Friday, January 28, 2011

Like A Complete Unknown




"I Was Young When I Left Home" mp3
by Bob Dylan, 1961.
available on Love And Theft (Bonus Disc)

"When I arrived, it was dead-on winter. The cold was brutal and every artery of the city was snowpacked, but I'd started out from the frostbitten North Country, a little corner of the earth where the dark frozen woods and icy roads didn't faze me. I could transcend the limitations. It wasn't money or love that I was looking for. I had a heightened sense of awareness, was set in my ways, impractical and a visionary to boot. My mind was strong like a trap and I didn't need any guarantee of validity. I didn't know a single soul in this dark freezing metropolis but that was all about to change -- and quick."
-Bob Dylan, Chronicles, Volume One, Simon & Schuster © 2004.

New York City is covered in snow, just as it was fifty years ago this week when Bob Dylan first arrived here. And though the exact date is in dispute, it was on or around January 24, 1961. His ambition had outgrown the appropriately named Dinkytown coffeehouse scene in Minneapolis, and while having reinvented himself a few times already at the age of nineteen, Dylan, a self-described "musical expeditionary" with "no past really to speak of, nothin' to go back to, (and) nothin' to lean on" set his sites on brighter pastures: New York City, and the burgeoning folk scene in Greenwich Village to be exact. He also set out to meet his hero Woody Guthrie, who was spending his final years in a hospital in New Jersey suffering from Huntington's Chorea disease.

Dylan arrived in town via the George Washington Bridge in a 4-door Pontiac driven by his friend Fred Underhill. As legend has it, he disembarked and caught a train downtown where he promptly met Fred Neil and found himself a spot in the revue at Cafe Wha? backing Neil on harmonica and playing his own three song set which was the standard alotted time for each performer. His own repertoire at the time consisted almost entirely of Woody Guthrie songs, of which he'd learned most of the catalog. He had yet to write any of his own material to speak of, and from most accounts back in Minnesota, Dylan was a fairly ordinary folk singer with great ambition who did a good Woody Guthrie imitation. He had a lot of game and a "schtick" as was needed to succeed, but whatever it was that he considered success at that time, he certainly could have never imagined what lay in store for him in the coming year.

Dylan describes this moment as his "crossroads," as in Robert Johnson at the crossroads, and this particular one (give or take a block or two) was at the corner of Bleecker and MacDougal. The transformation that took place in the coming months is nothing short of remarkable. In the right place at the right time, he quickly met, learned from, and collaborated with a cast of characters including Dave Van Ronk, Karen Dalton, Fred Neil, and Ramblin' Jack Elliott, as well as his future muse Suze Rotolo. He also met Guthrie. He'd regularly board a bus to New Jersey with his guitar and sit with him in the hospital. Woody would call out song titles (his own) and the young disciple would oblige his requests. He learned fingerpicking, and slowly started writing his own songs, borrowing melodies and form from the vast American songbook of country, blues and folk that he and his contemporaries were mining and appropriating into another new form.

In April, he got his first paying gig, at Gerdes Folk City, with a two week run opening for John Lee Hooker. Izzy Young, of the Folklore Center, offered guidance and tried to help the fledgling midwestern transplant find a record deal. The folk labels all balked. In September, while playing harmonica on a Caroline Hester session for Columbia, he caught the ear of John Hammond, who signed him to a record deal a month later. This was far beyond his wildest dreams that a label such as Columbia would be interested in what he was doing. In Chronicles, Dylan recalls getting a copy of the yet to be released LP of Robert Johnson's Vocalion sides (still relatively unknown outside of a small group of blues aficionados) from Hammond on the day of his signing.

"Over the next few weeks I listened to it repeatedly, cut after cut, one song after another, sitting and staring at the record player. Whenever I did, it felt like a ghost had come into the room, a fearsome apparition."

In early November, he played his first concert as a headliner at the Carnegie Chapter Hall, a small annexed room upstairs from the main hall. A typewritten program for the event included a self-penned biography of his reinvented self. It begins: "Bob Dylan was born in Duluth, Minnesota in 1941. He was raised in Gallup N.M. and before he came to NY earlier this year, he lived in Iowa, S. Dakota and Kansas. He started playing carnivals at the age of 14, accompanying himself on guitar and piano." It goes on to say that he "learned many blues songs from a Chicago street singer named Arvella Gray" and met "Mance Lipscomb, from the Brazos River country of Texas, through a grandson that sang rock and roll."



A few weeks later Dylan would enter the studio and record his first Columbia LP in three short sessions over three days of mostly other people's arrangements and songs. He'd save his own compositions for his next record, which he began working in by the middle of 1962. A half a century after his arrival in New York City, he continues to perpetrate his peculiar brilliance, appropriation and reinvention.

