Bob Dylan: "Trouble No More 1979 - 1981" - The Bootleg Series Vol. 13

"This is the BS I've been waiting for, like a lot of folks here it seems.

I was lucky enough to attend a number of the 81 shows, three at Earl's Court, including the Bird's Nest show on the Monday night, and also Avignon at the end of the European jaunt - and it's not an exaggeration to say they changed my life, and continue to. Having also caught Dylan at Earl's Court in 78, where one experienced the shock of him as circus ringmaster - this time was a revelation - literally and metaphorically; so removed from the "show-biz" retrospective of the earlier tour (which was demanding and beautiful in its own way-) and therefore disappointing to many at the time, especially in the tone deaf press.

But if you listened and were receptive, (as in 66) there was an emotional gift on offer as rich and beautiful as anything he's ever given us. From the moment the backing singers opened the show, Earl's Court became a cathedral - no mean achievement . I remember feeling that I was in the presence of something otherworldly - I want to say divine. What he was doing with his vocal range and melodies was so ambitious and dangerous, and achieved with such apparent effortlessness and grace., that you were utterly transported, and on an emotional register largely absent from the wonderful 78 shows.

Listen to I Believe in You on the 26th, or Tambourine Man and Simple Twist from the 29th or In the Garden on any of the nights. For me the common theme here, both in subject matter and presentation, is transcendence - the religious kind obviously, but also the transcendence of performance, applied by this point to the entire catalogue. This was how and where he was able to reconcile the pre and post conversion material. If one ever needed proof that Dylan's deepest religious commitment is to the art of song, and that at his best he's always been a writer and singer of prayers, this (and acoustic 66) is where you'll find it.

I think there was a clue to this in the rewrite of Knockin on Heaven's Door - where "many times before" and a major key change shifted the song's meaning from dirge to prayer. I hope these performances find their way onto BS 13, because truthfully there's nowhere in the official catalogue where this pinnacle of his performing art is available - not even on the three religious albums - and I want a final, demonstrable answer to the idiots who patronise his singing at the expense of his writing.

As far as I'm concerned Dylan's art is and was completely unified, and if you're going to give him the Nobel for literature you might as well give him two more for singing and playing the harmonica as well. Of course 79, 80, and 81 each tell a different story and altogether represent an immense progression - to an artistic plateau I think he never quite reached before or since.

I don't know how you do justice to this in 3 discs, or even 6. (Perhaps 18 0r 36 might do it, but I don't think it's likely.) Then again Tell Tale Signs was a pretty wonderful compendium so perhaps the curators will be able to pull if off again. Personally, and even though I know every performance, I can't wait to see what they give us.

Thank you Sony (and BD.)"

Great post. Paragraphed for reading.

 

No, I think you've made a fair point here and one to wish I can completely empathise with. I actually consider that Sony raking through the archives for 79-81 material is a mistake. It won't be well received outside the US, even by modern 'Dylan Is Teflon' critics and this was one of his least popular phases for a very good reason. The songs are clumsy and didactic, well below earlier standards and Dylan is no gospel singer or writer. He knew that and quickly moved on. The songs are quite brutal and finger-pointing but who were they aimed at, the audience or non-believers? Clearly non-fans weren't tuning in so presumably the former were the intended target which makes them also potentially insulting and / or a complete turn-off. That video posted here with the 7 minute intro is just plain irritating (get on with the song, Bob, and stop preaching nonsense) before the sight of Dylan dancing actually made me laugh. The fact that he dropped the whole Bible thumping within two years because God doesn't sell enough records also gives the whole era a real sense of falseness and lack of sincerity. Many will disagree, I'm sure, but like you I will pass on this and it will be the first BS I've missed altogether. Unlike Another Self Portrait I can't see how this period can be critically re-evaluated.

 

Songs performed live 1979-81:

Songs from Slow Train Coming, Saved & Shot of Love:
Are You Ready?
Covenant Woman
Dead Man, Dead Man
Do Right To Me Baby (Do Unto Others)
Every Grain Of Sand
Gonna Change My Way Of Thinking
Gotta Serve Somebody
Heart Of Mine
I Believe In You
In The Garden
In The Summertime
Lenny Bruce
Man Gave Names To All The Animals
Precious Angel
Pressing On
Saved
Saving Grace
Shot Of Love
Slow Train
Solid Rock
The Groom's Still Waiting At The Altar
Watered-Down Love
What Can I Do For You?
When He Returns
When You Gonna Wake Up

