Fifty-four years ago, on January 24, 1961, Bob Dylan arrived in New York, where within a few months he would not only get a rave review in the New York Times and meet the legendary record man and producer, John Hammond, but would be signed by Hammond to Columbia Records and by the end of the year he’d record his first album, Bob Dylan.
Dylan recorded his first six albums in New York, and the city was his base of operations from ’61 into ’66.
I thought I’d pull together some of Bob’s recordings that are either about or take place in New York in some way, or were recorded in New York.
“Talkin New York” live at Town Hall, April 12, 1963:
“Song To Woody”:
“Hard Times In New York” recorded by Cynthia Gooding, March 11, 1962:
“Spanish Harlem Incident,” alternate take:
“Ballad In Plain D,” alternate take 2 (partial):
“She Belongs To Me,” Free Trade Hall, Manchester, May 7, 1965:
“It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” Free Trade Hall, Manchester, May 7, 1965:
“Freeze Out 1,” (“Visions Of Johanna” outtake):
ttp://youtu.be/WYifDaD96rM
“Love Minus Zero/ No Limit” and “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window” and “From A Buick 6” (alternate takes):
Bob Dylan and his band at the Madison Square Garden Theater, January 20 1998.
Set List:
Absolutely Sweet Marie
Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You
Cold Irons Bound
Born In Time
Silvio
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
Girl From The North Country
Tangled Up In Blue
Million Miles
Positively 4th Street
‘Til I Fell In Love With You
Highway 61 Revisited
Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
Love Sick
Rainy Day Women #12 & 35
Pushed It Over The End (AKA Citizen Kane Jr. Blues)
Long May You Run
Greensleeves
Ambulance Blues
Helpless
Revolution Blues
On The Beach
Roll Another Number
Motion Pictures
Pardon My Heart
Dance Dance Dance
Some months back the extraordinary experimental guitarist Henry Kaiser dropped an advance of his upcoming collaboration with free jazz guitarist Ray Russell, The Celestial Squid.
The album is a free jazz mindblower.
Today a 12 minute promo video for the album was released:
I’ve been digging Kaiser’s music since the late ’70s when I wrote a short article about him for New West magazine. We subsequently became friends. Recently, in December, we collaborated when Henry improvised as i read from my novel, True Love Scars, at Down Home Music in El Cerrito, CA.
Here’s info on the album direct from Cuneiform Records, which will release it on February 3, 2015.
Guitar summits don’t ascend higher than when legendary British free-jazz pioneer and longtime session ace Ray Russell meets the brilliant California avant-improv overachiever and Antarctic diver Henry Kaiser in the realm of The Celestial Squid. With more than countless session and soundtrack performances to his credit, including the early James Bond film scores, Russell is returning to his bone-rattling, noise-rocking roots for the first time since the very early 70s. You’ll be shaken and stirred as Kaiser, Russell and eight super friends deliver a no-holds-barred, free-range sonic cage match.
Russell created some of the early ’70s’ most outrageously outside music, releasing hallmark works of guitar shock-and-awe. Russell’s “stabbing, singing notes and psychotic runs up the fretboard have nothing to do with scalular architecture,” wrote All Music’s Thom Jurek, “but rather with viscera and tonal exploration.” Russell anticipated the wildest and most intrepid vibrations of Terje Rypdal, Dave Fuzinski, Sonic Youth, Keiji Haino, Tisziji Muñoz and their boundary-dissolving ilk. Russell is hardly a niche performer, though. Untold millions of music and film fans have actually, if unknowingly, already enjoyed Russell’s riffs – at least if they saw any of the James Bond films that John Barry scored, beginning with Dr. No in 1962.
For over 40 years, Russell would not make such exploratory music until West Coast guitar experimentalist Henry Kaiser called him out of the blue and asked if he would be interested in co-leading an ensemble in the style of his ’71 masterpiece, Live at the ICA: June 11th 1971. Russell was surprised and delighted by the offer, and readily accepted. Why had he waited so long to once again explore the free-jazz spaceways you might well wonder? Simple – no one had asked him to do so!
