The Essex Boy Review

Tuesday, 17 May 2011

30 Days of Dylan #14: Forgetful Heart

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...

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