Bob Dylan Album-by-Album/Song-by-Song 1963-Present

Well the day has come (and taking a bit of inspiration from another member here) I plan on covering every Bob Dylan song day by day. I am by no means a total expert on Dylan (might need some help along the way) however I have wanted to do this for a while so we will see how it goes.

I will say I plan on doing this slightly differently from what you may be used to with other similar threads in that I will not be going chronologically on when the song was recorded, rather when it was released so for example songs released on bootleg series 1-3 will be upheld when we get to discussing that set though they may have been recorded in the 60s. This just makes things easier for me.

I will not be gathering scores nor providing detailed statisics just to make things a tad more painless and discussion is more paramount to me anyways, albums will be discussed as a whole after all songs have been discussed in a 1 day discussion after the fact and live albums will also be 1 day affairs. We will discuss alternate takes/versions when we discuss the relevant song.

I also only plan to go for releases (bootleg series included) up to 2012, this is going to be a little more of a amaturish song by song than you may be used to what with the changes however I will gauge the interest as man do I love talking about Dylan.

If everyone is happy with this I would like to start right now with the first chronological release by Bob Dylan......courtesy of wikipedia some info below



Bob Dylan is the debut studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on March 19, 1962 by Columbia Records. The album was produced by Columbia talent scout John H. Hammond, who had earlier signed Dylan to the label, a controversial decision at the time. The album primarily features folk standards but also includes two original compositions, "Talkin' New York" and "Song to Woody". The latter was an ode to Woody Guthrie, a significant influence in Dylan's early career.

The album did not initially receive much attention, but it achieved some popularity following the growth of Dylan's career, charting in the UK three years after its release, reaching #13.

Songs to be discussed in order will be:

1. "You're No Good" Jesse Fuller 1:40
2. "Talkin' New York" Bob Dylan 3:20
3. "In My Time of Dyin'" Traditional, arranged by Dylan 2:40
4. "Man of Constant Sorrow" Traditional, arranged by Dylan 3:10
5. "Fixin' to Die" Bukka White 2:22
6. "Pretty Peggy-O" Traditional, arranged by Dylan 3:23
7. "Highway 51" Curtis Jones 2:52
8."Gospel Plow" Traditional, arranged by Dylan 1:47
9. "Baby, Let Me Follow You Down" Traditional, arranged by Eric Von Schmidt 2:37
10. "House of the Risin' Sun" Traditional, arranged by Dave Van Ronk 5:20
11. "Freight Train Blues" John Lair, arranged by Mississippi Fred McDowell, the remastered version was arranged by Dylan 2:18
12. "Song to Woody" Dylan 2:42
13. "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" Blind Lemon Jefferson 2:43

Non album singles/extra songs for the era:

N/A

*Please let me know if I missed anything released at the time for this era


I will post the first song shortly.

 

*I will however be rating songs on the familar 1-5 basis of other threads 1 worst/5 best (though scores will still not be gathered or tallied)

 

Todays song "You're No Good" Written by Jesse Fuller



Background:

"You're No Good" is a song by Jesse Fuller that appeared as the opening track on Bob Dylan's eponymous debut album (1962). Eight takes were recorded by Dylan on November 20, 1961. He learnt the song directly from Fuller in Denver; Fuller's own recorded version was not released until May 13, 1963, on his album San Francisco Bay Blues. The song concerns the narrator's difficult relationship with a woman, and concludes with the narrator wanting to "lay down and die". Dylan's version is more uptempo than Fuller's, and has some changes to the lyrics.

Alternates:

No alternates have been officially released/this does not seem to have been played live.

 

Jesse Fuller Version:

 

You're No Good

First track, first album. I have always liked the way this album starts I like the somewhat aggressive guitar work for this song and I think the harmonica fills are quite tasteful as mentioned above this has lyrical differences to Fullers version which was not released till over a year after I think Dylans version is better however Fullers isn't too bad the faster pace serves the song well.

3/5

 

going to give this a bump as I am still trying to gauge interest before I continue

 

This will be a massive and maddening task. Good luck with it.

 

I dig Dylan's first album.
He plays with a wild abandon that he never did again on his records.

 

Perhaps stick with "officially released", otherwise.... Good luck indeed, a brave undertaking

 

Yeah provided interest is there I will as said in initial post go in release order rather than recording date of songs as that would be confusing (especially as a recent acolyte to the Dylan cult) I'll give this thread a day or so to see interest in rating the first song/interest in general than hopefully enough people are on board and I'll continue.

