Having recently posted the Sources: Print, Sources: Media and Annotated Bibliography here, I feel I should explain the criteria for the inclusion of materials on the 3 lists (and one that is still to come). First, the 2 source lists are comprised of what I feel are the most reliable documents from which I am gleaning information about the recordings on a regular basis. Generally, I will mention them, at least by title, when stating information derived from them and will, sometimes, quote from them as well.
On the other hand, the materials in the Bibliography will probably not be used as resources for explaining the recordings. These books are but a fraction of those available in bookstores, libraries, etc. about a myriad of Dylan-related topics. People who write about Dylan tend to be very thorough, I have found, in their chosen subject area as if they want to make sure that there is no way someone else could find additional information relevant to the little piece of virtual-turf they’ve staked out for themselves. The ones listed here are not particularly better or worse than the ones that I haven’t included, these are just the ones that I’ve actually come across along the way and have had time to evaluate. My annotations are very subjective (which is fun for me since, in my job, I would be required to be much more formal, objective and compleat in the production of a bibliography). Therefore, my reactions are not definitive, merely mine.
I expect not only to add to the Bibliography as I come across more materials in my travels, but to also create a similar section that will explore the Dylan-related websites with which I am familiar. They, too, are of a great number ranging widely in scope, depth and quality. The best of them, like my Sources, have already been listed in “Major Dylan Info Sites” links section at the top of this page.
Mr. Dylan
2006 Rolling Stone Cover Photo
Monday, September 3, 2007
Musings I: Sources and Resources
Sunday, September 2, 2007
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, recorded 4/62-4/63, released 5/63
BACKGROUND: May, 1963. Sharp edges are beginning to wear through the cloak of contentment and complacency purchased for the U.S. by the Allied victory in WWII. If the rumblings of the Cold War and plight of southern blacks that has made its way to the national news in its coverage of school busing, sit-ins, and, most recently, the magnificent sight of the tens of thousands of demonstrators framing the reflecting pool between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial as Martin Luther King spoke is not enough to grab the attention of Middle America, the assassination of JFK will soon do the trick.
Once again recorded under the tutelage of the renowned John Hammond, Dylan’s second studio album was produced at a more leisurely pace than Bob Dylan, taking a year to record. During this period, Dylan came into Albert Grossman’s sphere of influence and had signed, at Grossman’s behest, with M. Witmark & Sons as his music publisher. This alliance delivered Blowin’ in the Wind, Quit Your Lowdown Ways and Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right to collective lap of Peter, Paul and Mary, the widely popular trio conceived and contrived by Grossman as a vehicle to bring folk music to the record-buying masses. Their version of Blowin’ in the Wind (the fastest selling single in the history of Warner Brothers Records at the time) succeeded in introducing Dylan’s music to the nation. Most likely, many who first purchased Freewheelin’ had found Dylan by way of PP&M. Time magazine, in their July 19, 1963 issue remarked, “Blowin’ is young Dylan at his lyrical best. It sounds as country-airy as Turkey in the Straw, but it has a cutting edge.”
Dylan obligingly provided the a poem-like piece that served as the liner notes for PP&M’s In the Wind album, also released in ’63. It begins “Snow was piled up the stairs an onto the street that first/winter when I laid around New York City/It was a different street then—/It was a different village—“ and end with “But all ‘f us find our way a knowin when it’s morning—/An once yuh know the feelin it don’t change—/ It can only grow—/For Peter’s grown/An Paul’s grown; An Mary’s grown/ An the times’ve grown.”
THE RECORDING: During the two previous weeks I stood in line, bought my ticket, climbed aboard and fastened myself into a seat. This week I’ve actually begun to experience the exhilaration of the roller coaster ride that traces the Dylan discography.
First, let’s just enjoy the cover: snow underfoot, a VW bus parked on one side of the street, an early fifties (late forties?) model car on the other side; Suze Rotolo—the quintessential girlfriend—smiling, long red hair flowing, snuggled up to Dylan’s suede-jacketed shoulder. Both look cold, yet happy…
But we should get on to the music.
Blowin’ in the Wind leads off the 13 song selection—an old friend these days and, as mentioned above, most likely a familiar song, albeit in a more mellifluous form, for the contemporary listener. Four other songs, A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall, Girl from the North Country, Masters of War and Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right included here are still strong members of the Dylan canon. And, though Dylan himself may derive great pleasure from finding new settings for his standards in live performance, these are the renderings which the Dylan fundamentalists consider to be the ‘real’ versions. They are sparse, vocal/guitar/ harmonica-bridge arrangements—his signature sound at the time. Guthrie’s influence on young Dylan’s vocals is still unmistakable.
