JW: John Wesley Harding – why did you call the album that?
BD: We… I called it that because I had that song John Wesley Harding. It didn’t mean anything to me. I called it that, Jann, ‘cause I had the song John Wesley Harding, which started out to be a long ballad. I was gonna write a ballad on… Like maybe one of those old cowboy… You know, a real long ballad. But in the middle of the second verse, I got
tired. I had a tune, and I didn’t want to waste the tune, it was a nice little melody, so I just wrote a quick third verse, and I recorded that. But it was a silly little song….
~Bob Dylan to Jann Wenner November 29, 1969
This quiet masterpiece, which manages to sound both authoritative and tentative (a mix that gave it a highly contemporary feel), is neither a rock nor a folk album—and certainly isn’t folk-rock. It isn’t categorisable at all.
~Michael Gray (BD Ecyclopedia)
45 years ago Bob Dylan entered Columbia Studio A, Nashville Tennessee tempting his second recording session for “John Wesley Harding”.
Some background from wikipedia:
Dylan went to work on John Wesley Harding in the fall of 1967. By then, 18 months had passed since the completion of Blonde on Blonde. After recovering from the worst of the results of his motorcycle accident, Dylan spent a substantial amount of time recording the informal basement sessions at West Saugerties, New York; little was heard from him throughout 1967. During that time, he stockpiled a large number of recordings, including many new compositions. He eventually submitted nearly all of them for copyright, but declined to include any of them in his next studio release (Dylan would not release any of those recordings to the commercial market until 1975′s The Basement Tapes; and by then, some of those recordings had been bootlegged, usually sourced from an easy-to-find set of publisher’s demos). Instead, Dylan used a different set of songs for John Wesley Harding.
It is not clear when these songs were actually written, but none of them has turned up in the dozens of basement recordings that have since surfaced. According to Robbie Robertson, “As I recall it was just on a kind of whim that Bob went down to Nashville. And there, with just a couple of guys, he put those songs down on tape.”
Those sessions took place in the autumn of 1967, requiring less than twelve hours over three stints in the studio.
Whiskeytown, The Cardinals,The Finger, Patty Duke Syndrome, Blank Label
Website
http://www.ryan-adams.com/
David Ryan Adams (born November 5, 1974) is an American alt-country/rock singer-songwriter, from Jacksonville, North Carolina. Adams left the group Whiskeytown and released his first solo album Heartbreaker in 2000. The album was nominated for the Shortlist Music Prize and Adams released six additional solo albums, including the UK certified-gold Gold. He released five albums with the rock band The Cardinals and in 2009 Adams married singer-songwriter and actress Mandy Moore. Adams left The Cardinals and announced that he was taking a break from music.He resumed performing in October 2010 and released his thirteenth studio album, Ashes & Fire, on October 11, 2011.The album peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard 200.
Oh My Sweet Carlonina:
Mark Deming (allmusic): Mixing the heartfelt angst of a singer/songwriter with the cocky brashness of a garage rocker, Ryan Adams is at once one of the few artists to emerge from the alt-country scene to achieve mainstream commercial success and the one who most strongly refused to be defined by the genre, leaping from one spot to another stylistically while following his increasingly prolific muse. Adams was born in Jacksonville, North Carolina in 1974. While country music was a major part of his family’s musical diet when he was young (he’s cited Loretta Lynn, George Jones, Merle Haggard, and Johnny Cash as particular favorites), in his early teens Adams developed a taste for punk rock and began playing electric guitar.
The venerable Delbert McClinton is a legend among Texas roots music aficionados, not only for his amazing longevity, but for his ability to combine country, blues, soul, and rock & roll as if there were no distinctions between any of them in the best time-honored Texas tradition.
~Steve Huey (allmusic.com)
2011 Texas Heritage Songwriters’ Association Hall of Fame Inductee:
From Wikipedia:
Delbert McClinton (born November 4, 1940) is an American blues rock and electric blues singer-songwriter, guitarist, harmonica player, and pianist.
