Dylan Muse Suze Rotolo Dies

Susan Elizabeth "Suze" Rotolo, whose image will endure forever in rock and roll lore on the cover of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, has died of lung cancer, according to a Los Angeles Times report quoting Rotolo's son Luca. She was 67 years old.

Dylan and Rotolo met in the summer of 1961 in New York City at an all day folk music festival held at a local church. In his memoir Chronicles, Part One, the singer-songwriter wrote of their first encounter: "Right from the start I couldn't take my eyes off her. She was the most erotic thing I'd ever seen. She was fair skinned and golden haired, full-blood Italian ... We started talking and my heart started to spin ... She was just my type."

Rotolo was credited with exposing him to the work of Paul Cézanne and Wassily Kandinsky, Bertolt Brecht and Antonin Artaud, Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud. Together they went to see Picasso's Guernica and François Truffaut's Shoot the Pianist. After she told him the story of a 14-year-old African American boy who had been brutally murdered in Mississippi in 1955, he wrote "The Ballad of Emmett Till," one of his early broadsides against injustice.

Many Dylanologists claim Rotolo inspired some of his finest early songs, including "Boots of Spanish Leather," "One Too Many Mornings," "Tomorrow Is a Long Time" and "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right."

As Dylan's star rose dramatically in 1964, the couple broke up, amid reports of his romantic liaison with Joan Baez. The demise of the relationship is supposedly the subject of Dylan's "Ballad In Plain D."

Rotolo shunned interviews for years, but broke her silence for Martin Scorsese's 2005 documentary No Direction Home. She then wrote a memoir of the early years, A Freewheelin' Time, published to warm reviews in 2008.

In addition to her son, Suze Rotolo is survived byEnzo Bartoliocci, her husband of 40 years.

Tribute (In Memoriam): Charlie Louvin

The Louvin Brothers, Charlie and Ira ... One of the great close-harmony brother acts. The sound of Ira's mandolin and Chet Atkins' guitar, making the best music this side of heaven, even when singing about Satan. These songs on death, sin, and despair resonate with raw power and start beauty. . .

----Bob Dylan, Theme Time Radio Hour ("The Devil" episode)

Charlie Louvin was haunted by a voice in his head for over 40 years. Charlie said every time he sang a song originally recorded with his brother Ira, he would subconsciously step away from the microphone out of deference for his sibling's response. In 2007, Charlie told Paste that "Anytime and every time I sing a song, I can hear his part, even though he's not there. I ain't never found nobody who can duplicate Ira's part. A lot of people imitate him, but no one can sing a harmony like he could."

Born Charles Elzer Loudermilk in Henager, Alabama in 1927, Charlie was one of seven children raised on a cotton and potato farm. The family had a collection of 78s that they would listen to in the evenings after returning from the fields. Charlie and big brother Ira (by three years) particularly were drawn to the records of the Delmar Brothers and the Monroe Brothers. Like so many singers, they honed their voices in church; the boys attended Baptist services regularly, and the fire-and-brimstone from that pulpit would be reflected in the Loudermilk brothers' professional careers.

Charlie and Ira changed their stage name in 1947 to The Louvin Brothers. Signed as a gospel act, the two were determined to crack the secular market. And indeed they did. Between 1952 and 1963 they had a string of Top 10 country singles on the Capitol label, including "When I Stop Dreaming," "I Don't Believe You've Met My Baby," "You're Running Wild" and "Cash On The Barrel Head." Their harmonies - Ira's tenor on top, Charlie's baritone filling out the bottom - were almost seamless.

Here's Ira on mandolin and Charlie on guitar from 1961 doing "I Can't Keep You In Love With Me":

The partnership ended in 1963, when Ira's drinking, womanizing and temper wore his little brother out. In a cruel irony, Ira was killed in a car crash by a drunk driver in Missouri on June 20, 1965. "Do I miss him?" Charlie asked tersely to the Paste interviewer after his brother had been dead for almost 42 years. "Of course I miss him. How would you like to do without your brother, your wife or one of your children? If something happened to them, you'd miss them."

Most serious music followers have probably never listened to The Louvin Brothers. But when they do, their first reaction is usually "they sound like The Everly Brothers with a country bent." And one cannot underestimate the influence The Louvin Brothers had on the progeny that followed: from Don & Phil Everly to Lennon & McCartney to Simon & Garfunkel to Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris to Roger McGuinn & Chris Hillman.

Listen to Emmylou harmonize with Charlie and Vern Gosdin back in the 1980s on "Love & Wealth":

In 2003, the list of singers who signed up for the tribute album Livin', Lovin', Losin': Songs of The Louvin Brothers included this staggering cast: Johnny Cash, Allsion Krauss, Harris, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton and James Taylor. And his 2007 album Charlie Louvin featured guest turns by Elvis Costello, Jeff Tweedy, George Jones, Tift Meritt, Tom T. Hall, Marty Stewart and Will Oldham.

Charlie Louvin died after a bout with pancreatic cancer last Wednesday at the age of 83. He is survived by his wife of 61 years, Betty, and three sons.

A fitting tribute is this performance of "My Baby's Gone" at Royal Albert Hall on 18 June 2009 by Nick Lowe and Ron Sexsmith (tip of the cap to reader Al for the great video find):

The Return of Robbie Robertson

The Band's Robbie Robertson has announced that he will release his first solo effort in 13 years on 5 April. How To Become Clairvoyant will feature three tunes he penned with Eric Clapton as well as guest appearances by Trent Reznor, Tom Morello, Steve Winwood, Robert Randolph and Taylor Goldsmith (of current TNOP fave band Dawes).

"The boys helped me out," Robertson told Rolling Stone. "I think I've written some really good songs, and ... it turned out quite extraordinary." He adds that the album explores addiction, 60s idealism and "rock and roll's early reputation as the devil's music".