New Dylan originals (with copyright date):
Ain’t No Man Righteous, No Not One (©Special Rider Music, 29 May 1979)
Ain't Gonna Go To Hell For Anybody (©Special Rider Music, 23 May 1979)
Blessed Be The Name (©Special Rider Music, 12 November 1979)
Caribbean Wind (©Special Rider Music, 27 October 1980)
City Of Gold (©Special Rider Music, 22 December 1980)
Cover Down, Break Through (©Special Rider Music, 23 May 1980)
Let's Keep It Between Us (©Special Rider Music, 27 October 1980)
Thief On The Cross (©Special Rider Music, 19 March 1982)
I Will Love Him (©Special Rider Music, 23 May 1980)
Jesus Is The One (©Special Rider Music, 23 July 1982)

Covers:
A Couple More Years (Shel Silverstein/Dennis Locorriere)
Abraham, Martin And John (Dick Holler)
Fever (Eddie Cooley/John Davenport)
Here Comes The Sun (George Harrison)
Barbara Allen (Trad.)
I Will Sing (Max Dyer)
It's All In The Game (Carl Sigman/Charles Dawes)
Just A Little Bit (Thornton / Bass / Brown /Washington)
Let It Be Me (M. Curtis / G. Becaud / P. Delanoe)
Let's Begin (Jimmy Webb)
Mary Of The Wild Moor (Trad.)
Rise Again (Dallas Holm)
We Just Disagree (Jim Krueger)

"The old songs"
A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
All Along The Watchtower
Ballad Of A Thin Man
Blowin' In The Wind
Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
Forever Young
Girl From The North Country
I Don't Believe You
I Want You
I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
It Ain't Me, Babe
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)
Just Like A Woman
Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
Knockin' On Heaven's Door
Lay Lady Lay (instrumental)
Like A Rolling Stone
Love Minus Zero/No Limit
Maggie's Farm
Masters Of War
Mr. Tambourine Man
Señor (Tales Of Yankee Power)
She Belongs To Me
Simple Twist Of Fate
The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll
The Times They Are A-Changin'
To Ramona

Others:
Gamblin' Man (Sung by the backing singers)
Gypsy Blood (Sung by Steve Ripley, Milwaukee, October 16, 1981)
Happy Birthday (Bethlehem, PA, October 25, 1981))
No Money Down (Sung by Larry Kegan with Dylan on saxophone, Merillville, October 19 and Boston, October 21, 1981)
Nobody's Fault But Mine (Sung by Maria Muldaur, San Francisco, November 19, 1980)
The Rose (Sung by the backing singers)
Till I Get It Right (Sung by Regina McCrary)

 

Rehearsal list, Rundown Studio, 1980. Dylan sent Neil Diamond a recording of "Sweet Caroline."

 

I'm not so sure that a Gospel Bootleg Series would be U.S.-centric -- Bob's got lots of fans all over the world, and I doubt many of them anywhere are fans purely for the Christian music. If you like this period (as I do), it's for the passion behind this unique phase in his career -- and the strength of the songs -- and not because you were personally converted by the message.

I have to disagree here, on a number of levels. Yes, some of the most fervent Christian songs are a little ham-fisted -- but so were some of the folk-period "finger-pointing" songs. But some of the songs were beautiful in a way that he had never approached before ("Precious Angel," "Covenant Woman," "Every Grain Of Sand"), and some of them could have been written at any phase of his career -- is "Slow Train" that much different from "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall"? As for Bob being "no gospel writer," I used to think that he was mainly creating his own sub-genre of "gospel" music, but then I heard the Gotta Serve Somebody tribute CD and I realized that he wrote a whole bunch of really great, genuinely "real" gospel songs. You don't need to be a Christian to be moved by songs like "Saving Grace" or "Pressing On." And while Bob might not be what you think of as a "gospel singer," I'd just say that he sang gospel music the same way he sang rock music -- as nobody else had or could. Admittedly (for me), this period has him veering into my least-favorite Dylan "vocal era" -- the pinched, nasal, high-pitched 1980s voice -- but his voice was still strong and powerful, and the raw emotion in "When He Returns" and "Angelina" (and many others) is arguably unmatched in his catalog.

No doubt, there is definitely some stuff in the gospel period that won't have aged well -- but that's why the Bootleg Series team "curates" these releases. It was no accident that there was no Under The Red Sky material on TTS, or Dylan (1973) tracks on ASP -- even though I would have preferred having both included -- but Mr. Rosen et al. are painting a portrait here, not taking a photograph. Sure, some of the long Christian rants will cause some eye-rolling, but a lot of the on-stage commentary and tension from the audience is just as riveting as the 1966 concerts we all can't wait to dig into. I think it could be argued that some of his stoned rambling from 1966 hasn't aged too well either -- but I wouldn't want them scrubbed from the record.

