"Dylan" (1973): Track-By-Track Discussion

Good analysis! The timing was important, and I think the minimal effort and poor choices in compiling the album don't necessarily indicate a "revenge" album. Rolling Stone may have thought so, but then they also thought Self Portrait was a sick joke. I'm not sure if the two albums should really be evaluated that differently. As a marketing move, the success of Self Portrait (in sales, if not in the music press) would have led Columbia to pick "more of the same" for this new product.

As mentioned before, I think Self Portrait was Dylan's best-selling album at that point, so from the corporate perspective, putting together a Self Portrait vol. 2 would have been an obvious move. I agree with RayS that it wasn't sabotage, just a business decision that had nothing to do with musical quality. And as a rush release, no one spent time trawling through the vaults looking for the "best" material - they picked some finished takes from the most recent Columbia sessions, after a probably hasty and not very thorough search of a few reels, and slapped together enough for an album. A "contemporary" Dylan cover collection must have seemed like a much wiser choice to the Columbia suits than a collection of '60s outtakes.

Since Dylan compiled GH2 himself, it seems he had a better perspective of his older material than Columbia did! (Raising the phantom prospect of what Dylan might have picked for the Dylan album if he'd made the selections.) But the intent of Dylan wasn't to present older material. Maybe if he'd never come back to Columbia they would have got around to more archival releases. But if they'd rejected original Basement Tapes tracks on GH2 just for 'sound quality concerns,' I can imagine that any '60s compilation they might have done would have been equally bizarre.

I'm not sure the lack of original songs means much. If they were only looking at '69-70 outtakes, how many original Dylan songs would there be? This seems like mostly coincidence to me (though leaving off even the modest 'Wallflower' may have been intentional). I'm guessing only a few Dylan session tapes were checked, for the most finished or 'produced'-sounding tracks; ragged stuff like the delightful Pat Garrett outtakes wouldn't even have been considered. But Dylan covering Elvis and recent pop hits? Automatic inclusions!

And I wonder....what record companies in 1973 were releasing '60s outtakes of any current performers? That kind of idea might not even have occurred to them. The whole idea was that this album would sound like "new" Dylan. It would take Dylan himself a couple more years to release original Basement Tapes material (and then with many overdubs & additional Band tracks to sweeten it up).

 

Thank you for this! I think you give a pretty convincing account of how it probably went down.

L.

 

Great catch, from a credible witness, too (Clive Davis) -- although, the characterization of the Dylan album as "shoddy" is presumably Clive's opinion and not necessarily indicative of Columbia's intent.

I'm pretty sure Bob would still be entitled to performance royalties regardless of what label he was on at the time.

I remember reading that Dylan had hand-picked the bonus tracks on GH2 -- maybe even the whole set? My point in mentioning the live 1963 track is that CBS must have known that they had the shelved In Concert LP prepped and ready to go -- unless they thought it was really important to release a "contemporary" Dylan album, surely this would have been easier to dust off and release than trawling through the New Morning sessions? But the "CBS wanted a contemporary release" theory is a sound one to me, so maybe it was that simple.

Not sure about the ownership of the Basement Tapes at this point (1973). There was the Garth Hudson mono mix demo LP, but maybe that technically still belonged to Garth or to Bob's publishing company. Columbia may not have had permission to release it. But if they really wanted to take the wind out of Dylan's 1974 tour with The Band, they could have released the 1966 Free Trade Hall show as competition -- another tape they had just sitting there in the vault.

Great stuff throughout your post and the more people keep saying it, the more I have to consider that Columbia did want a "contemporary" Dylan album that would be in line with New Morning and the current hit, "Knockin' On Heaven's Door." Still, it's hard to shake the whiff of sabotage when they skipped the piano "Loving Tongue" in favor of the Self Portrait outtake; and (as we know from BS10) the same "shallow dive" into the New Morning sessions contained other, better tracks than what they put on there. On top of it all, the whole thing wasn't mixed as well as New Morning, as demonstrated by "Saro Jane."

Just curious -- what is on the so-called "Bootleg Series Vol. 0"? The numbering makes me think that if this was Neil Young's catalog, he would have re-branded Dylan as "Bootleg Series Vol. -1," The Basement Tapes (1975) as "Bootleg Series Vol. 0" and then picked it up with Vols. 1-3 in 1991...

 

Maybe Bob Johnston initially picked tracks for "Dylan" that he produced, or at least got producer credit for, so that he would make more money that way? Was he getting producer royalties from Columbia at that point, or at least more money when something he produced was issued as an album?