Download:

"This Land is Your Land" mp3
by Bob Dylan, 1961.
live at Carnegie Chapter Hall, Nov. 4, 1961.
available on No Direction Home

"In the Pines" mp3
by Bob Dylan, 1961.
live at Carnegie Chapter Hall, Nov. 4, 1961.

"Baby, Let Me Follow You Down" (mono) mp3
by Bob Dylan, 1962.
available on Bob Dylan

"Mama Let Me Lay It On You No. 2" mp3
by Blind Boy Fuller, 1937.
available on Complete Recorded Works 4 (1937-38)

"Song To Woody" (mono) mp3
by Bob Dylan, 1962.
available on Bob Dylan

"Hard Times In New York Town" mp3
by Bob Dylan, 1961.
available on The Bootleg Series, Vols. 1-3 : Rare And Unreleased, 1961-1991

"Down On Penny's Farm" mp3
by The Bentley Boys, 1929.
available on Anthology Of American Folk Music

"Talkin' New York" (mono) mp3
by Bob Dylan, 1962.
available on Bob Dylan

"Mean Talkin Blues" mp3
by Woody Guthrie, 1945.
available on The Asch Recordings, Vol. 1-4

"Ramblin' Round" mp3
by Woody Guthrie, 1944.
available on The Asch Recordings, Vol. 1-4

"New York Town" mp3
by Woody Guthrie, 1944.
available on The Asch Recordings, Vol. 1-4

"Hard Travelin'" mp3
by Ramblin' Jack Elliott, 1961.
available on Hard Travelin'

"Little Bit of Rain" mp3
by Fred Neil, 1964.
Live at Cafe Au Go Go

"Bleecker & MacDougal" mp3
by Fred Neil, 1965.
available on Bleecker & MacDougal





"Red Are The Flowers" mp3
by Karen Dalton, 1962.
available on Cotton Eyed Joe

"Pastures Of Plenty" mp3
by Karen Dalton, 1962.
available on Cotton Eyed Joe

"Georgie on the IRT" mp3" mp3
by Dave Van Ronk, 1961.
available on The Folkways Years, 1959-1961

"He Was A Friend Of Mine" mp3
by Dave Van Ronk, 1963.
available on Inside Dave Van Ronk

"He Was A Friend Of Mine" mp3
by Bob Dylan, 1961.
available on The Bootleg Series, Vols. 1-3 : Rare And Unreleased, 1961-1991

"Last Thoughts On Woody Guthrie" mp3
by Bob Dylan, 1963.
available on The Bootleg Series, Vols. 1-3 : Rare And Unreleased, 1961-1991

top photo: Bob Dylan on my Rooftop, Third Avenue, New York City, 1962. by John Cohen, from There Is No Eye, Powerhouse Books
© 2001.

Bob Dylan, Karen Dalton, and Fred Neil, 1961.
photograph by Fred McDarrah

Saturday, January 8, 2011

4th Time Around



Today is January 8th, which means two things around here. It's the fourth anniversary of the Boogie Woogie Flu, and, of course, it's Elvis's birthday. So, in celebration of these two miraculous events, I, T-Bone Carruthers, Mayor of Fluville, offer you four groups of four songs, four square and for today. They are: four versions of Bob Dylan's answer song to "Norwegian Wood," four songs covered by Elvis on his Memphis Record, the same four songs performed by the King, and four songs about him. Think of them as little EPs.

Things have been somewhat quiet here this year at the Boogie Woogie Flu and without all of the writers who contributed pieces, I don't think I could have kept it going. So, as we begin our 5th time around I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all of you readers and everyone who has helped keep this insane endeavor alive.

Drive safely and have a nice day.

*******

Download:

"4th Time Around" mp3
by Terry Melcher, 1974.
available on Terry Melcher

"4th Time Around" mp3
by Yo La Tengo, 2007.
available on I'm Not There

"4th Time Around" mp3
by Robyn Hitchcock, 2002.
available on Robyn Sings

"4th Time Around" mp3
by Bob Dylan, 1966.
available on The Original Mono Recordings


*******




"Stranger In My Own Hometown" mp3
by Percy Mayfield, 1964.
Tangerine 45
out of print

"The Long Black Limousine" mp3
by Wynn Stewart, 1958.
available on California Country

"Any Day Now (My Wild Beautiful Bird)" mp3
by Chuck Jackson, 1962.
available on I Don't Want to Cry

"True Love Travels on a Gravel Road" mp3
by Percy Sledge, 1969.
available on It Tears Me Up


*******

"Stranger In My Own Hometown" mp3
by Elvis Presley, 1969.
available on From Elvis in Memphis

