yeah, I'm aware of all that (though I tend to be skeptical of any claims on behalf of a "pure" working class status) -- just don't necessarily see it as something to cheer for, esp if it has to be at the expense of more innovative songwriting, as the post seemed to be suggesting ... though perhaps this was just meant as a paraphrase of Robertson's pre-1966 bias.
I'm right there with you - for me Dylan's pinnacle was the Bringing It All Back Home to Blonde on Blonde era! But I think Dylan tired of that - he'd already done and perfected that - and he was ready to move on to something else.
Robertson's often said that the Band "taught Dylan what we knew about rock and roll." He had a dim view of Dylan's music early on, but apparently playing with Dylan changed his mind. When they met in August '65: "To be honest, that was the first time I ever really heard Bob Dylan. Sitting on a couch playing with him singing in this room. And that was the first time I said to myself, 'There's something to this, it kind of rambles a bit, but there is something about it.' I was playing a little loud, and I could see from his attitude that he wanted it to be rough." “In the very beginning, I didn’t know if it was ever gonna be special. Just making electric folk music wasn’t enough, it needed to be much more violent than that, and I didn’t know whether he would ever get it. There was a lot of strumming going on in this music, and for us anyone who strummed just seemed to take the funkiness out of it. See, he didn’t know anything about music. He was all folk songs, Big Bill Broonzy, and we were Jerry Lee Lewis.” “I came in on a rock & roll train, blues and country music mixed together. That’s what made rock & roll to me. You mix this and that and you get something and god knows what it is. It’s just magical when you put it all together, and I wasn’t getting that out of Dylan’s music.” "I would play him records. I would turn him on to things.” Robertson played him the Impressions' Keep On Pushing album (which Dylan was already familiar with!), and told him, “They’re not saying much and this is killing me, whereas you’re rambling on for an hour and you’re losing me.” “We would talk about early rockabilly records and stuff like that, and I was trying to get him to see that there was a vibe, a sound quality, to certain records, whether it was a Motown thing or a Sun Records thing or a Phil Spector thing. Up to that point Bob was saying, ‘Who cares about that? I’m only interested in the lyrics.’” Of course Dylan was educating Robertson about folk songs as well: "The whole folkie thing was still very questionable to us... He'd be doing this Pete Seeger stuff and I'd say, 'oh God...' And then, it might be music he knew you didn't like, he'd come up with something like 'Royal Canal' and you'd say, 'This is so beautiful! The expression!'" “I didn’t care that much for what he was turning me on to. But when he sang those songs I liked them a lot. And I couldn’t tell which were the songs that he wrote, and which were the songs somebody else wrote. For instance, when we were in the basement and he would sing all those songs, I didn’t know whether he wrote ‘Royal Canal’ or whether it was an old folk song. And it was an extraordinary education to be connected to all of this great music." One thing that strikes me is that Robertson (while saying that Dylan knew nothing about music and could only do these long boring folk songs) never claims outright that he had an influence on Dylan's change in songwriting direction. He might be implying it, but my sense is Dylan had more of an influence on Robertson's songwriting than the other way around! It's possible playing with the band might have nudged Dylan into doing simpler songs, or even into "going country," but I think Dylan was more self-directed than that. And Robertson talks like Highway 61 had never been recorded and the non-rockin' Dylan was just strumming away on long wordy songs... While some songs on his electric albums were long & serious & had tons of lyrics, quite a few of them were also simple, comic, straight blues or pop or rock, not too far removed from Basement Tapes songs. Another post on whether the Band influenced Dylan - http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threa...rrently-at-part-7.394532/page-3#post-11401125
And some people wonder why others think JRR is a pretentious, self-promoting, egotistical jerk. Bob Dylan knew his rockabilly, blues and country inside out before he ever met the Hawks. As for trying for that sound, he recorded Mixed Up Confusion in 1962. The Band was great, but they got far more off Dylan than the other way around.
With Mike Bloomfield on Highway 61 Bob was doing "violent" rock and roll and blues way more authentic rough and loud than anything in the Band's discography. What drugs was Robbie on when he gave that interview?
