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Bob Dylan (1941-), Lyricist and Troubadour from Minnesota, and 2016 Nobel Prize Winner for Literature


The Hersch

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I find among the most persuasive pieces of evidence of Bob Dylan's genius the Bootleg Series Volume 9: The Witmark Demos 1962-1964, which I strongly recommend to anyone with even a trifling interest in his work. He did all this stuff by the time he was 23, and this was just the throw-away recordings that luckily didn't get thrown away. I dare anyone to listen to "Mama You Been on My Mind" from this collection and pretend to be unimpressed.

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I find among the most persuasive pieces of evidence of Bob Dylan's genius the Bootleg Series Volume 9: The Witmark Demos 1962-1964, which I strongly recommend to anyone with even a trifling interest in his work. He did all this stuff by the time he was 23, and this was just the throw-away recordings that luckily didn't get thrown away. I dare anyone to listen to "Mama You Been on My Mind" from this collection and pretend to be unimpressed.

 

I'll get there when I get there - if I'm really studying something, I go slowly, and start at the beginning.

I've always been skeptical of "bootleg" editions. Can we be sure that these were throwaway cuts, or illegally recorded cuts, or something else that would make them originally "olden boot leg" as opposed to "golden goose egg" material?

I'm *so* skeptical about famous people that I think they'll pretty much do anything to make money, so any serious reassurance you can give me will be greatly appreciated.

 

It honestly might be months if not years when I first hear this, so your post will prove to be quite valuable going forward, and much appreciated when the time comes.

 

Just in case anyone missed this post:

 

I just received an email notifying me of his concert tour. It appears he will be performing at the D.A.R. Constitution Hall on Nov. 25.

 

I've never been a fan, although I don't dislike him, either. I think he is a wonderful songwriter. He wrote two of my favorite songs, and I didn't even realize that until recently. This post has made me want to listen to more of his music.

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Sorry I can't find a higher-quality version of this, but it's the coolest 2:15 of the 60s:

If you want to hear Dylan when he was closest to being God, you can get "Blonde on Blonde" for seven bucks at Amazon.

That video is very cool, and it is the first thing I think of when I think of Bob Dylan.

I heard "I Want You" from Blonde on Blonde for the first time tonight, and I liked it.

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I'll get there when I get there - if I'm really studying something, I go slowly, and start at the beginning.

I've always been skeptical of "bootleg" editions. Can we be sure that these were throwaway cuts, or illegally recorded cuts, or something else that would make them originally "olden boot leg" as opposed to "golden goose egg" material?

I'm *so* skeptical about famous people that I think they'll pretty much do anything to make money, so any serious reassurance you can give me will be greatly appreciated.

The set in question, Bootleg Series Volume 9: The Witmark Demos 1962-1964, was contemporaneous with Dylan's first three or four released albums, so it's not far from the beginning of his work, although the recordings were only released in 2010.

I really wish Columbia Records, or whoever owns the label now, had not chosen to release all of this wonderful archive, now up to volume 11, the Basement Tapes, as "bootlegs" ... there's nothing bootlegged about them, since they've all been released by the record label that Dylan has recorded for throughout his career, except for "Planet Waves" on Asylum in 1974. I suppose it's a sort of riff on the actual bootleg recordings, the most famous of which are of course the basement tapes.

Of course both Columbia Records and Bob Dylan have released this material to make money. Dylan performs songs for a living, and Columbia Records puts out recordings for a living, and we can't expect them not to be paid. But I see nothing cynical at all in the release of all this previously unheard material. While it isn't free, of course, it's a hugely valuable gift to those of us who prize Dylan's work, and to a posterity which will also be enriched and enthralled by it.

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This is a wonderfully peppy cover of "You're No Good," the first song on the album (his first album was almost all covers, with one of his two original songs a tribute to Woody Guthrie).

Here's Jesse Fuller's original version which sounds downright mellow in comparison, and almost not like the same song (incidentally, it was Fuller who gave Dylan the idea of using a harmonica rack, so Fuller's place in history is captured right there):

I prefer his peppier version. Love the harmonica.

