God Bless and Enjoy the Music!
Tom 8999
Bob Dylan - new album just out on Tidal - Rough and Rowdy Ways
Snackeyp - I am so glad you found this string and are enjoying Bob - as I have said earlier - he is the poet of my generation! I am a young 66 years old. For me - this is the best Benefit of using Audiogon - we all discuss equipment to the nth degree. The whole point of our hobby is to enjoy the music. Other members comments have lead me to Artists I would never find on my own - or alert me to an ‘old favorite artist ‘ so I can enjoy their ‘evolution ‘ over their career! God Bless and Enjoy the Music! Tom 8999 |
tom8999, If ever an album fitted it’s times - it’s this one. Just like the Sex Pistols ’Nevermind the Bollocks’ and the Beatles ’Sgt Pepper’ ’Rough and Rowdy Ways’ has captured the essence of its times. The whole world is obviously going through some very strange days and Bob Dylan has provided us a with a great album to take some kind of an historical recap. They’ll be listening to this one a 100 years from now, hopefully onboard some luxury space station. |
Roxy54 - from what I have read Dylan wrote the song ‘Murder Most Foul’ for the Kennedy family as his contribution to their 50 Year Remembrance ceremony of the event (Nov 22, 2013). The song was preformed just for the ceremony and not released to the public as a single until much later (about 7 or 8 months ago). He then saw fit to include it into his latest album we are discussing. Sorry you do not enjoy reliving history thru music. The song also touches on the other key assassinations of that violent time as well - the death of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. It reminds me of the actual impact of ‘Nonviolent Protests’ and how that approach to change America was so effective - as apposed to ANTIFA and their destruction of Seattle and Portland today. Just my two cents - enjoy the music. |
Ok i just gave it a listen on you tube.Well ,i feel like i have heard this music before.Will i need this to be burned in .errr more play time.Perhaps ,will i ,i dont think so.Hey i like Dylan always have.Ive seen him in concert .I liked him more in the 70s .I have bought most of his albums but mostly on used cds.Its older Bob,nothing new .Sorry. |
snackeyp, Yes, great albums both. Different but share that Dylan trademark of awesome closing tracks as on many of his best albums eg, 'It's All Over Now, Baby Blue', 'Desolation Row', 'Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands', 'Sara', 'Sugar Baby' etc. Time Out of Mind is near perfect. 'Not Dark Yet' could break your heart. rpeluso, I probably need to give Modern Times a few more spins. Maybe 2001s Love and Theft had raised my expectations a bit too high. I remember I couldn't latch on to any of the songs immediately the way I could with Murder Most Foul, Crossing the Rubicon, Black Rider etc. I think I was also listening to at the same time as Morrissey's Ringleader of the Tormentors which was a little more immediate back then. Sometimes a good way for me to know if I'm going to like something is to play it in the car a few times. I don't like playing originals in the car so I'll rip a copy especially. |
snackeyp, 'Ironically, his late-career records are some of my favorites.' Love and Theft 2001 Tempest 2012 Rough and Rowdy Ways 2020 In my opinion these 3 are amongst his best ever studio albums. The only career hiatus I think was that decade between Street Legal (78) and Oh Mercy (89). Springsteen, once again is the only other artist that springs to mind as a comparison for both quality and longevity. Quite unusual really, as most of his rivals tended to barely have a golden creative period for a decade at best. Somehow, despite everything, Dylan's defied the odds. Only he may know how. |
I've been listening to this album for a couple of weeks on Tidal and have gone to not liking it that much to liking it a lot. The vinyl just came out today so I bought it. Special gold vinyl indie store exclusive at that. I'm excited to sit down with it tonight. As for his voice, he has more character in his voice than almost any other singer out there. Some records are much more listenable to me than others. Ironically, his late-career records are some of my favorites. |