Two tracks are particularly interesting. "This Is Where I Get Off" recounts the end of Robertson's affiliation as lead guitarist and chief songwriter with The Band upon the conclusion of The Last Waltz project. The second can be sampled below: "When The Night Was Young" is a quiet, soulful melody complimented by Scottish singer Angela McCluskey and anchored by Martin Pradler's piano; subtle allusions to The Band's apprenticeship in the American South and its wide-eyed introduction to New York with Bob Dylan are evident.

Here's the track listing:
1. Straight Down The Line
2. When The Night Was Young
3. He Don't Live Here No More
4. The Right Mistake
5. This Is Where I Get Off
6. Fear of Falling
7. She's Not Mine
8. Madame X
9. Axman
10. Won't Be Back
11. How To Become Clairvoyant
12. Tango For Django

Your Weekly Dylan Cover [#29]

Steve Earle & The Dukes

"It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry"

Original Dylan version found on Highway 61 Revisited (1965)

[Ed. note: Regular readers of this blog know that Bob Dylan is affectionately referred to as the "Patron Saint" of TNOP. After a brief hiatus, we resume our weekly feature in which we sift through the thousands of cover versions of Dylan songs and provide you with our favorites, as well as a quick memory of our first exposure to the original.]

If Steve Earle was going to cover a Dylan song from Highway 61 Revisited, one would guess it would be "Outlaw Blues." After all, the Texas singer-songwriter led a notorious life there for awhile, careening from bouts with substance abuse and serial marriage (eight times at the altar so far).

This take on Dylan's "It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry" is taken from 1996, when Earle was on the comeback trail after running off the tracks. in the preceding four years, Earle had been convicted of illegal drug and firearms possession, resulting in a stint in jail. But the incarceration allowed him to kick his habit.

Earle's rollicking performance of the song, with his crack backing band The Dukes, was recorded at Tennessee's Cold Creek Correctional Facility on 25 June 1996 as part of a court order. The concert was preserved on film (titled To Hell and Back) and shown in an edited form on MTV.

Here, "It Takes A Train" is given the up-tempo treatment, a powerful blues anchored by pile driving drummer Custer and the furious guitar of David Steele perfectly complimenting Earle's huffing harp and growling vocal, emphasizing the lonesome wail of the lyrics.

It's always been one of our top five Dylan songs and Earle does it great justice. The style is akin to the alternative take recorded during the Highway 61 sessions known as "Phantom Engineer" (with four lines of alternate lyrics) - which was revealed officially on The Bootleg Series: Vol. 1 -3.

The ultimate studio version would be a slower, lonesome blues, to be echoed famously six years later on stage at Madison Square Garden during Dylan's set at The Concert For Bangla Desh. The vocal is definitely nodding to the R&B style. Rhythmically, Dylan introduces the song with a lazy acoustic guitar riff, followed on its heels by Bobby Gregg's shuffling drums. But the star here are the keyboards of Paul Griffin: a two-beat boogie-woogie played on a tack piano (literally an altered ordinary piano in which tacks or nails are strategically placed on the hammers in order to come in contact with the strings, thereby creating a more tinny, distinctive sound).

The lyrics are few, for a Dylan composition, but the words create some stunning imagery. It is a notable achievement in Mr. Zimmerman's vast canon.

Original Listening: Bob Dylan, "It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry" (Highway 61 Revisited, 1965)

Live Listening: Bob Dylan, George Harrison & Leon Russell, "It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry" (The Concert For Bangla Desh, 1971)

More Live Listening: Bob Dylan, "It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry" (The Bootleg Series, Vol. 1 -3 [Rare & Unreleased], 1961-1991)

Another Cover: Levon Helm, "It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry" (MerleFest, 2008)

Rock 'n Film: "Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune"

Phil Ochs may be a singer-songwriter that you have heard of, but probably a performer that you have never heard. An artist with serious left political leanings, Ochs came to the forefront of the folk movement in the early 1960s, heralded in the same class of Greenwich Village scene stars as Joan Baez, Peter, Paul & Mary, Bob Dylan and Tom Paxton. Ochs famously declared himself "the best" until he heard Dylan and revised his statement to "second best."

Preferring the term "topical singer" as opposed to "protest singer," Ochs was best known for his compositions "Too Many Martyrs," "Draft Dodger Rag" and particularly "I Ain't Marching Anymore." He appeared at countless political rallies not only in the United States but in South America and Africa supporting civil rights, labor and anti-war movements. He was at the center of a couple of seminal events: the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968 which turned into what was eventually described by an independent commission as a "police riot"; and the "Free John Sinclair" rally in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1971, notable for the first public appearance and performance of John Lennon since he left The Beatles (looking back, it is likely John & Yoko lifted their "War Is Over! [If You Want It]" campaign from Ochs' song "The War Is Over" in which he tells listeners to just unilaterally declare the war in Vietnam to be finished).

These topics and events, as well as Ochs' personal struggles with mental illness and alcohol, are mined by director Ken Bowser in the new documentary Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune, which opened in New York City last night. Selected cities will see screenings in the coming months. In addition to archival footage, the film is interspersed with commentary from Ochs' immediate family as well as Billy Bragg, Pete Seeger, Sean Penn, Christopher Hitchens, Ed Sanders, Baez and others.

You can view the movie trailer here.

Your Weekly Dylan Cover [#28]

"She Belongs To Me"

Bob Weir, Phil Lesh & Jerry Garcia

Original Dylan version found on Bringing It All Back Home (1965)

It is well known that the Grateful Dead - as well as its family tree of side projects - has accumulated a treasure trove of performances of Bob Dylan songs. Indeed, Dylan has toured with The Dead. So we won't spend time going down that road when there are many more ardent followers of that prolific band who continue to aptly record that history.

