Here is “Spanish Mary,” the latest song off Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes to be made available prior to the album release on November 10, 2014.
In a press release, Giddens, who wrote the music for the song and sings the lead vocal, says of the track:
“Out of all the lyrics I looked through for the New Basement Tapes project, the one for ‘Spanish Mary’ attracted me first – here was a ballad, and I know ballads! It’s also set in the Caribbean, so I felt the deep African sound of the minstrel style banjo (circa 1856) was appropriate. It was an absolute thrill to get to set music to Dylan’s lyrics, what an opportunity! This project is marked with utter generosity from everyone involved.”
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[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in a recent issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]
Here’s the remastered version of George Harrison’s version of Bob Dylan’s ‘If Not For You’
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[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in the new issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]
Check out Neil Young singing ‘Who’s Gonna Stand Up?’ with full orchestra.
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[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in the new issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]
For Neil Young’s upcoming album, Storytone, there will be two versions of the ten-song set: the two album deluxe package will include one album in which Young performs the songs himself, and another in which he is accompanied by an orchestra.
The orchestral version was cut live with no overdubs. Young sang in the same room as the musicians. The album will be released on November 4, 2014.
“It’s the most different thing that I’ve ever attempted,” Young told Rolling Stone.
Back in early September I reported that the album would be called Storytone.
According to a Warner Bros. press release: Standout tracks from the album include the bittersweet album opener “Plastic Flowers,” the bluesy swing of “I Want To Drive My Car,” the aching “Tumbleweed,” or the heartfelt “When I Watch You Sleeping.” Each song evokes an entirely different feel within the context of its presentation.
More from the Rolling Stone story:
The orchestral Storytone is the first Young album where he plays no guitar or piano – he let other musicians take on instrumental duties so he could focus on his vocals. Two music-industry vets, Michael Bearden and Chris Walden, conducted, arranged and co-produced the album. He took himself out of his comfort zone,” says Bearden, who worked with Michael Jackson and is currently Lady Gaga’s musical director. Young gave the arrangers considerable freedom: “He basically told us to do what we felt,” says Bearden. Young had originally planned to take the concept even further, recording the orchestral versions with a single microphone, but he relented on that point.
More from the press release: All of the Storytone music was produced by The Volume Dealers (Neil Young and Niko Bolas), recorded and mixed by Al Schmitt with additional co-production, arrangements, orchestration, and conducted by Michael Bearden and Chris Walden.
The songs:
1. Plastic Flowers
2. Who’s Gonna Stand Up?
3. I Want To Drive My Car
4. Glimmer
5. Say Hello To Chicago
6. Tumbleweed
7. Like You Used To Do
8. I’m Glad I Found You
9. When I Watch You Sleeping
10. All Those Dreams
Three versions of “Who’s Gonna Stand UP?”
Orchestral:
Acoustic:
Live with Crazy Horse:
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[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in a recent issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]
A rare March 1967 photo of Rick Danko and Bob Dylan taken prior to the ‘Basement Tapes’ sessions. It’s unknown where the photo was taken, but it’s not from the actual sessions. Photo courtesy Arie de Reus.
Today we’ve got another track off the much-anticipated The Basement Tapes Complete: The Bootleg Series Vol. 11, set for a November 4, 2014 release.
As you can hear if you listen to this one and the previously released “Odds & Ends,” the sound quality is much better than on the bootlegs we’ve lived with for so many years.
I’ve been listening as well to a streaming sampler of tracks off the 6-CD set and they really sound excellent.
When you consider that Dylan and The Band made more than 138 recordings of originals and covers during the summer of 1967, it’s mindblowing. I haven’t heard everything yet, but between the sampler and the bootleg recordings, I believe the official set will stand as one of the peaks of Bob Dylan’s recording career.
For now, enjoy “Lo and Behold!,” and while you’re at it, give “Odds & Ends” another listen.
“Lo and Behold!”:
“Odds & Ends”:
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[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in the new issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]
On October 28, 2014 the first complete book of Bob Dylan’s lyrics will be published in a limited edition of 3500 copies. Priced at $200 for the 960 page, 13.3 pound book, Amazon is currently taking advance orders for the book at a discounted price of $126.74.
