Bob Dylan – The Bootleg Series Vol.16: Springtime In New York (1980–1985) (Content & Sound Quality)

I never got the sense that he was presaging the changing in the culture in his time so much as reflecting them in real time. He hit the folk scene four years after "Tom Dooley" was a big crossover hit, he didn't really presage it, he was a Johnny Come Lately who rode the crest of it. Released "The Times They Are Changing," months after the Kennedy Assassination and around six months after the March on Washington, speaking to the moment, not really before it. Went electric the year after the Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan -- the times really were a changin' in his chosen profession. His turn to evangelical Christianity was kind of more of that -- found Jesus after all his musicians had and at a time when California ex-hippie turn to Jesus millennialism was a big cultural thing (‘Jesus People’: How the 1960s’ ‘Summer of Love’ culture spawned an hippie-evangelical movement ) and evangelicals were rising in political power in the US (Jimmy Carter, a born again evangelical had been elected president in '76, Ronald Regan in 1980 had used a merging of evangelical cultural conservatism with with Barry Goldwater small government political conservatism to create a new center of political and cultural power in the US).

 

Some more thoughts on discs 3 and 4 below.

Disc 3

• "Jokerman": good mix and better melody in places, but the album master vocal is so energetic and powerful.
• "Blind Willie": backbeat works pretty well here in places. Only listened to this once so far, though. The BS 1-3 has a pretty passionate vocal that would be hard to match.
• "Don't Fall Apart": interesting to see the evolution of the song here, but the album master vocal is much more tuneful and energetic. Do like the slower tempo, though, as it gives some more space to phrases that feel a bit cramped and too wordy in the master take.
• "Neighborhood Bully": really dug this as it reminded me of a Motown hit like "Shotgun" or "Nowhere to Run" with the powerful rhythm section (Robbie sounds great here) and maybe somewhat slower tempo than the album master.
• "Someone's Got A Hold of My Heart": the old 1985 master take is the one, but this is like a 1B that is pretty smooth with the poetry flow. Much better than the BS 1-3 version.
• "Too Late": these didn't grab me much, but, again, it's interesting to hear the evolution of the song.
• "Foot of Pride": this is a good competitor for the BS 1-3 version. The latter is more intense, serious, and wants to rip your throat out, but the one on the new box has a different kind (maybe more gentle) of musical groove (Sly has a nice little fill in there as well). Also, Bob's vocal is more melodic, which makes for a more tuneful listen.

Disc 4

• "Clean Cut Kid": this one grew on me on the second listen. Pretty good version with the uncluttered Infidels band versus an over the top 1985 version that has a more dynamic vocal from Bob.
• "Tell Me": really missing the background vocals from the BS 1-3 version here.

 

The Infidels master mix might be the weakest part of the album. The bass EQ and Robbie's presence in the mix on the new box really drives these songs. Knopfler was right that he should have mixed it.

 

Such a cynical and negative view of Dylan, as if he was not the person that many followed at all.

Johnny come lately, indeed. Just a follower, never an innovator.

 

There's some truth in what you say. He did hop on the folk bandwagon but was miles away from the other revivalists and polemicists. I also draw a clear line between the rock and roll played before by the Beatles, Stones,etc and what he came up with on Highway 61. I don't think he was responsible for folk rock. That honor goes to the Byrds. Pleasing harmonies over a backup beat.

 

Covering songs by..?

Yes, I see what you’re saying. You’re right that Bob was miles ahead of The Kingston Trio and the like. Those acts fell by the wayside, generally, once Bob broke wide and everyone wanted to cover him.

Bob’s influence, and innovations, was certainly a thing. But I think he mostly took what was already there (The Beatles certainly had an impact on him, as the folkies did before that) and raised the bar with his vision, foresight, and wild imagination. By the time others were reacting to Bob, he moved on to the next thing he saw happening that interested him.

I mean, Bob didn’t create “country rock” either. The Byrds, again, were doing that, as was Gram Parsons, Michael Nesmith, and others. Hell, The Beatles flirted with country music a time or three. But, again, Bob elevated it. Not only with original songs, but working with the best musicians in Nashville (As had Nesmith, but Bob clearly had more cachet than a Monkee) and a guy named Cash.

By the 70s, even at his best (Blood on the Tracks, for one), saying Bob was an “innovator” would be a stretch. Still capable of great songs, great art, certainly. But also seen, sometimes, as maybe chasing trends rather than elevating them. Or at least searching for direction. More than once.

For every triumph he’s had since then (And he’s had plenty), I feel like Bob’s been somewhat adrift until we get to Time Out of Mind. He found a direction, or role, around that time and he’s been following that path, playing that part (Even when doing the “Sinatra albums”) since.

Just one guy’s opinion. No two of us are likely going to see all of this the same way. It’s what makes Bob Dylan such a fascinating individual.