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I've always been skeptical of "bootleg" editions. Can we be sure that these were throwaway cuts, or illegally recorded cuts, or something else that would make them originally "olden boot leg" as opposed to "golden goose egg" material?

I'm *so* skeptical about famous people that I think they'll pretty much do anything to make money, so any serious reassurance you can give me will be greatly appreciated.

 

As one of the most prolific artists of his time, Dylan was also one of the most bootlegged artists.  The Columbia bootleg series was an effort to gain back control of this material, impose some quality control, and redirect the revenue from such recordings back to Dylan and Columbia.  Read the Introduction section of the liner notes for the first release in the series for some background.

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I'll get there when I get there - if I'm really studying something, I go slowly, and start at the beginning.

If you get tired of the acoustic, old timey, folky, dustbowl stuff, skip ahead to Blood on the Tracks.

Even if you don't get tired of that stuff, skip ahead to Blood on the Tracks.

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If you get tired of the acoustic, old timey, folky, dustbowl stuff, skip ahead to Blood on the Tracks.

Even if you don't get tired of that stuff, skip ahead to Blood on the Tracks.

So you're suggesting that Don should just skip over Another Side of Bob Dylan, Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde on Blonde? That is, the four consecutive albums that comprise Dylan's greatest work? Just skip over it?

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Seconded.

Edited to add: The show at DAR appears to be sold out. Dammit.

Bummer. Did you check stubhub and/or craigs list? Those options will probably very pricey though. (on the other hand, 2 tickets from Ticketbastard cost me $279.60 and I'm nowhere near the front row.......suddenly Cityzen or the Inn at Little Washington seems downright reasonable)

I'd bet you could get a better deal out front on the night of the show. But that's a pain to deal with.

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So you're suggesting that Don should just skip over Another Side of Bob Dylan, Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde on Blonde? That is, the four consecutive albums that comprise Dylan's greatest work? Just skip over it?

Yes, no and maybe.

I'm worried Don will get turned off by the solo acoustic singer/songwriter stuff before he explores any of the other 20 phases Bob went through. Part of what made those albums so earth shattering was the time period in which they were released. Performers didn't write their own songs back then. It just wasn't done. Song writers wrote songs, musicians played the music and the singer sang the lyrics. They were three different entities. And no one but Bob even dreamed of coming up with lyrics like he did. Looking back at it now (for the first time) you lose some of the shocking intensity that those early releases created. (I didn't live it first hand either but I've read dozens of books on Bob so I'm very aware of what a paradigm shift Bob caused. I don't want that to be lost on Don if he's wrapped up in Bob's weird voice or simple songs)

And for me, I'd rather hear Freewheelin' than Another Side, but I'll take either over Ke$ha!

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Besides Dylan's classics he kept coming with songs with fascinating and moving lyrics and matching music that was attention grabbing and moving.  I referenced If Not for You, not a classic, but in my mind a moving love song.

Another that grabbed my attention of an entirely different ilk--The Hurricane, from the mid 70's.  Way past his most epic period for producing songs but still great lyrics, and feeling, and meaning put to music.

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Another that grabbed my attention of an entirely different ilk--The Hurricane, from the mid 70's.  Way past his most epic period for producing songs but still great lyrics, and feeling, and meaning put to music.  

Also among his most incandescent vocal performances. The recording you link to isn't Bob Dylan, but someone doing a pretty good imitation of the studio version of the song.

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Bummer. Did you check stubhub and/or craigs list? Those options will probably very pricey though. (on the other hand, 2 tickets from Ticketbastard cost me $279.60 and I'm nowhere near the front row.......suddenly Cityzen or the Inn at Little Washington seems downright reasonable)

I'd bet you could get a better deal out front on the night of the show. But that's a pain to deal with.

The email I received was from StubHub, and it looks like they still have tickets. They are in the upper tiers and they aren't cheap, however.

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And for me, I'd rather hear Freewheelin' than Another Side, but I'll take either over Ke$ha!