The lesser known (to modern audiences) songs include Down the Highway—an almost recited rather than sung piece—that was presumably written in response to Suze Rotolo’s parentally-forced estrangement; Bob Dylan’s Blues (which includes a spoken introduction that makes the distinction that this tune was written in the USA rather than in Tin Pan Alley!) and Talkin’ World War III Blues both in the talkin’ blues tradition. These, along with I Shall Be Free, are peppered with sardonic humour, both in content and performance, and sixties socio-cultural references. Oxford Town is the first recorded effort concerned specifically with a civil rights confrontation. The upbeat rhythm of Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance has an obvious rock ‘n’ roll influence as does Dylan’s arrangement of Corinna, Corinna which, surprisingly, is recorded with piano, bass, additional guitars and drums. Finally, there’s Bob Dylan’s Dream, a poignant song about the loss of youthful enthusiasm and naïveté—a striking example of the understanding-beyond-his-years quality of Dylan’s compositions of the time—that has since fallen by the wayside in Dylan’s own repertoire (perhaps replaced philosophically by Forever Young) but has been beautifully covered by Judy Collins as well as PP&M and others.
Lyrics 1962-2001 provides an additional 5 titles from the time of this recording: Whatcha Gonna Do, Walls of Red Wing, Who Killed Davey Moore?, Seven Curses and Dusty Old Fairgrounds. Some, along with several of the twenty-seven earlier unreleased compositions, were either recorded during the Freewheelin’ sessions or shortly thereafter, but do not surface officially until Biograph or The Bootleg Series: Vols. 1-3.
CONCLUSION: As is my long-standing predilection, after multiple playings of an album, a few songs begin to rise to the top like cream. These are the ones that I eventually skip/ff to or just set on ‘repeat’ until I’m satiated. I was surprised to find that the first one in this set to have that effect was bluesy-rock rendering of Corrina, Corrina, which, rather than being among the majority of original compositions, is a reworking of a traditional song and it is one of the two tracks (the other being Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right) that has additional instrumental support. Does this mean, at least for me, that Dylan’s original, fundamental style fails to resonate in 2007? I don’t believe that that is truly the case. Rather, the phenomenon operating here (besides the fact that several of the songs are as familiar today as the national anthem) is that this song gives the listener a taste of what is to come from Dylan in the future. With Corrina, Corrina he does not have to be concerned with the success or failure of the language/story/image component of the song. That is already tried and true. Therefore, he can concentrate solely on presentation: chord changes, rhythm, vocal expression, etc. Later on, as he becomes more confident about the truth of expression within his own compositions, his talent for choosing (and, is the case these days, rethinking) the musical setting for his lyrics comes into play. Here, that talent is apparent in its fledgling stage.
As a whole, the album is a triumph, a showcase of Dylan’s growing talents. Listening, even without the knowledge of hindsight, one knows that there is more to come. The excitement and enthusiasm of Bob Dylan is still here. You know that he’s having fun with this and that he’s bursting with more ideas, more things he wants to try, more things he has to say.
[One last note: Times have changed. When Freewheelin’ (and Bob Dylan and several of the titles that will follow) first appeared, it was a monaural recording. ‘Record players’ were the popular method for listening to 45s, and LPs (that’s “Long Playing” for the uninitiated). Stereophonic systems were for the elite and well-heeled—Dave VanRonk’s ‘bourgeois class’. Finding a ‘stereo’ version of an album in the bins of your local record store (the kind that had listening booths in which Dylan, in No Direction Home, admits to being able to commit a song to memory after “one—or two” plays) was usually a difficult task. For that reason, I presume, this ‘Super Audio CD/Direct Stream Digital/SACD Stereo’ version to which I’ve been listening, for all its forced techno-glory, delivers Dylan’s vocals and harmonica riffs from one set of speakers and his guitar from the other. This division was, no doubt, digitally derived from the sound picked up by the two separate microphones into which he played.) The odd experience for today’s listener, though, is the perception that Dylan is either in two separate pieces or lying horizontally!]
Once again recorded under the tutelage of the renowned John Hammond, Dylan’s second studio album was produced at a more leisurely pace than Bob Dylan, taking a year to record. During this period, Dylan came into Albert Grossman’s sphere of influence and had signed, at Grossman’s behest, with M. Witmark & Sons as his music publisher. This alliance delivered Blowin’ in the Wind, Quit Your Lowdown Ways and Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right to collective lap of Peter, Paul and Mary, the widely popular trio conceived and contrived by Grossman as a vehicle to bring folk music to the record-buying masses. Their version of Blowin’ in the Wind (the fastest selling single in the history of Warner Brothers Records at the time) succeeded in introducing Dylan’s music to the nation. Most likely, many who first purchased Freewheelin’ had found Dylan by way of PP&M. Time magazine, in their July 19, 1963 issue remarked, “Blowin’ is young Dylan at his lyrical best. It sounds as country-airy as Turkey in the Straw, but it has a cutting edge.”
Dylan obligingly provided the a poem-like piece that served as the liner notes for PP&M’s In the Wind album, also released in ’63. It begins “Snow was piled up the stairs an onto the street that first/winter when I laid around New York City/It was a different street then—/It was a different village—“ and end with “But all ‘f us find our way a knowin when it’s morning—/An once yuh know the feelin it don’t change—/ It can only grow—/For Peter’s grown/An Paul’s grown; An Mary’s grown/ An the times’ve grown.”
