Tag Archives: Great Album

October 19: Bob Dylan released New Morning in 1970 – 49 years ago

Redirecting to a newer version of this post….

..Well, there were two good songs on S. P., DAYS OF FORTY-NINE and COPPER KETTLE… and without those two LPs there’d be no New Morning. Anyway I’m just starting to get back on my feet as far as my music goes… Al, do you use amphetamine?
~Bob Dylan (A.J. Weberman Interview, Jan 1971)

This is a quirky album, from a Dylan not pointing a way for anyone, but from a great artist remaining at his work knowingly in the face of not being creatively on top form in the phenomenal way he had been in the period 1964–68.Warm and abiding, it sounds better and better as the years go by.
~Michael Gray (The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia)

The album has a feeling of”starting over” about it, as the title and the back cover photo (Dylan with blues singer Victoria Spivey in 1961-he looks very young) both suggest.
~Paul Williams (Bob Dylan Performing Artist I: The Early Years 1960-1973)

The Man in Me:

From Wikipedia:

Released October 19, 1970
Recorded June–August 1970 at Studio B and Studio E, Columbia Studio Building, 49 East 52nd Street, New York City
Genre Rock, country rock, country
Length 35:21
Label Columbia
Producer Bob Johnston

New Morning is the eleventh studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released in October 1970 by Columbia Records.

Continue reading October 19: Bob Dylan released New Morning in 1970 – 49 years ago

Mar 01: Bob Dylan recorded Live at Budokan in 1978

budokan

March 1: Bob Dylan recorded Live at Budokan in 1978

This is where it started for me.

I am pretty drunk now, but maybe that makes me more honest and more direct about my thoughts about Bob Dylan’s slated live album, At Budokan. I think it has been undeservedly put down by critics and the public in general. It is a good live album!

It was my first real meet with Dylan, my friend Ståle had borrowed it from one of his brothers, he left it at our house and it stayed there for several years! I loved it from the start, I didn’t know what Bob Dylan was all about, I just knew that I liked the album, all of it!

“A lot of the older songs sound changed just for the sake of tinkering. Many of the more recent ones, like “Oh, Sister” and “One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below)” and “Shelter from the Storm,” are vastly improved, as if, when they were first recorded, they hadn’t been fully thought through. “Is Your Love in Vain?”, by no means the prettiest song on Dylan’s much-underrated Street-Legal, is prettier still.”
– Rolling Stone Magazine

I have read about it since, in several books and many web-sites, I understand that I’m not supposed to like this album, and still I love it.

I love every take, I know all the songs and I cannot understand how Dylan could better these incredible performances? It is a laid-back masterpiece.

Bob Dylan at Budokan is a live album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on April 23, 1979 by Columbia Records. It was recorded during his 1978 world tour and is composed mostly of the artist’s “greatest hits”. The performances in the album are radically altered from the originals, using the same musicians that backed Street-Legal, but relying on a much larger band and stronger use of brass and backup singers. In some respects the arrangements are more conventional than the original arrangements and the album was criticized for being so. At the same time that it was criticized for being too polished, it was criticized for being too sloppy. For a few critics, such as Janet Maslin of Rolling Stone, the differences between the older and newer arrangements had become less important.
– Wikipedia

Live at Budokan on Spotify:

Continue reading Mar 01: Bob Dylan recorded Live at Budokan in 1978

October 26: Bob Dylan released World Gone Wrong in 1993

world gone wrong

“Dylan’s second attempt to revive the folk music revival while laying down a new record without writing any new songs is eerie and enticing”
– Robert Christgau (A-)

“it’s the liner notes that offer the most interesting aspect of the album…[With] the songs steeped in deceit, treachery, venality and despair—not to mention his sometimes slightly berserk annotations—the picture builds up of the Blues as Bible Study, a series of lessons to be interpreted.”
– Andy Gill (The Independent)

World Gone Wrong is the twenty-ninth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on October 26, 1993 by Columbia Records.

It was Dylan’s second consecutive collection of only traditional folk songs, performed acoustically with guitar and harmonica. The songs tend to deal with darker and more tragic themes than the previous outing, Good as I Been to You.

The album received a warm reception from critics. Despite earning a Grammy award for Best Traditional Folk Album, it peaked at a modest #70 in the US, and at #35 in the UK.

wgw3

I really like this album, the power of Dylan’s performance here cannot be overstated. The guitar playing has a feel to it that is very appealing, I can picture Dylan sitting alone, having the time of his life (you can hear him tapping his feet on Ragged & Dirty). When the world has gone wrong, of course, one thing you can do is sing the blues. Bob Dylan brought things back to the roots on these two albums (Good as I been to you and World Gone Wrong).

This one is from the heart!

Continue reading October 26: Bob Dylan released World Gone Wrong in 1993

Nov 26: The Bootleg Series Vol 5 Bob Dylan Live 1975 was released in 2002

bootlegseries5

“I was just sitting outside my house one day thinking about a name for this tour, when all of a sudden, I looked into the sky and I heard a boom! Then, boom, boom, boom, boom, rolling from west to east. So I figured that should be the name.”
– Bob Dylan

This is my favorite of Bob Dylan’s bootleg series, and one of the best live albums ever released.

The Rolling Thunder Revue was a concert tour  Bob Dylan with a traveling caravan of notable musicians, including Joan Baez,Roger McGuinn, and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. Bob Neuwirth assembled the backing musicians, including T-Bone Burnett, Mick Ronson, David Mansfield, Steven Soles, and from the Desire sessions, violinist Scarlet Rivera, bassist Rob Stoner, and drummer Howie Wyeth. The tour included 57 concerts in two legs—the first in the American northeast and Canada in the fall of 1975, and the second in the American south and southwest in the spring of 1976.

rolling_TORONTO

Tangled up in Blue:

Continue reading Nov 26: The Bootleg Series Vol 5 Bob Dylan Live 1975 was released in 2002

November 3: The Jam released All Mod Cons in 1978

“All Mod Cons, released to wide acclaim in 1978, firmly cemented the group’s rise to extraordinary heights. Indeed, for many it was the first essential Jam album and listening to it now its impact has not diminished over time.”
-BBC

When I think about English records I think of  The Kinks’ The Village Green Preservation Society, The Smiths’ The Queen is Dead, The Who’s Quadrophenia and The Jam’s All Mod Cons. To me all those albums are quintessential English.

All of them are fantastic albums.

All Mod Cons:

Released 3 November 1978
Recorded 4 July 1978 to
17 August 1978RAK (Upper London) and Eden Studios
Genre Punk rock, Mod Revival, Power pop
Length 37:28
Label Polydor
Producer Vic Coppersmith-Heaven
Chris Parry

It’s their third full-length LP. It took it’s title from a British idiom one might find in housing advertisements, is short for “all modern conveniences” and is a pun on the band’s association with the mod revival as well. Of Course it is also Paul Weller’s view on the music business as a ‘con’.

Continue reading November 3: The Jam released All Mod Cons in 1978