But we did find a fairly rare, and touching, take by the three core members of The Dead playing Dylan's "She Belongs To Me." Apparently, this is a clip from a VHS tape circa 1992 called Backstage Pass. Bob Weir trades verses and then harmonizes with a fragile looking Jerry Garcia. Phil Lesh provides a solid bass bottom and Garcia his signature guitar picking.

The song itself is a deceptively gentle, waltz-like melody partnered with another classic Dylan lyric. Speculation has always centered around Joan Baez as the artist who commands constant attention bordering on idolatry from her lover, but cannot be conquered by a mere male: She's nobody's child/The law can't touch her at all.

"She Belongs To Me" is curiously placed on Bringing It All Back Home between two rockers which train a laser on the social ills of the day (the two singles released from the album: "Subterranean Homesick Blues" and "Maggie's Farm"). Produced by Tom Wilson and recorded at Columbia Recording Studio in New York City on 14 January 1965, Dylan (on harmonica and acoustic guitar) is backed by John Hammond Jr and Bruce Langhorne on electric guitar as well as William E. Lee on bass and Bobby Gregg on drums.

Original Listening: Bob Dylan, "She Belongs To Me" (Bringing It All Back Home, 1965)

Live Listening: Bob Dylan, "She Belongs To Me" (The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4: Live 1966)

Another Cover: Leon Russell, "She Belongs To Me" (Leon Russell & The Shelter People [CD bonus track], 1971)

Yet Another Cover: Buffalo Tom, "She Belongs To Me" (Velvet Roof [EP], 1992)

Still Another Cover: Rick Nelson, "She Belongs To Me" (In Concert - The Troubador, 1969)

Your Weekly Dylan Cover [#27]

"Maggie's Farm"

Solomon Burke

Original Dylan version found on Bringing It All Back Home (1965)

One of the bigger losses to the music world in 2010 came on 10 October when the "King of Rock and Soul" Solomon Burke died at the age of 70.

A man seemingly bigger than life literally (he was over 300 pounds) and figuratively, Solomon Burke had essentially been on stage since he was seven years old when he delivered his first sermon at his church in Philadelphia. Like many to-be soul artists, Burke's roots were in gospel. "The Wonder Boy Preacher" stepped into the secular world with a recording of Patsy Cline's "Just Out of Reach (Of y Two Open Arms)." The country standard became a surprise R&B hit, and Burke's career on Atlantic records was born.

Classic titles followed. "Cry To Me" (1962) a gospelish pot-boiler, was a top five hit in 1962 which found another life on the Dirty Dancing soundtrack in the 1980s. The swinging "Everybody Needs Somebody To Love" (1964) would be covered by the Rolling Stones and again earn popularity in The Blues Brothers; ironically, Burke saw the film - incorrectly crediting the song to Wilson Pickett - and called his old Atlantic boss Jerry Wexler to complain. The story goes that Wexler was simply happy to hear that Solomon was still alive, and sent him a sizable royalty check the next day. And then there was the fantastic "Got To Get You Off My Mind" (1965), a tune Burke wrote in the throes of a divorce and mourning the tragic death of Sam Cooke.

Burke's on stage presence was memorable. Back in the day, his contemporaries were in awe of his raw power. "Solomon could command a stage better than anybody," said Sam Moore. "We (Sam & Dave) used to finish our set and go sit in the audience and watch him." L.C. Cooke, Sam's brother, was quoted as saying: "On one tour with James Brown, Solomon started with 20 minutes, but he was kicking James Brown's butt so bad that he cut Solomon's time down to one song!"

Solomon Burke got a second encore on the popular music stage. He was elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001. And rock's royalty lined up to play and write with him. The remarkable Don't Give Up On Me (2002), produced expertly by Joe Henry, saw Burke perform original contributions from Bob Dylan ("Stepchild," apparently culled from the Street Legal sessions circa 1978), Van Morrison, Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Brian Wilson and others. The record won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album. He followed with three other solid efforts: Make Due With What You Got (2005); the duets LP Nashville (2006); and Like A Fire (2008).

Burke's take on "Maggie's Farm" is notable as it is probably the first significant recording of a Dylan song by a soul singer, recorded shortly after the original was released in 1965. The majesty of the melody and lyric are perfect for the King of Rock and Soul's muscular style and hearing the song on 45 rpm just drives home how truly memorable Solomon Burke is to the history of popular music.

Original Listening: Bob Dylan, "Maggie's Farm" (Bringing It All Back Home, 1965)

Another Cover: U2, "Cold Turkey/Maggie's Farm/Help" (Live, Los Angeles, 1986)

Still Another Cover: Ben Sidran, "Maggie's Farm" (Dylan Different, 2010)

This Date In Rock History: 7 December

Happy birthday to Thomas Alan Waits, born on this date in 1949 to Pomona, California schoolteachers Jesse Waits and Alma McMurray.

Devotee to singers and songwriters as diverse as Hoagy Carmichael, Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan, Howlin' Wolf, Marty Robbins and Stephen Foster, young Tom caught the attention of record executives in the blossoming Southern California music scene of the early 1970s. His lyrics commonly echoed the style of authors like beat writer Jack Kerouac and noir-novelist Raymond Chandler, and along with his whiskey-soaked vocals, created a unique corner of popular music that is still unmatched today.

The Night Owl's first encounter with a Waits composition was probably typical: The Eagles' cover of his "Ol' 55," which appeared on the group's On The Border album. By my days of university, Waits had become somewhat of an underground phenomenon; his tragi-comic tales of the underbelly of society played to the sweet spot of students vicariously searching for their own bit of Bohemia. One of his crowning achievements remains the opening track from the 1976 LP Small Change, intriguingly titled "Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets To The Wind In Copenhagen)". Written during a particularly tumultuous period in Waits' life, producer Bones Howe later recalled when the singer first introduced him to the song:

He said the most wonderful thing about writing that song. He went down and hung around on skid row in L.A. because he wanted to get stimulated for writing this material. He called me up and said, 'I went down to skid row ... I bought a pint of rye. In a brown paper bag.' I said, 'Oh really?'. 'Yeah - hunkered down, drank the pint of rye, went home, threw up, and wrote 'Tom Traubert's Blues' [...] Every guy down there ... everyone I spoke to, a woman put him there.

