An obscure British band that covered Dylan’s masterpiece in 1965.
One of Dylan’s many incredible songs is “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.”
Unlike “Fourth Time Around,” which I posted about the other day and which had few covers, many, many artists have covered “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.” The Byrds even covered it twice.
Below are some pretty incredible versions of the song including both of those versions by The Byrds.
Them with Van Morrison:
Bob Dylan, April 13, 1966, Sydney, Australia:
Marianne Faithful:
Link Wray:
Joni Mitchell:
Echo and the Bunnymen:
Hugh Masekela:
Grateful Dead, 1966:
Bonnie Raitt:
The Animals:
13th Floor Elevators:
Judy Collins:
Leon Russell:
Joan Baez:
The Cops and Robbers, cool 1965 version:
Bryan Ferry:
The Byrd, 1965 version:
The Byrds, 1969 version:
Bob Dylan, May 16, Sheffield, England:
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I keep discovering more Bob Dylan songs that I somehow haven’t heard.
This one I came across today. Dylan and Joan Baez performed “Troubled and I Don’t Know Why” at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium in New York on August 17, 1963. That was the only time Dylan sang the song live.
It’s a beautiful performance and their voices sound great together.
The song is available on three-CD Joan Baez box set, Rare, Live & Classic released in 1993.
Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, “Troubled and I Don’t Know Why”:
[In August of this year I’ll be publishing my rock ‘n’ roll/ coming-of-age novel, “True Love Scars,” which features a narrator who is obsessed with Bob Dylan. To read the first chapter, head here.]
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On November 20, 1961, Bob Dylan recorded “House of the Rising Sun” at Columbia Studio A in New York.
The recording appeared on his debut album, Bob Dylan.
Below are two versions by Dylan, plus versions of the old blues song by Nina Simone, Frijid Pink, Texas Alexander (possibly the earliest recorded version), The Supremes, Thin Lizzy, The Animals, Dave Van Ronk and others.
Enjoy!
Bob Dylan:
The Animals:
‘
Joan Baez:
The Supremes:
The White Stripes:
Nina Simone:
Josh White:
Roy Acuff:
Texas Alexander:
Dave Van Ronk:
Thin Lizzy:
The Beatles:
Libby Holman:
Frijid Pink:
Sinead O’Connor
Bob Dylan:
[In August of this year I’ll be publishing my rock ‘n’ roll/ coming-of-age novel, “True Love Scars,” which features a narrator who is obsessed with Bob Dylan. To read the first chapter, head here.]
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Page two of “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” I’ve manipulated the contrast to make the words more legible.
In 1963, when Studs Terkel spoke about “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” during a radio interview with Bob Dylan, he made a comment to Dylan about how the song had come out of his feelings about “atomic rain.”
“No, no,” Dylan said. “It’s not atomic rain, it’s just a hard rain. It isn’t the fallout rain. I mean some sort of end that’s just gotta happen … In the last verse, when I say, ‘the pellets of poison are flooding the waters’, that means all the lies that people get told on their radios and in their newspapers.”
Now it turns out Dylan was telling stories, and not being frank with Terkel.
Two pages of the working manuscript for “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall” will be auctioned by Sotheby’s on June 24, 2014 in New York.
In examining photos of the manuscript pages that appeared in a New York Times story about the auction of this manuscript and the one for “Like A Rolling Stone,” it’s clear that Dylan meant the song to refer, at least in the chorus, to nuclear annihilation.
Right on the manuscript maybe two inches to the right of the line “It’s A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall” Dylan wrote “Hiroshima” and under that, “Nagasaki” — the two Japanese cities the U.S. bombed during World War II. A uranium gun-type atomic bomb (Little Boy) was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, followed by a plutonium implosion-type bomb (Fat Man) on the city of Nagasaki on August 9. according to Wikipedia.
Clearly Dylan was being Dylan when he spoke to Terkel.
Unlike the manuscript for “Like A Rolling Stone,” where that song was a work in progress, “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” is finished. But what’s interesting about these two manuscript pages are other things that Dylan has written on the pages.
