new releases

the main purpose of this site – letting you know about albums i have discovered that need attention

basement tapes ‘raw’

The recordings known as ‘The Basement Tapes’ have been released, officially and unofficially, in many different forms. The series of events that led up to the recordings, and the eventual influence the songs had on the musical world, are legendary, and some very good books have been written on the subject. Essentially put on tape by Dylan and members of the Band during a ‘down’ time in his career after allegedly suffering a major injury from a motorcycle accident, the recordings are rough sketches of material being worked on for various reasons. There are also multiple covers that the group seems to be using to just get some work in. Contrary to most accounts, the tapes were made in various locations around Woodstock/West Saugerties area, not just the ‘Big Pink’ house. The sessions lasted about 6 months, from May to October 1967, and a fourteen song demo was copyrighted and sent to various artists who were known to be interested in covering new Dylan material. Almost all of them were picked by someone with varied success. In 1969 a bootleg called ‘The Great White Wonder’ appeared on the scene, with original cuts from the sessions included with other Dylan material. Eventually over a hundred cuts from the sessions were shown the light of day by various bootlegs. Eventually Dylan saw fit to make an official release of some sorts, and in 1975 Robbie Robertson was given the responsibility of putting it together. Selected cuts were remixed and overdubbed, and some original work from The Band was also added (recorded at a different period).

Now Dylan has given the green light to go back and release the entire thing, unedited. With the help of Garth Hudson, the original member who actually engineered the recording, they have been offered up in two versions: ‘Complete’, which has 139 songs on 6 discs, and ‘Raw’, which selects 38 of them for a 2 CD release. I opted for the latter, but am still open to getting the bigger eventually. At a minimum, if you are a moderate Dylan fan and have an appreciation for the history of these recordings, you have to get ‘Raw’. It is totally different than the 1975 version, and the booklet that comes with it is a small novel on everything you need to know about this special event in music history. There are also plenty of pictures of them that I have never seen. Much of the dialogue in the booklet is offered up by Sid Griffin, who probably wrote the definitive book on the recordings, ‘Million Dollar Bash’. After getting ‘Raw’ I ordered the book and thoroughly enjoyed it. The songs are not polished, and most were not meant to see the light of day. But they certainly give us a glimpse into that transformative summer in Woodstock, when a group of guys were just playing in a basement for the hell of it, trying to create something new. And they did.

I would pay top dollar to be a fly on the wall of this basement for an afternoon.

Roger McGuinn selected this one for the Byrds:

This is the best version of this song I know:

a little Johnny Cash:

Mark Knopfler – ‘Tracker’

If you have heard a Dire Straits song lately and wondered whatever happened to them, then you may not be aware that their songwriter and main musical driver was Mark Knopfler, and that he has been still making great music for the past three decades. If you want to get reintroduced to his career, this is a great place to start. He always was a great songwriter, but he gets better with age. A collection of songs of real and imagined characters, riding on top of a musical bed utilizing his old Dire Straits building blocks, infused with celtic influences. A fairly eclectic mix of approaches, this album is like a well fitting sweater from your closet that never really goes out of style, always feels comfortable when you slip it on, and makes you appreciate it’s composition and simplicity. This is a good pickup for your summer playlist.

Here is a long form video where he walks through the construction of most of the tracks:

tell me this couldn’t have been mistaken for a track on the straits’ first three albums:

Ryan Bingham Fear and Saturday Night

Newest release from a solid songwriter from Texas.

When Ryan Bingham released his first album, Mescalito, at the age of 26, he already sang with the grizzled grit of someone twice his age. He’d spent the previous decade living in his truck, competing in a string of southwestern rodeos to help pay for gas. His parents were alcoholics. His friends were bull-riders. The whole thing sounded like a country song, which was one of the reasons Bingham’s biographical songs — which hitched themselves to mid-tempo grooves on Mescalito, then rocketed their way toward roadhouse-worthy rock & roll territory on his second release, Roadhouse Sun — packed such a natural, nuanced punch. He wasn’t some suburban kid dressed up in outlaw threads. Dude was the real deal.

Years later, Bingham — now a Grammy and Oscar-winning, thirty-something adult, with four studio albums and the critically adored Crazy Heart soundtrack under his belt — is prepping another release. Fear and Saturday Night hits stores on January 20, 2015. Bingham wrote most of the album’s 12 tracks alone in an airstream trailer, parked in the mountains of California without electricity or cell phones. The seclusion gave him creative clarity that resulted in songs inspired by an unstable childhood, and by the deaths of his mother to alcoholism and father to suicide.

Bingham recorded most of the album live, with a brand new band whose lineup includes two members of the blues-rock outfit Rose Hill Drive. Jim Scott, who engineered Tom Petty’sWildflowers and co-produced Wilco’s Wilco (The Album), produced the sessions.

What a terrible world, what a beautiful world

A great new effort by one of the better bands around. A movement towards a more mature sound, it is well written and lushly produced as usual. Tracks 5 and 6, Lake Song and Till the Waters All Long Gone, are my two favorites and have an Astral Weeks feel to them. A solid effort and worth your attention.