Dylan

[liebzz]

I watched it and enjoyed it a lot. Very interesting. Though funny I saw that one first then No Direction Home which is a reverse chronology.

[BootsToAsses]

^ I'm a frequent visitor on the Expecting Rain forum and there were quite a few Dylan fans who were quite annoyed that Scorsese and Dylan played with the truth on the Rolling Thunder doc, and just plain made stuff up.

Personally, I thought it was hilarious and a very Dylan thing to do. Fake casting, fake stories, doctored photos
That tour is so mythical in the eyes of the fans, it was good to see them play around with that a little. It doesn't change the fact that the actual performances from that tour are legendary. Seeing Dylan so animated singing 'Isis' is magical.

[elliseamos]

Right, the performances were more so what I was asking liebzz about.

[liebzz]

Yes. The performances on the doc were mostly really good.

[Wendy Carlos's Twin]

My Rolling Thunder mix:

101 Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You (Montreal)
102 A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall (Montreal)
103 It Ain't Me Babe (Cambridge)
104 The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carrol (Montreal)
105 It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry (Boston 2)
106 Romance In Durango (Montreal)
107 Isis (Montreal)
108 Blowin' In The Wind (Cambridge)
109 Never Let Me Go (Montreal)
110 Mr. Tambourine Man (Boston 1)
111 It's All Over Now, Baby Blue (Montreal)
112 Love Minus Zero-No Limit (Montreal)
201 Simple Twist Of Fate (Cambridge)
202 I Don't Believe You (Boston 2)
203 Tangled Up In Blue (Boston 2)
204 Oh Sister (Boston 2)
205 Hurricane (Worcester)
206 One More Cup Of Coffee (Montreal)
207 Sara (Montreal)
208 Just Like A Woman (Cambridge)
209 Knockin' On Heaven's Door (Cambridge)
210 People Get Ready (SIR Rehearsal)

Recording Dates & Locations:
1975-10-19 S.I.R. Rehearsal Studio, New York City NY
1975-11-19 Memorial Auditorium, Worcester MA
1975-11-20 Harvard Square Theater, Cambridge MA
1975-11-21 Boston Music Hall, Boston MA (2 shows)
1975-12-04 Forum de Montreal, Montreal QC

All concert performances from "Renaldo & Clara" are included
as well as all 4 songs from the "Renaldo & Clara" vinyl EP
plus selected additional highlights

[liebzz]

Street-Legal - there’s a really fascinating development for Dylan happening from Blood On the Tracks through Desire and now into Street-Legal: Dylan just has this muse where he needs to add more and more instrumentation. The violin that runs through Desire that perfectly holds the album together is this time replaced by backup singer, which brings a more gospel-like feel. For me, this worked in many spots but sort of falls into cheese at other spots. The three songs to start the album, Changing of the Guards, New Pony (my favorite on the album), and No Time to Think all work really well with this formula where the singers sort of do a good job of being present without fully getting in the way. However, I did not feel the same way about Baby, Stop Crying - which felt like a bad cliche (maybe for the first time in the whole catalogue). I wasn’t as down on Is Your Love in Vain but I wasn’t crazy about it either. Things picked up for me with Senor (Tales of Yankee Power) and mostly carried through the rest of the album. I wouldn’t take this over most of the Dylan albums so far and it might rank near the bottom, but that is not saying a whole lot since I have enjoyed every album so far - this is still a very good album and I am only really complaining here about 1-2 songs if that. I do think it is really cool that Dylan spent much of this era taking some element of instrumentation and running it as connective tissue through the whole album.

[Kevin Davis]

This is where this is going to get interesting! Most albums from here on out, except for a couple, are pretty polarizing in some way. Street Legal is a cool album, with a unique sound and some incredible highs, but also some real turkeys, and a few songs that are performed well but feel kind of icky and uncomfortable for some reason or another ("Baby Stop Crying" is probably the most significant example of this). "Changing of the Guards" is one of my favorite Dylan songs ever, and "Where Are You Tonight" is a personal favorite as well. The best songs on this album have extremely focused writing, really sharp wordplay and rhymes, and I think the period from '78-'81 is probably the strongest Dylan's voice ever was in terms of range and elasticity. Which isn't to say it necessarily had the most pleasing timbre (to my ears that was '68-'70), but he was really in command of his singing at this time.

