Fifty-two years ago, Bob Dylan appeared at Gerde’s Folk City. He’d been playing there since 1961 when, on April 11, he played Gerde’s for the first time.
What’s important about the April 16, 1962 gig is that some of it was recorded, and the recordings are tremendous. They’re great in and of themselves, but it’s also fascinating to get another earful of an artist in transition. And with Bob Dylan, he’s always in transition.
These songs appeared on an official album released by Sony two years ago. They’re on the The 50th Anniversary Collection: The Copyright Extension Collection, Volume 1. Of course that was released as a very limited edition so that Sony could prevent the recordings from entering the public domain in Europe.
Anyway, enjoy.
“Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance”:
“Talkin’ New York”:
“Corrina, Corrina”:
“Deep Ellum Blues”:
“Blowin’ in the Wind”:
-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –
Fifty-one years ago, when Bob Dylan performed at Town Hall in New York on April 12, 1963, he blew a lot of people’s minds, and we’re still reeling from this amazing event.
I could write pages on this concert, but all you gotta do is hear it, and you’ll get it.
The concert — 23 songs plus a poem — was incredible. I’ve previously posted some of the songs, but today I’ve got the entire concert. All the songs and the poem.
This is worth your time!
Town Hall, April 12, 1963:
1 Ramblin’ Down Thru The World
2 Bob Dylan’s Dream
3 Talkin’ New York
4 Ballad Of Hollis Brown
5 Walls Of Red Wing
6 All Over You
7 Talking John Birch Paranoid Blues
8 Boots Of Spanish Leather
9 Hero Blues
10 Blowin’ In The Wind
11 John Brown
12 Tomorrow Is A Long Time
13 A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
14 Dusty Old Fairgrounds
15 Who Killed Davey Moore?
16 Seven Curses
17 Highway 51
18 Pretty Peggy-O
19 Bob Dylan’s New Orlean’s Rag
20 Don’t Think Thrice, It’s All Right
21 Hiding Too Long
22 With God On Our Side
23 Masters Of War
24 Last Thoughts On Woody Guthrie
-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –
So back in the day, the day being 1993, Bikini Kill released a 12-inch, Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah, that featured Bikini Kill songs on one side and Huggy Bear songs on the other.
Next week Bikini Kill will re-release the 12-inch, only this time the flip will feature seven unreleased Bikini Kill songs.
Hear one of those songs right now.
-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –
David Byrne, Mike Mills formerly of R.E.M, Cake’s John McCrea, Tift Merritt, and Marc Ribot performed at NYC’s Le Poisson Rouge Tuesday evening. The concert supported Content Creators Coalition-NYC, a group currently petitioning congress for pay-for-play radio royalties for artists, Consequence Of Sound reported.
As it stands now, when a recording is played on the radio, the composer is paid a royalty but not the recording artist (unless they happen to be the composer.)
Byrne covered “Just a Friend” by Biz Markie to make a point.
“Mr. Markie didn’t write that tune (although he did probably write the rap),” Byrne wrote in his e-newsletter. “The drum and keyboard loop was lifted from a Freddie Scott recording, but the song was written by Gamble and Huff, the great songwriting team that wrote for The O’Jays and The Spinners. So chances are Biz Markie didn’t see any royalties from all the radio play that song got.”
-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
Today I was thinking about the huge gap that now exists in the U.S. between the very very rich, the .01 percent, and everyone else, when I came across the beautiful rendition of “The Times They Are A-Changing” that Bruce Springsteen performed on December 7, 1997 when Bob Dylan was honored by President Bill Clinton at the Kennedy Center.
The last election in the U.S. was between a .01-percenter, Mitt Romney, and a man of the people, President Barack Obama.
The majority of Americans who voted, voted for President Obama despite attempts by Republicans to limit voting, in particular, to make it more difficult for people of color to vote. We’ve all seen the video of the long, long lines at the polls. Old people waiting for many hours to exercise their right.
And yet nothing really has changed since President Obama was reelected. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives has stopped pretty much any meaningful legislation from getting passed.
The gap between the super rich and everyone else has only widened.
It is with the heavy weight of that knowledge upon us, that I listened to this song of hope and change today.
Sometimes it seems that the “darkness at the edge of town” that Springsteen sings about is covering everything.
Music is such a powerful force. We all know how one song can completely change our mood, turn a bad day to good. The corporate world we now live in wants to co-opt everything. They take music that meant something and turn it into a soundtrack for selling yogurt, or cars. It’s like they want to drain the meaning from the songs.
Yet songs remain powerful.
“The Times They Are A-Changing” is a song that gives us hope. Perhaps it’s a fool’s hope, but I’ll take it where I can get it.
-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
As Al Gore notes in his New York Times review of Elizabeth Kolbert’s latest dispatch from the first row of’ Man Vs. Planet Earth,’ “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History,” Kolbert has been documenting our continuing assault on our environment and all who live here for some time now.
