The DJ and Gar Saga Continues-The Bob Dylan listening thread

tentoze · **Posted:** Fri Jul 30, 2010 11:38 am

Well OK, Harry. I think. That extra cup of coffee this morning really spun you up.

Rick Derris · **Posted:** Fri Jul 30, 2010 12:09 pm

While I have lots of respect for this album and believe it deserves it's important stature in rock lore, it's simply a Dylan album that I don't pull out very much.

It's just a simple straight forward album musically but it's so literary with tons of biblical references (as evidenced by harry's post) that I find it pretty dense. I really have to be in the mood for it. When I am though, it's great. Great stories and even though it feels a little bible-y it doesn't feel preachy like on say, "Slow Train Comin". Feels like parables put to song or something.

I could certainly see a certain type of listener swearing by this album which is why it's endured I suppose.

Still, from this time period, I'm way more likely to put on The Basement Tapes or Nashville Skyline.

Senator LooGAR · **Posted:** Fri Jul 30, 2010 12:14 pm

I thought the basement tapes were pretty much pre-crash? Or that the crash occurred during the time of the sessions?

Radcliffe · **Posted:** Fri Jul 30, 2010 12:39 pm

Senator Lou Garra Wrote:

I thought the basement tapes were pretty much pre-crash? Or that the crash occurred during the time of the sessions?

My understanding is the Basement Tapes were created during his recuperation from the crash. That's why he had all the time for woodshedding.

I never quite understood why he turned to shit so quickly, but Harry's post and footnotes might finally paint the picture more clearly for me. For whatever reason Jesus became hip in those very late 60s, and it seems Dylan may have been just one more victim of that idiocy.

He had a decent run, but from this point on Dylan is a very ordinary man coasting on a reputation for audience-imposed genius. He hasn't played a worthwhile note since Hendrix corrected "All Along The Watchtower" for him.

Yail Bloor · **Posted:** Fri Jul 30, 2010 1:15 pm

Radcliffe Wrote:

He hasn't played a worthwhile note since Hendrix corrected "All Along The Watchtower" for him.

In a career of stupid things you've posted, this wins hands down.

nobody · **Posted:** Fri Jul 30, 2010 1:29 pm

I'd be tempted to agree if it weren't for Blood on the Tracks, probably the Dylan album I listen to most of all and perhaps my favorite hangover album in the world...ok, maybe a correlation there.

Also, after a thread bringing it up not long ago, I really love his cover of Can't Help Falling In Love off what seems to be universally regarded as his shittiest album.

I don't think he did much in his later career and agree he gets a pass on reputation lost of times, but I think he still came through after this point a few times.

Dick Meatwood · **Posted:** Fri Jul 30, 2010 1:32 pm

Yail Bloor Wrote:

Radcliffe Wrote:

He hasn't played a worthwhile note since Hendrix corrected "All Along The Watchtower" for him.

In a career of stupid things you've posted, this wins hands down.

I wanted to say something similar here.

But the competition is pretty stiff. Not sure about "hands down".

harry · **Posted:** Fri Jul 30, 2010 1:57 pm

But it's a glorious stupidity - tantalizing crackpotedness.

And not to beat a dead hippie, but I'd posit to Rads that the Dylan mythology holds up for exactly the reasoned disappointment he holds about Zims. The shift and failure of nerve is emblematic of the cultural revolution... and (here is a bridge to the Bloor boomer haters) a whole generation has congratulated itself on something unique (Florence in the fourteenth century) that happened in the public sphere 1962-1968. Coasting. Dylan. Me. My hippie friends.

What is of interest to me (and I'll return to this if this thread actually limps along to Love and Theft and later), that how this generation dies will be interesting. I have some theories that I am writing about and I'll share when the Darkness comes.

DumpJack · **Posted:** Fri Jul 30, 2010 2:25 pm

harry, we're going to the end and beyond in this thread.

As for today's album, I've played it twice today (on vinyl, $5 at Amazon) while sitting here contemplating my day. It's a lonely, solitary album not really fit for the mood on this hot, July morning but as I took the calls of the day, it became a good fit.

tentoze · **Posted:** Sun Aug 01, 2010 2:23 pm

By chance, does anybody have those 5 volumes of Basement Tapes ripped in 320 kbps?

DumpJack · **Posted:** Sun Aug 01, 2010 4:00 pm

tentoze Wrote:

By chance, does anybody have those 5 volumes of Basement Tapes ripped in 320 kbps?