Am I the only one who has problems with Sid Griffin's essay accompanying the new set? It just trots out the same old "roots music vs. psychedelia" narrative that we've heard a thousand times. He takes great pains to prop up this elaborate strawman of contemporary music, representing everything that Dylan and the Band were supposedly reacting to: psychedelia, loud music, hippiedom, peace and love, baroqueness, musical proficiency, experimentation. For example, he notes that in all of the Basement songs, "there is not the first reference to elves, fairies, castles, space travel, a drug experience, or misty mountain tops". On the next page, he again points to "the total absence of elves, misty mountain tops, and wah-wah pedals". I'm confused: who exactly in mid-1967 were writing about elves, fairies, and misty mountain tops, to the point where it would be representative of the musical climate? I mean, it sounds like he's referring to Zeppelin or something! Just strikes me as lazy writing. There is also a troubling conservative or perhaps anti-progressive streak running through the whole commentary: "The hit parade showed a popular music full of incense, peppermints, tea parties with the vicar, white rabbits, face painting, fresh flowers, and grandly orchestrated musical backdrops fraught with ruffles and flourishes. For every downhome sound from Dylan pals like The Lovin' Spoonful or the Sir Douglas Quintet there was a string quartet or a synthesizer next to them in the charts. Even Motown had embraced psychedelia, even Buck Owens had bought a Moog synthesizer. No one said bringing it all back home was going to be easy." What's wrong with fresh flowers? Why can't Motown embrace psychedelia? So what if Buck Owens gets a synthesizer? The Bakersfield sound had been irreverent to convention right from the start, after all. But most of all: why can't we enjoy contemporary 1967 music (elves or not) and "The Basement Tapes"? It's just weird that they would have to resort to this tired rhetoric when the new set reveals just how extraordinary and frankly uncategorizable the material is. The whole thing is simply too sprawling and idiosyncratic to neatly pin down, like critics have attempted for decades. It's not just one thing, like they would have us to believe. Its logic is encyclopedic rather than reactive. And I do question the assumption that it represents a radical and completely singular break with contemporary music. For one, Dylan doesn't totally bury himself in the past, but covers contemporary material as well: "People Get Ready," "Four Strong Winds," "The French Girl," "If I Were a Carpenter"... His own songs from earlier in the decade are also represented: "Blowin' in the Wind," "One Too Many Mornings," and "It Ain't Me Babe". Griffin writes: "[W]hat is most staggering after all these years later is this: with the weight of the popular music world bearing down upon him, a music world he helped shape, Bob Dylan did not become the slightest bit like contemporary music nor did he reflect even a part of it". Sorry, don't buy it. Finally, to dismantle that shopworn "roots music vs. psychedelia" dichotomy, let's look at what those arch-psychedelic hippies in the Grateful Dead were up to while Dylan and the Band were down in the basement. On June 6, 1967 - at the very beginning of the Summer of Love - they played a concert at the Café au Go-Go in New York, performing the following songs: 1. I'm a King Bee (Slim Harpo) 2. It Hurts Me Too (Elmore James) 3. The Same Thing (Howlin' Wolf) 4. Big Boss Man (Jimmy Reed) 5. Alligator (Grateful Dead) 6. In the Midnight Hour (Wilson Pickett) 7. Beat It On Down the Line (Jesse Fuller) 8. Me and My Uncle (John Phillips) 9. New Minglewood Blues (Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers) 10. Don't Ease Me In (Traditional) 11. Cold Rain and Snow (Traditional) 12. Viola Lee Blues (Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers) 13. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue (Bob Dylan) Now, with the exception of "Alligator," all of these songs could just as well have been played by Dylan and the Band in the basement. They would have fit right in. So much for that wild and crazy psychedelic hippie music the critics would have them reacting to... Rant over!
Donovan! So it turns out that Dylan was not actually influenced by Donovan, despite what we've all thought for nearly fifty years. . .
Glad you were able to discern the potential in Bob's music, Robbie... as early as 1965! Well, you showed him the light, all right! Way to return the favor, Robbie!