Active as a side-man since 1962 and as a band leader since 1972, he has recorded several major record label albums, and charted singles on the Billboard Hot 100, Mainstream Rock Tracks, and Hot Country Songs charts. His highest-peaking single was “Tell Me About It”, a 1992 duet with Tanya Tucker which reached No. 4 on the Country chart. He has also had four albums that made it to No. 1 on the U.S. Blues chart, and another that reached No. 2.
He was inducted into the Texas Heritage Songwriters Hall of Fame, in March 2011, along with Lee Roy Parnell, Bruce Channel, Gary Nicholson and Cindy Walker.
“Giving It Up For Your Love” @ Austin City Limits:
Album of the day:
Live (2003)
Hal Horowitz (allmusic.com):
The best way to experience Delbert McClinton‘s rowdy roadhouse combination of blues, roots rock, R&B, country, and Tex-Mex is on-stage with a couple of hundred other fans on a Saturday night. In that spirit,McClinton’s second live album, and first since 1989’s Live from Austin, documents a single 2003 performance at Norway’s Bergen Blues Festival. Originally intended only as a radio broadcast, this is an unpolished example of a typical show. Although it shares five songs with its single-disc predecessor, Livefeatures McClinton weaving newer material in with hits he’s been playing for decades, such as “B-Movie Boxcar Blues,” “Giving It Up for Your Love,” and “Going Back to Louisiana.” McClinton’s in terrific voice and spirits throughout, and his seven-piece band (including two horns) is tight but loose and ragged enough to grind through rockers with garage band enthusiasm. “Rebecca, Rebecca,” the album’s slow blues showcase, proves how comfortable McClinton is with his band and being on-stage. This is clearly his forte, and even though he’s released some terrific, if not quite classic, studio albums, this is the best way to get an overall dose of his talents. The career-spanning set list isn’t a greatest-hits collection, but that just makes it more enjoyable as the singer throws in a few curve balls. ……. read more @ allmusic.com
My voice was never really that glamorous. But a big vocal range really isn’t necessary for the type of songs I sing. For what I sing, my voice does pretty well.
(Bob Dylan to Greg Kot in August 1993)
“My songs come out of folk music…..I love that whole pantheon. To me there’s no difference between Muddy Waters and Bill Monroe.”
(Bob Dylan)
Here is a brilliant live version of “Blackjack Davie” from 1993.09.12 – Great Woods – Mansfield, Massachusetts:
Wikipedia:
Released
November 3, 1992
Recorded
Mid-1992
Genre
Folk, blues
Length
55:31
Label
Columbia
Producer
Debbie Gold
Good as I Been to You is the twenty-eighth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released in November 1992 by Columbia Records.
It is composed entirely of traditional folk songs and covers, and is Dylan’s first entirely solo, acoustic album since Another Side of Bob Dylan in 1964. It is also his first collection not to feature any original compositions since Dylan in 1973.
On the charts, Good as I Been to You reached #51 in the US and #18 in the UK.
Since launching the Never Ending Tour in June 1988, traditional covers became a feature at virtually every concert, often as part of an acoustic set. After recording Under the Red Sky in 1990, Dylan would not release an original song until 1997, and during that time, he would increasingly rely on his stockpile of covers for ‘fresh’ material. Dylan called these covers “the music that’s true for me.”
Aftermath:
The response to Good as I Been to You was surprisingly positive, particularly for an album with very modest ambitions. It drew comparisons with the acoustic sets featured in Dylan’s “Never Ending Tour” shows, drawing much praise for his interpretive skills. A number of critics pointed out that Dylan’s voice was now physically ravaged, but the focus was often on the phrasing. “Dylan sounds now, in comparison to his younger self, like one of those ghosts,” wrote David Sexton of The Sunday Telegraph, “but a powerful ghost. The effect is not so much nostalgia…as deeply inward.”
Michael Gray:
….Yet this album, imprecise, errant, at times blurred and furry, is a singular creation that gains as well as loses by Dylan’s loss of the effortless certainty
of youth. Dark, complex, surreal and fractured, it is like an inspired, lost work from some opiumthralled folk archivist throwing his own torrid genius into celebrating the myriad strengths of anonymously created song: song from before there was a music industry to kill off its mystery and its purpose. Stand-out tracks: ‘Hard Times’, ‘Arthur McBride’, ‘You’re Gonna Quit Me’, ‘Diamond Joe’ and ‘Froggie Went a-Courtin’’. The fine outtake ‘You Belong to Me’ was used on the soundtrack of Oliver Stone’s film Natural Born Killers.