For instance, near the right edge of the second page it says “Robert Houdin book,” which likely refers to a book about the French magician Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, who is considered the father of modern conjuring.
On that same page Dylan wrote “Black is the color of my true love’s hair,” which is the title of an Appalachian folk song that Joan Baez recorded in 1962; on the manuscript, below the name of that song, Dylan has written “Baez Club 47.” Club 47 was a Cambridge, Massachusetts folk music venue where Dylan performed.
Joan Baez, “Black is the Color (Of My True Love’s Hair)”:
Also written at the side of the manuscript is “Railroad Boy,” which was the name Dylan and Baez used for a song that was variously called “The Butcher’s Boy,” “Go Bring Me Back My Blue-Eyed Boy” and “London City.” Dylan heard a 1928 recording of “The Butcher’s Boy” by Buell Kazee on Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music. Below “Railroad Boy” is a line from the song: “She went upstairs to make her bed.”
Bob Dylan, “Railroad Boy” (May 1961):
Buell Kazee, “The Butcher’s Boy”:
Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, “Railroad Boy” (1987):
Dylan wrote “Doctor Strange.” near the bottom of the page and “Miss Masque” and “Bullet Girl,” all names of comic book super heroes, although the third super hero was actually called “Bulletgirl.”
Miss Masque.
Dylan quoted from Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Black Cat,” writing down the phrase “solitary eye of fire.” The short story is about “a murderer [who] carefully conceals his crime and believes himself unassailable, but eventually breaks down and reveals himself, impelled by a nagging reminder of his guilt,” according to Wikipedia.
And he wrote “Have Mercy Baby,” and “Dominoes,” referring of course to The Dominoes’ “Have Mercy Baby,” an R&B hit in 1952.
The Dominoes,” Have Mercy Baby”:
Clearly even in 1962 when Dylan wrote “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” he was already a master collage artist, utilizing bits and pieces of culture from the past to craft his own unique art.
The two manuscript pages are expected to sell for between $400,000 and $600,000 according to the New York Times.
“A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” (Town Hall, New York, April 12, 1963):
Page one.
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Thirty-six years ago, on January 25, 1978, Bob Dylan’s epic four-plus hour film “Renaldo & Clara” began a limited theatrical run, opening in New York City and Los Angeles.
The film screened in a handful of additional cities and then was pulled. Later that year a short version was released. I saw that version, found it very intriguing but also quite confusing.
Janet Maslin’s January 26, 1978 review of the film in the New York Times begins like this:
THERE’S an insolence about “Renaldo and Clara,” the four-hour film written and directed by Bob Dylan and featuring members of his Rolling Thunder Revue, that is not easily ignored. Mr. Dylan, who has a way of insinuating that any viewer who doesn’t grasp the full richness of his work must be intellectually deficient or guilty of some failure of nerve, has seen fit to produce a film that no one is likely to find altogether comprehensible. Yet for anyone even marginally interested in Mr. Dylan—and for anyone willing to accept the idea that his evasiveness, however exasperating, is a crucial aspect of his finest work — “Renaldo and Clara” holds the attention at least as effectively as it tries the patience.
No knowledge of Mr. Dylan or his history is supposed to be central to an understanding of the film, but it nevertheless trades heavily upon his past. The singer David Blue, playing himself, talks about the artistic climate of Greenwich Village when Mr. Dylan first arrived there, and Joan Baez is rather coyly cast as Mr. Dylan’s former lover. Mr. Dylan, even more coyly, is cast as someone other than himself, a very vague figure named Renaldo.
Cast:
Bob Dylan … Renaldo
Sara Dylan … Clara
Joan Baez … Woman in White
Ronnie Hawkins … Bob Dylan
Jack Elliott … Longheno de Castro
Harry Dean Stanton … Lafkezio
Bob Neuwirth … The Masked Tortilla
Allen Ginsberg … The Father
David Mansfield … The Son
Helena Kallianiotes … Herself
Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter … Himself
T-Bone Burnett … The Inner Voice
When Bob Dylan began writing his own material in the early ’60s, he wrote a number of songs dealing in one way or another with racism and the abuse of African Americans in this country. So I thought it fitting on this day in which we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday (he was born January 15, 1929), that we listen to some of the powerful ‘protest’ songs of Bob Dylan.