It's an unlikely question but it's one I have been asking myself lately, is this Bib Dylan's best album? For sure the range of vocal and musical expression found here is not a patch on that found on his best work eg the drug fuelled 65-6 trilogy that altered the course of popular music. He's much older now and the band, excellent players no doubt, are here to provide a solid, consistent, pulsing, hypnotic landscape for his words. No flashy or fancy stuff here at all. Lyrically there is a lot of disillusionment, regret, bitterness, anger, reflection from start to finish, only occasionally softened with rare hints of humour. It's often overlooked but Dylan always had humour. His vision here is on history, mortality, loss of reason, rejuvenation and hope for redemption. I can't recall any other album of his with such an encyclopedic compass of subject matter and sensation. Even those peaks of 2012s Tempest or 2001s Love and Theft hardly managed such a kaleidoscopic distillation as this one. This one broke me down further and make me think more. The final track, Murder Most Foul comes packaged on a separate CD, quite rightly so. It stands alone in more ways than one. Broad, majestic and all encompassing it's a work of the highest maturity. As for the recording quality, its simply first rate - warm and full of texture and decay. It sounds good on everything I've played it on - TV, headphones, Bluetooth speaker etc. Of course it sounds better on a full range system, bigger scale, depth and bandwidth, intimacy etc, but then that's no more than what you'd expect from an artist who genuinely cares about how his work is displayed. It's also available for a free listen on Dylan's own YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kqAopNs8YTdcVv-aTY0fBZqiEWI4jmtgI |
Right @tostadosunidos, Moondog Matinee included some of the songs The Band were performing in their sets while playing bars as The Hawks (1960-65, pre-Dylan). Great versions of those songs, and since the album is intended to reproduce that era, I don't mind the recorded sound quality, which is not so hot: no high end, congested and veiled, but the music moves me anyway. |
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I listened to Murder twice last evening- I was just two when that went down, so obviously I have no direct memory. Into the future, critics of Dylan and this album and this song will come and go. Me, I see it as an emotional stream of consciousness regurgitation of the evil and the emotions of that horrid day. I guessing for a significant fraction, the song will remain very personal and emotional - maybe even slightly more than half the country. At some point I might write down all the musical touchstone references - I think most of the mentions are artists I have valued, sought out over the years.. so sure, let’s over the years revisit the song and see who has the chops, stones, moral conviction and emotions to cover it... or maybe just write something new... I don’t consider the rest of the album a masterwork and maybe that’s my deal with Bob. His masterwork needs to touch me to the core as ten or so of his songs do. I and I would be one such song. Planet waves is a great album with a few with or without a Rock band... as my buddy with Cornwall’s said: Dude, it’s a first world problem to debate other critics about Dylan...” yes, we are that lucky Finally, no ILL will intended |
Oh do tell me what young voice could improve Murder Most Foul ? I can think of many, but I don’t think it would do any good to debate that, do you? I hope the pasture pushers get a gentle nudge into a nursing home.... Lighten up. Is Bob above all criticism? Do we wish ill upon people with whom we don’t agree regarding Bob’s singing? Bob has always been against worshipping idols. He’s always told people to think for themselves, that’s the message I’ve always gotten, anyway. |
Yeah @roxy54, not to mention Roy Orbison! Speaking of The Stray Cats, they were produced by Welshman Dave Edmunds. In 1970, while The Dead and The Airplane were making the Rock music they are known for (which DID contain trace elements of Folk and Blues), Edmunds put out his first solo album (having previously been in Love Sculpture, a Progressive/Blues UK trio), entitled Rockpile (he was later in a band of the same name with Nick Lowe). It contains a lot of genuine Rock ’n’ Roll, as well as Blues and Rockabilly. I consider Edmunds the greatest Chuck Berry interpreter of them all, leaving Keith Richards to eat his dust. ;-) Dave plays almost every instrument on the album, and had a hit single with his incredible reworking of the old Smiley Lewis Blues song "I Hear You Knocking"(written by Dave Bartholomew, known for his work with Fats Domino and other black Rock ’n’ Rollers). While Jorma and Jerry were playing long, meandering guitar solos, Dave played a taut, kinetic, scorchingly hot little solo on the song. He first creates an almost-unbearable degree of tension, then releases