Gore writes:
Over the past decade, Elizabeth Kolbert has established herself as one of our very best science writers. She has developed a distinctive and eloquent voice of conscience on issues arising from the extraordinary assault on the ecosphere, and those who have enjoyed her previous works like “Field Notes From a Catastrophe” will not be disappointed by her powerful new book, “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History.”
Kolbert, a staff writer at The New Yorker, reports from the front lines of the violent collision between civilization and our planet’s ecosystem: the Andes, the Amazon rain forest, the Great Barrier Reef — and her backyard. In lucid prose, she examines the role of man-made climate change in causing what biologists call the sixth mass extinction — the current spasm of plant and animal loss that threatens to eliminate 20 to 50 percent of all living species on earth within this century.
Extinction is a relatively new idea in the scientific community. Well into the 18th century, people found it impossible to accept the idea that species had once lived on earth but had been subsequently lost. Scientists simply could not envision a planetary force powerful enough to wipe out forms of life that were common in prior ages.
In the same way, and for many of the same reasons, many today find it inconceivable that we could possibly be responsible for destroying the integrity of our planet’s ecology. There are psychological barriers to even imagining that what we love so much could be lost — could be destroyed forever. As a result, many of us refuse to contemplate it. Like an audience entertained by a magician, we allow ourselves to be deceived by those with a stake in persuading us to ignore reality.
It’s hard to tell that these are Dylan’s songs. The melodies are absent and the lyrics sung in other languages. All the same, it’s really cool music and the fact that the interpretations are so radical is totally in keeping with Dylan’s own art.
From the website of Buda Music, the label releasing the album:
“These interpretations of Bob Dylan’s songs have-been compiled as a tribute to His single poetic achievement, both, traditional and avant-garde, both, humanist and prophetic. Artists coming from diverse tribal and traditional cultures in All which poetry and music still POSSESS has strong social or ritual significance, In Their Own-have captured the way so obvious universal themes in Dylan’s songs. ‘Soneros’ from Cuba, Gypsies from Rumania and Hungary, from Rajasthan poets, musicians of the Nile, Persian masters, all perform a song for icts Chosen thematic connection to Their Own culture. The lyrics of the songs-have-been translated into the native language of Each artist and Then tailored to the following verse and rhythmical patterns of Each vocal and musical style.”
Tracks:
1. All Along The Watchtower – Eliades Ochoa (Cuba)
2. Mr Tambourine Man – Purna Das Baul & Bapi Das Baul (Bengal, India)
3. Corrina Corrina – Taraf De Haïdouks (Rumania)
4. I Want You – Burma Orchestra Saing Waing (Myanmar)
5. Every Grain Of Sand – Salah Aghili (Iran)
6. Tangled Up In Blue – The Musicians of the Nile (Egypt)
7. Jokerman – Divana (Rajasthan, India)
8. Blowin’ In The Wind – Kek Lang (Hungary)
9. I Want You – Trio Mei Li De Dao (Taïwan)
10. With God On Our Side – Lhamo Dukpa (Bhutan)
11. Man Gave Names To All The Animals – Sayfi Mohamed Tahar (Algeria)
12. Rainy Day Woman #12 & 35 – Kocani Orkestar (Macedonia)
13. Father Of Night – Aboriginal People Yolingu of Yalakun (Arnhem Land, Australia)
Check out some of the music.
“Mr. Tambourine Man,” Purna Das Baul & Bapi Das Baul, Bengal, India:
“Father of Night,” Aboriginal people Yolingu of Yalakun, Arhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia:
And if you understand French, here’s a video about the album:
-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-
Four years ago, Bob Dylan and his band performed “The Times They Are A-Changin'” at the White House as part of “In Performance at the White House, A Celebration of Music from the Civil Rights Movement” held in recognition of Black History Month.
Jon Pareles in the New York Times, February 10, 2010:
WASHINGTON — Half a dozen legislators sat a few feet away, under the crystal chandeliers of the East Room of the White House, as Bob Dylan sang “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” poker-faced.
“Come senators, congressman, please heed the call,” he rasped. “Don’t stand in the doorway, don’t block up the hall.” His tone was rough but almost wistful; he had turned his old exhortation into an autumnal waltz. Afterward, he stepped offstage and shook President Obama’s hand.
It was part of “In Performance at the White House: A Celebration of Music from the Civil Rights Movement.” The program was the Black History Month event in Michelle Obama’s continuing music series at the White House, and will be broadcast Thursday night on PBS.
It was not lost on anyone that Mr. Obama is America’s first African-American president. “The civil rights movement was a movement sustained by music,” Mr. Obama said in opening remarks. The music, he said, “was inspired by the movement and gave strength in return.”
Mr. Dylan shared the bill, though not the stage, with fellow musicians who regularly sang at civil-rights rallies in the early 1960s — Joan Baez, and Bernice Johnson Reagon with the Freedom Singers — and a cross-generational gathering of performers: Smokey Robinson, Jennifer Hudson, John Mellencamp, Yolanda Adams, Natalie Cole, the Blind Boys of Alabama and the Howard University Choir.