THE RECORDING: During the two previous weeks I stood in line, bought my ticket, climbed aboard and fastened myself into a seat. This week I’ve actually begun to experience the exhilaration of the roller coaster ride that traces the Dylan discography.
First, let’s just enjoy the cover: snow underfoot, a VW bus parked on one side of the street, an early fifties (late forties?) model car on the other side; Suze Rotolo—the quintessential girlfriend—smiling, long red hair flowing, snuggled up to Dylan’s suede-jacketed shoulder. Both look cold, yet happy…
But we should get on to the music.
Blowin’ in the Wind leads off the 13 song selection—an old friend these days and, as mentioned above, most likely a familiar song, albeit in a more mellifluous form, for the contemporary listener. Four other songs, A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall, Girl from the North Country, Masters of War and Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right included here are still strong members of the Dylan canon. And, though Dylan himself may derive great pleasure from finding new settings for his standards in live performance, these are the renderings which the Dylan fundamentalists consider to be the ‘real’ versions. They are sparse, vocal/guitar/ harmonica-bridge arrangements—his signature sound at the time. Guthrie’s influence on young Dylan’s vocals is still unmistakable.
The lesser known (to modern audiences) songs include Down the Highway—an almost recited rather than sung piece—that was presumably written in response to Suze Rotolo’s parentally-forced estrangement; Bob Dylan’s Blues (which includes a spoken introduction that makes the distinction that this tune was written in the USA rather than in Tin Pan Alley!) and Talkin’ World War III Blues both in the talkin’ blues tradition. These, along with I Shall Be Free, are peppered with sardonic humour, both in content and performance, and sixties socio-cultural references. Oxford Town is the first recorded effort concerned specifically with a civil rights confrontation. The upbeat rhythm of Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance has an obvious rock ‘n’ roll influence as does Dylan’s arrangement of Corinna, Corinna which, surprisingly, is recorded with piano, bass, additional guitars and drums. Finally, there’s Bob Dylan’s Dream, a poignant song about the loss of youthful enthusiasm and naïveté—a striking example of the understanding-beyond-his-years quality of Dylan’s compositions of the time—that has since fallen by the wayside in Dylan’s own repertoire (perhaps replaced philosophically by Forever Young) but has been beautifully covered by Judy Collins as well as PP&M and others.
Lyrics 1962-2001 provides an additional 5 titles from the time of this recording: Whatcha Gonna Do, Walls of Red Wing, Who Killed Davey Moore?, Seven Curses and Dusty Old Fairgrounds. Some, along with several of the twenty-seven earlier unreleased compositions, were either recorded during the Freewheelin’ sessions or shortly thereafter, but do not surface officially until Biograph or The Bootleg Series: Vols. 1-3.
CONCLUSION: As is my long-standing predilection, after multiple playings of an album, a few songs begin to rise to the top like cream. These are the ones that I eventually skip/ff to or just set on ‘repeat’ until I’m satiated. I was surprised to find that the first one in this set to have that effect was bluesy-rock rendering of Corrina, Corrina, which, rather than being among the majority of original compositions, is a reworking of a traditional song and it is one of the two tracks (the other being Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right) that has additional instrumental support. Does this mean, at least for me, that Dylan’s original, fundamental style fails to resonate in 2007? I don’t believe that that is truly the case. Rather, the phenomenon operating here (besides the fact that several of the songs are as familiar today as the national anthem) is that this song gives the listener a taste of what is to come from Dylan in the future. With Corrina, Corrina he does not have to be concerned with the success or failure of the language/story/image component of the song. That is already tried and true. Therefore, he can concentrate solely on presentation: chord changes, rhythm, vocal expression, etc. Later on, as he becomes more confident about the truth of expression within his own compositions, his talent for choosing (and, is the case these days, rethinking) the musical setting for his lyrics comes into play. Here, that talent is apparent in its fledgling stage.
As a whole, the album is a triumph, a showcase of Dylan’s growing talents. Listening, even without the knowledge of hindsight, one knows that there is more to come. The excitement and enthusiasm of Bob Dylan is still here. You know that he’s having fun with this and that he’s bursting with more ideas, more things he wants to try, more things he has to say.
[One last note: Times have changed. When Freewheelin’ (and Bob Dylan and several of the titles that will follow) first appeared, it was a monaural recording. ‘Record players’ were the popular method for listening to 45s, and LPs (that’s “Long Playing” for the uninitiated). Stereophonic systems were for the elite and well-heeled—Dave VanRonk’s ‘bourgeois class’. Finding a ‘stereo’ version of an album in the bins of your local record store (the kind that had listening booths in which Dylan, in No Direction Home, admits to being able to commit a song to memory after “one—or two” plays) was usually a difficult task. For that reason, I presume, this ‘Super Audio CD/Direct Stream Digital/SACD Stereo’ version to which I’ve been listening, for all its forced techno-glory, delivers Dylan’s vocals and harmonica riffs from one set of speakers and his guitar from the other. This division was, no doubt, digitally derived from the sound picked up by the two separate microphones into which he played.) The odd experience for today’s listener, though, is the perception that Dylan is either in two separate pieces or lying horizontally!]
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