it at the solo’s climax. Very sexual, the way great Rock ’n’ Roll is performed. Like Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, and early Elvis. Coincidently, Edmunds includes Dylan’s "Outlaw Blues" on the album, as well as Neil Young’s "Dance, Dance, Dance" and Chuck Berry’s "Sweet Little Rock & Roller." For another example of a Rock ’n’ Roller who knew how to create and release tension, listen to Buddy Holly’s version of "Down The Line." Jerry Lee also did the song, but Buddy’s is THE version. SO hot! To hear a great version of Dylan's "Absolutely Sweet Marie" performed by a true Rock 'n' Roll band, listen to The Flamin' Groovies' Jumpin' In The Night album (Edmunds produced their classic Shake Some Action album, another masterpiece). |
Gentlemen - and I use this term loosely - thank you for a wonderful walk thru the history of ‘our music’ over the last 60 years! Bob is the only song writer to get the Nobel Prize for literature - quite an exclusive club - as far as I am concerned. At 79 - he can write whatever the hell he wants and he can back it up with whatever music he sees to be correct. He is a national treasure - thank you all for your input. This is why we all spend so much time and energy into our ‘Systems’. Enjoy the music - |
Sure Elvis went Hollywood and then Vegas which removed some of the hillbilly from rock, but you can't really say it died unless you make some sort of artificial barrier between country and folk music. Folk music covers a wide range of styles and most white, American rockers started out as folk singers in the late 50s thru 60s. Even the future psychedelic bands in San Francisco (The Dead, Airplane, Quicksilver, etc.) had strong folk roots. And let's not forget the whole Bakersfield Sound which contributed that country swinging tonk thing. If you listen to the critics rock 'n' roll has more sub-genres that western classical music (1600-1905). It's not true. If it has a back beat and is played with a certain attitude, then it's probably rock. |
@tomcy6, Crowell is fantastic! The Houston Kid album is in my Top 10 albums of all-time list, an absolute masterpiece. His former father-in-law Johnny Cash makes a guest appearance on one song, the Rockabilly-esque "I Walk The Line (Revisited)". I saw him perform the album at The Roxy in Hollywood at the time of it's release, and the audience was filled with other artists (Dave Alvin was at the table next to me). The Houston Kid album reminds me of John Hiatt's Bring The Family, in that each started the second phase of their careers with those two albums, producing music far superior to that of their previous work. Rodney spent time serving as Emmylou Harris' rhythm guitarist/harmony singer/bandleader in her Hot Band, a position now filled by the also great Buddy Miller. |
@tomcy6 Sorry, but that’s not what I said. I was saying that Bob’s singing voice had deteriorated to the point where, if he wanted to continue playing in a rock band, he should get someone else to sing. You just said it again. And you call his current album ‘rock’?, seriously? I don’t hear much of a ‘rock band’ in this album, so perhaps you got your desire. Listening to it, I’m not sure Dylan had any desire to make a ‘rock album’ with this release. Get someone else to sing? Seriously? Dylan ‘is’ is his voice, his delivery, and his lyrics. Without that, it isn’t Dylan. You then said that Bob has never wanted to play in a rock band. I think you are totally missing the point. But no, I don’t think he started writing to be in a ‘rock band’. |
@bdp24, I agree with you that the rockabilly edge in rock music faded in the 60’s, but it never disappeared. Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins continued to play their music all through the late 50s and 60s, except when they were in the hospital. The Beatles covered some of Carl’s music and George was a big fan of his. You can find compilations of all the rockabilly from the 50s and 60s you want. Then there was the Allman Brothers and the rise of southern rock, which had definite country influences. The Byrds did country music. Linda Ronstadt covered Hank Williams. Creedence had country influences big time. I think what happened was the British bands weren’t able to do country as well as they adapted blues and R&B, and British bands were a big part of 60s rock. The Band were unique. No doubt about that, but I don’t think they were the only rock band with country roots showing. |