I thought the same thing. If it was 1969 or late 1968 I would agree, but in 1967 garage or psychedelic music had not "progressed" to Middle Earth fantasy.
Was able to purchase the deluxe edition from Amazon tonight!! I have the 2 disc version and I love it!! I have been loving reading everyone's opinions and commentaries!! Thank y'all for your posts!!!
Great post - and dare I say more accurate and perceptive than anything the project's "hired guns" have come up with yet...
To some degree, it had: Pink Floyd were flirting with that sort of imagery on Piper: and I think Donovan was as well. I largely agree with Wright's excellent post above, however, and second the confusion as to why the writer of the liner notes felt compelled to contrast the Basement Tapes with his (mangled) interpretation of a Led Zeppelin lyric, when Zeppelin didn't even exist while the Basement Tapes were being recorded.
Reference Sid Griffin's own band the Longryders to see where he's coming from. Americana. Named after a Western. Though what's what that psychedelic "y"? Dylan liked Westerns too, but he was still hanging out with Allen Ginsberg.
Listening again to Northern Claim. Is this based on anything, or is it a true Dylan original? It's a great little song, and I think it could have been a contender for the proper Basement Tapes. But alas, Bob never looked backed. It was probably hard enough for him to do more than one take, let alone consider resurrecting something that had been done a few reels ago! I wonder if Dylan was overwhelmed with the dearth of material flowing out of himself. Far from writer's block, the whole Basement era seems to capture the portrait of a man who can't help but create. Not everything he does is great (my general view is that his originals started off pretty derivative and cliched, quickly peaked with the proper Basement Tapes tracks, and then went down a bit with the later material) but it's all interesting. It's like he couldn't keep up with himself. And then rather than try and make sense of it all, he was content to see his best work farmed out, and then simply abandon it all and work on something brand new (JWH) as if he already had outgrown the basement tracks, or at least had too many new ideas to bother finishing these "old" things.
Good points! It does seem like Griffin is referencing British psychedelia in particular, talking about castles, elves, fairies, and vicars, which are obviously things out of European history and folklore. Though it's worth pointing out that Their Satanic Majesties Request wasn't released until December 1967, postdating the Basement sessions. Still, Griffin may have had that album cover on his mind!
couldn't agree more -- though on the other hand it's been nice, both in the professional reviews and in this thread, not to have to hear complaints about how the Basement Tapes have been historically "underrated"... what's never been released can't have been overlooked!
Right. And, of course, in '67, Dylan was referencing American folklore and national mythology, obviously in the basement songs, but also with the Wild West myth of John Wesley Hardin(g), Tom Paine, the poor immigrant, and other allusions to American history on the John Wesley Harding album. And Brian Wilson was reaching back to the same Old West national mythology on "Heroes and Villains" and "Cabinessence." The liner notes for this set - and Bob's own (apocryphal?) "turn that **** off!" response the first time someone cued up Sgt. Pepper in Woodstock that summer - really reflect a centuries-old American resistance to the dopier Merrye Olde England aspects of British psychedelia, and British antiquarian culture in general (see Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, for example) that dated back both to the British Invasion of 1964 and to the foundation myth of our country rebeling against England. Along those lines, it's perhaps worth recalling the stage backdrop Dylan chose for his "Judas" tour of the U.K. the year before the Basement Tapes: I'm aware of that, but recording of the album began in February '67. "Gomper" was originally titled "The Lady of the Lake," after the Tennyson poem about the Arthurian myth, and traces of that survive in the song's, admittedly oblique, lyric.
