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Leamington Letters #49: Another Self Portrait - if not for you, for me

27/8/2013

20 Comments

 
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This is serious shit.

Unlike some, I did not ‘hate’ Self Portrait when it was first released in 1970. I bought it, of course. I listened maybe twice, and that was it. I remember playing it again after reading Michael Gray’s interesting chapter in Song & Dance Man in 1972, disagreed with Michael’s response (his word, as I recall, in a piece devoted to how one should respond to the album) and put the discs back on the shelves for forty years or more.

Until now.

And now, on the fourth play of 'another' self portrait, I know that I love almost all of these stripped down versions, no longer saturated in strings and soaked in satin back-up vocals, but succinct and to the point, with Bob singing softly and sublimely, crooning comfortable country.

Another Self Portrait is, amongst other things, the way that Self Portrait may have started life in Bob’s head. I have no idea what possessed him to add those overdubs; but, in retrospect, it was not the material but the overdubs to which we took exception at the time and which provoked the famous opening line of Greil Marcus in Rolling Stone:  “What is this shit?”

Now we know. This is serious shit.

It is serious in the sense that it is a portrait of the artist as a young man – and as a more mature man.  

Here we have his odds-and-ends musical heritage – his folk and blues and pop and rock ‘n’ roll. It looks back (although we shouldn’t) to his first albums, and shows us much of  the raw material for that extraordinary outpouring of 1964, 1965 and 1966.

Importantly, it also points the way towards those under-rated masterpieces, New Morning and Planet Waves.

In fact, New Morning is well represented here, but the assemblage of outtakes and re-mixes from that album (a favourite, as I recall, of those who didn’t like Bob) add little to our understanding of what was going on in Bob’s head at the time. It is the fact that he was doing country at all which was significant.

Think back, those of my contemporaries, to that time: country music was redneck music. Country fans supported Nixon and supported the war.

The embracing of this music by Bob was on a different level to that of Gram Parsons and the Byrds, for example.

This was Bob delving into Americanarama, as he is doing on his current tour. This was Bob doing what Bob does best – reinventing, restructuring, recreating what makes American music American. I mean specifically so. If the themes of Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde were universal, his sojourn in Woodstock with The Band took him back to his roots and the roots of every American. “Love that country pie.”
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I didn't!
There is a third and, for even more money, a fourth CD in this release. The fourth is the original Self Portrait, so don’t bother. The third is the complete Isle of Wight gig on the day of my 20th birthday (30th August 1969 since you ask), and you probably have this already – I certainly do. As Lennon said subsequently, Bob was “a bit flat”, but that didn’t matter. 

It was about Bob, three years after we had last seen him, being there, with us, in the UK.

And I feel the same now. In 12 months, we’ve had Tempest and now Another Self Portrait. "If not for you", it certainly is for me. 

It is very serious shit.


Today from the everysmith vault: Guess ...
20 Comments
CJ
27/8/2013 09:05:36

Ha! Would have put money on a review of the new Dylan release, but perhaps not such a personal take. I have ordered the full de luxe set which is yet to arrive. Will post when I have digested.

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Max
29/8/2013 03:24:54

I await your judgement with eager anticipation ...

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CJ
29/8/2013 04:44:47

So here it is. Brilliant. For 1970.

Colin Adams
27/8/2013 09:11:37

This reminds me of John Fowles re-issuing The Magus. Rewritten. It's unusual in writers, common now in musicians to revisit their early work and issue remastered versions. This is the next step. And it is, as you point out, a revelation in what it was always all about. This is the new Bob!

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Max
29/8/2013 03:26:23

Interesting parallel. To be continued.

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Margaret B
27/8/2013 09:30:34

It's that voice. That 'country crooning'. I love it. Too young to hear it live first time round, but this release has got to be one of my all-time favourites. And I only bought it in my lunch break!

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Max
29/8/2013 03:27:17

That's a common thread in Bob. Which voice?

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Allan
27/8/2013 10:09:39

I remember reading Gray's book and his observations on Self Portrait in particular. He was accused of being consciously contrarian at the time, with the whole of the Bob world united behind Marcus. Even the triumph of New Morning - you are right that it was liked by people who didn't like any other Dylan album - didn't change our view and, to be honest, I would not have linked the two albums had they not been yoked together in this release. I'm listening to it now whilst trying to find my copy of Song and Dance Man!

