Watching the Grammys tonight, I remembered Bob Dylan's curious acceptance of his Lifetime Achievement Award back in the early 90's. Jack Nicholson presented the award; usually considered a pretty cool, calm & collected cat, here he seems a bit rattled; as he begins the presentation, you can see him anxiously, repeatedly, looking back at Dylan as if worried that the ceremony was going a bit off the tracks.
Once Dylan begins his acceptance speech, he launches into memories of his father; I think he pulls off one bit of deft comic timing. Am I being too generous?
Dylan later had to fend off accusations that he'd been drunk or stoned. He claimed to have felt out of sorts because of a flu shot that morning. Watch it & judge for yourself.
When I first heard that Bob Dylan would be coming out with a Christmas
album, the idea both intrigued and concerned me. He would be covering
the
music of others, of course, since he has never come close to writing a
Christmas song. (Except, perhaps, 'A Hard Rains A-Gonna Fall' -- a perfect
description of Christmas in Seattle.) 'Is this some kind of joke?', I
asked myself, and as Dylan once sang at the end of 'Desolation Row'. I also couldn't help recalling
his first album of covers, 1970's Self Portrait, and the debacle that followed. In the early 90's he released two well-received albums of covers; but
those were all tunes out of the folk blues canon, Dylan's sweet spot.
But an album of Christmas songs?
Many purists might oppose the very idea of giving mid-20th century Christmas schmaltz
any stamp of authenticity, but that seems to be the trick Dylan is trying to pull off on this album. As Jody Rosen points out
in Slate, Dylan, "knows that holiday schlock is a profound
tradition in its own right...he's harnessing his unrivaled cred
to remind us that Christmas ditties
are as deeply American—and often, as just plain deep—as anything Alan
Lomax ever recorded in an Appalachian holler". This project may not
have worked had not Dylan been aided by perhaps his best backing since
The Band. Most of them also backed Dylan on Together Through Life, and the rave-up 'Must Be Santa' recalls--if not surpasses--the spirit of delight that permeated much of The Basement Tapes. As Terence Blacker says in The Independent, "it's hard to believe that anyone could listen to his mad, joyous
Tex-Mex version of 'Must Be Santa' without feeling better about the
world". A key player is East LA's David Hidalgo of Los Lobos. His accordion--which goes crazy on 'Must Be Santa'--was essential to the sound of Together Through Life, and here he's all over the place; besides the accordion, he plays the guitar, mandolin and violin.
The very first rack of the album, 'Here Comes Santa Claus', begins with a conventional arrangement matched with Dylan's well worn voice. But soon enough, things get a little, well, strange,,,a violin joins in (presumably Hidalgo) and soon the song is in a Western Swing
groove. Then it sounds like The Beach Boys have joined in! It may
appear disjointed, but that's not how it comes off. Instead, it's a
rich pastiche drawn form quite distinct sources.
Throughout the record there are these types of moments, when
the seemingly incongruous turns out to be completely natural. In
'Winter Wonderland', The Fleetwoods even seem to make an appearance.
(I'd always thought 'Winter Wonderland' inspired Dylan's own
'Winterlude' from New Morning --the follow -up apology-of-sorts after Self Portrait crashed and burned.)
Before listening to 'Hark! The Herald Angels Sing' visions of
Johnny Mathis danced in my head. I wondered how Dylan would handle such
a challenging vocal. But he works hard at it, struggling to hit the right
notes--which he does, for the most part, and it makes for a touching
performance. After hearing it, I recalled his long-ago claim in Don't Look Back, that he was as good a singer as Caruso because he could 'hit all those notes--plus I can hold my breath twice as long'.
