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Leamington Letters #86: "Ah! Play it pretty now, boys."

7/11/2014

14 Comments

 
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It ain’t pretty. But it’s beautiful.

The Basement Tapes Complete is by turns silly and funny, poignant and profound, rough round the edges and sharp at its centre. It is spare and stripped, and it is complex and complicated. It is the stuff of dreams and the makings of myth.

Of course, there is little here that we did not have before. Sitting with me is Great White Wonder and  Troubled Troubador on vinyl, the too- polished 1975 double album on vinyl and CD, plus the 5CD The Genuine Basement Tapes which has 103 of the 138 (actually 140 – there are two hidden ones at the end of Disc 6) tracks featured on this latest official release, including the seminal I’m Not There, which prompted Kazuo Ishiguro to suggest that it should have been included in Lost, Stolen or Shredded, Rick Gekoski’s fascinating account of missing works of art.

Well, it is no longer missing. (Not that it ever was in this household!) And nor is this authentic record of Bob making music with four Canadians in the basement of Big Pink.

What strikes me, listening to them all again (and again and again) is how out of time they are. The year before we had marvelled at Bob’s electric music and the thrill of those 1966 shows still resound in my mind.

But in 1967? What were we listening to in 1967?

Despite – or perhaps because of – the banning of pirate radio, we were smoking to the Velvet Underground and Nico, rocking and rolling to the Stones, analysing Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. But mostly, we were trippin’ out to the Dead and the Airplane. This was the psychedelic era: the Dead had already written Dark Star; the Airplane had released Surrealistic Pillow and After Bathing at Baxter’s; Hendrix was asking Are You Experienced?; the Electric Prunes went Underground; Syd and Pink Floyd debuted with The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.

So where was Bob while all this was going on? He was singing I’m Not There. Instead, he was holed up in Saugerties and bringing it all back home for those privileged to hear the original acetates. With the Band, he was moving effortlessly and spontaneously between genres, drawing on almost everything except psychedelia.

On these six CDs, you will hear folk, blues, nursery rhymes, Americana, surrealist improvisations. But nothing trippy, nothing spacy, nothing that reflected the zeitgeist. Or what we thought was the zeitgeist at the time.

As so often, Bob was right and he went on to demonstrate it in concrete form with John Wesley Harding later that year.

In Spring 1967 he re-invented music. We just didn’t know it. Listen to it all. Listen especially to Bourbon Street. “Ah! Play it pretty now, boys” he exhorts the Band. And Rick Danko responds with a melancholy trombone that would make Kid Ory cry.

Looking back (which he told us not to), I wish we had been aware of these songs and these recordings at the time. 

They just might have changed my life.

14 Comments
Jack
7/11/2014 04:32:59

How?

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Tim
7/11/2014 04:44:12

You're right. It ain't pretty. It's a mush-mash of everything that's good and bad about Bob. Self indulgent and genius in the space of a couple of bars. Hadn't spotted the play it pretty line until you and Greil Marcus pointed it out. The bit I love is the secret of the universe: Silhouette!

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CJ
7/11/2014 10:23:00

The release of this album is not as important as the masses of coverage would suggest. One reason why is because most of us already have it - or at least 90+% of it. Another is, it's actually not that good. Bob usually knows what he is doing. And he knew what he was doing when he didn't release it years ago. Another alimony issue?

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Derek
8/11/2014 00:07:00

The Dead released that first not-very-good album in 67 but my guess is that you weren't really listening to the Dead until 68. The Airplane a different matter. Their recording contract - and their music - ahead of time. But your point re Dylan good.

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Allan
8/11/2014 02:50:26

True. Bob decided to get away from it all, to live like a complete unknown and devote himself to an exploration of his roots which were, even then, pretty eclectic. He can't have been unaware of what was going on on the West Coast - he was a good friend of Jerry Garcia and most Dead shows would subsequently include at least one Bob song, so one can only assume that he consciously turned his back on it. John Wesley Harding was confirmation of this. A good point and worth making.

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Geoff
8/11/2014 03:38:10

Robbie Robertson: "At this time, you’ve got to remember, nobody was doing this. It didn’t exist, that people would set up and now everybody does it. Back then, this was very rare. It was like Les Paul did that. Everybody else, if you were going to make a record, you went and made a record where they make records, right?

Anyway, I had this friend of mine, this guy that I know, look at the thing in the basement and he said, “Well, this is a disaster.”

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Geoff
8/11/2014 03:50:00

Your software cut me off. Here's the good bit:

"Then Bob Dylan comes out and he sees this and he says, “This is fantastic!” He said, “Why don’t we do some stuff together?” He’s like, “I want to record, I need to make up some songs for the publishing company for other people to record.”"

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Geoff
10/11/2014 07:47:02

And Levon Helm: “Sex, drugs, rock and roll, those were the things that they’re using to sell rock and roll, which seemed a damn shame when you get down to it. The music is certainly capable of doing that on its own.”

Alex
9/11/2014 05:59:24

Of course he didn't reinvent music. But he did reinvent himself and his music. Think back if you can. Not just JWH but Nashville Skyline, Self Portrait, New Morning. They all stem from the Basement Tapes and the liberation of free-flowing music-making with the Band. Just as, a lot later, working with the Dead gave him the impetus and the commitment for the NET.

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Nick
11/11/2014 09:12:31

Suspect Bob was listening to the same stuff and enjoying it as much as you. But doing his own stuff. That's Bob.

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Rick Hough
11/11/2014 10:14:57

Sometimes writing about what you love most is a tough assignment. You frequently do so and do it beautifully. Pretty impressive.

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Ellie
12/11/2014 02:04:43

You've got a hell of a good memory for someone who was there! Enjoyed it.

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Anders
12/11/2014 04:29:27

I think he Googled those albums, don't you? But he missed the Incredible String Band and, surprisingly, the 13th Floor Elevators.

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Ellie
12/11/2014 05:04:38

I suspect 67, 68 and 69 are all one big blur for Max!




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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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