Tag Archives: Rhiannon Giddens

Audio: Rhiannon Giddens Sings ‘Black Is the Color,’ ‘Shake Sugaree’ & More

album, audio, blues, Bob Dylan, covers, folk, Music, news, streaming music, , , , , , , , , ,

T Bone Burnett has produced Rhiannon Giddens’ debut solo album Tomorrow Is My Turn< ,/em> which is set for a February 10, 2015 release.

Giddens, of course, is a member of the New Basement Tapes band, and was a major contributor to Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes.

I like her version of “Shake Sugaree,” and “Black is the Color” is interesting.

Joan Baez, of course, recorded “Black is the Color” in the ’60s, and Bob Dylan had the line “Where black is the color, where none is the number” in “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.”

I’m looking forward to hearing what Giddens does with Geeshie Wiley’s amazing “Last Kind Words.”

Check out three songs off the album.

“Black is the Color”:

“Don’t Let It Trouble Your Mind”:

“Shake Sugaree”:

Album track listing:

1
Last Kind Words (Geeshie Wiley)
4:14
2
Don’t Let It Trouble Your Mind (Dolly Parton)
3:45
3
Waterboy (Jacques Wolfe)
3:45
4
She’s Got You (Hank Cochran)
4:17
5
Up Above My Head (Sister Rosetta Tharpe)
3:09
6
Tomorrow Is My Turn (Charles Aznavour/Marcel Stellman/Yves Stéphane)
4:38
7
Black Is the Color (Traditional, arr. Rhiannon Giddens)
3:47
8
Round About the Mountain (Traditional, arr. Roland Hayes)
3:29
9
Shake Sugaree (Elizabeth Cotten)
4:25
10
O Love Is Teasin’ (Traditional, arr. Rhiannon Giddens)
4:31
11
Angel City (Rhiannon Giddens)
3:52

—

[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in a recent issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]

Audio: Hear The New Basement Tapes Band Play Unreleased Version of Bob Dylan’s ‘Hidee Hidee Ho’

album, audio, Bob Dylan, interview, Music, news, radio, streaming music, , , , , , , , , ,

Jenny Eliscu talks to Elvis Costello and others about The New Basement Tapes album. Includes an unreleased version of “Hidee Hidee Ho” that ELvis sings.

The New Basement Tapes – Live on the Sirius XM, November 14, 2014.

Recorded on November 14, 2014 in Hollywood, CA. Featuring:
Elvis Costello – piano, Rhiannon Giddens – fiddle, vocals, Taylor Goldsmith – bass, vocals, Jim James – guitar, vocals, Marcus Mumford – guitar, vocals, Jay Bellerose – drums, Griffin Goldsmith – drums. Setlist:
00:00 intro
02:01 Diamond Ring (Goldsmith)
05:48 interview 1
10:37 Hidee Hidee Ho – “bootleg volume 2 version” (Costello)
12:25 interview 2
16:00 Down On The Bottom (James)
20:44 interview 3
29:31When I Get My Hands On You (Mumford)
32:53 interview 4
38:27 Lost On The River #20 (Giddens)
42:50 outro

Plus on November 12, 2014 the group did this radio performance:

00:00 Married To My Hack (Costello)
02:41 When I Get My Hands On You (Mumford)
05:48 Florida Key (Goldsmith)
10:01 Spanish Mary (Giddens)
15:27 Down On The Bottom (James)
19:42 Kansas City (Mumford)

—

[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in a recent issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]

Video: Johnny Depp & Haim Join The New Basement Tapes to Sing Dylan Songs at Ricardo Montalban Theatre

album, audio, Bob Dylan, concert, live, lyrics, Music, news, streaming music, Video, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Johnny Depp, Marcus Mumford & Jim James.

Last night (Nov. 13, 2014) the band T Bone Burnett put together to turn a bunch of lyrics Bob Dylan wrote in 1967 while recording the Basement Tapes in upstate New York into an album, performed songs from the new album, Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes, at the Ricardo Montalban Theatre in Los Angeles.

