May 11: Bob Dylan’s best songs: “Lonesome Day Blues” recorded in 2001
I overwrite. If I know I am going in to record a song, I write more than I need. In the past that’s been a problem because I failed to use discretion at times. I have to guard against that. On this album, “Lonesome Day Blues” was twice as long at one point.
~Bob Dylan (Robert Hilburn – Sept 2001)
@ #152 on my list of Dylan’s 200 best songs.. comes this hard, tough & tight electric blues.
The master version (Love and Theft version) was recorded @ Sony Music Studios – New York City – May 11, 2001 (according to Clinton Heylin – Still on the Road: The Songs of Bob Dylan, 1974-2006).
Few session details are available.
…Dylan growls like a bear cat that hasn’t eaten since the Eighties
~Rob Sheffield (Rollingstone.com)
Highlights: Bob’s harp playing, improved out of sight since last tour’s tentative efforts. The Wicked Messenger – absolutely searing rendition, I thought Patti’s version was good, but this took it to another level.
Standing in the Doorway, one of my absolute favourites,
starts beautifully and would have been a highlight, but lost it’s way lyrically – oh well! maybe next time. Watchtower and Hwy61 – simply smokin’ Desolation Row and Visions in the one show!
-Sue (boblinks.com)
Perth Entertainment Center
Perth, West Australia, Australia
18 March 2001
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar)
Charlie Sexton (guitar)
Larry Campbell (guitar, mandolin, pedal steel guitar & electric slide guitar)
2001 was a fine year for Bob Dylan’s “Never Ending Tour”.
.. the show was superbly recorded and much of the atmosphere does come across. “Forever Young” sounds like a benediction on the self-healing residents of the suffering city. “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” and, especially, “Blowin’ In The Wind” with its line “and too many people have died” have a special feel to them; a feeling that you can sense is being supplied almost as much by the audience as the performers. “Searching For A Soldier’s Grave” and Fred Rose’s song “Wait For The Light To Shine” cannot help but do the same, and the carefully-controlled lighting effects all added to the ambience.
~Andrew Muir (One More Night: Bob Dylan’s Never Ending Tour)
A great & very special New York concert only 2 months after 9/11.
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