So on April 12, 2014, Henry Kaiser and Ray Russell – along with drummers Weasel Walter and William Winant, bassists Michael Manring (electric) and Damon Smith (acoustic), and saxophonists Steve Adams, Joshua Allen, Phillip Greenlief, and Aram Shelton – entered Berkeley, California’s Fantasy Studios for a day-long session that resulted in The Celestial Squid, a nearly eighty-minute embryonic journey through the deepest waters and most cosmic heights of improvised music. Except for melodic heads and compositional structures, everything on The Celestial Squid is improvised, down to some astonishing extemporaneous horn arrangements. While The Celestial Squid echoes the raw energy and youthful bravado of Russell’s earliest achievements, this music synergizes the combined power and imagination of all ten of these musical masters into a force to be reckoned with.
guitars: Henry Kaiser, Ray Russell
saxophones: Steve Adams, Joshua Allen, Phillip Greenlief, Aram Shelton
electric bass: Michael Manring
acoustic bass: Damon Smith
drums: Weasel Walter, William Winant
recorded live by Adam Munoz at Fantasy Studios, Berkeley, CA on April 12, 2014
mixed by Henry Kaiser, Adam Munoz, Weasel Walter at Fantasy Studios, Berkeley, CA
mastered by Paul Stubblebine
artwork and art direction by Brandy Gale
production by Henry Kaiser
A benefit concert for Bay Area bluesman Johnny Harper and Paul Geremia will be help on January 28, 2015 at the Freight & Salvage in Berkeley, California.
Among the artists playing the benefit are fold-blues legend Maria Muldaur, former Asleep At The Wheel singer Chris O’Connell, and singer Barbara Dane,
Johnny Harper is a superb guitarist, bandleader, singer and songwriter. Paul Geremia is a highly respected acoustic blues performer, finger-style guitarist, and songwriter, with ten solo albums to his credit. Both men have recently suffered serious health issues.
Here’s Johnny Harper on the concert:
Why a benefit? Many of you do not know that I’ve been dealing with a very tough health situation this past fall. I was hospitalized from early September to mid-November. The reason was a blood-clotting problem called a pulmonary embolism. This is very, very serious; the doctors were very doubtful that I would survive it. But survive it I did. Then there was a long period of recovery from the trauma; a lot of physical therapy was needed to help me get my strength back. I’m home now, and feel pretty good in most respects. I am getting around well, am doing physical therapy exercises daily and taking care of myself. I am playing guitar well again, and am starting to teach some of my guitar students. But there are other respects in which I’m still in the recovery phase. Also, of course, I lost months of work, months of income, and have unpaid medical bills which are not entirely covered by my health insurance.
So some friends in the musical community – spearheaded by the tireless organizer and great fiddler/ singer Suzy Thompson – have put together this wonderful Acoustic Blues Festival night at Freight and Salvage, as a benefit for me and also for Paul Geremia, a distinguished acoustic blues artist of many years’ standing, who has also suffered difficult and costly health setbacks recently.
The Freight is of course the West Coast’s premier folk music venue, and now holds 400 in its very comfortable downtown Berkeley location.
I’ll say more about the stellar lineup of performers in a moment. But the main message is, this will be a wonderful night of music with lots of terrific artists playing. And also – well, both Paul and I have played many benefit shows over the years, for friends in need and for causes we believe in. This time around, we will sure be grateful for whatever support you can give us.
AMONG THE PERFORMERS YOU’LL BE HEARING:
Maria Muldaur, a true star of Americana music, has been knocking listeners out since her early days with the Jim Kweskin Jug Band back in the 1960s. She has recorded 30 albums under her own name, starting off with her self-titled first record which made her famous for the hit “Midnight at the Oasis.” Her albums and performances cover a vast range of American roots music styles – uptown urban blues, down home country blues, jazz and swing, gospel, New Orleans R&B, and more. She remains a sultry, vivacious singer and a powerful performer. In 2004 I played a brief tour as her lead guitarist, filling in for her regular guy. See much more on her albums and upcoming performances at www.mariamuldaur.com.
Barbara Dane is an American music legend, still a very powerful, moving, and creative singer at age 87! She’s a great performer of blues, folk music, and traditional jazz, and sings in various international idioms as well. She’s recorded in all these styles since the 1950s. She has worked with jazz giants Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines, and Jack Teagarden; blues masters Muddy Waters, Lightning Hopkins, and Memphis Slim; folk music legends Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger; and countless other important artists. Her lifelong commitment to peace and social justice still informs her song choices and the causes for which she performs. I have been lucky enough to work many shows with her, as accompanist and occasional band director, for the last 15 years. Details on her many recordings at www.barbaradane.net.