Relax, pour yourself a wee bit of Jameson's, and toast this bit of brilliance in honor of Tom Waits' 61st birthday.

Your Weekly Dylan Cover [#26]

"You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go"

Shawn Colvin

Original Dylan version found on Blood On The Tracks (1975)

Shawn Colvin was born in Vermillion, South Dakota in 1956 and spent her formative teenage years in the college town of Champaign, Illinois, where she first performed in front of audiences. Colvin would come to the forefront of the so-called "new folk movement" in the late 1980s.

Strongly influenced by Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell, she landed a contract with Columbia, and released two very noteworthy albums, Steady On (1989) and Fat City (1992). The former won her a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Recording, and the latter earned her two more nominations.

In 1994, a collection of interpretation of songs written by some of her favorite artists, Cover Girl, was met with decidedly mixed reviews. In retrospect, the set list is more than suited to her strong points: fluid acoustic guitar work and a marvelous, interpretive voice. The closer on the album is Colvin's take on Bob Dylan's "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go."

The Dylan cover is a courageous choice; the lyric is surely one of the most beautiful and memorable that the author has ever written. Colvin makes it work by stamping the tune with a female perspective and an adventuresome guitar run. (Why she puts the third verse in front of the second, though, I do not know.)

Shawn Colvin's career triumph was yet to come. Her LP A Few Small Repairs would win Record of the Year honors in 1997.

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The content of "You're Gonna Make me Lonesome When You Go" lends itself to intense personal memories for many a listener. Perhaps the last word is best left to writer Pete Hamill, who wrote the original liner notes for Blood On The Tracks:

There are some who attack Dylan because he will not rewrite "Like a Rolling Stone" or "Gates of Eden." They are fools because they are cheating themselves of a shot at wonder. Every artist owns a vision of the world, and he shouts his protest when he sees evil mangling that vision. But he must also tell us the vision. Now we are getting Dylan's vision, rich and loamy, against which the world moved so darkly. To enter that envisioned world, is like plunging deep into a mountain pool, where the rocks are clear and smooth at the bottom.

So forget the Dylan whose image was eaten at by the mongers of the idiot wind. Don't mistake him for Isaiah, or a magazine cover, or a leader of guitar armies. He is only a troubadour, blood brother of Villon, a son of Provence, and he has survived the plague. Look: he has just walked into the courtyard, padding across the flagstones, strumming a guitar. The words are about "flowers on the hillside bloomin' crazy/Crickets talkin' back and forth in rhyme..." A girl, red-haired and melancholy, begins to smile. Listen: the poet sings to all of us:

But I'll see you in the sky above,
In the tall grass,
In the ones I love.
You're gonna make me lonesome when you go.

Original Version: Bob Dylan, "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" (Blood On The Tracks, 1975)

Another Cover: Madeleine Peyroux, "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" (Careless Love, 2004)

Your Weekly Dylan Cover [#25]

"Changing of the Guards" Patti Smith
Original Dylan version found on Street Legal (1978)


Patricia Lee Smith was born in Chicago and raised in New Jersey. Her dream of attending school derailed for a number of personal and economic reasons, she adopted the bohemian life by moving to New York City in 1967 in order to write poetry and study art.


Patti Smith's early years living in Brooklyn and the lower east side of Manhattan with her closest friend Robert Mapplethorpe and their eventual involvement in the orbit of other noted artists is vividly portrayed in her memoir Just Kids, recently nominated for the National Book Award.


In the book Smith writes of her reverence of Dylan, especially as poet. They both share a particular fondness for the work of Frenchman Arthur Rimbaud, a like-minded restless and rambling soul who influenced music, art and literature in the Europe of the later 1800s.


One of Mapplethorpe's first Polaroid pictures taken in 1970 shows Smith surrounded by three album sleeves: a Lotte Lenya LP of Weill/Brecht songs, as well as Blonde On Blonde and Bringing It All Back Home.


By 1975, she had taken to music and formed the Patti Smith Group. The band was starting to make its mark on the New York City music scene at places like Max's Kansas City and CBGB. But on a summer night that year Smith "merely had to lace up my boots, throw on my jacket and walk to work" at the Other End in Greenwich Village. It would be the group's first performance with a drummer. Smith continues:


The night, as the saying goes, was a jewel in our crown. We played as one, and the pulse and pitch of the band spiraled us into another dimension. Yet with all that swirling around me, I could feel another presence as surely as the rabbit senses the hound. He was there. I suddenly understood the nature of the electric air. Bob Dylan had entered the club. This
knowledge had a strange effect on me. Instead of humbled, I felt a power, perhaps his; but I also felt my own worth of my band. It seemed for me a night of initiation, where I had to become fully myself in the presence of the one I had modeled myself after.

In just a few months, the Patti Smith Group would record their debut album, Horses, at Electric Lady studios.



And so it should come as no surprise that on the 2007 compilation of covers Twelve, Patti Smith would finally record a nod to one of her chief muses. But the selection of the song was somewhat curious . . .


I only had one friend who would listen to Street Legal with me. She was very intellectual and artistic, and would sit cross-legged on her couch smoking cigarette after cigarette. We both thought that the newest Dylan record (save the horrible "New Pony," for which we would take turns getting up and lifting the phonograph stylus up and over to the next cut) was quite daring from both a musical style and lyrical standpoint; it was what attracted to us about Dylan: his chameleon-like persona, from large arena rock god with The Band to pancake makeup troubadour wandering the countryside in the Rolling Thunder Revue. And now here was Street Legal, drenched with background female call and response singers seemingly influenced by Bob Marley's I-Threes.
And it wasn't just a whim limited to a disc; he took the album on the road and plowed through almost all of it, much to the audience's chagrin . . .