Funny. Of all of Dylan's studio albums from Bob Dylan through Slow Train Coming, Freewheelin' is the only one I've never owned a copy of, largely because I don't care for much of it besides the one song  "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right". And in some moods, Another Side of Bob Dylan is my favorite of all his albums (mind you, only in some moods).

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I enjoyed this article (and the name of the magazine!) about Bob's literary influences.

A side note: I lived just down the street from Big Pink when I was a kid in Saugerties NY. So, for a short time, Bob and I were neighbors. If I had known when I was 3 or so, I would have stopped in for a visit and much needed guitar lessons.

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Also among his most incandescent vocal performances. The recording you link to isn't Bob Dylan, but someone doing a pretty good imitation of the studio version of the song.

Funny, when coming across it, I had a "feeling" it wasn't Dylan...but as you noted that singer does a damn good imitation of Dylan. Thanks for the correction.

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2)  "Talkin' New York" (3:17) - lyrics. One of two songs whose lyrics came at the hand of Dylan's pen. This was a very tongue-in-cheek piece in which Dylan was poking fun at both New York and himself. I guess this is officially "the first" of Dylan's witty lyrics that I'll undoubtedly come across many more times in the future - he clearly had a good education and a sharp wit. Riding off into the western sunset, heading to East Orange, New Jersey - that's rich. Does anyone know what kind of student he was in high school, and where he got his smarts from? And where *did* he get that hillbilly accent? That's not from Duluth, Minnesota. Maybe that's one of his insufferable "eccentric artists" traits that I'll just have to live with. 

At 2:02 in this song, right after Dylan said "Dollar a day's worth," the harmonica comes in, but it comes in just before he's finished speaking the word "worth." I don't know much about recording studios, but I've always assumed that multiple tracks (Is that the right word? I'm not even sure what, exactly, a "track" is) are recorded, and then edited accordingly. After hearing this, I suppose the harmonica tracks were done separately, and then spliced judiciously. But before now - naive entity that I am - I would have guessed that Dylan recorded these songs from start to finish doing multiple takes until he found the one he liked, or perhaps recorded sections of songs in their entirety, concatenating them together. So how does this work, exactly? I'm sure whatever technology existed in 1962 has improved on a par with the advances made in computing, i.e., exponentially, but I suppose the basic concepts are the same. (You can tell when I use words like "suppose" and "assume" a lot, it means that I don't know very much about a subject.)

Glenn Gould, one of the greatest musical geniuses who ever lived (and I use "genius" in the savant sense here), fell in love with studio recording, and even grew to resent live performances, famously saying, "I resent the one-timeness, or the non-take-twoness, of the live concert experience." He liked to fiddle and tinker with studio recordings until they sounded just like he wanted them to sound - he felt that recording in a studio cut the performer a break, and allowed him/her to achieve the artistic vision that physical limitations might otherwise impede. As great as Gould was, he wasn't God, and took full advantage of modern technology so he wouldn't need to record only on his best days. Needless to say, I have enormous respect for musicians able to pull off a live performance.

Where does Dylan fit in on this live vs. studio spectrum?

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To answer your last question.............live, LIVE   L  I  V  E   !!!!!!!!!!!!

One of the reasons Bob's studio albums were so "bad" in the 80s is he didn't mesh well with the super modern recording techniques.  He's more of a "get it down in one take and move on" type of performer and not a "meticulously assemble a track from hundreds of versions where each instrument recorded separately and assembled like a ship in a bottle"

He's famous (or infamous) for recording songs in one take, especially in the early days.  And if there were a second or third take, the song would often be quite different from the version they just played. It drove the musicians nuts!

That's an interesting observation you made about the harmonica coming in before the vocal ended.  I'll have to check it out.  I would have bet money that (especially) the first album was recorded live, with no overdubs.  Then again, maybe he didn't have that kind of pull as an unproven artist.