Chris O’Connell, famous for her 15-year stint as the original lead singer in Asleep at the Wheel, recently relocated to the Bay Area and released a fine new album. Steve James, veteran blues singer and fine finger-picking guitarist, has worked with John Sebastian, Cindy Cashdollar, Alvin Youngblood Hart, James McMurtry, Bo Diddley, Maria Muldaur, and many more. Catfish Keith specializes in the traditional “bottleneck”slide style played on the metal-bodied resonator guitar.
Several long-time Bay Area musical friends of mine are also featured. I’ve played informally with all these artists for many years. Eric and Suzy Thompson are well-known for playing old-time music, bluegrass, Cajun music, Greek music, and lots of traditional blues. Suzy’s powerful vocals and fine fiddling, and Eric’s fleet-fingered guitar and mandolin work, add life to every style they turn their hands to. Suzy has also written some fine songs. I produced an early CD of theirs, Adam and Eve Had the Blues on Arhoolie. Marc Silber’s long life story in music includes a stint in the early ’60s Greenwich Village folk scene. He is well known as a guitar dealer, but should be better known as the superb musician he is. His finger-style guitar playing and his deep, authentic feel for traditional blues are wonderful; his singing is captivating and soulful. Will Scarlett is a true virtuoso of the harmonica, seemingly able to jump in any song, in any style, in any key, at the drop of a chord change! He’s performed and recorded with many fine artists – Brownie McGhee, Jerry Garcia, Hot Tuna, Old and In the Way, David Bromberg, and Clifton Chenier, to name a few.
Paul Geremia, not expected to perform on this occasion, is the other beneficiary of this special concert; he’s been struggling with difficult health problems for the last year.
Those of us who really love the blues know that it’s music to celebrate life joyfully by – and also, music that can really help us, can be there for us to lean on, when we’re having hard times.
Come celebrate with us, come hear the blues in many styles and variations, on January 28th! Tell your friends! I hope to see you there.
A decade and a half ago Bob Dylan was still filling his sets songs from his past.
On November 19, 2001 he brought his band to the Madison Square Garden Arena in New York and performed a set that included songs from many of the albums he recorded in the ’60s and early ’70s.
Someone was nice enough to share this very cool video of the show:
Set List:
Wait For The Light To Shine
It Ain’t Me, Babe
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
Searching For A Soldier’s Grave
Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum
Just Like A Woman
Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues
Lonesome Day Blues
High Water (For Charley Patton)
Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
Tangled Up In Blue
John Brown
Summer Days
Sugar Baby
Drifter’s Escape
Rainy Day Women #12 & 35
Things Have Changed
Like A Rolling Stone
Forever Young
Honest With Me
Blowin’ In The Wind
All Along The Watchtower
Angel Olsen is one of my favorite contemporary artists. Thanks to Doom & Gloom at the Tomb and NYC Taper we get to hear her recent set at the Bowery Ballroom in New York.
You can steam the set below or head to NYCTaper and download as MP3s or Flacs.
Forty-one years ago, Bob Dylan and The Band opened their historic 1974 tour with “Hero Blues,” an unreleased Dylan song that he recorded in 1962 during The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan sessions but left off the album.
The show took place at the Chicago Stadium in Chicago, Illinois.
Here are versions recorded during The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan sessions:
Take one:
Take two:
Tale four:
Lyrics:
Yes, the gal I got
I swear she’s the screaming end
She wants me to be a hero
So she can tell all her friends
Well, she begged, she cried
She pleaded with me all last night
Well, she begged, she cried
She pleaded with me all last night
She wants me to go out
And find somebody to fight
She reads too many books
She got new movies inside her head
She reads too many books
She got movies inside her head
She wants me to walk out running
She wants me to crawl back dead
You need a different kinda man, babe
One that can grab and hold your heart
Need a different kind of man, babe
One that can hold and grab your heart
You need a different kind of man, babe
You need Napoleon Boneeparte
Well, when I’m dead
No more good times will I crave
When I’m dead
No more good times will I crave
You can stand and shout hero
All over my lonesome grave
Forty-Seven years ago, on December 27, 1967, following just three one-day recording sessions, Bob Dylan released his minimalist masterpiece, John Wesley Harding.