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Ellie
28/8/2013 02:54:26

What Michael Gray asked was 'how do we respond to this album?'. Which was a good question at the time, because Self Portrait was so clearly different from everything else that Bob had done and indeed everything that anyone wears doing. It is also, to pick up on previous threads on previous blogs, a Leavisite question. But to answer Marcus's question, what is this shit?, it is this revised version. Love it.

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Allan
28/8/2013 05:44:49

I think that we learned from Leavis to 'respond' to a work with humility and a willingness to learn and clarify our emotions. We could take it further and ignore the context - pace Richards - for the development of an 'organised response' to the work. But I think I will leave this to Michael ....

Jack
27/8/2013 10:11:35

We're you really only 20 at the Isle of Wight? Always thought you were so much older ...

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Max
29/8/2013 03:28:04

But younger than that now!

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Richard
27/8/2013 13:15:42

Max! Come on! This isn't a new Bob album. This is some engineer in a studio deleting some tracks.

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Max
29/8/2013 03:29:06

Well, yes, ok. But at Bob's dictation and direction, surely?

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George
28/8/2013 05:24:39

Confused by your reference to the Byrds and country. The original Self Portrait was a couple of years after Notorious Byrd Brothers and Sweetheart of the Rodeo. Why is this not on the same level?

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Max
29/8/2013 03:31:02

You're right. Stupid and unthought-out aside. Lots more examples also - see Rick Hough below. Pressed 'post' without reading through and thinking through.

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Rick Hough
28/8/2013 22:59:21

What a moment. I gave the record almost no listening when it came out but I can say I was sitting on the office desk at my high school gas station job when I read Marcus’ review. The young woman I was chasing at the time was a very serious Dylanista and took deep umbrage at the persiflage. She had a wonderful defense of the record all prepared for school the next day, of which I can remember not one point but her steadfastness was deeply endearing.
For my part, I used the period to skip back and buy any of the early folkie stuff I didn’t already have and basked in that. (I do remember actually admiring his cover of “The Boxer”. )We were well aware of the closeness to Johnny Cash – in fact that was how we came to reconsider Johnny to begin with. We didn’t have a term like American Roots music to hang it all on but we knew the side of Americana being echoed by the Band and “Workingman’s Dead” had scant to do with Spiro Agnew’s crowd.
Or did it? It was impossible not to love Haggard right through the pop jingoism of “Okie From Muskogee” because the prick was being so straight-up honest.
What of the Portrait collection? It sort of began to strike me that Bob simply was first to get to a process most other artists of high output would emulate in years to come, that of clearing the tubes of the mix of beguiling ephemera and recently hard-won influences which can impede the progress of the Bigger Piece. The Zappa’s and the Van Morrison’s would let the stuff molder in the vault but a lot of other folks caught on quickly that it could be packaged and counted against albums owed the contract.
Which would only serve to strengthen the value of the magnificent “When I Paint My Masterpiece ”, hey?
Have a wonderful birthday and a phenomenal year, hombre.

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Max
29/8/2013 03:32:56

Not so much a comment as a blog in its right - and a better one. Il miglior fabbro! And to you and yours. And the Town Nine!

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Rick Hough
30/8/2013 00:18:32

I apologize for the verbosity. Makes me think of Richard Pryor's great observational aside: "an' then it, like, started to get good to him", which is how he described going on a roll.
Thanks for the compliment but I must deflect it. You are able to summons Dante and about the best I can do is cite an able standup comic.
We're liking the daylights out of this ball club - even the frequently bewildered 3rd baseman. Happy Birthday, again.
(If you would but sit here on our side of the pond with a glass of decent Pinot Noir, I wouldn't have to use-up so much space on your blog - maybe.)

Max
29/8/2013 03:38:13

To Allan and Ellie re the Michael Gray thread (Weebly only allows three comments per thread): Michael tweeted this morning that his copy has arrived and he already disagrees with much of what has been said. As I certainly hoped he would. Michael tours the UK this November (as does Bob of course) and Michael will be in Leamington with BD and Poetry of the Blues on 14th. A chance to discuss in person, perhaps.

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    Max Smith

    European writer, radical, restaurateur and Red Sox fan. 70-something husband, father, step-father, grandfather and son. Resident in Warwick, England.

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