Category: Music

Saturday Night at the Oldies: The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan

Freewheelin

This, Dylan's second album, and one of my favorites, was released in May of 1963 by Columbia Records. Here are my favorites from the album. 

Blowin' in the Wind, with its understated topicality, enjoys an assured place in the Great American Songbook.  London Ed uploaded this Alanis Morissette version which is one of the better covers.  Thanks, Ed!

Girl from the North Country Ah! it's even better than I remember it as being.

Understated topicality also characterizes A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall, written during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, lending it a timeless quality absent in a blatant 'finger-pointing' song such as Masters of War.  The Baez version is probably the best of the covers.

Don't Think Twice, It's All Right in the outstanding PP & M version.  Another permanent addition to musical Americana.  Said to be inspired by Suze Rotolo, the girl on the album cover.

Bob Dylan's Dream in the PP & M rendition.

Oxford Town.  About James Meredith's battle for admission to the University of Mississippi.

In her memoir, A Frewheelin' Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties (Broadway Books, 2008, p. 277-8), Suze Rotolo says this about her mother Mary Rotolo:

I remember her informing me that the career army man an older cousin was married to had lost out on a promotion that involved security clearance because of my appearance on the cover of Bob's album.  I was astounded.

True, the times they were troubled.  Protest against the escalating war in Vietnam was on the rise, draft cards were being burned, and colleges were erupting with discontent.  Blues, bluegrass, and ballads no longer defined folk music, since so many folksingers were now writing songs that spoke to current events.  Bob Dylan was labeled a "protest singer."  But the absurdity of my mother, Marxist Mary, trying to make me feel responsible for a military man's losing a security clearance because I am on an album cover with Bob Dylan, a rebel with a cause, left me speechless.  And that was all she said to me about the cover or the album in general. 

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Suze Rotolo and the Songs She Inspired

Surprisingly, I missed the passing of Suze Rotolo some two years ago.  She died on 25 February 2011 at 67 years of age. 'Dylanologists' usually refer to the following as songs she inspired:

Don't Think Twice.  This Peter, Paul and Mary rendition may well be the best.  It moves me as much as it did 50 years ago in 1963 when it first came out.  It was via this song that I discovered Dylan.  The 45 rpm record I had and still have showed one 'B. Dylan' as the song's author.  I pronounced it as 'Dial-in' and wondered who he was.  I soon found out.

One Two Many Mornings

Tomorrow is a Long Time

Boots of Spanish Leather.  The wonderful Baez version.  There is some irony, of course, in Baez's renditions of songs inspired by Rotolo: Dylan's affair with Baez was a factor in his break up with Rotolo.

Ballad in Plain 'D'

Finally a song by Baez inspired by Dylan: Diamonds and Rust 

Snow Here Now

But it is a very wet snow that does not survive its contact with the ground.  A nasty cold front has arrived from the Left Coast.  Can we blame this on libruls too?

Snow had the Grapevine closed for a spell.  And that puts me in mind of Johnny Bond, 1960, Hot Rod Lincoln:

We left San Pedro late one night/ The moon and stars were shining bright/Everything went fine up the Grapevine Hill/ We were passing cars like they were standing still.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Early and Late

Early in the Morning, Peter, Paul and Mary. An inspirational way to start the day.

Early in the Morning, same title, different song, Vanity Fare, 1969

Early in the Morning, same title different song again, Eric Clapton. Can a white boy play the blues?

Early Morning Rain, Gordon Lightfoot.  There are excellent covers of this great old tune by PP&M and others, but this may be the best version.  Written by Lightfoot in '64.

Four Until Late. From Cream's blockbuster debut album, Fresh Cream, 1966. The 1937 Robert Johnson original.

It's Too Late, Chuck Willis, 1956. 

It's Too Late, Derek and the Dominoes, 1970, with an intro by Johnny Cash.

It's Too Late, same title, different song, Carole King from her Tapestry album, 1971.

No, I will not link to the Poni-Tail's "Born Too Late" or to Bill Haley and the Comets' "See you Later, Alligator."

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Literary Allusions

Linda Ronstadt, 1967, Different Drum.  Cf. Henry David Thoreau: "“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.  Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Byrds, Turn, Turn, Turn, 1965.  Lyrics almost verbatim from the Book Of Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8.  Pete Seeger did it first.

Bob Dylan, 1965, Highway 61 Revisited.  Genesis 22.

Fever Tree, The Sun Also Rises.  A great song  by a great but forgotten '60s psychedelic  band. The title alludes to Hemingway's 1926 novel and to Ecclesiastes 1: 1-5:

1The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. 2Vanity of vanities, said the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. 3What profit has a man of all his labor which he takes under the sun? 4One generation passes away, and another generation comes: but the earth stays for ever. 5The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to his place where he arose. 6

Jaynettes, 1963, Sally Go Round the Roses.  Based on the nursery rhyme Ring a Ring o' Roses (British)or "Ring Around the Rosie" (Stateside).

Inez and Charlie Foxx, 1963, Mockingbird.  An R & B version of the eponymous nursery rhyme.

Serendipity Singers, 1964, Don't Let the Rain Come Down.  Based on ther nursery rhyme, There Was a Crooked Man

Exercise for the reader.  Identify the Biblical references in the following Dylan songs: The Times They Are a'Changin', All Along the Watchtower, When the Ship Comes In, The Gates of Eden. 