It's common in any conversion experience to go through a euphoric "evangelistic" period, where you can't shut up about it and try to convince everyone around you that they need to accept your new views -- and adopt them too. That usually either settles into a less overt personal contentment, or fizzles out over time. Dylan himself has dismissed the very idea of him having a "Christian phase" -- I don't have the exact quote handy, but he said something like, "Who says I ever changed back?" When I listen to a song like "Ain't Talkin'," it seems more likely to me that his so-called "Christian phase" is still ongoing, but it's settled into a quieter, more non-denominational sense of apocalyptic doom -- not unlike where he seemed to be spiritually in the early '60s.

Dylan fans have long said that the three main "Christian" albums don't do justice to the music or the fervor of the period, and since there has been no official live album(s) from that period, I think that "Gospel Bob" can absolutely be critically re-evaluated. I know that "You Changed My Life" was one of my favorite songs on BS1-3, and I still pine for an official release of "Yonder Comes Sin." A handful of amazing songs only got recorded live, and those deserve to be added to the official canon. I think the Gotta Serve Somebody tribute CD was actually the first step by Bob Inc. to gently remind the public of this oft-derided phase, and I think a gospel-themed BS13 will find an audience. Heck, Self Portrait was one of the most despised and ridiculed albums of ALL TIME, and now that whole period is widely seen with a new respect. If they can pull that off, anything is possible.

 

You could definitely make a case for that. But I think Street Legal is such a unique entry in Bob's discography, and there's such a variety of material (both studio and live) from 1977-1978, that it would be positioned very well to have its own dedicated BS entry.

 

I really love reading your posts, Sean, as they are so full of enthusiasm and conviction! Dylan himself would be proud of your rigorous defence. Clearly you view this period differently to me and you and many others will definitely get something from BS13 as a result. You mention A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall and Slow Train together but to my ears the former sounds more like the words of a prophecy, full of drama and stark warning and it has real poetic power whilst the latter sounds more like the ranting of an embittered, slightly closeted fool who on occasion sings lines that would make todays politically correct-minded individuals squirm uncomfortably. Don't get me wrong, I actually like the Slow Train Coming album but it marks the point of departure for me until Oh Mercy. I agree that Christian imagery features in all the following albums and in some ways Oh Mercy is a 'perfect' (better) follow up to Slow Train Coming but I just consider the open-minded poet with worldly views who wrote Hard Rain was largely absent in-between. I always thought Dylan's writing reflected an open view of humanity but around this period he rammed home the fundamentalist agenda more as a manifesto.

 

Speaking of Bob maintaining his viewpoint of "apocalyptic doom", I wonder if he feels that his '79-'80 statements about us collectively "living in The End Times" were right, but the end was just miscalculated as years instead of decades. One of the predictions Bob put forth from the stage was that Russia would invade The Middle East, setting off the final battle. I wonder what he thinks of today's current events when he's eating his corn flakes.

 

Heart of Mine - Avignon 1981

 

Disappointing news. Slow Train had a few good songs but I never listen to it now. Saved collects more dust. Can't listen to the lyrics at all. This is the first one I will pass on.

 

Well, if Bob Inc. wanted to go all-in on a Street Legal mega-box that included the subsequent tour, I certainly wouldn't complain -- particularly if the legendary (apocryphal?) piano demos exist. I'm not a great student of that tour, but from what I've read the Budokon album isn't a good representation of the whole tour, and if they released a show from the END of that tour you'd have a completely different opinion of it. I'd be interested in hearing that. Personally, I only think SL is half a great album, and if I had to put it into an "era" of Bob's career (thematically and lyrically), it points more towards the gospel phase, rather than being the end of the "divorce" phase (Planet Waves through Rolling Thunder). So far, Rosen and Co. haven't focused an entire BS set on one album or album/tour combo; even the "holy grail" level Blonde On Blonde sessions project turned into a "rock trilogy" set.

I'm not sure Street Legal is the album they want to center an entire BS set on -- if there is such an album, it would probably be Blood On The Tracks. My fear is that, like JWH and Under The Red Sky, SL will get overlooked completely, and not fit into either a BOTT-themed or a Gospel-themed BS set. If that possibility was at risk -- i.e., if a SL-themed set was off the table entirely -- I'd encourage Rosen to include SL with the Christian period.

Incidentally, I have a very small personal interest in seeing the Street Legal period get its day in the sun. My dad was in a band with Billy Cross in the mid-60s; they played mostly weddings and parties and stuff like that, cut a couple of demos, and released one regional single. My dad joined the Navy and got into computer programming, and Billy followed his rock and roll dreams and of course ended up playing guitar on SL and the 1978 tour. Billy is still out there making music, living in Europe, and he's a really nice guy. It would be fun to see his time with Bob get some love.