Finally, here's the wild and crazy 'Must Be Santa':
I was surprised to see on the cover of Bob Dylan's latest CD a photograph by one of my favorite photographers, Bruce Davidson. It's actually one of his most well known photos, from a series of pictures he took in 1959 titled 'Brooklyn Gang'. Via Garbage Dress, here's Davidson's current day reflections on those photos he took in the Summer of 1959:
In the spring of 1959, I met a group of
teenagers in Brooklyn who called themselves "The Jokers." At the time
there were an estimated thousand gang members in New York City. A Youth
Board had been formed which sent "Youth Workers" out to dissuade gangs
from fights and to help socialize them. It was after reading a
newspaper article about a skirmish in Prospect Park that I decided to
find the gang and enter "the cool world" of their lives. At first, I
attached to the youth worker assigned to them, but then stayed with the
gang members as they stood late at night on the street corner, hung out
in the candy store, or went to the beach at Coney Island with their
girlfriends. I was twenty-five and they were about
sixteen. I could easily have been taken for one of them. My way of
working is to enter an unknown world, explore it over a period of time,
and learn from it. The previous year, I had traveled for a few months
with a circus, making intimate photographs of a dwarf clown. Now I
found myself involved with a group of unpredictable youths who were
mostly indifferent to me. In time they allowed me to witness their
fear, depression, and anger. I soon realized that I, too, was feeling
some of their pain. In staying close to them, I uncovered my own
feelings of failure, frustration, and rage."
Dylan's choice of the 'Brooklyn Gang' photo apparently was no afterthought; an early video for Together Through Life was a slide show of Davidson's 'Brooklyn Gang' series. The title of the song, 'Beyond Here Lies Nothin', could easily serve as an alternate title for 'Brooklyn Gang'. Finally, here's the video; The combination of the stark photos, the garage band sound of Dylan's backing group, and his more than well-worn voice make for a head-turning combination. Together Through Life has a distinctly different sound for Dylan; no harmonica, no organ; those instruments are instead replaced by the accordion of David Hidalgo of East LA's Los Lobos. A risky and inspired choice which really pays off. Dylan, on a new playing field, seems reawakened. Check out the sly vocal rhythm he plays with as he sings varying codas to each chorus; my favorite is "beyond here lies nothin'/nothin' but the mountains of the past". Second favorite, "Beyond her here lies nothin'/nothin' we can call our own".
And he's about to follow this up with a Christmas album!?!? Proves he has both a sense of doom and a sense of whimsy!
The Bobster has always had the strange habit of not including some of his best work on albums, leaving them to be discovered on bootlegs or 'official' bootlegs--an oxymoron to rival 'jumbo shrimp'. 'I'll Keep It With Mine' is one of the most perplexing omissions, rivaling the non-release of both 'Blind Willie McTell' and 'I'm Not There'. (The latter mistake was redressed, in a way, by the recent Dylan bio-pic being titled 'I'm Not There'.)
Here's Bob's "I'll Keep It With Mine, followed By Nico's version. Supposedly he wrote the song for her & then gave it to her, explaining it's non-appearance on an album of his.
The soundtrack for 'I'm Not There' is a delight. There have been a number of tribute compilations to The Bobster through the yeas but, surprisingly, a filmmaker has has carved the best road out of a well trod path. Here are two of my favorites, which display the widely different personas that the film attempts to grapple with. Yo La Tengo takes on 'I Wanna Be Your Lover', a lost song left off 'Blonde On Blonde' due to it's similarity to 'I Want You' in form & content. It is a song clearly exemplifying the folk-rock boom of the mid-sixties. On the other hand, "Goin' To Acapulco'--performed by Jim James of My Morning Jacket, backed by the 'house band' of the soundtrack, Calexico--sounds as if it could have been written in 1960 or 1860. 'Acapulco' emerged from the Basement Tapes sessions, and Dylan's songwriting at that time--only a year after 'I Wanna Be Your Lover'--was rooted deeply in the timelessness of traditional American vernacular. Greil Marcus, writing about this song-- which in it's own way is as mysterious & elusive as the title song of 'I'm Not There'--noted that 'never has the phrase 'going to have some fun' sounded so sad.'
Well, Cate Blanchett went and garnered a best supporting actress Golden Globe award for her sparkling turn as Bob Dylan in 'I'm Not There'. I'm sure she's happier about it than would appear in this shot from the film. In her reaction to the award--issued as a statement to the press, since the Golden Globe ceremonies were canceled due to the ongoing writer's strike in Hollywood--she gave a hearty nod to Bob at the conclusion:
Of course none of this would be possible without the
great man himself, Bob Dylan, wherever you are, whoever you are, I
thank you deeply."
Much has been made about director Todd Haynes' choice for a woman to play Dylan during the '65-66 red-hot peak of his career, right before his career altering motorcycle accident. But Dylan himself he had an epiphany when he reflected upon his work as he recuperated from the accident. "I realized that when I was talking about other people I was only talking about myself. I'd say words like 'you' and 'he' and 'she' but I was mostly talking about me. It's like that old song that says 'I can see it others, I can feel it in myself'."