 

Interesting question. Was Johnston even involved in the compilation process, other than receiving an "Original Recording Sessions Produced By" credit?

 

This does seem like an insane choice. But as the released B-side of a single, it's possible the piano version wasn't considered and the album was meant to be all-new material. It's also possible that the producers weren't entirely clueless and thought that including an 'alternate version' would add value for Dylan fans. (And, not knowing how many reels were checked or listened to, there's no telling how many of the Another Self Portrait outtakes the compilers even heard.)
Though artistically I'd favor the "they were completely insane" option, still, there is a case to be made for Columbia's rational (if inartistic) decision-making on this album.

 

This observation from Clive Davis about Columbia capitalising on the tour is a cast-iron certainty and oft repeated by the the biography writers. "Dylan" sold better in the U.S. than anywhere else, the sales no doubt being affected positively by the prospect of Bob returning to the stage. But if Columbia suits had the notion that "Dylan" might blunt the impact of "Planet Waves", well, they certainly failed that audition. The impact of "Planet Waves" after the fare offered by "Dylan" was like that of the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs. Geffen, I recall, described it (erroneously, as it happens) to an enquiring journalist as "like "Blonde on Blonde"..." and there was much other over-the-top raving about it at the time which would have guaranteed sales, even of an album released just a couple of months after "Dylan". If anything, "Planet Waves" blunted the (sales) impact of "Dylan"; Columbia released "Dylan" just in time for it not to be swamped by "Planet Waves".

 

Yes; but as you point out "Volume 0" is unofficial. Good, but unofficial.

 

In the UK, the first pressing described "Sarah Jane" as "Traditional". On subsequent pressings (once Bob was back in the fold, and even though it was alleged that he demanded the album be deleted) it was labelled as "Traditional arr.Bob Dylan". The 1991 CD notes describe it as "Pending". The notes in the Complete Album Collection Vol. 1 say, "arr. B. Dylan".

(Mind you, it has not been unknown for Columbia/CBS/Sony to have their knickers in a twist for part or most of the time during the last, oh, fifty years or so....)

 

Could be, but it also weakens the theory that Columbia only wanted to dip into the shallow end of Bob's vault -- i.e., the most recent album sessions -- since they included two Self Portrait outtakes.

An aside -- let's not overestimate the "great sales" of Self Portrait in the conception and compilation of the Dylan (1973) album. It was certified "Gold" in June 1970 -- and it remains stalled as a Gold record 47 years later. And as a double LP, it really only sold half that many copies, but counted as two units each. So I will continue to question the wisdom of assembling a prototype Another Self Portrait and claiming with a straight face that (a) it was a "good" Bob Dylan album, and (b) that it would sell well because Self Portrait did.

That said, I've had "Sarah Jane" in my head all day, and I just listened to Dylan (1973) all the way through with no trouble. I discovered during the BS10 aftermath that I really appreciate the whole period most when I line up the songs chronologically, in the order they were recorded. The progression of the arrangements, performances and Bob's voice all sounds more logical this way, and it all kind of makes a weirdly perfect sense. It's legitimately fun, and not just a guilty pleasure!

 

Yes, it was "Pending" that I was remembering (from my old cassette issue).

 

It just occurred to me that I/we (and Olaf and Krogsgaard) have mentioned the "overdubs" on this record without specifying or guessing what the overdubs actually are. As far as I know there is no studio record of them happening.

Before @RayS leads us into a discussion about Ira Hayes, and before Mark Spector grants me an email interview and sends me copies of all his contemporaneous notes, I wonder if anyone would like to make some guesses regarding the overdubs on the first three songs. I'm useless at this kind of thing, primarily because I'm mostly deaf and have to listen to music at low volume levels without headphones, thereby missing plenty of data.

"Lily of the West": The "harpsichord" tinkling thing, and even the bass, perhaps?

"Can't Help Falling In Love": The picked guitar solo, perhaps? Background vocals?

"Sarah Jane": Piano flourishes?

Like I say, I'm useless at this kind of thing. Wondering now why I even brought it up...

 

Wrapping up Side 1:

"The Ballad of Ira Hayes" (Peter La Farge)

Unfortunately I couldn't find an online video clip of Dylan's original performance.

Here's a somewhat loose rehearsal of the song with The Grateful Dead in 1987:

@2:01:48



To my personal taste, this is the unquestioned highlight of "Dylan". I find Dylan's version to be the definitive performance, easily outdistancing the author's performance, and Johnny Cash's well-known cover. Dylan nails the vocal and for my money this is the most appropriate use of the backing singers on "Dylan". If the documentation on Olof's page is correct, this is a one take wonder.