That band, dubbed The New Basement Tapes, consists of Marcus Mumford, Elvis Costello, Taylor Goldsmith, Jim James and Rhiannon Giddens. For the show, they were augmented on a few songs by the three women of Haim, and Johnny Depp.

Rhiannon Giddens and the Haim sisters.

Here you can see them perform “Kansas City,” with Marcus Mumford on lead vocal, “Duncan and Jimmy” with Rhiannon Giddens singing, “Card Shark, with Taylor Goldsmith taking the lead and some of “Married To M Hack,” which Elvis Costello sings.

“Kansas City”:

“Duncan and Jimmy”:

“Card Shark”:

“Married To My Hack” (partial):

Plus here they are with Elvis on vocals singing “Lost On The River” on Jimmy Fallon. This aired on NBC on November 10th, 2014.

And here’s Marcus Mumford taking the lead on “Kansas City” on Ellen today.

Setlist:

Down on the Bottom – Jim James vocals
Spanish Mary – Rhiannon Giddens vocals
Liberty Street – Rhiannon Giddens vocals
Married to My Hack – Elvis Costello vocals
The Whistle is Blowing – Marcus Mumford vocals with Haim on backing
vocals
Diamond Ring – Taylor Goldsmith vocals
Nothing to It – Jim James vocals
Lost on the River – Elvis Costello vocals
Florida Key – Taylor Goldsmith vocals
Stranger – Marcus Mumford vocals
Hidee Hidee Hidee Ho – Rhiannon Giddens vocals
Hidee Hidee Hidee Ho (alternate version) – Jim James vocals
“Unreleased track” – Elvis Costello
Kansas City – Marcus Mumford Vocals with Johnny Depp on guitar and Haim
on back-up vocals
Duncan and Jimmy – Rhiannon Giddens vocals with Johnny Depp on guitar
and Danielle Haim on shakers

– Encore break –

When I Get My Hands on You – Marcus Mumford vocals
Lost on the River – Rhiannon Giddens
Card Shark (unamplified) – Taylor Goldsmith vocals
Quick Like a Flash – Jim James vocals
Golden Tom – Silver Judas – Elvis Costello vocals

—

[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in a recent issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]

Video: Stream 3 ‘New Basement Tapes’ Songs by Jim James, Rhiannon Giddens & Elvis Costello

album, audio, Bob Dylan, documentary, Film, Music, news, song, streaming music, TV, Video, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Three videos songs from Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes.

These are tremendous.

The footage is from the Showtime documentary “Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued” that will air on Showtime on November 21.

The documentary was directed by Sam Jones, who is best known for the Wilco Documentary, “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco.”

Jim James, “Down On The Bottom”:

Rhiannon Giddens, “Hidee Hidee Ho #16”:

Elvis Costello, “Six Months In Kansas City”:

—

[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in a recent issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]

Exclusive: Bob Dylan’s Handwritten Lyrics For ‘New Basement Tapes’ Song ‘Spanish Mary’ – Check Them Out!

album, audio, Bob Dylan, lyrics, Music, news, song, streaming music, Video, , , , , , , , , ,
Bob Dylan’s notebook page where he wrote the lyrics to “Spanish Mary.”

During the summer of 1967, up in Woodstock, New York, Bob Dylan wrote a batch of song lyrics that he didn’t set music to and didn’t record.

Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes is an album of those songs produced by T Bone Burnett due out November 10, 2014. Elvis Costello, Rhiannon Giddens (Carolina Chocolate Drops), Taylor Goldsmith (Dawes), Jim James (My Morning Jacket) and Marcus Mumford are the artists that came together to record the songs.

Today, one of those songs, “Spanish Mary,” was released and I was able to get a copy of Bob Dylan’s notebook page, on which he wrote the lyrics to the song.