"Changing of the Guards" has been interpreted by many as a thinly veiled history of Dylan's career up to that point (literally, "sixteen years," the opening line of the song). It is the aggressive seven minute opening salvo which opens Street Legal and was oddly chosen as a single (it did not make the Top 100).


Smith's take is much gentler and almost wary, and the lyrics are more pronounced as a result. Why did she choose this song above all others? Who knows. Maybe its apocalyptic nature fit the time in which it was released in 2007, with the country mired in two wars and partisan bickering more intense than usual. Maybe it is the stark imagery in Dylan's poem. Maybe both. Maybe neither. But isn't that the point?


Original Listening: Bob Dylan, "Changing of the Guards" (Street Legal, 1978)


Another Cover: Frank Black, "Changing of the Guards" (All My Ghosts, 1998)

All-Star Lineup To Discuss Dylan & The Band

New York's 14th Street Y has announced a symposium entitled "Bob Dylan & The Band: What Kind of Love Is This?" to be held on 5 December. The six and a half hour talkfest features an all-star lineup of noted Dylanologists:

Greil Marcus: Author of the definitive book on Bob Dylan and The Band, Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes.

Christopher Ricks: Renowned critic and scholar of English literature and poetry, and author of Dylan’s Visions of Sin.

John Niven: Novelist whose book Music from Big Pink vividly imagines the world of Bob Dylan and The Band.

Dana Spiotta: Author of mesmerizing portraits of the 60’s underground, including Eat the Document.

Matt Friedberger: Co-founder of the visionary rock band The Fiery Furnaces.

D.A. Pennebaker: Pioneering film documentarian, whose credits include Don’t Look Back, the first film on Bob Dylan.

Stephen Hazan Arnoff: Executive Director of the 14th Street Y writes and teaches widely on music, art and religion.

Wesley Stace (John Wesley Harding): Singer-songwriter and award winning author of Misfortune.

William G. Scheele: Museum curator and former Equipment/Stage Manager for Bob Dylan and The Band.

The program of events kicks off on 3 December with the gallery showing of some of Scheele's photographs of Dylan and his mates from 1973-1975. It concludes with a concert on 5 December following the roundtable, with musicians including Laura Cantrell, John Wesley Harding, John Medeski, Jolie Holland and others.

Tickets for the symposium and concert are $75 per (or $35 per if you just want to go to the concert) and can be purchased here.

Your Weekly Dylan Cover [#24]

"Spanish Harlem Incident"
Yonder Mountain String Band
Original Dylan version found on Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964)

This week's selection is relatively new and certainly obscure. But that doesn't mean it's not good.

The four-piece bluegrass group Yonder Mountain String Band is based out of Colorado. Their sound is a little more agressive than the original American traditional mountain sounds that originated in Appalachia. But YMSB certainly knows their roots, and it shows on this cover of Dylan's "Spanish Harlem Incident."

Bob Dylan's original recording is basically an urban blues about an immediate attraction to a woman that the narrator glimpses on a (presumably Manhattan, given the title) street. The lyric is beautifully layered and poetic in its transference to the reader of the hard to describe feeling that occurs when a total stranger can strike one's fancy in a strong, almost obsessive way.

This particular YMSB live performance is taken from an appearance this past summer at the 2010 9th Annual Northwest String Summit in North Plains, Oregon. No doubt Dylan would be pleased, given his open admiration of American music legend Bill Monroe: the band here uses Monroe's familiar rhythmic cadence while guitarist Adam Aijala takes the lead vocal and matches the melody with the feverish words provided by Dylan.

Original Listening: Bob Dylan, "Spanish Harlem Incident" (Another Side of Bob Dylan, 1964)

Another Cover: The Byrds, "Spanish Harlem Incident" (Mr. Tambourine Man, 1965)

Still Another Cover: Dion, "Spanish Harlem Incident" (The Return of The Wanderer, 1978)

Your Weekly Dylan Cover [#23]

"Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)"

Manfred Mann

Original Dylan version found on Self-Portrait (1970)

Manfred Mann, a British band steeped in beat and blues, made its bones on the charts with "Do Wah Diddy Diddy," an Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry song that spent two weeks at #1 in the US in 1964. The group then became Dylan cover specialists, recording "With God On Our Side," "If You Gotta Go, Go Now" and "Just Like A Woman."

Then came "Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)." The Night Owl's initial exposure to this Dylan composition was like, I suppose, the majority of listeners: this Manfred Mann cover climbed to the Top 10 back in February 1968. The catchy tune, a nursery rhyme that leans musically on (of all things) a flute hook, naturally caught the attention of this then nine year old listening to nascent AM rock and roll radio.

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The genesis of "Quinn" is Dylan's famous sessions with The Band in Woodstock, New York back in 1967. That demo was not intended for release, but first surfaced on the bootleg Great White Wonder in 1969. A live take of the song - apparently from the Isle of Wight Festival - first appeared commercially on Self-Portrait (1970) and then once again on Greatest Hits Vol. II (1971). The second take from Woodstock was included on the seminal collection Biograph (1985). Ironically enough, when the bootleg finally reached the light of day on Columbia's double-disc The Basement Tapes (1975), "The Mighty Quinn" was not on the 24-track listing.

Dylan amusingly refers to "The Mighty Quinn" in a chapter of his memoir Chronicles (p. 187):

On the way back to the house [in New Orleans] I passed the local movie theater on Prytania Street, where The Mighty Quinn was showing. Years earlier I had written a song called "The Mighty Quinn" which was a hit in England, and I wondered what the movie was about. Eventually I'd sneak off and go there to see it. It was a mystery, suspense, Jamaican thriller with Denzel Washington as the mighty Xavier Quinn, a detective who solves crimes. Funny, that's just the way I imagined him when I wrote the song "The Mighty Quinn." Denzel Washington. He must have been a fan of mine . . . years later he would play the boxer Hurricane Carter, someone else I wrote a song about. I wondered if Denzel could play Woody Guthrie. In my dimension of reality, he certainly could have.

