i was hesitant to get this when i saw it come out last fall, but i finally looked into it and decided to check it out. this is not a career ‘live’ collection, but rather it is culled from performances he has recorded of his current touring band over the last few years. granted, he revisits some of his greatest compositions, spanning from the spencer davis group to his more pop oriented offerings from the eighties and nineties, but he repackages them in his own distinct fashion. his extremely talented band can tackle everything from the soul classic ‘i’m a man’ to the early acid rock era of traffic, to the more jazz oriented later period traffic (post dave mason). and steve sounds the same as he did in the mid seventies. if you listen to the original ’empty pages’ off of the 1970 ‘john barleycorn’ and the video below, you will not be able to see any discernible difference. the percussion section often gives many of the songs an afro-cuban vibe, and the soloists are able to stretch things out very nicely. this is somewhat of a ‘comfort food’ selection. if you are a fan of his overall work, you really won’t be disappointed. he is currently on tour in the midwest with this band, and i might go see him next week.

one evening in the summer of 1976, neil – along with his longtime producer david briggs and actor dean stockwell -settled in for the night at indigo studios in malibu. the idea was to capture neil doing ten new songs in acoustic solo fashion. recorded in one night, the set list features many songs that would eventually be well known to his fans, but not because of this recording. when it was pitched to the record label, it was dismissed because they felt that it sounded like a bunch of demos, as opposed to a finished product. and to an extent, they have a point. the project was shelved, until now. of the ten tracks, eight would eventually be recorded on a later release. it opens with the first known version of ‘pocahontas’ which, along with ‘ride my llama’, would be included on the ‘rust never sleeps’ album. ‘powderfinger’ is stripped to the bone here, as opposed to the revved up crazy horse version. ‘campaigner’ is offered, otherwise not seeing the light of day until his ‘decade’ compilation. ‘human highway’ was originally pitched as a studio project for csn&y in 1974, recorded here, and eventually wound up on ‘comes a time’. the only two unreleased tracks are ‘hawaii’ and ‘give me strength’, the latter being a song about his breakup with actress carrie snodgrass.

this is pretty raw stuff, complete with studio banter and uneven production. but neil sounds great and for the most part plays these cuts with conviction and depth. so why has it not been released till now? neil has certainly not been shy about slowly releasing items from his vast archives, much like dylan. and the session has been known to young aficionados for a long time. i have never come across an explanation, but i suspect it might have something to do with the recording quality. it is a very good historical marker in his career, but i get the impression from interviews that the three people in the room might have been a little too far gone to make good studio decisions. but being a big neil fan, this is a welcome addition to my archives.

the stones haven’t released a studio album since 2005’s ‘a bigger bang’, and they entered mark knopfler’s british grove studios in west london in december of 2015 with the intent of laying down some tracks for a new one. struggling with the room and hitting a dead end on a particular track, keith decided to take a break and had the boys rip out a version of little walter’s ‘blue and lonesome’. they did one more take and asked legendary producer don was if they recorded it. luckily the answer was yes. they so much enjoyed the playback that they tried a few more old blues covers before calling it a day. mick went home and compiled a wish list of more standards that night. they then returned a month later, finishing the rest of the tracks in two days, keeping the same theme going. eric clapton, who was also recording an album in the room next door, joined them on two of the numbers.

the end result was a collection of tributes to the genre and artists that had inspired their music so long ago. no originals and no overdubs, just a bunch of flat out grungy tracks by a bunch of crusty veterans. they are all in fine form here, especially mick. in a rolling stone interview, keith said this might be mick’s best album. not sure about that, but the comment might be partly driven by the fact that mick plays a ton of blues-harp on this one, and keith has always been a big fan of his playing. apart from clapton, the band is rounded out by darryl jones on bass and chuck leavell on piano. they never got around to finishing the album of originals (at least not yet), and so they decided to release this one for the time being. twelve tracks, in varying blues styles, all very good.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/inside-the-rolling-stones-new-album-blue-lonesome-w450645

 

one of the most copied bootlegs in music history is the legendary royal albert hall concert from dylan’s legendary 1966 spring tour of australia and europe. there was only one small problem – the show that was so widely disseminated is actually a show a few days earlier at the manchester free trade hall – the show that is documented in dylan’s bootleg series volume 4.

as part of his ever evolving project of releasing his vast archives, he recently put out a 36 disk set of the entire tour, but also added this release of probably the most famous concert of all of them – the tour finale at royal albert hall from may 1966.

one of the more compelling features of this tour was bob’s decision to hire a bunch of relative unknowns to accompany him on the second set of each night, the ‘electric’ portion. known then as ‘the hawks’, they eventually become known to the world as ‘the band’. most of the world was not ready for the electric dylan, and he was summarily booed in every show on that tour. for the most part the musicians handled it well, but it did wear on them (in fact, levon helm quit right before they left for australia). if you have ever seen d.a. pennebaker’s documentary of this tour – ‘don’t look back’ – you will also be aware that bob’s health was steadily deteriorating throughout. robbie robertson and his manager albert grossman found him in his hotel room after the final show nearly unconscious and delirious from exhaustion. two months later he would be critically injured on his motorcycle, forcing the cancellation of the next leg of the tour. in fact he would not tour again till 1974. essentially this was the demarcation point for the next direction he would take in his career, holing up in woodstock with the band and creating ‘the basement tapes’ and the songs that would show up on ‘john wesley harding’.

this release is two discs of unreleased material (except for ‘visions of johanna’ which appears on ‘biograph’). the first is the acoustic set, and the second is the electric set with the hawks. considering the technical issues they were having with equipment, the cumulative effects of a world wide tour, the animosity of the crowd, and the fact that many of britain’s musical royalty were in attendance (including the beatles), the performance here is just stunning. having released three of the most important albums in rock history in the previous 18 months (‘bringing it all back home’, highway 61 revisited’. and ‘blonde on blonde’), this is a fitting capstone to one of the most productive bursts of creativity in modern musical history.