For this one, Rhiannon Giddens wrote the music and her performance on the recording is very powerful.

She stays true to the lyrics as Dylan wrote them.

In examining Dylan’s notebook page, there are a couple of lines he crossed out.

In the second verse, the second line, “Upon their ship quite scary” was crossed out and replaced by “no longer could they tarry.”

Dylan crossed out the beginning of the third line, “it was to see them,” leaving only the end of that line, “Swoon and Swerve.”

Off to the side Dylan tried out some alternatives, writing “Some sing like,” and then right under it, “Song sing like a canary.”

In the third verse, “In Kingsport town was changed to “In Kingston Town,” and minor changes in the line that follows were made.

Minor – one or two word – changes were made in the third, fourth and fifth verses.

Check out the video:

In a press release, Giddens, who wrote the music for the song and sings the lead vocal, says of the track:

“Out of all the lyrics I looked through for the New Basement Tapes project, the one for ‘Spanish Mary’ attracted me first – here was a ballad, and I know ballads! It’s also set in the Caribbean, so I felt the deep African sound of the minstrel style banjo (circa 1856) was appropriate. It was an absolute thrill to get to set music to Dylan’s lyrics, what an opportunity! This project is marked with utter generosity from everyone involved.”

—

[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in a recent issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]

— A Days Of The Crazy-Wild blog post —

Audio: Hear Bob Dylan’s ‘New Basement Tapes’ Song, ‘Spanish Mary,’ Sung By Rhiannon Giddens

audio, Bob Dylan, lyrics, Music, news, song, streaming music, Video, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Here is “Spanish Mary,” the latest song off Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes to be made available prior to the album release on November 10, 2014.

In a press release, Giddens, who wrote the music for the song and sings the lead vocal, says of the track:

“Out of all the lyrics I looked through for the New Basement Tapes project, the one for ‘Spanish Mary’ attracted me first – here was a ballad, and I know ballads! It’s also set in the Caribbean, so I felt the deep African sound of the minstrel style banjo (circa 1856) was appropriate. It was an absolute thrill to get to set music to Dylan’s lyrics, what an opportunity! This project is marked with utter generosity from everyone involved.”

—

[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in a recent issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]

— A Days Of The Crazy-Wild blog post —

Exclusive: For ‘New Basement Tapes’ Album, Musicians Completed Bob Dylan’s Unfinished Lyrics – ‘…folks have added to them.’

Music, , , , , , , ,
Producer T Bone Burnett and the New Basement Tapes band.

Last November we first learned that a batch of song lyrics that Bob Dylan had written during the summer of 1967, had been turned over to producer T Bone Burnett so that Burnett could record them for an album. Dylan wrote the lyrics while the recordings that became known as the ‘Basement Tapes’ were made at the house known as ‘Big Pink.’

Since then I’ve wondered how this was going to work.

Were these lyrics finished? If not, who would have the balls to finish them? Or would the lyrics be sung as written, even if they weren’t complete?

Burnett invited Elvis Costello, Rhiannon Giddens (Carolina Chocolate Drops), Taylor Goldsmith (Dawes), Jim James (My Morning Jacket) and Marcus Mumford to be involved in writing music for the lyrics and recording the completed songs.

The album is called Lost On the River: The New Basement Tapes and it will be released on November 20, 2014.

In March of this year, Burnett said this to the L. A. Times:

“These are not B-level Dylan lyrics. They’re lyrics he just never got around to finishing.”

Aha! So the lyrics weren’t finished, I thought. Well then who was going to finish them? Or were Costello and the others musicians going to sing these unfinished lyrics, and how would that work?

As it turns out, most of the lyrics were completed by Dylan at the time he wrote them.

“When T Bone gave that quote,” said Larry Jenkins, who is involved with the project, “the context was that Dylan never got around to finishing them as full songs (with music) or recording them.”