Original Listening: Bob Dylan, "Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)" (Self-Portrait, 1970)

Another Cover: The Hollies, "Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)" (The Hollies Sing Dylan, 1969)

Still Another Cover: Ramsey Lewis, "Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)" (Maiden Voyage, 1968)

Your Weekly Dylan Cover [#22]

The Morning Benders

"Outlaw Blues"

Original Dylan version found on Bringing It All Back Home (1965)

The first side of Bringing It All Back Home is a watershed event in the career of Bob Dylan. It is the introduction of electric rock and roll to the masses from a singer-songwriter idealized by many for his acoustic folk songs that galvanized the masses in support of political causes.

"Outlaw Blues" seems to call the public out. The fifth song on the album, Dylan's rollicking, jangly blues has him spitting out the famous line Well I might look like Robert Ford/But I feel just like Jesse James. Now seen as a typical ying/yang lyric that Dylan is associated with, at the time it probably reflected the desire of the writer not to be identified with any cause, but rather an artist seeking to blaze his own trail.

[A side note: It is fascinating to note that "Outlaw Blues" was recorded in New York at Columbia Records Studio A on January 14, 1965. During the same three-and-a-half hour session, master takes of "Love Minus Zero/No Limit," "Subterranean Homesick Blues," "She Belongs To Me," and "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" were also all recorded and selected for the final album.]

Our cover this week is from the San Francisco area quartet The Morning Blenders. Their version of "Outlaw Blues" - which sounds like a channeling of Grizzly Bear - was only recently recorded as part of a digital tribute to Bringing It All Back Home, a compilation which also includes performances by folk rockers J. Tillman (Fleet Foxes), Laura Viers and Peter Moren (Peter, Bjorn & John), to be released on 2 November.

In an interview earlier this month with the AP, band member Christopher Chu said he wanted to make "Outlaw Blues" sound creepy. "[Dylan] arranges his songs so perfectly that it's hard not to just want to do a 100 percent faithful rendition," Chu said. "But at the same time, that's not what I wanted to do with a cover. I wanted to pick a song where I could change it up a bit."
Chu, 25, knows Dylan's music well. Dylan is one of the first artists he began to obsess over as a young fan, along with the Beach Boys and Neil Young. He's convinced that he missed out on a golden era of music. His favorite Dylan album is Highway 61 Revisited. "His influence is so wide that no matter what age you are, you eventually run into Dylan," Chu said.

Original Listening: Bob Dylan, "Outlaw Blues" (Bringing It All Back Home, 1965)

Another Cover: The White Stripes, "Outlaw Blues" [excerpt] (Under The Blackpool Lights DVD, 2004)

And Another Cover: The Great Society, "Outlaw Blues" (Live At The Matrix, 1989)

Your Weekly Dylan Cover [#21]

Rod Stewart
"Tomorrow Is A Long Time"
Original Dylan version found on Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits, Vol. II (1971)

There may be some disagreement on this choice.

And that's OK, of course. But let me remind our gentle readers that when this popular feature started back in April, a caution accompanied the blog entry: "Regular readers of this blog know that Bob Dylan is affectionately referred to as the 'Patron Saint' of TNOP. This new weekly feature sifts through the thousands of cover versions of Dylan songs and provides you with our favorites, as well as a quick memory of our first exposure to the Dylan original."

The background of Dylan's "Tomorrow Is A Long Time" is worth a few words. It came to mind given the fact that tomorrow Columbia Records will finally officially release the original studio version, an out-take from The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan sessions (1963), on the latest "Bootleg" compilation, The Whitmark Demos. Most fans - like this author - are most familiar with the live version that first appeared on Greatest Hits, Vol. II, taken from the famous "Town Hall concert" in New York City, 1963. It is a truly affecting performance by Dylan; a heartbreaking, literate love song of longing set to an acoustic guitar chord structure similar to "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right."

The first cover of the song was a watershed for obvious reasons: Elvis Presley recorded it in 1966, a curious "bonus track" to the soundtrack of another one of his Hollywood films, this one called Spinout. (Perhaps Colonel Tom Parker actually felt sorry one day for Elvis and allowed him to record the tune; for instance, the title song to the movie had The King singing such dreck as: To spinout, yeah spinout/Better watch those curves, never let her steer/So spinout, yeah spinout/A road to love is full of danger signs.) Dylan, like many musical titans of his era, thought Elvis a seminal figure in American music. He has been quoted as saying, "When I first heard Elvis' voice I just knew that I wasn't going to work for anybody; and nobody was going to be my boss. Hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail."

So there may be some truth to the yarn that Elvis' take on "Tomorrow Is A Long Time" may be Dylan's personal favorite cover of one of his songs. (Presley's slow, loping version is indeed pretty, and if you can find the Dylan follow up recording from his New Morning sessions, it is almost as though Dylan is aping it.)

But I find it no more compelling than the Sandy Denny cover in 1972. That one is similar in tempo and treats the listener to the pedal steel of "Sneaky" Pete Kleinow.

Which brings us, finally, to Rod Stewart. For those only familiar with cocktail music Rod or disco Rod, do yourself a big favor and go out and buy 1971's Every Picture Tells A Story. Now. It is arguably one of the ten best albums ever released in rock and roll history.

Side One of Every Picture ends with "Tomorrow Is A Long Time." Stewart and Faces' pal Ron Wood produce one of the more memorable arrangements of a Dylan song. The roots of "Tomorrow Is A Long Time" are obviously country - Hank Williams would no doubt have felt comfortable singing it - and one would think the gravelly voiced Londoner would have no business tackling the song. Wood makes the pedal steel purr and Dick Powell's fiddle glides throughout as Stewart makes Dylan's words flesh.