Looking forward to your take on Live at Budokan!

[liebzz]

At Budokan - so we are here again, where it is important to both suspend disbelief and be open to Dylan busting up traditional forms and reimagining some of his existing work. If you are wed to the traditional forms Dylan’s songs had on the studio albums, you are destined to pan this release as maybe self-indulgent nonsense. But with an open mind, I think this live album soars well beyond the other two from this decade. All the songs are Street-Legal-ified and while I wouldn’t necessarily call them definitive versions, they are different and largely successful. I was initially skeptical at the first bars of nearly every song, but by the end I kept thinking “that was pretty damn good!” The rearrangement of Maggie’s Farm should have taken a few listens but it didn’t. It hit the right spots in the end even though I started off wondering why. Ballad of a Thin Man sounded great from the start. The reggae version of Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright genius. My favorites on here though were Watchtower, It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding), Simple Twist of Fate, and One More Cup of Coffee. Nearly everything was good, the only song I think I could never get into here was I Want You. Lastly, I will note The Times They Are A-Changing just because I could never imagine that song worked up to a full band successfully but he manages to do it.

[Kevin Davis]

Love it! I think Budokan is a truly underrated Dylan release. I think "One More Cup of Coffee" is my favorite take on there, I much prefer it to the wild gypsy version on Desire, where Dylan's exaggerated vocals always seemed a little (or maybe a lot) off-the-mark for me.

[liebzz]

Yeah I did see that some reviews panned it, but for what he was doing, these versions are lively and really quite good - and unexpectedly so. And he’ll, if you are going to play these songs and not get every note exact, you might as well blow the roof off it.

Also, the use of the backup singers is much more successful here than Street-Legal because they never feel on the foreground of what’s going on.

[Kevin Davis]

Yeah I did see that some reviews panned it, but for what he was doing, these versions are lively and really quite good - and unexpectedly so. And he’ll, if you are going to play these songs and not get every note exact, you might as well blow the roof off it.

Also, the use of the backup singers is much more successful here than Street-Legal because they never feel on the foreground of what’s going on.

The 1978 tour was also pretty thoroughly rehearsed by Dylan's standards, so those arrangements are pretty tight right out of the gate, where Street-Legal's arrangments feel a little tentative in places. Dylan definitely didn't mind a little roughness on his studio recordings.

Another fun fact: One of the original backing singers on the 1978 tour was Katey Sagal, who would later go on to play Peg Bundy on Married with Children (and also some character on Sons of Anarchy). I can't remember why she dropped out of the lineup, or who made the call, but I am pretty sure she didn't actually play a show.

I hope we see a more comprehensive release from this period someday, the lovely arrangement of "Tangled Up in Blue" from this tour needs an official release:

[liebzz]

Slow Train Coming - it was bound to eventually happen across his long career that I would find something I didn’t like or care for. I’ve taken adventures with Dylan over the past few weeks into folk, rock, blues, country, hunts of gospel and even a bit of funkiness here and there. Transform classics in the vein of his moment’s music. All of it enjoyable to excellent to profound. Apparently, this was my breaking point. I mean, I guess the music is okay though I am not getting much in the way of progress from Street-Legal or Desire to this. Mostly, this feels like a bland Christian Rock album. That being said, there were a few worthy additions here, particularly Slow Train and Gonna Change My Way of Thinking. The rest I could do without. It’s just not for me. Sorry Dylan. I swear I went everywhere else with you.

[liebzz]

Saved - part 2 of Dylan’s religious music journey. I can’t say I like this one much better, though I do appreciate that he went all in on this one. Whereas Slow Train Coming kind of had this vibe that he met a really great girl and had to convert to save the relationship and was trying to show her “look I really changed!”, this one feels more like he threw himself fully into this project. Granted, I didn’t care that much more for it. A Satisfied Mind is alright, but I have heard much better versions of this song than what was presented here. Saved is that full throated conversion I was talking about and I think it was pretty successful. The real highlights for this album to me were Solid Rock, In the Garden, and Are You Ready which all had really good arrangements though still a little hampered by the overly religious fervor going on.