 

I'd say that in terms of composition, he is first and foremost a fusion merchant. He's very well read, it's well known. He had command of everything from the King James Bible through the Romantics and Blake to the Beats, and in terms of music, Irish, Scottish, Appalachian, Guthrie, Hank Williams, blues and rock. He was the first to operate on that canvas and show the potential of popular song to be something more than 'Tell your ma, tell your pa, our loves's agonna grow wah wah.' That is a huge achievement.

Did he chase trends? I think he followed his muse. Something told him that he needed to move on from protest songs, that there was no future in trying to better Highway 61 and Blonde on Blonde. Sometimes the muse deserted him only for it to return.

One thing I like about Dylan is that many of his records seem quite coherent in the sense of being all of a piece. I might not have the faintest clue what he is on about, but somehow it adds up. With Infidels, I feel he is struggling, he's got all these songs but it doesn't quite come together. Not 'hurt feelings or some subterranean marketing ploy' to quote @fromabuick6 , more mixed up confusion.

 

That's not what I said at all. I said nothing about Dylan and "innovation." He was obviously innovative as a songwriter particularly in terms of his lyrics and expanding the notion of what a popular song can consist of lyrically and in terms of subject matter. Musically, he was always kind of a pastiche maker. What I said is that he didn't presage his times, he responded to and reflected them. That's not cynical. I think that's just true, and I think it's apparent on its face. He wasn't a prophet. He wasn't a political leader. He didn't arrive from the future. When he said "The Times They Are A Changin'" it reflected the times and the way they were changing, it didn't predict a change and cause a change, politically or socially. He wasn't the first guy into the folk music game, he came along late in the folk boom. He wasn't the first '60s counterculture figure or rocker to come to evangelical Christianity either. He was a man of his times. Not before them. And he sang about his times. And yeah, he did grab on to trends or follow the lead of others too, like we all do. And in his case by his own admission maybe a little cynically, as he's describe his jumping on to the folk music trend instead of playing rock and roll -- though clearly he has love for folk music too.

But you seem to have such a stick up your ass when it come to me specifically, that you hear what you want to hear in whatever I say. Sorry to say this but, goodbye. Off to my ignore list with you. I'll be much happier with you out of my life.

 

Personally I think both you and chervokas are correct. Bob was always of his time, came in on trends and set them free with his own consummate artistry and became the Pied Piper. Over and over.

 

I just think, it's easy to see the Christian fundamentalist period as some kind of coming-of-left-field thing. And I'm not so much talking about music here, or not just music, but broader sort of cultural development -- when, in fact, the arrival of Dylan's Christian music at the turn of the decade was part of a cultural sweep of millennialist fundamental Christian churches and the emerging political power and cultural impact of the new evangelicals at the time (and he was coming along with Christan rock at the end of a decade that started with some of his peers making records like "Jesus Is Just Alright," he wasn't out in front of that he was part of a building wave). When he was singing about civil rights in 63, '64, it was many years into the civil rights movement and in some ways just as it was cresting in terms of being at the center of American cultural and political life in 1964. He was there, he sang at the March on Washington. But he didn't lead it, he didn't foretell it, he wasn't out in front of it. But it's not like he was singing about the Montgomery bus boycott in '55. He was an artist who reflected his times through a lot of cultural and political changes that he and his generation of Americans went through together. But I don't think he "presaged his times." I'm not making a qualitative judgment about his art. That's what artists typically do, reflect their times.

Now, from the time of his Christian fundamentalist period on, he definitely has warned of impending moral doom over and over again presaging the judgment (man has invented his doom/first step was touching the moon). But all messianic millennialism always thinks the reckoning is nigh, century after century.

 

If Knopfler had mixed it, it probably would have been too pretty and thin, with guitars everywhere
Glad he didn't
But then I might be totally wrong and he might have made it sound like a Black Uhuru album!!!

What are the various conjectures on how it would have sounded if he'd mixed it, by the way

 

Isnt the vetsion of Blind Willy McTell on BS3 Knopfler production without Sly and Robbie- would it sound more like that?

I still haven't played my 2 cd set yet, so I don't know if it contains any clues to how Knopfler would mix things.

 

Leeds Uni graduate, Mark Knopfler. From Tyneside though.

 

I’m sure it’s tempting to view Dylan’s fundamentalist period as being the result of tuning in to a cultural wave. I think a better and simpler explanation is that he had a personal conversion experience, perhaps influenced by being exposed to something new to him by friends or associates such as T-Bone Burnett for example, or other musicians he was hanging out with during that period of his career. Not exactly out of left field, but maybe more plausible than just picked out of the air of the late 1970s zeitgeist. No doubt he was already very familiar with black Gospel music, so that may have caused him to be open to the message or make a personal connection related to that as well. He seems to have thought at the time (gleaned this from his response to a query in an interview) that there was a surprise element (supernatural?) to that experience, or at least an encounter with something or some idea he hadn’t given serious thought to before.