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That's an interesting observation you made about the harmonica coming in before the vocal ended.  I'll have to check it out.  I would have bet money that (especially) the first album was recorded live, with no overdubs.  Then again, maybe he didn't have that kind of pull as an unproven artist.

The harmonica came just at the point where I might be wrong. But his face would have to be *right there* and pretty much blowing the harmonica with the same breath he was just using to sing with. However, it's possible, and now you've got me doubting myself - maybe there wasn't an overlap so much as there was zero pause.

Note also this version has been "digitally remastered," and I'm not sure of all that entails or even what it means. It's possible there was a gap there, and when they remastered it, they removed the gap.

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I've just listened to the audio of "Talkin' New York" at the site you linked to, and I can't perceive any actual overlap between Dylan's voice and the harmonica. There would have been no overdubbing for these recordings, and I don't think the remastering would have introduced any falsifications anyway. There is a surprisingly excellent article on Dylan's debut album on Wikipedia.

If hadn't finally jettisoned my life's-worth accumulation of vinyl recordings last year, I could pull out the LP and listen to it, if I could find anything to play it on.

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I've just listened to the audio of "Talkin' New York" at the site you linked to, and I can't perceive any actual overlap between Dylan's voice and the harmonica. There would have been no overdubbing for these recordings, and I don't think the remastering would have introduced any falsifications anyway. 

I've listened to it about ten times, and the only possible way is if he had the harmonica wedged between his buttocks - there just isn't enough time to get your mouth on it in the right place.

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I've listened to it about ten times, and the only possible way is if he had the harmonica wedged between his buttocks - there just isn't enough time to get your mouth on it in the right place.

I've just listened again about five times (not to the whole song; I don't like it that much) and I can't agree. The very first sound from the harmonica sounds like a sort of random noise, just Dylan breathing, perhaps, but it's still distinctly after Dylan's voice has stopped sounding. Remember, he had the harmonica on a rack and he would have been singing, basically, through the harmonica into the microphone. I don't think there's anything here particularly remarkable, let alone mysterious.

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If hadn't finally jettisoned my life's-worth accumulation of vinyl recordings last year, I could pull out the LP and listen to it, if I could find anything to play it on.

Really?  I just can't bring myself to do that.  They just sit and look back at me, unplayed for years.  I don't have a turntable hooked up either.

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Really?  I just can't bring myself to do that.  They just sit and look back at me, unplayed for years.  I don't have a turntable hooked up either.

I never would have brought myself to do it either, had I not been moving. I just couldn't see lugging the emotionally charged but entirely useless and huge, heavy, inconvenient, space consuming, and, as you suggest, subtly mocking collection with me to a new home. I still feel a nagging regret.

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I never would have brought myself to do it either, had I not been moving. I just couldn't see lugging the emotionally charged but entirely useless and huge, heavy, inconvenient, space consuming, and, as you suggest, subtly mocking collection with me to a new home. I still feel a nagging regret.

They're probably somewhere in Brazil.

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And where *did* he get that hillbilly accent? That's not from Duluth, Minnesota. Maybe that's one of his insufferable "eccentric artists" traits that I'll just have to live with. 

I meant to respond to this ages ago. He was imitating Woody Guthrie from Oklahoma, famously. That faded away over the years, but when you listen to Dylan speak, as in the Scorsese documentary, he sounds like someone who no longer has a natural accent, but only a sort of crafted approach to speech. (I'm afraid my own speech is similarly unnatural. Can't help it. Not comparing me to him.)

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So I finally got around to looking up some info on the recording session for the first album.  All of this comes from Clinton Heylin's book "Bob Dylan: The Recording Sessions (1960 - 1994)".  The book investigates every song and album Bob has ever made, how it was recorded, who was there, where it happened, how many takes, etc.

Here's what he says:

The album was recorded in two sessions, Nov 20 & 22 1961.  Each session ran from 2 - 5 pm [Total recording time 6 hours!!!!!]

Rumored cost:  $402

The only musician was Bob

About half the songs had 2 or 3 takes, the other half were done in one take (!!!!)