“We can all relax now,” wrote the music critic Ralph J. Gleason in Rolling Stonefollowing the release of John Wesley Harding. “Bob Dylan isn’t dead. He is all right. He is well and he’s not a basket case hidden from our view forever, the lovely words and the haunting sounds gone as a result of some ghastly effect of his accident.
“And his head is in the right place, which, is after all, the best news of all.”
While the best-known song off the album is “All Along The Watchtower,” due to Jim Hendrix’s explosive rock version, every song is a gem.
Dylan recorded in Nashville with producer Bob Johnston, and for all but the final two songs, was accompanied by just two other musicians, drummer Kenny Buttrey and bassist Charlie McCoy. Pete Drake played steel guitar on the two country songs, “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” and “Down ALong The Cove.”
Some comments Dylan made, according to the Drifter’s Escape blog:
“I didn’t intentionally come out with some kind of mellow sound. I didn’t sit down and plan that sound.”
“There’s only two songs on the album which came at the same time as the music…’Down Along the Cove’ and ‘I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight’. The rest of the songs were written out on paper, and I found the tunes for them later. I didn’t do it before, and I haven’t done it since. That might account for the specialness of that album.”
“I asked Columbia to release it with no publicity and no hype, because this was the season of hype.”
“What I’m trying to do now is not use too many words. There’s no line that you can stick your finger through, there’s no hole in any of the stanzas. There’s no blank filler. Each line has something.”
In an interview published in Newsweek in February 1968 Dylan told writer Hubert Saal:
“I was always with the traditional song. I just used electricity to wrap it up in. Probably I wasn’t ready yet to make it simple. It’s more complicated playing an electric guitar because you’re five or ten feet away from the sound and you strain for things that you don’t have to when the sound is right next to your body. Anyway it’s the song itself that matters, not the sound of the song.”
“I could have sung each of them better. I’m not exactly dissatisfied but I’m just not about to brag about the performance. In writing songs I have one great trouble. I’m lazy. I wish I could but you’re not going to find me sitting down at the piano every morning. Either it comes or doesn’t. Of course some songs, like ‘Restless Farewell,’ I’ve written just to fill up an album. And there are songs in which I made up a whole verse just to get to another verse.”
“It [John Wesley Harding] holds together better. I’ve always tried to get simple. I haven’t always succeeded. But here I took more care in the writing. In Blonde on Blonde I wrote out all the songs in the studio. The musicians played cards, I wrote out a song, we’d do it they’d go back to their game and I’d write out another song.”
Dylan talked to John Cohen and Happy Traum in June and July, 1968, for Sing Out!
Dylan talks about ballads and then John Cohen asks if “Wicked Messenger” is a ballad.
Dylan: In a sense, but the ballad form isn’t there. Well, the scope is there atually, but in a more compressed sense. The scope opens up, just by a few little tricks. I know why it opens up, but in a bllad in the true sense, it woudl’t open ujp that way. It does not reach the proportions I had intended for it.
Cohen: Have you ever written a ballad?
Dylan: I believe on my second record album, “Boots of Spanish Leather.”
Cohen: Then most of the songs on John Wesley Harding, you don’t consider ballads?
Dylan: Well I do, but not in the traditional sense. I haven’t fulfilled the balladeer’s job. A balladeer can sit down and sing three ballads for an hour and a half. See, on the album, you have to think about it after you hear it, that’s what takes up the time, but with a ballad, you don’t necessarily have to think about it after you hear it, it can all unfold to you. These melodies on the John Wesley Harding album lack this traditional sense of time. As with the third verse of the ‘Wicked Messenger,’ which opens it up, and then the time schedule takes a jump and soon the song becomes wider. One realizes that when one hears it, but one might have to adapt to it. But we are not hearing anything that isn’t there; anything we can imagine is really there. The same thing is true of the song ‘All ALong the Watchtower,’ which opens up in a slightly different way, in a stranger way, for here we have the cycle of events working in a rather reverse order.
About songwritng Dylan says: It’s like this painter who lives around here — he paints the area in a radius of twenty miles, he paints bright strong pictures. He might take a barn from twenty miles away, and hook it up with a brook right next door, then with a car ten miles away, and with the sky on some certain day, and the light on the trees from another certain day. A person passing by will be painted alongside someone ten miles away. And in the end he’ll have this composite picture of something which you can’t say exists in his mind. It’s not that he started off willfully painting this picture from all his experience … That’s more or less what I do.