 

I agree that there was more of a future for Bob the "open-minded poet" -- creatively and commercially -- and I'm also glad he evolved from the hard-line Christian of 1979-1981 into the more non-sectarian apocalyptic prophet of Infidels-present. I wouldn't suggest that this was a calculated pivot to save his career, however, and I reject the common shorthand that he either reverted to Judaism or re-converted to secularism. I think the truth is much more complicated, and now that he mostly keeps his views to himself, it feels intrusive to even speculate about it. I also think Bob has plenty of views that would be considered politically incorrect -- just read his recent RS interviews -- but he's not preaching under the evangelical banner anymore. He's more like America's cranky, beloved grandpa who we should probably listen to more closely than we actually do.

 

My preference would definitely EXCLUDE "Street Legal" material from any "Gospel Years" set. I could see maybe dipping a toe into 1978 for the embryonic "Slow Train" and "Do Right To Me Baby" (assuming acceptable recordings exist), or even the Biblical-tinged "Tangled Up in Blue". But there is plenty of '78 material (demos, studio, tour rehearsals, tour) to stand completely on its own one day down the road.

 

I think for a planet with a human history thousands of years old, "end times" should always be seen in the long term, not the short term. Without getting into the weeds of the politics, Russia did indeed invade the Middle East in the early '80s, and it was part of a chain of events that put us where we are today. None of these crises or wars happened in a vacuum. You don't have to be a prophet to predict that if mankind will destroy itself, the Middle East will be a big part of it. If there is such a thing as "the end times," look for it to take decades (if not centuries), and not years.

 

While I'm on the side of the whole gospel period being of questionable quality, if this Series has taught me anything it's to hold off on pre-judging until having a chance to listen to the set. If Another Self Portrait proved anything it's that songs that were written off as sub-par can suddenly shine in a different setting. Perhaps a set placing the gospel years in a different light, with demos and live cuts, might do the same.

 

If I could know for sure that Street Legal and the tour would be addressed by the Bootleg Series, then sure -- leave them off the Gospel Years set. But if the option is either include SL/1978 partially in BS13 or overlook it altogether, I'll take what I can get.

 

Bootleg Series Vol. 13, hmm, unlucky 13 will be from my least favourite Dylan period. I only owned the albums for the first time when my lovely wife bought me the complete album collection box. Will I miss No 13? Na, I better get those CDs out the box. Say a little prayer for me.

 

I don't think that 1979 Dylan would agree with your point of view. My impression is that he was speaking of The End Times with great urgency. He was throwing all his other music aside and telling you about Jesus because this was an emergency.

 

Not that it's a great tragedy and the whole supply of Bootleg Series 10 needs to be recalled, but in retrospect, including "Minstrel Boy" on there was very short-sighted. It clearly belongs with The Basement Tapes, and now sits redundantly on BS10 throughout future time. Have faith that '78 will get its own day in the sun, certainly before 2029.

 

Don't agree with your example here. The "Minstrel Boy" demo on BS10 answered a long standing argument about the song's origins, and thus solved one of Self Portrait's enduring mysteries. Instead of simply reading the information in liner notes, we got to hear it for ourselves, and it was pretty cool.

I like the idea of the various BS volumes not assuming each purchaser has all of the previous volumes. It might result in some redundancy, but ultimately I'd perfer each new installment to pursue it's central concept as well as possible.

 

Oh yeah, absolutely -- I didn't mean to imply that Bob was thinking long-term when he was talking about the End Times in 1979. Any prophet worth his salt is only going to get traction with URGENCY -- who would listen if you say, "Look out, everybody, in a couple of hundred years we're going to regret this!" And that's why I'm not a prophet...

 

I can see your point, and also Dee's (who says the basement "Minstrel Boy" DID belong on ASP); I could go either way, but at least -- IF you believe putting it on ASP was short-sighted -- they didn't compound the "mistake" by leaving it off of BS11 too. Then the decision would REALLY be glaring. I think a bigger "recall BS10" movement could be built on the omission of the 1970 "Tomorrow Is A Long Time" or the original b-side version of "Spanish Is The Loving Tongue."

 

But on the other hand it's in mono there, and I'm glad to have it so. To me there's something nicer to hear when the band comes in fully, it all fits together just a bit better. That's what I like about it, anyway.

 

Knowing that the Basement Tapes were in the BS pipeline, they could have answered the question in the BS10 liner notes, then answered it aurally on BS11. Cue the long-lost oompa loompa song about having patience (the one cut from the film, that will be on the Willy Wonka Copyright Extension box).

 

I'm not sure that they actually knew The Basement Tapes set was coming at the time of BS10. I have absolutely zero insider information here, but it struck me that BS11 was conceived on relatively short notice. But after the deal with Jan Haust was made, I think the dominos fell into place immediately.

And even if they knew what was coming, I still maintain "Minstrel Boy" had a place on ASP. If the two discs were filled to maximum capacity, I could understand why folks may argue for one track or another. But as it stands, there is more than enough room for most every arguably relevant track to join the party.