No, this all started from you making the statement, ‘if he (Dylan) wants to be in a rock band....’ and implying his current effort doesn’t meet the classification of a being in a ‘rock band’, Sorry, but that’s not what I said. I was saying that Bob’s singing voice had deteriorated to the point where, if he wanted to continue playing in a rock band, he should get someone else to sing. You then said that Bob has never wanted to play in a rock band. I would much rather see Bob write poetry, or prose, or just become a treasured songwriter. In general, I prefer to see people and artists age gracefully. To me rock is a young person’s game. There are exceptions, of course. Rodney Crowell has done his best work since the turn of the century with, "The Houston Kid" in 2001, "Fate’s Right Hand" in 2003, and, "Close Ties" in 2017. Those three albums rock hard and are much better than anything Dylan has done in a long time. Rodney will turn 70 this August. He has other very good albums out in that time frame, but those three stand out for me. Ray Wylie Hubbard’s first album came out in 1975, but he has done a string of really good albums between 1992 and the present. Ray Wylie will turn 74 later this year. He is beginning to show signs of becoming a caricature of himself, though. I am with Grace Slick on this topic. Watching a bunch of old geezers trying to play rock is embarrassing. When your voice is gone, mentor someone who can still sing. |
@cleeds, I love that scene in Diner, and directed people to it a while back. Up above I called many genre distinctions crude. Like using a machete instead of a scalpel. I don’t organize my LP’s and CD’s by genre, though doing so chronologically is an interesting idea. Big Joe Turner recorded "Shake, Rattle, & Roll" before Bill Haley (and of course Elvis), Turner’s version at the time being called Jump Blues (and "Race" music by some), Haley’s Rock ’n Roll. Is that because Turner was black, Haley white? I don’t know, but I consider Turner’s Rock ’n’ Roll as well, and greatly prefer it to Haley’s. Many have not heard Joe’s version---remedy that situation! Big Joe Turner came out of Kansas City, so had some (a lot) of Jazz in him as well. Perhaps that’s why his music contains so much "Swing", another characteristic that separates Rock ’n’ Roll (swings) from Rock (doesn’t, generally speaking). Neil Peart couldn’t have worked in Big Joe’s band; he was unable to play the Swing feel, as became apparent at the Buddy Rich tribute show he organized. I saw The Blasters back Big Joe at The Lingerie Club in Hollywood in the mid-80’s; now THERE was a band that swung! For those who don’t know, Dave Alvin came out of The Blasters (though his brother Phil was the singer/frontman), left to join X, then started his solo career. The Blasters understood very well the connection between Jump Blues, Rhythm & Blues, Rockabilly, Rock ’n’ Roll, and Hillbilly, playing it all. As a bonus, their Non Fiction LP (self-produced, recorded at Ocean Way, the studio preferred by Ry Cooder and T Bone Burnett) and Hard Line LP (produced by Jeff Eyrick) feature great recorded sound. Get hip or go home. ;-) |
There’s some really good analysis of rock music in this thread. I could quibble with bits of it, but that’s all it would be. Still, I couldn’t help but recall this classic scene from the film "Diner." In a way, I can relate to each of the characters in this clip. |
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@tomcy6, I don't consider The Band a Rock band for this reason: If you consider the early-to-mid 1950’s explosion of "teenage" music---Little Richard, Fats Domino, Bill Haley & The Comets, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent, the Sun Records Rockabillies (who combined black Rhythm & Blues with white Hillbilly)---Rock ’n’ Roll (which, for the sake of this argument I will accept, though I consider the late-40’s recordings of guys like Big Joe Turner---who did original versions of songs later covered by Bill Haley and Elvis---the true original R & R, though it was at the time called Jump Blues), then what differentiates it from "Rock" music? The Rock ’n’ Roll of the 1950’s had Blues/Jump Blues/Rhythm & Blues elements, but also that of another predominantly-Southern music: Hillbilly. But after the music business and musical tastes (and the morality and official police forces) killed that original R & R, by the mid-60’s the music that we now consider Rock had taken it’s place. Gone almost completely in Rock music was the Hillbilly element, the Blues element becoming predominant. The Stones, The Yardbirds, The Kinks, The Who, Cream, Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Santana, Big Brother & The Holding Company (featuring Janis Joplin, of course), The Airplane, etc. had