The last 4 songs of the session were done in one take

Talkin' New York had 2 takes

There's no mention of overdubs

Here's a quote from Bob talking about those sessions:  "I just played the guitar and harmonica and sang those songs and that was it.  Mr. Hammond [the producer] asked me if I wanted to sing any of them over again and I said no.  I can't see myself singing the same song twice in a row"

So I think it's safe to say that whatever you heard (Don), it all happened live with just Bob singing and playing.

You are aware of those neck brace harmonica holder things, right?  (just another invention from the amazing Les Paul)  You can go from singing to playing harmonica and back to singing very quickly with those things.

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Here's a quote from Bob talking about those sessions:  "I just played the guitar and harmonica and sang those songs and that was it.  Mr. Hammond [the producer] asked me if I wanted to sing any of them over again and I said no.  I can't see myself singing the same song twice in a row"

So I think it's safe to say that whatever you heard (Don), it all happened live with just Bob singing and playing.

You are aware of those neck brace harmonica holder things, right?  (just another invention from the amazing Les Paul)  You can go from singing to playing harmonica and back to singing very quickly with those things.

Yes. I'm pretty well convinced (against my initial thoughts) that he must have been a half-inch away from the harmonica rack, and just has very fast-twitch muscle fibers and "got there" in 1/10th of a second in the same breath.

In many ways, music is much like an athletic event in that there's a mental component (the genius) and a physical component (the virtuoso), and this was very much on the physical side of things.

I suspect if you could pin Dylan down (unlikely), and ask him to listen to this, and comment on the physical aspect of it, he'd reluctantly say something like, "Yeah, I was pretty quick back then."

Whether or not it had anything to do with his pact with the Devil, I cannot say. :)

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Learned that one of our grads, female, significantly younger is going to stick around in DC this week before taking off for Thanksgiving just to see Dylan.   She is a self described big Dylan fan.  She also probably self describes herself as someone who is a hippie at heart.

But definitely not male.  Dylan at his best sings to one's soul, male or female.  But is one's soul in sync with Dylan, regardless of era or age?....that is the question

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A few years back, maybe 10 or even 15, there was a point at the end of the shows where Bob's security would let people (mostly women, but some dudes too) get on stage to dance around Bob as he was playing Like A Rolling Stone or whatever the encore was.

Most of women were young and hot and VERY MUCH into Bob.  I have a distinct memory of a college aged woman doing a sexy seductive dance right in front of him.  She was staring at him, he was staring at her, and I was staring at her!

I remember seeing this happen at a bunch of shows in different places so it wasn't like they were hired dancers that were part of the show.  They were just younger people totally into Bob.

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Decent write up of the show from the Post.  Some of it was silly like the bit about Ferguson and Blowin In The Wind, but I agreed with him on some of the blues numbers.  I wouldn't call them punishing, just not as interesting as some of the other songs.  I've felt that way about all of Bob's albums from Time Out Mind to Tempest - - about half the songs are generic blues progressions with good lyrics, but Bob could churn out stuff like that endlessly.  I much more prefer the songs that have those great Bob-progressions (chord progressions) like Mississippi, Dignity, Pay In Blood, Roll On John.

Anyhow, back to the show.  It was fantastic.  Easily the best show I've seen from him in the last 4 or 5 shows (which is only the last 4 or 5 years).  His voice was loud and powerful and somehow both rough and smooth.  It was rough because he's 73 and he's always had a bit of a rough voice, but it was also smooth and clear and it flowed over and on top of the music like warm honey"¦"¦.or something like that.  This was no frail old man struggling to weakly squeak out a tune.  This was Full-On-Bob, full of fire and brimstone and piss and vinegar.  As he sang (roared) in Pay In Blood:

 
This is how I spend my days
I came to bury, not to praise
I'll drink my fill and sleep alone
I play in blood, but not my own.
 
Pay In Blood was one of the highlights of the night.  I've always love this song because the lyrics are great and it's a Bob-progrssion not a standard blues progression.
 