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Here is “Jim Jones” from the second Supper Club Show Nov 17 1993:
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David Wild (Rollingstone.com):
…..In its stripped-down intensity, Good As I Been to You recalls the midshow acoustic segments that in recent years have been a consistent highlight of Dylan’s Neverending Tour. Even more than that, the album’s intimate, almost offhand approach suggests what it would be like to sit backstage with his Bobness while he runs through a set of some of his favorite old songs. This is a passionate, at times almost ragged piece of work that seems to have been recorded rather than produced in any conventional sense.
Only a quarter of a century late, this is the sort of album the people who booed Dylan’s decision to go electric wanted from him. And for the most part, the songs on Good As I Been to You are the same sort of material that might have appealed to the younger, freewheelin’ Dylan back in the days when he was being influenced — by Woody Guthrie, for example — rather than exerting profound influence in his own right. Still, at least one selection — the unlikely but oddly delightful “Froggie Went A Courtin'” — evinces some of the fascinating perversity that fans have come to expect from Dylan in his middle age.
………… This fascinating exploration of musical roots is more than a diversion for musicologists. Good As I Been to You shows that sometimes one can look back and find something that’s both timeless and relevant. It also proves once again that Dylan can still be every bit as good as he’s been to us in the past. Which is, of course, as good as it gets. Read more @ rollingstone.com
My fav song from the album is “Hard Times“.
An extremely sincere rendition of this song was recorded in the summer of 92 and released on Dylan’s “Good As I Been To You”. Dylan premiered the song in concert on April 12, 1993 in Louisville, Kentucky. The song which was always employed as a show opener, was an almost constant feature throughout Dylan’s 93 summer tours, until it was suddenly dropped, mid tour, on August 21, 1993, never (as of yet) to return.
~Derek Barker (The Songs He didn’t write)
Here it is:
Here is Dylan & “Hard Times” @ Willie Nelsons’ 60th Birthday TV Special (KRLU-TV Studios – Austin, Texas, 27 April 1993):
Tracks:
All songs are traditional, arranged by Bob Dylan, except where noted.
“Frankie & Albert” (arranged by Mississippi John Hurt) – 3:50
“Jim Jones” (arranged by Mick Slocum) – 3:52
“Blackjack Davey” – 5:47
“Canadee-i-o” – 4:20
“Sittin’ on Top of the World” – 4:27
“Little Maggie” – 2:52
“Hard Times” (Stephen Foster, arranged by De Dannan) – 4:31
“Step It Up and Go” – 2:54
“Tomorrow Night” (Sam Coslow and Will Grosz) – 3:42
John David Souther (commonly abbreviated as JD Souther) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, and actor. He has written and co-written numerous hits songs recorded by artists such as Linda Ronstadt and Glenn Frey of the Eagles. He is one of the greatest songwriters in the so called west coast rock, country rock wave of the 70s. He is mainly known for other peoples interpretations of his songs.
That is deeply unfair, he has made seven terrific albums under his own name.
J.D. Souther – Doolin’ Dalton, live 1973:
From Rolling Stone magazine interview with Souther, October 2012:
“…pivotal member of the L.A. country-rock posse of the Seventies, Souther recorded a handful of albums on his own, was briefly in the short-lived Souther-Hillman-Furay Band, is still close friends with Jackson Browne and, most recognizably, co-wrote songs with his friends the Eagles (“Best of My Love, ” “New Kid in Town,” “The Sad Cafe”) and Henley (“The Heart of the Matter”). Never one to court fame (despite having dated Linda Ronstadt and Stevie Nicks), Souther, 66, has largely remained under the pop-culture radar, especially once he retreated from the music business in the Eighties. But over the last few years, he’s returned to recording and touring (he just released a live EP, Midnight in Tokyo, featuring new songs and his current, jazz-oriented band), and he’s been nominated for the Songwriters Hall of Fame. And as Nashville shows, he’s also begun acting again (music fans in the Nineties may remember his stint as environmentalist John Dunaway inthirtysomething)…”