I listened closely for Levon on everything, and here's what I came up with. Levon Helm most likely plays on: 01. Nothing Was Delivered (take 3) 02. Ain't No More Cane (take 2) ???? 03. Blowin' In The Wind 04. If I Were A Carpenter 05. It Ain't Me, Babe 06. Mary Lou, I Love You Too 07. Minstrel Boy 08. My Woman She's A Leavin' 09. One Too Many Mornings 10. A Satisfied Mind 11. What's It Gonna Be When It Comes Up 12. Wild Wolf 13. Wildwood Flower 14. One Kind Favor 15. She'll Be Coming 'Round The Mountain 16. It's The Flight Of The Bumblebee 17. Silent Weekend 18. All You Have To Do Is Dream (take 1) 19. All You Have To Do Is Dream (take 2) I think most of these are pretty obvious. It's usually a case where there's Dylan on vocals/acoustic, and dual piano/organ (so Richard & Garth), and Robbie & Rick on their instruments, with drums also. So Levon is there and it's the full lineup. A lot of times in his book Sid Griffin misses the piano, and lists Richard on drums, when there's the dual keyboards and full rhythm section. Although sometimes, he really is correct. For DRESS IT UP, BETTER HAVE IT ALL, Levon is not present... that's Richard on drums and Garth on piano. And I'll continue to listen, but I didn't hear Levon playing on 900 Miles. sounded more like Robbie like Griffin says.
I didn't like it either...lots of threadbare cliches & empty rhetoric, not many facts. And it was peculiar that neither booklet essay managed to give a straightforward chronological account of the sessions. But hey, I didn't get the box set for the liner notes!
That had been Dylan's custom for years... He was used to songs pouring out of him, and leaving lots of them behind, somewhat at random. In 1962 he wrote some 40 songs; in 1963, 30 songs; etc. - a lot of them not captured on albums. 1967 still stands as his most prolific year simply because so much got caught on tape that otherwise never would've lasted past one run-through. Blonde on Blonde got him started on a real writing streak that was almost entirely lost. One journalist visiting his hotel room in April '66 wrote: "I was able to listen to a composing session... Things happened, and six new songs were born. The poetry seemed already to have been written...and out of the imagery, he and the lead guitarist work on a tune." Just three days after he finished recording Blonde on Blonde, Dylan told Al Grossman, "I've got five new songs to tape," and he played a couple of them for Robert Shelton. Pennebaker wrote about the hotel-room writing sessions he witnessed (just a couple songs were filmed), "We'd been up all day and night, but that didn't seem to bother Bob or Robbie. They had no interest in sleeping at all. They were taking whatever you take to stay awake... The effect it had was that Bob worked at ten times the normal speed, but the stuff he got was ten times as fantastic. He and Robbie must have written 35 songs right in a row...making up the words as he went along, like the Basement Tapes. The trouble was, they were so far into what they were doing that they had no time to write any of it down. Occasionally, Bob would stop and make a note, but he just played it and I assumed at the time that he'd remember it later. Unfortunately, I saw him at the piano the next day trying to remember stuff, but without much luck. It was really pitiful to think the songs had disappeared overnight like that. There were a couple songs he'd begin that'd break my heart, but he'd stop and shrug, realizing that he couldn't remember any more, and I'd never hear them again." As he'd do in later years, Dylan just shrugged about the songs that got away. "The songs I don't publish, I usually forget... I have to start over all the time. I can't really keep notes or anything like that." So a journalist's account in spring '67 that Dylan was "writing ten new songs a week" was not too unusual for those years.
Glad you gave it a try! A couple songs might be debatable, but hopefully we can reach a group consensus...
It must be Levon on Dress It Up. There IS organ on it, listen for Garth's stacatto chords right at the end. Admittedly, the organ is buried on that song (it is on Silent Weekend too, though it pops out more here and there), but it's there along with piano and electric guitar. As for 900 Miles....I believe it's from the same session as Minstrel Boy. Listen to the high warbly backing vocals on the title phrase of 900 Miles, and compare to the similar vocal on the last 'Who's gonna throw that minstrel boy a coin'. They're so similar that I believe these two songs must have been recorded together. And if Levon is on the latter, he must be on the former. Also, Minstrel Boy only has Bob's acoustic guitar, some bass and a tiny bit of piano on it, yet Levon's voice is clearly heard, even without a full six instrument line-up to back it up. I believe that 900 Miles is the same instrumental line-up but with the addition of drums. Robbie and Garth don't appear to be instrumentally present on either song, IMO.
This is amazing, but it also sounds pretty miserable to me. I've had seasons where my mind was racing for days and I couldn't rest. It's a horrible feeling. It sounds like Dylan might have lived with that all the time...
