Category Archives: Bob Dylan recording sessions

Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan recording sessions

May 2: Bob Dylan 3rd Slow Train Coming Recording Session 1979

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Bob Dylan slow train

May 2: Bob Dylan 3rd Slow Train Coming Recording Session 1979

It’s in my system. I don’t really have enough time to talk about it. If someone really wants to know, I can explain it to them, but there are other people who can do it just as well. I don’t feel compelled to do it. I was doing a bit of that last year on the stage. I was saying stuff I figured people needed to know. I thought I was giving people an idea of what was behind the songs. I don’t think it’s necessary any more. When I walk around some of the towns we go to, however, I’m totally convinced people need Jesus. Look at the junkies and the winos and the troubled people. It’s all a sickness which can be healed in an instant. The powers that be won’t let that happen. The powers that be say it has to be healed politically.
~Bob Dylan (to Robert Hilburn – Nov 1980)

Slow Train Coming was a collection of songs Dylan had originally intended to donate to backing singer Carolyn Dennis.
~Clinton Heylin (The Recording Sessions)

The first 2 recording sessions for “Slow Train Coming” had only resulted one master take for the album – Precious Angel (recorded the previous day).

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Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan recording sessions, Music Calendar

April 27: Bob Dylan – The 15th Infidels recording session in 1983


infidels

April 27: Bob Dylan – The 15th Infidels recording session in 1983

…..I did the album, and I call it that, but what it means is for other people to interpret, you know, if it means something to them. Infidels is a word that’s in the dictionary and whoever it applies to… to everybody on the album, every character. Maybe it’s all about infidels.
~Bob Dylan (to Kurt Loder in March 1984)

Foot of Pride:

 “Bob’s musical ability is limited, in terms of being able to play a guitar or a piano,….. It’s rudimentary, but it doesn’t affect his variety, his sense of melody, his singing. It’s all there. In fact, some of the things he plays on piano while he’s singing are lovely, even though they’re rudimentary. That all demonstrates the fact that you don’t have to be a great technician. It’s the same old story: If something is played with soul, that’s what’s important.”
~Mark Knopfler

“I’ve made shoes for everyone, even you, while I still go barefoot”
~Bob Dylan (from “I and I”)

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Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan recording sessions

April 14: Bob Dylan – The 4th Infidels recording session, New York City in 1983

Infidels

I’m usually either here or on the West Coast or down in the Caribbean. Me and another
guy have a boat down there. Jokerman kinda came to me in the islands. It’s very
mystical. The shapes there, and shadows, seem to be so ancient. The song was sorta
inspired by these spirits they call jumbis.
~Bob Dylan (to Kurt Loder, March 1984)

Studio A
Power Station
New York City, New York
14 April 1983
4th Infidels recording session. Produced by Mark Knopfler and Bob Dylan.

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Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan recording sessions

Feb 18: Bob Dylan’s 5th recording session for “Nashville Skyline” (w/Johnny Cash) in 1969

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bob dylan nashville skyline

I like Johnny Cash a lot. I like everything he does really.
~Bob Dylan (to Nat Hentoff – Autumn 1965)

In the end, Nashville Skyline is a lovely album but not a heavyweight contender, though its effects were major ones. Country music was despised, hick music when Dylan took it up. People were divided into the hip and the non-hip. The counterculture was in full swing and riddled with its own self-importance and snobbery. Nashville Skyline was a hard pill to swallow: but it did ’em good.
~Michael Gray (Bob Dylan Encyclopedia)

The 5th recording session for ‘Nashville Skyline’ took place on February 18, 1969. One master versions emerged.. the lovely “Girl from the North Country”. Johnny Cash shared vocal on all 38 takes…this is a highly bootlegged sessions… and people have uploaded most of it on youtube… 

bob-dylan-and-johnny-cash-tv-special
picture of Johnny Cash & Bob Dylan.. NOT from the studio sessions

 

Some background from wikipedia:

Nashville Skyline is the ninth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released in April 1969 by Columbia Records.

Building on the rustic style he experimented with on John Wesley Harding, Nashville Skyline displayed a complete immersion into country music. Along with the more basic lyrical themes, simple songwriting structures, and charming domestic feel, it introduced audiences to a radically new singing voice from Dylan—a soft, affected country croon.

The result received a generally positive reaction from critics, and was a commercial success. Reaching number 3 in the US, the album also scored Dylan his fourth UK number 1 album.

bob dylan nashville skyline back

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Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan recording sessions, Johnny Cash

Feb 17: Bob Dylan’s 4th recording session for “Nashville Skyline (w/Johnny Cash) in 1969

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bob dylan nashville skyline

I like Johnny Cash a lot. I like everything he does really.
~Bob Dylan (to Nat Hentoff – Autumn 1965)

In the end, Nashville Skyline is a lovely album but not a heavyweight contender, though its effects were major ones. Country music was despised, hick music when Dylan took it up. People were divided into the hip and the non-hip. The counterculture was in full swing and riddled with its own self-importance and snobbery. Nashville Skyline was a hard pill to swallow: but it did ’em good.
~Michael Gray (Bob Dylan Encyclopedia)

The 4th recording session for ‘Nashville Skyline’ took place on February 17, 1969. Two master versions emerged.. the lovely “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You” & “Nashville Skyline Rag”. Johnny Cash joined the session halfway through & they tried out “One Too Many Mornings”, “I Still Miss Someone” (Cash) & “Don’t Think Twice”. A video from one of the takes on “One Too Many Mornings” is available (& included in this post).. fantastic stuff!

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