 

Peter La Farge's version:

 

Johnny Cash's version:



Dylan's version seems to walk the line between La Farge's and Cash's version, but it's interesting hear (particularly during the choruses) how much a lot of "Dylan" and "Self Portrait" bears a sonic resemblance to this performance.

 

Another crossing of Peter La Farge, Bob Dylan, and Johnny Cash:



Apparently Dylan was present when La Farge wrote the lyric for this song, and provided the music to create a co-composition. (An odd notion, considering 1962 Bob Dylan had no shortage of lyrics but was constantly recycling traditional melodies.)

Cash covered this on the same album ("Bitter Tears") that contains his version of "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" (plus 3 more La Farge covers).

 

Ira Hayes

 

This and the track that follows are the highlights for me, and both great examples of how Dylan can see into the heart of a song and present its essence. Dylan's version of Ira Hayes here is certainly the definitive version, as Ray mentions. It eliminates the sing-songiness that afflicts and the original and especially the Cash version, and in doing so Dylan puts across a more human and tragic picture.

 

I do like Dylan's performance.... but i don't like the song at all... the kind of deadweight lyrics that Bob would never have come up with and which give protest a bad name. Apologies if it is regarded as some kind of classic, but not for me, at least one verse too long and i can't wait for it to finish.

 

I like this song and performance. At the time I first heard it when I purchased a copy of Dylan I had not heard the song before but it was instantly memorable and of course reminded me of all the protest Dylan I was also listening to as I bought all the early Dylan albums and some bootlegs. As an aside that June 1st recording date looks like a great tape to hear one day.

 

Hi,

I dug out the "Dylan" from the box, and it's funny how the disc label is super-perfunctory, red Columbia label with the word "Dylan" on it and nowt else.

My theory on the lack of Dylan written songs, I doubt highly that CBS were trying to limit the money going to Bob as if the money isn't going to him, then it's still going to the original writer (e.g. Joni), or whoever was responsible for the "arr" (i.e. Bob).

My theory is that if they had chosen anything actually written by Bob and unpublished up to that point, then his publisher could have blocked the release of the album quite easily.

 

No, it's a good question. If there are any overdubs (and what's the source saying there is any?), then I'd say that your guesses are the more likely ones. I had thought that maybe the bass on LOTW follows Dylan's chord changes maybe a little too well... but I'm not sure. I'm not convinced that there are that many overdubs on this album.

Speaking of Lily Of The West, I've been going around the house singing this - though it sometimes mutates into As I Went Out One Morning, a song whose opening melody is very similar to LOTW (I'm sure there are lots of similar songs if I started looking)...

 

The Ballad of Ira Hayes - CO106777

As @RayS states, this song was recorded in one complete take on the afternoon of 01 June, 1970 after a little time was spent warming up with 5 takes of "Alligator Man" (2 complete, 2 false starts and a completed take but with the start missing). This one-take wonder of "Ira Hayes" was pulled to the master reel.

Here is the Tape Identification Data Sheet for that part of the session:-


According to Clinton Heylin, in his book "Behind Closed Doors: The Recording Sessions [1960 - 1994]", the first sequenced version of "New Morning" contained "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" as Track 2 on Side 1 (the opener was going to be "Mr. Bojangles", which I'm not allowed to mention yet. ).
Apparently, another attempt at sequencing "New Morning", labelled on a sheet as "Al's Mix" (referring presumably to Al Kooper in his role as de facto producer), had "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" as the final track on Side 2.

Bear in mind that there are a number of people who believe that Clinton's book contains a not-inconsiderable amount of speculation on his part, as well as demonstrable fiction, so we probably should be cautious; we don't want to be accused by anyone of making an assumption. But, if the information is correct, it indicates that "New Morning" was originally conceived as "Self Portrait Vol.2" and that Bob was happy to at least consider an official release of this song while he was contracted to Columbia.

#

 

... and continuing the 'borrowed melodies' - The Ballad Of Ira Hayes seems to have directly influenced the tune of Bob's own The Man In Me (cut later in the sessions). The chord progression is the same, just played a bit faster on the latter song. Bob's spoken vocal on Ira Hayes could also be seen as a dry run for his own If Dogs Run Free.

 

The ballad of Ira Hayes certanely is one of the true highlights on Dylan. I truly admire both Johnny Cash and LeFarges version but Dylan's attempt is (almost) just as good.
This is a truly great songs with lyrics that hits hard. Today it might be hard to understand how controversial this topic was at the time Cash recorded it. Not only that he recorded a whole album with the same topic. One must give Cash credit for that.
Anyway a great version of a very important song