It's a definitive reading of one of Bob Dylan's most enduring songs.

Original Listening: Bob Dylan, "Tomorrow Is A Long Time" (Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits, Vol. II, 1971)

Bootleg Listening: Bob Dylan, "Tomorrow Is A Long Time" (New Morning sessions, 1970)

Demo Listening: Bob Dylan, "Tomorrow Is A Long Time" (The Bootleg Series Vol. 9: The Witmark Demos, 1962-1964, 2010)

Another Cover: Elvis Presley, "Tomorrow Is A Long Time" (Spinout Original Soundtrack bonus track, 1966)

This Date In Rock History: 13 October

On this date in 1941, Paul Frederic Simon was born in Newark, New Jersey to Hungarian immigrant parents Belle and Louis Simon. By the end of 1941, the new parents had moved with their son to Queens, New York.

Louis Simon was a college professor, bassist and bandleader, and had performed on the radio in Hungary. He passed his keen interest in music on to Paul, who by the age of 11 met classmate Art Garfunkel and appeared in a sixth grade production of Alice In Wonderland. By the time they were 13, the duo started playing school dances, working on a vocal harmony in honor of their heroes, The Everly Brothers.

Before graduating from high school, Paul and Artie cut the single "Hey Schoolgirl" under the name of Tom & Jerry. It reached #49 on the pop charts in 1957.

Over the next six years, the pair attended college (Paul at Queens College and Artie at Columbia University) and Paul tried his hand at contracted song-writing, in the shadows of the famous Brill Building in Manhattan.

By early 1964, Simon & Garfunkel landed an audition at mighty Columbia Records. Clive Davis signed them to a contract and their phenomenal six year run resulted in multiple gold records, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Paul Simon's solo career has now spanned an incredible 40 years. The cornerstone of his work remains the seminal Graceland (1986), but readers would be remiss to not include in their collection the consecutive three-album span that ranks with the best pop music has to offer: Paul Simon (1972); There Goes Rhymin' Simon (1973); and Still Crazy After All These Years (1975).

This is not to dismiss his other work, which to this day remains original and vital, ranking him with contemporaries Bob Dylan and Neil Young as artists who refuse to rest on their laurels. Simon recently completed a new album helmed by Phil Ramone, which he calls "the best work I've done in 20 years."

Additional Reading & Viewing:

* Paul Simon discography

* Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Bio and Timeline

* Appearance on "Charlie Rose" 28 June 2007

* Paul Simon on songwriting and "Surprise," All Things Considered, 8 May 2006

* Interview with Simon & Garfunkel, NPR Weekend Edition, 12 June 2004

Your Weekly Dylan Cover [#20]

Susan Tedeschi
"Lord Protect My Child"
Original Dylan version found on The Bootleg Series: Volumes 1-3 (1991)

Bob Dylan's 22nd studio album, Infidels, was released in October 1983. Co-produced with Dire Straits' Mark Knopfler, it was trumpeted in the media as Dylan's return to secular music.

The previous four years had seen Dylan in the midst of what is now popularly known as his "Christian period." Musically, he had been quite prolific; three LPs had been generated, with public reactions ranging from positive (Slow Train Running) to mixed (Shot of Love) to downright negative (Saved).

While Infidels contained some songs that were overtly political ("Neighborhood Bully" and "Union Sundown"), there were some spiritual numbers cut during those sessions. But they were left on the shelves. The two most notable were "Foot of Pride" and "Lord Protect My Child." Both would surface on the first of the Bootleg series released by Columbia in 1991.

"Foot of Pride" is a fire and brimstone corker. Dylan and his band are literally and figuratively electric.

"Lord Protect My Child" is surprisingly transparent; a mother struggles with the weight of the world and the dangers that confront her son on a daily basis. She desperately clings to the thread in her life that doesn't let her down: faith.

Italian-American Susan Tedeschi was born and raised in the Boston, Massachusetts area. The story goes that Susan was attracted to music from an early age and didn't much care for singing staid hymns in the choir at her family's Catholic parish. She started to attend predominantly African-American churches and found the musical selections "less repressed and more like a celebration of God."

Tedeschi's take on "Lord Protect My Child" from her 2005 album Hope and Desire reveals an artist in the middle of her sweet-spot as a singer. The affecting vocal thrills the listener with the ultimate "Sunday-go-to-meetin'" vibe, and is complimented nicely by the deft dobro skills of her husband, Derek Trucks.

Original Listening: Bob Dylan, "Lord Protect My Child"

Another Cover: The Lost Dogs, "Lord Protect My Child" (Scenic Routes, 1992)

Your Weekly Dylan Cover [#19]

Jay Farrar & Ben Gibbard
"Absolutely Sweet Marie"
Original Dylan version found on Blonde On Blonde (1966)

Last year, a seemingly odd pairing hit the road, promoting a soundtrack that the duo had written for a documentary about - of all things - the time Beat novelist Jack Kerouac spent in Big Sur, California. The music Jay Farrar and Ben Gibbard created for One Fast Move or I'm Gone drew varied reactions. But the tour that the two undertook across the US garnered raves.

Farrar, the St. Louis based musician who became a favorite on the alt-country scene with the groups Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt, is a talented guitarist and harmonica player with a distinct sounding voice. Gibbard, front man for indie darlings Death Cab For Cutie, is an adventurous vocalist and guitarist from Washington state.

As the set list solidified, Farrar & Gibbard took to encoring with "Absolutely Sweet Marie." The original, recorded by Dylan in a Nashville studio, couldn't have sounded further from Opryville with its jaunty organ reflecting the swinging '60s. In this cover, performed at Los Angeles' El Rey Theatre on 23 October 2009, the arrangement is turned inwards, with pedal steel prominent and a great harp solo by Farrar. The lyric is in Farrar's wheelhouse, a Neil Youngish vocal take complimented nicely by Gibbard's harmony.

