Tag Archives: Al Kooper

Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan albums, Great albums

May 16: Bob Dylan released Blonde On Blonde in 1966

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blonde on blonde

May 16: Bob Dylan released  Blonde On Blonde in 1966

The closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my mind was on individual bands in the Blonde on Blonde album. It’s that thin, that wild mercury sound. It’s metallic and bright gold, with whatever that conjures up. That’s my particular sound.
~Bob Dylan (to Ron Rosenbaum – Nov 1977)

Blonde on Blonde is all resonance. The songs and their stories and evocative lines and seductive melodies inhabit a realm of sound unique to this album, different from anything created before or since by Dylan or anyone else. Dylan called it “that thin, that wild mercury sound-metallic and bright gold, with whatever that conjures up.”
~Paul Williams (Bob Dylan Performing Artist I: The Early Years 1960-1973)

bob dylan blonde on blonde photshoot

To have followed up one masterpiece with another was Dylan’s history making achievement here…Where Highway 61 Revisited has Dylan exposing and confronting like a laser beam in surgery, descending from outside the sickness, Blonde on Blonde offers a persona awash inside the chaos…We’re tossed from song to song…The feel and the music are on a grand scale, and the language and delivery are a rich mixture of the visionary and the colloquial.
~Michael Gray (Song & Dance Man III: The Art of Bob Dylan)

Continue reading May 16: Bob Dylan released Blonde On Blonde in 1966 →

Beatles, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Rock'n Roll

10 Great versions of That’s All Right (Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, The Beatles & more)

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johnny cash & bob dylan

For Elvis Presley & Arthur Crudup versions:

Such an important song needs special attention. So I decided to seek out versions of the song by some of my fav artists… here’s what I found:

1. Bob Dylan & Johnny Cash (1969)

2. Bob Dylan  – Columbia Recording Studios (NYC) 1962/10/26 OR 1962/11/01

3. The Beatles – Live @ BBC

Continue reading 10 Great versions of That’s All Right (Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, The Beatles & more) →

Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan Concerts

Bob Dylan – East Rutherford, New Jersey – 27 October 1981 (full concert audio)

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bob dylan new jersey 1981

A fascinating performance by a magnetic renegade
~The New York Times (according to Clinton Heylin in “A Life in Stolen Moments”)

Meadowlands Brendan T. Byrne Sports Arena
East Rutherford, New Jersey
27 October 1981

  • Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar)
  • Fred Tackett (guitar)
  • Steve Ripley (guitar)
  • Al Kooper (keyboards)
  • Tim Drummond (bass)
  • Jim Keltner (drums)
  • Arthur Rosato (drums)
  • Clydie King, Regina Havis, Madelyn Quebec (background vocals)

Setlist:

  1. Gotta Serve Somebody
  2. I Believe In You
  3. Like A Rolling Stone
  4. I Want You
    Thank you, you’re great. You all feel pretty good tonight huh? Oh heaven, I wish I felt that good. If I stay here long enough I might feel that good. Oh yeah? All right! So, how you doing? How far you’d come? Is that right? I might be acting a little strange right now. That’s because this is a mighty strange place. Oh yes, it is. I ain’t seen nowhere like this. Back in the dressing room there, I got a black mirror in my room! I was looking through it just half an hour ago, I see two eyes looking back at me.
  5. Man Gave Names To All The Animals
  6. Maggie’s Farm
    Thank you. You feeling all right? Am I singing on key tonight? I’ll try sing this one for you in key.
  7. Girl From The North Country
    Thank you. Anybody here tonight paid to get in? What? I can’t hear you. Talk up, yeah. I’m glad you’re sitting there. Phew!
  8. Ballad Of A Thin Man
  9. Simple Twist Of Fate
  10. All Along The Watchtower
  11. I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
    We’re gonna do this song here. The songwriter who wrote it is here tonight. There’s a lot of famous people here tonight. I wanna just tell you that you may be sitting next to somebody that’s famous. I know you are. You definitely are. That man over there’s famous too, yes he is. [plays Let’s Begin] I hope we did that right Jim.
  12. Let’s Begin (Jim Webb)
  13. Forever Young
    It’s easy to say that, but hard to do it. Any gambling men out there? I guess there should be. Yeah! Don’t you have a big gambling resort around here somewhere. What’s it called? What’s that gambling town around here? Reno? Atlantic City. Big gambling town, yeah? Well here’s a gambling song for you gambling men. Gambling women too. I don’t think any women are gamblers though do you?
  14. Gamblin’ Man (trad.)
  15. The Times They Are A-Changin’
  16. A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
  17. Watered-Down Love
  18. Masters Of War
  19. Mr. Tambourine Man
  20. Solid Rock
  21. Dead Man, Dead Man
  22. Just Like A Woman
    All right, all right. I want to play …. We had a single record released a while back. I think it sold about five copies. But I like it so much I just got to play it. Anyway, it sold about three copies right here.
  23. Heart Of Mine
    All right. I wanna say hello to all the editors of Rolling Stone magazine, oh yeah. All the writers and editors are here tonight I think, checking me out. They’re gonna come back stage later, I’m gonna check them out.
  24. When You Gonna Wake Up
  25. In The Garden
    All right, hello. Thank you. I wanna say hello to Mr. and Mrs. Kooper who are out there tonight. Wherever they are, I wanna say greetings! I’m glad you could make it. Anyway this is Mr. and Mrs. Kooper’s relative on keyboards over here. A man I’ve known for quite some time now. I’m not gonna tell you his name but that’s him on keyboards. I should tell you his name anyway. Al Kooper is his name. Played with me twenty years. Maybe some of you heard of him, maybe some of you haven’t. A legend in his own time though. On the drums tonight, Jimmy Lee Keltner from Tulsa, Oklahoma. From New Jersey, state of I think he’s from, Ashbury Park, New Jersey, on the guitar, Steve Ripley. On the other guitar, Fred Tackett. All right, on the guitar, bass guitar Tim Drummond. On the backing vocals, Clydie, Regina, and Madelyn Quebec. On the other set of drums, also from New Jersey is Arthur Rosoto. Give Arthur Rosoto a big hand. I hope I sung something on key tonight, I really do.
    —
  26. Blowin’ In The Wind
  27. It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)
  28. Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door