Well it turns out that, according to both Jenkins and a second source, in some cases the musicians who wrote music to the songs also added their own words.

“In some instances, the lyrics were used verbatim,” said my second source.,”In other ones, folks have added to them.”

“Most of the lyrics appeared to be complete and were sung by the artists as they were written on the page by Bob in 1967 (maybe with a small word change here or there),” Jenkins said. “Some lyrics were unfinished and were fair game for the artists to complete if they wanted to.”

So far, I haven’t been able to get specifics regarding which songs had additional lyrics added to them, but stay tuned.

But think about what that means. Who has the guts to add their words to a Bob Dylan song? What if Dylan doesn’t like the words that were added?

“I will tell you that ‘Nothing To It’ is word-for-word as Bob wrote it on the page,” Jenkins said.

Check out this post, which contains a copy of Dylan’s hand-written lyrics for “Nothing To It.”

So give another listen to this great new Dylan song, “Nothing To It,” sung by Jim James with help from Elvis Costello and Marcus Mumford.

[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” I’ve got a Goodreads. book giveaway going right now. Click here and enter.]

— A Days Of The Crazy-Wild blog post —

New ‘Basement Tapes’ Album, ‘Lost On the River,’ Due in Autumn

album, Bob Dylan, Music, news, , , , , , , , , ,
The ‘Lost On the River’ band.

Recording is nearing completion for Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes, an album of songs based on lyrics that Bob Dylan wrote in 1967 during the time he recorded the original “Basement Tapes” with the future members of The Band, according to a press release from Big Hassle Media.

“These are not B-level Dylan lyrics,” T Bone Burnett, who is producing the album, told The Los Angeles Times Monday. “They’re lyrics he just never got around to finishing.”

Artists involved in the new album are Elvis Costello, Rhiannon Giddens (Carolina Chocolate Drops) Taylor Goldsmith (Dawes), Jim James (My Morning Jacket), Marcus Mumford (Mumford & Sons) and Burnett.

The album is being recorded at Capitol Studios. The musicians have had to write new music to go with the two-dozen lyrics that Dylan wrote.

As of Monday Burnett told the Times that they’d cut 48 tracks including the title song, “Lost On the River,” “Florida Key,” “Card Shark” and “Hi-De-Ho.”

Burnett said he and Costello are going for the magic of the original “Basement Tapes” sessions, which took place in a house in upstate New York, in terms of its creative process.

According to the L. A. Times:

One intriguing facet of the current project is the collaboration among the participants. Each has come up with his or her own music for many of the lyrics, resulting in multiple versions of the same songs and allowing a perspective on the ways different artists respond to Dylan’s lyrics. Each artist takes the lead on the tracking of his or her song, and all provide suggestions and whatever instrumental and vocal support the others require, with Burnett overseeing final production.

“It runs the gamut from everybody having a blast in the studio to being really serious about doing things right,” Giddens told the Times.

Dylan gave Burnett, who was part of Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Review back in 1975, his blessing to make an album with the lyrics. “Great music is best created when a community of artists gets together for the common good,” Burnett said in the press release. “There is a deep well of generosity and support in the room at all times, and that reflects the tremendous generosity shown by Bob in sharing these lyrics with us.”

There will be a Showtime documentary titled, “Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued,” directed by Sam Jones (the Wilco documentary, “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart”). The film will focus on the making of Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes and provide context regarding the original “Basement Tapes.”

“The discovery of these previously unknown Bob Dylan songs that were thought lost since 1967 is the stuff of Hollywood fiction and a find of truly historical proportions,” Jones said in the press release. “It is a unique opportunity to film T Bone and these great artists as they collaborate with a young Bob Dylan, and each other, to create new songs and recordings. These days and nights in the studio have been nothing less than magical.”

“Lost On the River,” interestingly enough, is the title of a Hank Williams song.

Dylan, of course, has long been a huge Hank Williams fan.

– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post –