[elliseamos]

Street-Legal - there’s a really fascinating development for Dylan happening from Blood On the Tracks through Desire and now into Street-Legal: Dylan just has this muse where he needs to add more and more instrumentation. The violin that runs through Desire that perfectly holds the album together is this time replaced by backup singer, which brings a more gospel-like feel. For me, this worked in many spots but sort of falls into cheese at other spots. The three songs to start the album, Changing of the Guards, New Pony (my favorite on the album), and No Time to Think all work really well with this formula where the singers sort of do a good job of being present without fully getting in the way. However, I did not feel the same way about Baby, Stop Crying - which felt like a bad cliche (maybe for the first time in the whole catalogue). I wasn’t as down on Is Your Love in Vain but I wasn’t crazy about it either. Things picked up for me with Senor (Tales of Yankee Power) and mostly carried through the rest of the album. I wouldn’t take this over most of the Dylan albums so far and it might rank near the bottom, but that is not saying a whole lot since I have enjoyed every album so far - this is still a very good album and I am only really complaining here about 1-2 songs if that. I do think it is really cool that Dylan spent much of this era taking some element of instrumentation and running it as connective tissue through the whole album.

Thanks for this. There is a very personal sentimentality with this album and I'm glad you could find some portions as highlights. Changing of the Guards and Senor are classics to me.

[Kevin Davis]

Regardless of how you feel about the subject matter, I think Dylan's singing during his Christian period was at all-time high and the songs, while bereft of some of the more dexterous wordplay and wit of his earlier songs, have roots in traditional gospel songform the same way his earlier stuff is rooted in folk, blues, etc., in a way that is compelling to me. Slow Train Coming is a bit more fire-and-brimstone while Saved has always felt more joyful to me, which I think works to its advantage, but ultimately -- and I hate to keep beating this drum -- the live recordings from this period are where it's at. Just relentlessly impassioned performances.

Shot of Love swings back in the direction of the secular, but in my opinion is the most inconsistent of the three records.

[liebzz]

I’ll find out soon enough.

I think of the two together, then and and the music are pretty strong, and I agree that Dylan was good vocally...to me it’s the songwriting that seemed to slip. Maybe it’s the subject matter that just throws me off, but I think this is where it didn’t reach its potential - but I can’t say it’s bad music or this is terrible in any sort of way - it’s just not for me. It certainly doesn’t even begin to touch some of the abject disasters that some of his contemporaries experiences, particularly in the 80s. It’s just a place I concede I am not keen on going with him.

[Kevin Davis]

That's fair. And don't worry, there are some (potentially!) abject disasters forthcoming

[liebzz]

That's fair. And don't worry, there are some (potentially!) abject disasters forthcoming

I mean, it was the 80s. Did anyone really get out alive from that era?

[Hatfield]

I really liked Slow Train and a few songs on Saved. The sincerity on Slow Train and the studio performance is top notch, but I totally get how someone wouldn't love it. I was in a pretty deep Christian phase when I found it. In fact, it's the album that got me into Dylan. I branched off from there.

Over the years, Shot of Love has gotten many more spins than the other two Christian albums.

[liebzz]

Shot of Love - of this trilogy of albums starting with Slow Train Coming through this, this has to be my favorite, even if there are a few clunkers in here that I wasn’t crazy about. The title track is pretty enjoyable, Heart of Mine and Watered-Down Love were okay, but the album really seemed to take off in the second half, which I really enjoyed pretty much everything there. The Groom’s Still Waiting at the Altar and Dead Man Deaf Man were probably my two favorites on this album. For me, nothing here rises to the level of Dylan’s great albums, but it felt like an improvement, though I can’t quite place it, from the last two. I give Dylan a lot of credit for following this muse. It takes a fair amount of creative courage to release to the world this music after really having been known for all of those other journeys and taking heat for each of them before. At this point in the journey, while I have enjoyed most of Dylan’s albums, I have to admit that his music has gone well beyond my expectations to the extent that there really is no way to paint this guy into a corner. I feel like I am going to drive straight into his 80s output now and know I’ll probably have mixed feelings about it (see Neil Young, Springsteen’s 90s, The Rolling Stones) but I look forward to the journey going forward.