 

Maybe you should consider doing it on an album by album basis. Tackling it song by song might be challenging.

 

His self-titled first album was one of the last I acquired in his catalog. I never heard it until a couple of years ago as his early stuff just didn't interest me as much his '70s material and post-TOOM. But it has really grown on me. I picked up the MoFi mono vinyl (and then the stereo just to make things complete) and I think they have a great sound. Prefer the mono for obvious reasons. His playing and singing style is different than what came after. You're No Good starts it off nicely.

I agree with going album-by-album so if I may, I like his self-penned songs on the album and think they fit in well. Talkin New York is humorous and Song to Woody poignant. He had to get it out of the way for what came next.

 

Yeah, I get what you are saying but me being stubborn as a mule would love this thread to be song-by-song and I won't have it any other way I like the rating songs on a 1-5 basis while discussing them individually of similar threads and find it to be really engaging to me.

 

I had never heard this album in it's entirety until about three years ago, didn't care much for it at first, except for a couple of tracks, but it's grown on me with each listen.

I'd rate ''You're No Good'' a 3/5 as well.

 

I think it's in his book where Dylan says he should have put more of his own songs on the debut album.
He says he was well beyond the material on the record by the time it was released and that is made abundantly clear with 'Freewheelin' '.

 

Regardless, i think the album does have a rawness to it that sets it apart from every other Dylan album, and some of his best vocal performances.

 

I agree "House of the rising sun" is one of the best Dylan vocal performances in his career. (cross that bridge when we come to it)

 

There have been great "combo" threads, album-by-album, song-by-song.
You might find Dylan's debut might discourage you on a song-by-song basis participation wise. I'm a big Dylan fan, but his first four albums (I mostly play selected songs, not the whole albums) are not when I changed from fan to fanatic
Your thread, you choice of course, and again,

 

It's actually the reason for me buying the album...the MONO vinyl.

 

Alright, so while thinking over a glass of Bourbon earlier I have decided to take the advice of my fellow posters and go album by album for the first four in a effort to get this thread off the ground so the way this thread is now going to go is:

A Three day discussion each on the following:

1. Bob Dylan (1962) - effective from right now till April 30th

2. The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963) - starting May 1st

3. The Times They Are a-Changin' (1963)

4. Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964)
Starting from Bringing It All Back Home we will be going on a song-by-song basis as originally intended. I will post my overall thoughts on the debut in a follow up post soon in the meantime feel free to give your thoughts and 1-5 score. ta-ta for now.

 

This is going to be an interesting thread. 2012 should get covered in about thirty years.

 

So here we go my thoughts on:

Bob Dylan (1962)

I like some also did not like this album very much when I first heard it, however with time I have grown to like it a lot this is a great album considering the off the cuff nature of the whole thing and obviously if you start to fall into the trap of drawing comparisons to his later work (one I fell into upon intial exploration of the discography) the whole thing will seem worse than it actually is. You really have to look at this album for what it actually is, a young coffee house folk-singer paying homage (sometimes a little too closely) to his Idols.

Now the songs while being mostly covers range from very good (House of the risin' sun) to uh not so good (Gospel Plow) however there is one thing that remains consistent with all of these covers of which I believe mostly also formed a part of his coffee house repertoire at the time and that is that there is a certain ferociousness to the playing on these pieces, a real conviction if you like pieces like "Fixin to Die" and "Highway 51 Blues" are sung with real fire behind them but then almost as a contrast we get a almost playful rendition on a song like "Pretty Peggy - O" and on the subject of the covers on this album I simply must mention the crown jewel of this album worth the cost of admission alone "House of the risin' sun" forget The Animals this version is where it's at! I will echo a sentiment I read in research for this album and one I mentioned earlier in this thread and that is that there is a case to be made for this being one of the best vocal performances of his career, the sheer rawness of this performance is something to behold especially from someone so young.

The two Dylan originals on this album are great though I concur with the man himself that he should have added more. "Talking new york" has that great Talkin' Blues autobiographical nature to it and "Song to Woody" an ode to perhaps one of Dylan's greatest early influences I like the fact this song uses a melody of one of Woody's songs.

I like to think of Dylan albums in trilogy's however this one stands out to me as if I were to brand it in any kind of trilogy the 90s folk cover albums have a very similar style.

Overall for what it is I am going to give this album a 3.5/5 a very solid debut

 

" I got the freight train bl-uuuuuueeee------sss"

 

4/5...I love this album!

 

Yes, he holds that one for a almost uncomfortable amount of time....and I wouldn't have it any other way.