Bob Dylan - New Jersey 1981

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-Egil

Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan recording sessions

Today: Bob Dylan – The third recording session for Highway 61 Revisited in 1965 – 48 years ago

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bob_dylan-highway_61_revisited-frontal

“I never wanted to write topical songs,…. Have you heard my last two records, Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61? It’s all there. That’s the real Dylan.”
~Bob Dylan (to Frances Taylor – Aug 1965)

“If you had to sum up Highway 61 Revisited in a single sentence, suffice it to say that it is the album that invented attitude and raised it to an art form. Just take a look at the cover. Nobody from Johnny Rotten to Eminem has done it better to this day.
~Nigel Williamson (The Rough Guide To Bob Dylan)

 

Studio A
Columbia Recording Studios
New York City, New York
29 July 1965
The 3rd Highway 61 Revisited session, produced by Bob Johnston

To create the material for Highway 61 Revisited, Dylan spent a month writing in his new home in the Byrdcliffe artists’ colony of Woodstock in upstate New York. When he returned to Studio A on July 29, he was backed by the same musicians as the previous session, but his producer had changed from Wilson to Johnston.

Their first session together was devoted to three songs. After recording several takes each of “Tombstone Blues”, “It Takes a Lot to Laugh” and “Positively 4th Street”, masters were successfully recorded. “Tombstone Blues” and “It Takes a Lot to Laugh” were included in the final album, but “Positively 4th Street” was issued as a single-only release. At the close of the July 29 session, Dylan attempted to record “Desolation Row”, accompanied by Al Kooper on electric guitar and Harvey Brooks on bass. There was no drummer, as the drummer had gone home. This electric version was eventually released in 2005, on The Bootleg Series Vol. 7.  ~Wikipedia

Songs:

  1. It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
  2. It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
  3. It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
  4. Tombstone Blues
  5. Tombstone Blues
  6. Tombstone Blues
  7. Tombstone Blues
  8. Tombstone Blues
  9. Tombstone Blues
  10. Tombstone Blues
  11. Tombstone Blues
  12. Tombstone Blues
    (recorded 10 am – 1 pm)
    released 30 Aug 2005 – The Bootleg Series Vol 7. No Direction Home: The Soundtrack
  13. Tombstone Blues
  14. Tombstone Blues
    (recorded 10 am – 1 pm)
    released 30 Aug 1965 – Highway 61 Revisited

    –
    If Salvador Dali or Luis Bunuel had picked up a Fender Strat to head a blues band, they might have come up with something like “Tombstone Blues.”
    ~Bill Janovitz (allmusic.com)
    —
  15. It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
  16. It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
  17. It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
  18. It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
    (recorded 2:30 – 5:30 pm)
    released 30 Aug 1965 – Highway 61 Revisited

    –
  19. Positively 4th Street
  20. Positively 4th Street
  21. Positively 4th Street
  22. Positively 4th Street
  23. Positively 4th Street
  24. Positively 4th Street
  25. Positively 4th Street
  26. Positively 4th Street
  27. Positively 4th Street
  28. Positively 4th Street
    (recorded 2:30 – 5:30 pm)
    released 7 Sept 1965 as a single

    –

Musicians:

  • Bob Dylan (guitar, piano, harmonica, vocal)
  • 1-14 Mike Bloomfield (guitar), Paul Griffin (piano), Bobby Gregg (drums), Joseph Machao Jr. (bass), Al Kooper (organ)
  • 15-28 Mike Bloomfield (guitar), Frank Owens (piano), Bobby Gregg (drums), Russ Savakus (bass), Al Kooper (organ)

Bob_Dylan studio 1965

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References:

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Bob Dylan, Bob Dylans's best songs, The Best Songs

Bob Dylan’s best songs – Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again #5

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bobdylan-blondeonblonde-cover

“Now!… Well for one thing, the music, the rhyming and rhythm, what I call the mathematics of a song, are more second-nature to me. I used to have to go after a song, seek it out. But now, instead of going to it I stay where I am and let everything disappear and the song rushes to me. Not just the music, the words, too.
~Bob Dylan (to Margaret Steen, Nov 1965)

[SIoMWTMBA].. goes beyond being an exciting rock-music performance. It shares with those slower Blonde on Blonde songs ‘Visions of Johanna’ and ‘Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands’ a greater-than-average duration and a general high seriousness of intention.
~Michael Gray (BD Encyclopedia)

bob dylan stuck inside of mobile

@ #5 on my list of Dylan’s 200 best songs.. the second best song on Blonde On Blonde.

The master version (Blonde On Blonde version) was recorded @ Columbia Music Row Studios – Nashville, Tennessee –17 February 1966 (47 years ago).

This was the the 8th Blonde On Blonde session, produced by Bob Johnston.. and after 20 attempts Dylan was satisfied … with take 20. No other songs were tried @ this session.

….and those lovely drums….

…I know it sounds silly, but I love that song and how it pulls me in, but once I’m in there I always focus on the drummer. It’s a song with so much soul, but the more I listen, I always go back to those killer drums.
~Frank Black (Pixies, etc) (to MOJO’s “Dylan 100 best songs edition” )

Bob+Dylan+Dylan+1966

Master version (Blonde On Blonde):

Spotify:

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