 

I think everyone's conversion experience is personal and sincere. Just because one has a sincere conversion experience doesn't mean it's not part of a cultural wave. In fact religious revivals have historically come in waves.

I'm sure the support for the civil rights movement of people who joined the March on Washington was sincere and meaningful at an individual level. It was also part of a broad culture wave at a macro level. The wave shows in the very fact that all those people in his band circle at that time had a born again conversion experiences--- Soles, Mansfield, Burnett, then Dylan -- and that in fact in the broader culture was going through a period in which evangelical Christianity was moving to the center at the highest levels of the nation's political power, and in the rapid rise during the era of churches and congregations and fellowships -- including the one Dylan joined, the Vineyard Fellowship -- particularly in California in the '70s finding a particular home among musicians and actors (out of which the whole "Christian Contemporary Music" scene grew too). His conversion at that time and place among those people in that church didn't happen in a vacuum. Few things do. The zeitgeist is made up of people's individual and collective sincere experiences.

 

I might be wrong, but the acoustic version of Blind Willie McTell sounds like a demo to get the song ready for an full band version

 

tom dooley was a pop song, nothing to do with dylan.

 

Actually, the full-band Blind Willie McTell was the first session for Infidels. The acoustic version was done a month later, in one of the last sessions...I presume at that point Dylan had already decided he didn't want to use the electric take.
I think there was also another attempt in the sessions too, which never got bootlegged. But other people would know more details.

 

I wouldn't agree that evangelicals were engaged in a new movement at the turn of the decade, given that the United States had elected three evangelical presidents from 1964-76. I think I might know what you're getting at, in terms of new Christian organizations making a political issue out of religion through lobbying, lawyers, and PACs. It would be overstating their cultural impact to imply that they came out of the blue, though. Part of the appeal of the winning Presidential candidates from the 1964-76, though, was that they were from evangelical backgrounds and knew how to talk to evangelicals in their own language. If Dylan had started playing exclusively Gospel music at any point in his early career, he would have been in tune with the intersection of fundamentalism, evangelicalism, and politics that are part of the makeup of America.

 

The Kingston Trio made it a pop hit, but "Tom Dooley" is a folk song. Maybe it was reading Bound for Glory that inspired Bob Dylan to sing folk songs, but "Tom Dooley" and the folk boom had shown that you could become rich and famous doing it. So in that sense it had everything to do with him.

 

Bob wasn't an innovator - he was more of an "early adopter" ... the thing that makes him great isn't that he was first, it's that he took everything further, reinterpreted it, and basically did everything better.

People wrote about Medgar Evers. Bob wrote about his killer and the system.
People had "gone electric" before Highway 61 Revisited, but Bob just blew everything away.
People had done the broken hearted singer songwriter thing. Then Bob did Blood On The Tracks.

 

In my opinion, it wasn’t only a matter of newly engaging with political issues. It turned out to be the beginning of a process of transformation from primarily religious values to primarily reactionary political ones (albeit ones that were already in nascent form), resulting in the practical effective abandonment of most of those original religious and moral values. This process seems to have now come to ultimate fruition and completion within the last few years.

 

Friendly reminder for those that purchased the Bob Dylan’s Third Man Records Vault subscription box set. Just received an email that on 10/21/2021 you will be charged for the upcoming Vault subscription, The White Stripes - Live At The Detroit Institute of Arts.

 

Exactly, folk song that maybe went back to the 1860s, which reportedly sold 3 million copies in the Kingston Trio version, it was part of a cresting folk boom that maybe started with the Weavers and "Goodnight Irene." Its success at least in part inspired the commercial push of other folk acts (particularly trios, not coincidentally Peter Paul and Mary, put together by Albert Grossman, who of course would pay a huge role in Dylan's career and with that group popularize Dylan's songs, and who would also play a big role in Joan Baez's career who, herself, would play a huge role in promoting Dylan and his career). It led to venues like Mike Porco's restaurant in Greenwich Village re-inventing themselves as as folk clubs where Dylan would play and get famous.

Of course the success of Tom Dooley and the commercial potential of the folk boom and the commercial and industrial forces promoting and supporting the folk revival of the late '50s and early '60s, the platform in which Bob Dylan launched a commercial performing career, played a huge role in Bob Dylan's life and career. Anyone who thinks it had nothing to do with Dylan is kidding themselves that Dylan's career and art existed and exists in some kind of vacuum and was then or now somehow unsullied by commercial ambition. Without the success of "Tom Dooley," Dylan and his career and career path likely would have been very different.