So, if all his songs were self-referential, what about 'Just Like a Woman'? Actually, in that song he pointedly changes the point of reference, making it all the more obvious that there was a thin line dividing the narrator from the subject of that song. While it is, for the most part, about a woman, sad & lost, it begins with the refrain 'nobody feels any pain, tonight as I stand inside the rain'. So who, actually, is the song about? The bridge is the heart of the song, and it reveals the true subject-- the 'aggrieved party', one might say:
It was raining from the first, and I was dying there of thirst so I came in here But your long time curse hurts, but what worse is this pain in here I can't stay in here ain't it clear that I just don't fit
I prefer the following performance of 'Just Like a Woman', from 1966, over the album version. The latter seems a bit more spiteful, while the former makes the autobiographical nature of the song much clearer. And the harmonica breaks are some of his best work he's ever done on that instrument.
Bob's 'Most Likely You Your Way & I'll Go Mine' has gotten the Mark Ronson treatment. As he awaits, with Amy Winehouse, possible Grammy awards for his work on Back to Black, check this out:
After getting boos for playing rock n' roll at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, the Bobster returned to the stage; the polite Midwesterner that he was--and is--he sang some songs on the acoustic guitar. He ended with a shimmering performance of 'It's All Over Now Baby Blue', making the its version on 'Bringing It All Back Home' seem like a rehearsal. Equally as dramatic as the electric songs that made the crowd turn on him, this rendition of 'Baby Blue was a biting goodbye note to the audience--who, cluelessly, ringingly applauded this send-off. All because of the kind of guitar he was playing.
Christian Bale, in I'm Not There, actually plays two characters--on called John & one called Jack--representing wildly different phases of Bob Dylan's life. At one point he is the early 60's folk-protest hero, and at another he is the early 80's Christian convert, touring the country proselytizing about his newfound beliefs. No wonder they broke this into two different names; how improbable it appeared at the time when the guy that wrote 'With God On Our Side' later wrote songs like 'Gotta Serve Somebody'. This turn in Dylan's life was as least as surprising as his earlier abandonment of folk for rock.
It seems, however, that this period--written off by so many as a strange. momentary detour--is given careful attention in 'I'm Not There'. Greil Marcus, Dylanologist nonpareil & admitted atheist, admits that John Doe's version of 'Pressing On' bowled him over. (Doe supplies the vocal for Christian Bale's performance of the song.) As Marcus notes, one aspect of Dylan's career that had always boggled his mind was his...
conversion to fundamentalist Christianity. The sequence in this
movie that depicts that is so beautiful, and so strange ... John Doe's
version of the Dylan gospel song "Pressing On" is playing [in the
scene; it reminded me of visiting the Chartres cathedral [in France]. I
thought, "God, I wish I believed in God, because then I could really
appreciate this in a way that I probably can't." I feel the same way
when I listen to John Doe sing "Pressing On." I realize that there are
things that I'll always miss.
Here's the Bobster himself, performing 'Pressing On' in 1980:
Before the release of Todd Hayne's take on Dylan, it's time, perhaps, to look back on Dylan's take on Dylan. Here is the last 8 or so minutes of 'Eat The Document', the film that Dylan turned in ABC in 1967, chronicling his British tour of 1966. In a strange way Dylan was competing with D.A. Pennebaker, whose 'Don't Look Back', documenting his British tour of '65, was also released in 1967. (D.A. Pennebaker shot the footage, which Dylan later edited. An answer to 'Don't Look Back', perhaps?) The latter film has now accepted to be a classic, while 'Eat The Document' has been secreted away. ABC rejected the 50 minute film for its 'Stage '67' show; judge for yourself whether they were correct in rejecting it. Biased as I am, I enjoy it. I particularly like the ending, where he turns & addresses the camera person who's been following him around. John Lennon does a comic bit -- which has been replicated, word for word, in 'I'm Not There' -- and the film, wrapped in acrimony over Dylan's change from folk to rock, ends with a gentle love song which soon vanished into the ether due to his subsequent motorcycle accident & self imposed 'retirement'. (Johnny Cash also pops up in the film, which you can see here.)
n Globe 