The New York Times can a story today, which said, in part:
The songs are presented chronologically, including alternative versions released as part of Mr. Dylan’s archival “Bootleg Series.” The album covers, front and back, are reproduced.
The way the songs are laid out is meant “to help the eye see what the ear hears,” Mr. Ricks said. “If you print the songs flush left,” he added, “it doesn’t represent, visually, the audible experience.” So refrains, choruses and bridges are indented. And where Mr. Dylan intended a line, however long, to be unbroken, it sprawls across the 13-inch-wide page.
How did the editors know which lines were meant to be unbroken? Did Mr. Dylan provide feedback or comments? Mr. Karp said he had heard that Mr. Dylan provided notebooks and manuscripts. Mr. Ricks refused to elaborate.
“I think the right thing for us,” he said, “is not to go into the question of the particular kinds of help and assistance and advice that we were in a position to receive.”
From Amazon.com:
“The Lyrics: Since 1962” (Hardcover – October 28, 2014)
by Bob Dylan (Author), Christopher Ricks (Editor), Lisa Nemrow (Editor), Julie Nemrow (Editor)
Hardcover: 960 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (October 28, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1476797706
ISBN-13: 978-1476797700
Product Dimensions: 13.1 x 12.4 x 2.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 13.3 pounds
A major publishing event—a beautiful, comprehensive collection of the lyrics of Bob Dylan with artwork from thirty-three albums, edited and with an introduction by Christopher Ricks.
As it was well put by Al Kooper (the man behind the organ on “Like a Rolling Stone”), “Bob is the equivalent of William Shakespeare. What Shakespeare did in his time, Bob does in his time.” Christopher Ricks, editor of T. S. Eliot, Samuel Beckett, Tennyson, and The Oxford Book of English Verse, has no argument with Mr. Kooper’s assessment, and Dylan is attended to accordingly in this authoritative edition of his lyrics.
In the words of Ricks: “For fifty years, all the world has delighted in Bob Dylan’s books of words and more than words: provocative, mysterious, touching, baffling, not-to-be-pinned-down, intriguing, and a reminder that genius is free to do as it chooses. And, again and again, these are not the words that he sings on the initially released albums.”
This edition changes things, giving us the words from officially released studio and live recordings, as well as selected variant lyrics and revisions to these, recent revisions and retrospective ones; and, from the archives, words that, till now, have not been published.
The Lyrics, edited with diligence by Christopher Ricks, Lisa Nemrow, and Julie Nemrow. As set down, as sung, and as sung again.
While you wait, here’s Dylan, Ry Cooder and Van Dyke Parks performing Woody Guthrie’s “Do Re Mi” at the Malibu Performing Arts Center in January 2009:
[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in the new issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]
The War On Drugs have caught the ire of Sun Kil Moon’s Mark Kozelek recently but we don’t have to go there.
Rather, we can listen to the version of “Tangled Up In Blue” they performed at Minnesota’s 89.3.
The group is led by singer/guitarist Adam Granduciel and includes David Hartley (bass, guitar), Robbie Bennett (keyboards, guitar) and Patrick Berkery (drums).
They’re from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
You’ll find The War On Drugs’ “Tangles Up In Blue” here.
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[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in the new issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]
Joan Baez sings “Diamonds and Rust” at L’Olympia, Paris, France, on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, 2014.
Sept. 30, 2014:
Oct. 1, 2014:
[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in the new issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]
In his new film, “St. Vincent,” Bill Murray sings along to a recording of Bob Dylan singing “Shelter From The Storm.”
St. Vincent opens in a limited engagement on Oct. 10, and then everywhere Oct. 24.
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[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in the new issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]
The great Lucinda Williams was on “Fallon” last night and performed a seriously great track off her new two-CD album, “Down Where The Spirit Meets The Bone.”
The album was released today and it’s a winner. If you dig Lucinda, you need it.
Check out this killer live version of “Protection”:
[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in a recent issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]