=====================================
Dylan never performed "Absolutely Sweet Marie" live until the end of the 1980s, and only sporadically pulls it out of his tour bag now. In a 1991 interview, Dylan talked specifically about the phrase "yellow railroad" that appears in the last verse of the song:

That's about as complete as you can be. Every single letter in that line. It's all true. On a literal and on an escapist level.... Getting back to the yellow railroad, that could be from looking someplace. Being a performer, you travel the world. You're not just looking out of the same window everyday. You're not just walking down the same old street. So you must make yourself observe whatever. But most of the time it hits you. You don't have to observe. It hits you. Like, "yellow railroad" could have been a blinding day when the sun was so bright on a railroad someplace and it stayed on my mind.... These aren't contrived images. These are images which are just in there and have got to come out.

Original Listening: Bob Dylan, "Absolutely Sweet Marie"

Another Cover: George Harrison, "Absolutely Sweet Marie" (The 30th Anniversary Celebration, 1993)

Still Another Cover: Jason & The Scorchers, "Absolutely Sweet Marie" (Fervor, 1983)

Your Weekly Dylan Cover [#18]

Them
"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue"
Original Dylan version found on Bringing It All Back Home (1965)

George Ivan Morrison's father was an avid collector of American blues and jazz records. Morrison grew up listening to American music like Leadbelly, Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, Muddy Waters, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee, John Lee Hooker, Mahalia Jackson, and Lightnin' Hopkins. He grew up surrounded by every kind of American musical influence. From the age of 13, he was adept at playing guitar, sax and harmonica and played with a series of local showbands along with Skiffle and rock and roll groups.

In 1964, a group of young men in Belfast, Northern Ireland formed a garage band that would strike gold on the charts within a couple of years. They went by the curious name "Them" and had a true ace in the hole: "Van" Morrison. A Philadelphia DJ by the name of Georgie Woods coined the term "blue-eyed soul" in the 1960s to describe white artists who got airplay on black radio stations. This Morrison kid, even though Irish, had soul. "Gloria" and "Here Comes The Night" were gritty hits for the band; they still sound inventive over 45 years after their release.

With Them's second LP, Them Again, in early 1966, the group included a unique cover: Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," culled from the 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home.
Morrison had apparently become fascinated by Dylan: "I think I heard [The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan] in a record shop in Smith Street. And I just thought it was just incredible that this guy's not singing about 'moon in June' and he's getting away with it . . . The subject matter wasn't pop songs, ya know, and I thought this kind of opens the whole thing up."

The recording starts simply enough with a measured, funky guitar riff; but it takes a quick left turn into a dreamy, repeating keyboard line that becomes trance-like. Then Morrison takes over and breathes Celtic soul into the lyric. While Dylanophiles were (and still are) obsessed with who "Baby Blue" in fact may be, Van The Man's turn at the mike makes the lyric a true poem in the tradition of masters like Yeats.

The song was released as a single only in The Netherlands in 1966. It went away with a whisper. In 1972, the song was again issued as a 45rpm, this time in Germany, where it nudged up against the Top 10 in that country. By this time, of course, Morrison had already established himself as an important singer-songwriter and solo artist.

In his memorable review of Morrison's seminal Astral Weeks album in 1969, Greil Marcus harkened back to the importance of the Belfast native's interpretation of Dylan: "Only on Dylan's 'It's All Over Now, Baby Blue' does Van truly shatter all the limits on his special powers . . . Each note stands out as a special creation – 'the centuries of emotion that go into a musician’s choice from one note to the next' is a phrase that describes the startling depth of this recording. Played very fast, Van's voice virtually fighting for control over the band, 'Baby Blue' emerges as music that is both dramatic and terrifying."

Through a series of appearances in movie soundtracks as well as a prominent sample on Beck's "Jack-Ass" from Odelay (1996), Them's cover of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" has come back into proper, respectable view of music fans. But in the interim 25 years or so, one of the best ever versions of a Bob Dylan song went mostly unnoticed accept for serious followers of Van Morrison and the bard from Hibbing, Minnesota.

Original Listening: Bob Dylan, "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue"

Live Listening: Bob Dylan, "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" (from the film Don't Look Back, 1967)

More Live Listening: Van Morrison, "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" (Rockpalast Christmas Show, Germany, 1998)

Another Cover: Brian Ferry, "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" (Frantic, 2002)

Still Another Cover: The Byrds, "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" (Ballad of Easy Rider, 1969)

This Date In Rock History: 17 September

On this date in 1923, Hiram King "Hank" Williams was born to Lon and Lillie Williams in a log cabin in Mount Olive, Alabama.

If you're going to think of yourself in this game, or in this tradition, and you start getting a swelled head about it, then you've really got to think about who you're talking about. You're not just talking about Randy Newman, who's fine, or Bob Dylan, who's sublime, you're talking about King David, Homer, Dante, Milton, Wordsworth, you're talking about the embodiment of our highest possibility. So I don't think it's particularly modest or virtuous to think of oneself as a minor poet. I really do feel the enormous luck I've had in being able to make a living, and to never have had to have written one word that I didn't want to write.

But I don't fool myself, I know the game I'm in. When I wrote about Hank Williams 'A hundred floors above me in the tower of song', it's not some kind of inverse modesty. I know where Hank Williams stands in the history of popular song. Your Cheatin' Heart, songs like that, are sublime, in his own tradition, and I feel myself a very minor writer. I've taken a certain territory, and I've tried to maintain it and administrate it with the very best of my capacities. And I will continue to administrate this tiny territory until I'm too weak to do it. But I understand where this territory is.

-----Leonard Cohen, 1994 interview

I got a hot rod Ford
And a two dollar bill
And I know a spot
Right over the hill.

There’s soda pop
And the dancin’s free
If you want to have fun
Come along with me.

-----Hank Williams, "Hey Good Lookin'" (1951)