On August 28, 1963 Bob Dylan was at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. for the “March On Washington,” performing “When The Ship Comes In” with Joan Baez and “Only A Pawn In Their Game” solo before Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his remarkable “I have a dream” speech:
Most of the songs I’ve included below made it onto The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan and The Times They Are A-Changin’. One is from Another Side Of Bob Dylan.
One, “The Death Of Emmett Till,” was recorded for The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan but didn’t make the cut.
I’ve also included “Maggie’s Farm,” which may not be as direct as some of the earlier songs, but is certainly about the oppression of the poor by the wealthy (and plenty more).
These are powerful songs. They hit home when they were first released, and all these years later they have lost none of their potency.
Certainly great strides have been made in the area of equal rights since the early ’60s, but things are far from perfect. Consider the Supreme Court cutting the Voting Rights Act last year, and the how badly President Obama has been treated by Republicans in the House and Senate. Or the needless death of Trayvon Martin.
These songs are heavy, and they remind us of what’s at stake, and of the power of music.
“When The Ship Comes In,” August 28, 1963 (performed with Joan Baez at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.):
“Only A Pawn In Their Game,” August 28, 1963 (performed at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.):
“Blowin’ In The Wind,” 1963 (Town Hall, New York):
“The Death Of Emmett Till” (The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan outtake):
“Oxford Town”:
“Ballad Of Hollis Brown”:
“The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll”:
“Chimes Of Freedom”:
“The Times They Are A-Changin'”:
“Maggie’s Farm”:
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In the fall of 1969, some months after the release of Nashville Skyline, Rolling Stone publisher/Editor in Chief Jann Wenner interviewed Bob Dylan in a New York hotel room.
The interview ended like this:
Jann Wenner: You’ve heard the Joan Baez album of all your songs…
Bob Dylan: Yeah, I did… I generally like everything she does.
Wenner: Are there any particular artists that you like to see do your songs?
Dylan: Yeah, Elvis Presley. I liked Elvis Presley. Elvis Presley recording a song of mine. That’s the one recording I treasure the most… it was called “Tomorrow Is A Long Time.” I wrote it but never recorded it.
Wenner: Which album is that on?
Dylan: Kismet.
Wenner: I’m not familiar with it at all.
[Actually, “Kismet” is a song that appeared on Elvis’ Harum Scarum scoundtrack; “Tomorrow Is A Long Time” isn’t on that album. According to Wikipedia: “Elvis Presley recorded the song (‘Tomorrow Is A Long Time’) on May 26, 1966 during a session for his album How Great Thou Art. The song originally appeared as a bonus track on the Spinout movie soundtrack album… According to Ernst Jorgensen’s’ book, Presley got into the song via Charlie McCoy, who had previously participated in the Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde sessions. McCoy played the 1965 Odetta album Odetta Sings Dylan before an Elvis session and Presley “had become taken with ‘Tomorrow Is A Long Time.'”]
Dylan: He did it with just guitar.
Below is Elvis’ version of “Tomorrow Is A Long Time,” the Odetta version that inspired Elvis to record the song, and then two versions by Bob Dylan plus Joan Baez’s version.
Elvis Presley, “Tomorrow Is A Long Time”:
Bob Dylan,”Tomorrow Is A Long Time” (April 12, 1963, Town Hall, New York City):
Odetta, “Tomorrow Is A Long Time” (1964 recording):
Bob Dylan,”Tomorrow Is A Long Time” with intro (April 12, 1963, Town Hall, New York City):
Bob Dylan,”Tomorrow Is A Long Time” Whitmark Demos, December 1962):
Joan Baez, “Tomorrow Is A Long Time” (early 1963):
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