"The Long Black Limousine" mp3
by Elvis Presley, 1969.
available on From Elvis in Memphis

"Any Day Now" mp3
by Elvis Presley, 1969.
available on From Elvis in Memphis

"True Love Travels on a Gravel Road" mp3
by Elvis Presley, 1969.
available on From Elvis in Memphis


*******

"He Was The King" mp3
by Neil Young, 2005.
available on Prairie Wind

"A Century Of Elvis" mp3
by Belle and Sebastian, 1997.
available on Lazy Line Painter Jane

"There's A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop" mp3
(country version)
by Kirsty MacColl, 1981.
from Desperate Character
out of print

"Johnny Bye-Bye" mp3
by Bruce Springsteen, 1983.
available on Tracks

*******

top photo: © Ted Barron, 2011.

Friday, January 7, 2011

Stuck in the Middle



With all due respect to the recently deceased.

Tonight, I was working from home. I read a bit, did my dishes, and then headed out to a local restaurant/bar in my overly-hip and totally uncool Brooklyn neighborhood. I sat down at the bar to eat as I always do when I go out for a late dinner by myself. I know the owner and the staff fairly well, and I like them all very much. There were a group of men sitting at the bar who had all probably had too much to drink about an hour before I showed up. I tried to ignore them as they were deciding where True Grit ranked in the pantheon of Coen Brothers films, and one of them, who seemed to dominate the conversation by talking more loudly than the rest, (as drunks are prone to do), was starting to get on my nerves, "somewhere below Lebowski, and above Fargo," he said. The others cheered him on.

I talked a little bit to the bartender, a friend (who's probably in his late 20s or early 30s) as I finished eating. "Time for some Rafferty," he said. I shook my head in disbelief. "He's too young to know," I thought to myself. He walked over to the stereo, and with a remote control, there it was, the opening bars of "Baker Street," the monstrously huge hit from 1978.

And then the saxophone.

I excused myself and walked outside to have a cigarette. I could still hear the song clearly, and watched the guys at the bar through the plate glass windows fall all over themselves with excitement while pantomiming to the song. What the fuck? I was amused, but this record is still, after all these years, lame. I stayed outside until it was over, but heard it all including the cheesy guitar solo I had forgotten all about. It touched a raw nerve I guess. Maybe some suppressed memory from a Jr. High School dance. I'm not sure.

In the year of it's release, I turned 13 years old and was very much into music. There were some great records that year. A few that come to mind off the top of my head are: Road to Ruin by the Ramones, the vastly under-rated Street Legal by Dylan, Darkness on The Edge of Town by Bruce Springsteen, and the Rolling Stones last moment of true greatness, Some Girls. And while at least two of those records got a fair amount of radio play, a lot of things didn't. The airwaves were dominated by the worst of the worst: Styx, Kansas, Boston, Rush and Journey (a band who has enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in recent years, by those too young to remember that they sucked then and will always suck.)

That same year, Elvis Costello, released, This Year's Model with the song "Radio Radio," which got him all but banned from my hometown when the corporate rock radio station KSHE, that sponsored his local appearance were not amused when he dedicated that very song to them. They deserved it then and still do.

"...and the radio is in the hand's of such a lot of fools trying to anaesthetize the way you feel."

Elvis got into a lot of trouble that year, most notably, when he played that same song--after being instructed not to do so-- on Saturday Night Live (the appearance was actually late 1977). Costello started playing the scheduled song, "Less Than Zero" from his then current record, My Aim Is True, and abruptly stopped the band, and announced "I'm sorry Ladies and Gentlemen, there's no reason to do this song here." He then called out "Radio Radio" to the band and launched into it. It's live television at it's finest. Producer Lorne Michaels was also not amused. You can't watch it on YouTube, but it is available HERE. Costello recreated that moment with a planned bum-rush on the Beastie Boys who backed him on SNL's 25th anniversary show.



The purpose of this rant is not to disrespect Gerry Rafferty. He was probably an okay guy, and while I admit I don't know that much about him, I am a fan of his first hit record, "Stuck in The Middle With You," which he recorded in 1972 while fronting Stealers Wheel. It's a good record, but it is, after all, a pretty good imitation of John Lennon imitating Bob Dylan. It's best known today as the soundtrack to Michael Madsen's sociopathic character "Mr. Blonde," in a gruesome torture scene from Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs. I much more prefer this song than his cheeseball fluff of six years later.

Download:



"Stuck In The Middle With You" mp3
by Stealers Wheel, 1972.
available on Stealers Wheel

"Radio Radio" mp3
by Elvis Costello and the Attractions, 1978.
available on Live at the El Mocambo