Three Days Before the Music Died Dylan was Born

Patrick Kurp sends this:

On this Day in Duluth in 1959, Buddy Holly and the Crickets, Richie Valens, Jiles Perry “the Big Bopper” Richardson, Dion and the Bellmonts [sic], and others played to a sell-out crowd at the Duluth Armory for a “Winter Dance Party” promoted by Duluth’s Lew Latto—three days before Holly, Valens, and Richardson perished in a plane crash. In the audience, as the famous story goes, was a young Robert Zimmerman, who became so inspired he picked up a guitar and changed his name to Bob Dylan.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Letters and the Like

Boxtops, 1967, The Letter

R. B. Greaves,  Take a Letter, Maria

Ketty Lester, 1962, Love Letters, with images from David Lynch's Blue Velvet. If you think the Lynch twist spoils a beautiful song, here it is straight.  Often covered, never surpassed.  E.P.'s version.

Elvis Presley, 1962, Return to Sender

Benny Goodman, Airmail Special

The Marvelettes, 1961, Please, Mr. Postman.  The summer of '69 found me delivering mail out of the Vermont Avenue Station, Hollywood 29.  One day two girls came up to me and started singing this song.  Something this U. S. Male won't forget.

Roosevelt Sykes, Mailbox Blues

Bob Dylan, Take a Message to Mary

Donovan, Epistle to Dippy

Don Gibson, The Last Letter

Jean Shepard and Ferlin Husky, A Dear John Letter

Beatles, P. S. I Love You

Paul McCartney, I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter 

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Varia

Traveling Wilburys, End of the Line

Amos Milburn, One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer

The Showmen, It Will Stand.  If you remember this underplayed oldie, I'll buy you one scotch, one bourbon, one beer.  There was an apologetic sub-genre around this time (1961) of songs celebrating R & R.  

Fleetwood Mac, Mission Bell.  Haunting cover of the upbeat Donnie Brooks hit.

Merle Haggard, The Fugitive

Them, Here Comes the Night.  This YouTuber got it right: "Love this song – still sounds as raw and as fresh as it did nearly 50 years ago!"  Yes, raw, edgy, yet tender.  Unforgettable.

Les Paul at 90, Sleepwalk.  No offense to the great guitar pioneer Paul, but Joe Satriani's version is hard to beat.  The 1959 original by Santo and Johnny. 

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Favorite Gun Songs

A lonely soldier cleans his gun and dreams of Galveston. Marty Robbins messes with the wicked Felina in El Paso and catches a bullet for his trouble. Joan Baez sings of a jilted lover and her counterfactual conditional, "If the ladies was squirrels with high bushy tails, I'd load up my shotgun with rock salt and nails." Gene Pitney sings of the The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. And from 1943, here is Pistol Packin' Mama by Al Dexter.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Three Unforgettable Albums from 1970

Craig FellinI can't speak for my housemates at the time, Ken Bower and Craig Fellin, but these three albums were my favorites among the ones we listened to, and the selections are my favorites from each.

1. Bob Dylan, New Morning (released 19 October 1970).  Sign on a Window.  If any song puts me in mind of Craig, it is this one. That's him to the left.  He is the proprietor of the Big Hole Lodge in Montana.

 

 

 

 

 

Build me a cabin in Utah
Marry me a wife
Catch rainbow trout
Have a bunch of kids who call me 'Pa'
That must be what it's all about
Thta must be what it's all about.

After his motorcycle accident in 1966, the protean Dylan moved closer to the earth and farther from the mind.  Gone the despair and the absurdist imagery of It's Alright Ma I'm Only Bleeding (from Bringing It All Back Home, 1965) and Desolation Row (unfortunately, this is the 'stoned' version, but it too is oddly beautiful)  and the haunting Visions of Johanna (from Blonde on Blonde, 1966).

2. George Harrison,  All Things Must Pass (released 27 November 1970).  The title song.  "All things must pass/All things must pass away."

3. Derek and the Dominoes, Layla (released November 1970).  The title song.  The best part begins at 3:10.  It still rips me up, 42 years later.

I wouldn't want to relive those early years.  But what I lacked in happiness, I made up for in intensity of experience.  Ken and Craig had no small part in that. 

Christmas Eve at the Oldies

Merry Christmas everybody.  Pour yourself a drink, and enjoy.

Cheech and Chong, Santa Claus and His Old Lady
Canned Heat, Christmas Boogie

Leon Redbone and Dr. John, Frosty the Snowman
Beach Boys, Little St. Nick.  A rarely heard alternate version.
Ronettes, Sleigh Ride
Elvis Presley, Blue Christmas
Charles Brown, Please Come Home for Christmas
Wanda Jackson and the Continentals, Merry Christmas Baby
Chuck Berry, Run Rudolph Run
Eric Clapton, Cryin' Christmas Tears
Judy Collins, Silver Bells
Ry Cooder, Christmas in Southgate.  Don't miss this one. Great video.
Bob Dylan, Do You Hear What I Hear

Who could possibly follow Dylan's growl except

Tom Waits, Silent Night.  Give it a chance.