ZERO Hillbilly in their music, and the same is true for the bulk of all Rock music that has followed. There are exceptions, but most bands we consider Rock are largely Blues-based. You want a band that had/has it all? Listen to NRBQ and Los Lobos. For solo artists Dave Edmunds and Buddy Miller. Well, The Band’s music included that Hillbilly/Country element missing in Rock bands, so I consider them a true Rock ’n’ Roll band (though much more than that). I find it humorous that with the Hillbilly/Country element present n Rock ’n’ Roll almost completely removed in Rock, when that same Hillbilly/Country element was added back in by the likes of The Eagles, the resulting music was called Country Rock. Take the Country element out of Rock ’n’ Roll, call it Rock, then when you put the Hillbilly/Country back into Rock, you call it Country Rock? Shouldn’t it once again be Rock ’n’ Roll? In the case of The Eagles, a quick listen to their music will prove the answer to be no. But that’s because they had no Rock ’n’ Roll in them to begin with! The Band did. |
No, this all started from you making the statement, ‘if he (Dylan) wants to be in a rock band....’ and implying his current effort doesn’t meet the classification of a being in a ‘rock band’, so why doesn’t he just quit? Or find another singer?? Seriously? 😳 You seem to be putting Dylan in some box that to you think he should remain. I just don’t get that opinion. It just does not reflect all the various kinds and types of music Dylan has done over the years. I’m sure he is most focused on what he is doing today, just as he has always done.....Dylan has always done what he wants to do...... That is a luxury many without his genius and talent cannot afford. Whether I or you like the direction of his current album or not really isn’t important to Bob. Never has been. I’m sure he will be just fine. |
Rock music is an amalgamation of blues, country, folk, and even a little jazz sometimes, to keep it simple. A full all-encompassing description of what is rock ’n’ roll or rock would take more time than I have left on this earth. Rock became the term used to describe rock ’n’ roll as it diversified from its 50s roots during the 60s, but either term is still used to describe the music made for young people (and now old people) from the 50s on. So if the Hawks, later the Band, or any of Bob’s bands since then are not rock bands, what are they? When I used to go record shopping they were always in the Rock section and I’m sure that’s where you’ll find The Band’s and Bob’s music on Amazon or Ebay. And that’s probably where most people who organize their music collections by genre have them. While that category may not be perfect, it’s the most practical. But, if anyone wants to explain why they are not rock, I’d be happy to read it and learn. |
When Dylan approached The Hawks in 1965, they were only vaguely aware of him. They came from a very different world, that of Rhythm & Blues, Blues, Jazz, Rockabilly (having served as Ronnie Hawkins’ band for a couple of years), and Hillbilly/Country. The Folk music heard on the radio was "p*ssy" music to them, effete urban and suburban "white" music. They had been playing the "white chitlin" circuit, in working class bars across the east coast, midwest, and south (as well as up in Toronto), to hard drinking audiences, often separated from the audience by a chicken wire screen (to keep the flying bottles from reaching the stage ;-). It was only after working with Dylan that they became what we hear on Music From Big Pink and the brown album, especially after spending all of 1967 in the basement of Big Pink, making music and recording it (the Basement Tapes, of course). Their influences---like that of Dylan---are deep and wide. Organist Garth Hudson is a classically-trained musician---reads music, knows music theory, etc. Levon Helm grew up listening to local Bluesmen---he lived in the same Arkansas town as Sonny Boy Williamson, sitting in the corner of the local radio station when SB performed live on the air---and The Grand Old Opry, just as had Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, and Carl Perkins. Bassist Rick Danko led his own Country band, once opening for Ronnie Hawkins & The Hawks. Richard Manuel played around Toronto, known for his Ray Charles-influenced vocal style and ability. The Band were definitely not a Rock band, but they did play Rock ’n’ Roll (if you appreciate the difference). But much more: Hillbilly, Blues, Pop, and music which defies categorization via such crude terms. |
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