The Essex Boy Review

Tuesday, 24 May 2011

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

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...

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’.