Here's opening line:
 
Well I'm grinding my life out, steady and sure
Nothing more wretched than what I must endure
 
And here's another line:
 
How I made it back home, nobody knows
Or how I survived so many blows
 
And the final line from each verse:
 
I pay in blood, but not my own.
 
Classic Warrior Bob right there!  He's a 73 year old bad ass!  And to hear him sing it is so much more moving and powerful than just reading the lyrics.
 
And to the guy in the Post lamenting that Bob didn't do any protest material or comment on Ferguson, here's another line from Pay In Blood that he could have cited:
 
Another politician pumping out the piss
Another angry beggar blowing you a kiss
 
Moving on to other songs, highlights included She Belongs to Me and Simple Twist of Fate, two of the four oldies/greatest hits he did that night.  The other 15 songs were "new" material - - from the last 5 albums.
 
Another oldie but goodie was Tangled Up In Blue with 2 new and rewritten verses.  I mean the song is only 40 years old, why not keep tinkering with it and rewriting it!!
 
Newer highlights were:
 
Things Have Changed - a song I'm usually not thrilled to hear, but this was a great version
Working Man's Blues #2 - slow but good
Duquesne Whistle - a great shuffle song from the 1940s that Bob just wrote a few years ago
Love Sick - always dark and spooky
High Water - always light and peppy
Spirit On The Water - beautiful sound on this one.  I could listen to that progression all night
 
I went into this show not really expecting much based on the last few I've seen, but as usual, Bob proves he's never predictable and always worth seeing.  It didn't hit the heights of some of the late 90s - early 2000s shows, but it was a great show and much better than the last few years.
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I just heard he is releasing an album of Sinatra covers in February.

Yikes! Sinatra was a great singer and all, and he covered tunes from many of the greatest American songwriters (Berlin, Gershwin, Porter, Rodgers & Hammerstein), but I can't get my head wrapped around this one. What's next, Joni Mitchell covering Ethel Merman?

The lowdown from NPR.

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I'm not sure why this upcoming release is being talked about or sold as an album of Sinatra covers, rather than an "old standards" or "American songbook" album. I don't see anything about Sinatra on the bobdylan.com webpage devoted to it. Sinatra may have recorded all of these songs, but only "I'm a Fool to Want You" has a really strong connection to him, and some of the others aren't really that closely associated with him at all, like "What'll I Do?", for example. "Lucky Old Sun" is very, very strongly associated with another singer, Frankie Laine. Who thinks of "Some Enchanted Evening" as a Sinatra song? If Dylan or anyone else wanted to do an album of Sinatra covers, wouldn't they do "Come Fly with Me", "From Here to Eternity", "My Way", "I'll Never Smile Again", "Young at Heart", and "High Hopes"? There's none of that here (not that I wish there were).
 

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^The Hersch: watch/listen to this and tell us what you think.

signed, also an American songbook fan

I've never been a big Harry Connick fan, although that may be because I've paid no attention to him, to speak of. But in the video you point me to, I have to say I emphatically agree with everything he says. Modern pop singing has become virtually unlistenable to me, with so many singers adding irrelevant and annoying vocal ornament in practically every bar, which serves only to underscore their obliviousness to the meaning of the words they're singing. Whitney Houston epitomized this kind of depraved vocalism. Compare her singing "I Loves You Porgy" with, say, Ella Fitzgerald or Barbra Streisand. Some of the worst excesses come in various large-voiced singers doing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at sporting events, where they often seem to be singing Houston's "I Will Always Love You", only more so.

Contrast the vocal show-offs ruining everything they sing with Bob Dylan's "Full Moon and Empty Arms" from his upcoming album.

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I find it interesting that we're in total agreement about this whole issue but then diverge so much on the Dylan illustration you provide.  It's not just about knocking off the excesses and sticking to the song's melody, it's about being able to feel what the lyricist intended thru the song.  I listen to Dylan's "Full Moon"¦" & just don't.  Both the instrumentation (too sing song-y) and the voice (too flat affected) put distance between me and the emotional impact of the lyrics.  Sinatra generally draws me in to the scenario and Dylan can do so too, but not here.

eta: Joni is in deep shit and I hope she's able to pull herself out of it.  Her illness is often viewed as a delusional disorder, sometimes treatable with anti-psychotics like risperidone.  From what I've heard, she refuses to deal with that possibility and continues in real agony.

