy came closest to a genuine ‘new Dylan’ when he worked with Wilco on the Woody Guthrie material, because Wilco’s singer and writer Jeff Tweedy is arguably worthy of the mantle more than anyone else we’ve seen in 40 years. Here’s a songwriter and performer whose main arena for bringing his music to life is live and who, like Neil Young too, never compromises the direction his muse is taking in the studio or in concert for any outside influences. With Wilco Jeff Tweedy has quietly accumulated an impressive body of work, incredible songs that in recent times have started to receive cover versions by people like Norah Jones and Mavis Staples (who Tweedy also produced recently).His style, like Dylan’s, surfs folk, blues, country and rock but Jeff also has a tuned in production ear that can merge styles as disparate as Beatles-pop and experimental Krautrock. When the ‘I’m Not There’ soundtrack appeared in 2007 it was immediately apparent that, with Tweedy’s take on ‘Simple Twist Of Fate’, here was an immaculate marriage of singer and song. I’d even offer that not even Dylan himself tackles this song with such understanding, empathy and soul. The sound of the singer raking over his private post-mortem of a recently ended affair is utterly gripping. Check it out for yourself; it’s Jeff Tweedy, the genuine ‘new Dylan’!

Free music - Simple Twist Of Fate

Tuesday 10 May 2011

30 Days of Dylan #9: To Make You Feel My Love

To Make You Feel My Love (1997)

Bob Dylan is classed as a great songwriter because he has written timeless music; songs of major depth that sparked decades of debate; songs that resonate with moments of history; songs that have broken down barriers but, perhaps most important of all, Bob Dylan has written hit singles. Why should that be so significant? Well I believe it just is; if your trade is putting out art in any form then it’s fair to argue that the hardest achievement of all is reaching a large mainstream audience without diluting the content of your work. Or to put it bluntly, if you write songs then why wouldn’t you want as many people as possible to know and sing along to those songs? I feel sorry for a writer like Elvis Costello who is indisputably a fine and prolific composer, is widely lauded as being one and yet most of his hit singles (I’m thinking of ‘I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down’, ‘Good Year For The Roses’, ‘She’) have been cover versions.

I’m sure that level of recognition has been a much stronger desire for Dylan than he’s ever really let show. Mainly through the interpretations of other performers in the sixties he did achieve a lot of pop chart success. Acts ranging from Bryan Ferry to Guns ‘N’ Roses carried Dylan into the popular arena in subsequent decades but over the past ten years, as Dylan’s newly recorded song output has slowed, any signs of a genuine new hit from the great mans pen had faded. That was until a couple of years ago when new pop diva Adele made ‘To Make You Feel My Love’ her own. Indelibly it would seem as you’ll be hard pushed to find too many people referring to it as a Bob Dylan song these days. Now Adele is a cut above the current pop pack and did an incredible job on the song, here however we’re turning the spotlight on the first singer to spot the tunes hit potential. Back in 1997, before it had even appeared on a Dylan album, Billy Joel was stopped in his tracks when his record label showed it to him. Joel’s version, with shades of Ray Charles and Elton John, paved the way for the Adele reading but is well worth a listen too.

Monday 9 May 2011

30 Days of Dylan #8: Foot Of Pride

Foot Of Pride (1983)

I wonder what happened between Lou Reed and Bob Dylan? On paper they’re a songwriting marriage of supreme compatibility, both fuelled by the limitless potential for bringing literacy into Rock music and both in their own way courting public controversy for work that was ahead of its time in the sixties. Previously unheard Velvet Undergound releases in the 1990s would uncover Lou Reed as a Dylan disciple every bit as much as all singer-songwriters of the era and both, unconventional vocalists that they are, would go on to compose songs with the Velvets chanteuse Nico in mind. But that’s where the early connections start to fade; Dylan was seen at Andy Warhol’s, and Velvet Underground bolthole, The Factory but was reportedly muted and un-cooperative. Then in the 1970’s, rather than be heard to pledge allegiance to or acknowledgement of the vision shared by the pair, Lou Reed would speak dismissively of Dylan in interviews, one quote reportedly expressing boredom at all those words!

And so they continued in their own parallel music worlds when suddenly, in the mid-1980’s Bob reeled Lou in, singling the man out for privileged mention in the sleevenotes to 1985’s ‘Biograph’ box as one of the few artists he deemed worthy of his ears. There’s even a story that Dylan leant over to Lou’s wife as Reed performed ‘Doing The Things That We Want To’ at a show and gushed “man that’s such a great song, I wish I’d written that song”. Happily enough Lou Reed hasn’t been heard to make a negative comment about Dylan ever since although sadly no collaboration ever appears to have taken place, what a mouth watering prospect that could have been. The kudos of Bob’s approval did appear to rub off on Lou a bit though, because he went on to write and record some his greatest music; including a trio of albums between 1989 and 1992 (‘New York’, ‘Songs For Drella’ and ‘Magic And Loss’) that are the high watermarks of his entire solo career. Lou closed that golden period in October 1992 by paying Dylan the best compliment in his armoury; a hard-rockin’ version of ‘Foot Of Pride’ at Bob’s all star ‘30^th Anniversary Concert’ at Madison Square Gardens. It’s not just the raw power that scores; this performance was a stand out on the night because unlike most of the other performers, Lou took a relative obscurity from the Dylan back catalogue and effectively flew the flag for the incredible prolific depth of the man’s written work. Oh and did I mention he rocked? Luckily you can listen to that very performance below:

Free music - Foot Of Pride