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I've never been a big Harry Connick fan, although that may be because I've paid no attention to him, to speak of. But in the video you point me to, I have to say I emphatically agree with everything he says. Modern pop singing has become virtually unlistenable to me, with so many singers adding irrelevant and annoying vocal ornament in practically every bar, which serves only to underscore their obliviousness to the meaning of the words they're singing. Whitney Houston epitomized this kind of depraved vocalism. Compare her singing "I Loves You Porgy" with, say, Ella Fitzgerald or Barbra Streisand. Some of the worst excesses come in various large-voiced singers doing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at sporting events, where they often seem to be singing Houston's "I Will Always Love You", only more so.

Contrast the vocal show-offs ruining everything they sing with Bob Dylan's "Full Moon and Empty Arms" from his upcoming album.

You need to watch at least the first minute of this interview with Glenn Gould talking about Sviatislov Richter. It is an *exact* parallel to what you're saying about modern-day pop vocalists (except they're using their voices as their "instrument") - they're determined to make us aware of what great singers they are without giving a damn about the song they're singing. And, I'm sorry to say, the audience - which consists of the general public - eats it up, so their ignorance is responsible for these singers' success. Note that this is precisely what Dean Gold wrote about in the Warne Marsh thread.

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I find it interesting that we're in total agreement about this whole issue but then diverge so much on the Dylan illustration you provide.  It's not just about knocking off the excesses and sticking to the song's melody, it's about being able to feel what the lyricist intended thru the song.  I listen to Dylan's "Full Moon"¦" & just don't.  Both the instrumentation (too sing song-y) and the voice (too flat affected) put distance between me and the emotional impact of the lyrics.  Sinatra generally draws me in to the scenario and Dylan can do so too, but not here.

Interesting, yes. I can understand your take on this Dylan recording, but my own response to it is very different. I hear a singer who is entirely in sympathy with the song he's singing, and understands completely the meaning and the emotional burden of the words, but at the same time an old man whose voice no longer reliably responds to his commands, which leads him to understate everything rather than risk an outright rebellion from his instrument. I find the recording very moving, both in the context of its relation to the song and of my life-long relationship with the performer. On the other hand, I don't really like Sinatra's singing very much, especially from the 1960s forward; it's almost all tasteless mannerism to my ear.

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Modern pop singing has become virtually unlistenable to me, with so many singers adding irrelevant and annoying vocal ornament in practically every bar, which serves only to underscore their obliviousness to the meaning of the words they're singing.

I'm not the only one, then.  Thank you.

I don't really like Sinatra's singing very much, especially from the 1960s forward; it's almost all tasteless mannerism to my ear.

I'm not the only one, then...

Rocks, a few of these posts could be used to start a new topic (the Great American Songbook).  Hint.  Though maybe The Hersch and I will be the only ones to read and comment.

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Jumping back a dozen or so posts in this thread we were talking about how Bob records, overdubs, separate tracks, etc.  This is an excerpt from his webpage talking about the upcoming standards album.  Seems nothing has changed.  (and I love him for it!!)

<<<
Upon Columbia's announcement of the album's forthcoming release, Bob Dylan commented, "It was a real privilege to make this album. I've wanted to do something like this for a long time but was never brave enough to approach 30-piece complicated arrangements and refine them down for a 5-piece band. That's the key to all these performances. We knew these songs extremely well. It was all done live. Maybe one or two takes. No overdubbing. No vocal booths. No headphones. No separate tracking, and, for the most part, mixed as it was recorded. I don't see myself as covering these songs in any way. They've been covered enough. Buried, as a matter a fact. What me and my band are basically doing is uncovering them. Lifting them out of the grave and bringing them into the light of day."

>>>

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