I found links for FLAC:

Code:

http://rapidshare.com/users/O8XFET

DumpJack · **Posted:** Sun Aug 01, 2010 4:06 pm

and here's the 320, A Tree with Roots

Code:

http://rapidshare.com/files/65010857/ATWR_d1p1.zip 
http://rapidshare.com/files/65019115/ATWR_d1p1.zip 
http://rapidshare.com/files/65023145/ATWR_d1p2.zip 
http://rapidshare.com/files/65028086/ATWR_d2p1.zip 
http://rapidshare.com/files/65032821/ATWR_d2p2.zip 
http://rapidshare.com/files/65038162/ATWR_d3p1.zip 
http://rapidshare.com/files/65042935/ATWR_d3p2.zip 
http://rapidshare.com/files/65048301/ATWR_d4p1.zip 
http://rapidshare.com/files/65052882/ATWR_d4p2.zip

and here's Genuine Basement Tapes at 224

Code:

http://rapidshare.com/files/64993827/TGBT_d1.zip 
http://rapidshare.com/files/64997262/TGBT_d2.zip 
http://rapidshare.com/files/65000285/TGBT_d3.zip 
http://rapidshare.com/files/65003134/TGBT_d4.zip 
http://rapidshare.com/files/65006699/TGBT_d5.zip 

Senator LooGAR · **Posted:** Mon Aug 02, 2010 11:55 am

Hell, I don't know if I have listened to this album in the past 15 years. It is better than I remember, but as many have said, it is a slower, more personal album of what are for the most part country-and Jesus-influenced tunes. I like it, but I can't say I will reach for it again.

DumpJack · **Posted:** Tue Aug 03, 2010 8:20 am

Quote:

John Wesley Harding suggested country with its textures and structures, but Nashville Skyline was a full-fledged country album, complete with steel guitars and brief, direct songs. It's a warm, friendly album, particularly since Bob Dylan is singing in a previously unheard gentle croon -- the sound of his voice is so different it may be disarming upon first listen, but it suits the songs. While there are a handful of lightweight numbers on the record, at its core are several excellent songs -- "Lay Lady Lay," "To Be Alone With You," "I Threw It All Away," "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You," as well as a duet with Johnny Cash on "Girl From the North Country" -- that have become country-rock standards. And there's no discounting that Nashville Skyline, arriving in the spring of 1969, established country-rock as a vital force in pop music, as well as a commercially viable genre.

Code:

http://tinyurl.com/373txs4

tentoze · **Posted:** Tue Aug 03, 2010 8:38 am

Another one I bought the week it came out. I remember how fresh it sounded at the time. Whatever influence and/or positive impression it made on me at the time waned in the ensuing years. Haven't played it in a long time. The much-touted duet with Cash was a ragged and seemingly tossed-off affair that was a better idea in theory than it ever was in execution. I prefer Hoyt Axton's cover of Lay Lady Lay over the original presented here. And this one preceded a dark (translate: shitty) Dylan period for me.

Yail Bloor · **Posted:** Tue Aug 03, 2010 9:13 am

"Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You" is probably one of my ten favorite Dylan songs. Agree with 'toze about the Cash duet: always better in theory than practice.

It's an up and down album but I like it better (and listen to it more) than JWH

Senator LooGAR · **Posted:** Tue Aug 03, 2010 10:13 am

Yail Bloor Wrote:

"Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You" is probably one of my ten favorite Dylan songs. Agree with 'toze about the Cash duet: always better in theory than practice.

It's an up and down album but I like it better (and listen to it more) than JWH

I remember buying this album because of that duet, and being a little taken aback by it's sorry-ness, but I have come to appreciate the ragged glory.

Totally agree with "Tonight" and I'll always have a soft spot for "Lay Lady Lay" - oh, we putting this on in our dorm room and we gonna fuh...

This album is somehow UNDERRATED, imo. Not from the music geeks who jack off to the country rock culmination, or even Dylan fans, but maybe just by me. It's hitting me right where I need it on a quiet morning in the office.

DumpJack · **Posted:** Tue Aug 03, 2010 10:46 am

I've always found his voice to be too distracting on this record for me to properly dig in. It's like he's got tonsillitis. And it's a shame because I really dig some of the songs here.

Senator LooGAR · **Posted:** Tue Aug 03, 2010 10:52 am

DumpJack Wrote:

I've always found his voice to be too distracting on this record for me to properly dig in. It's like he's got tonsillitis. And it's a shame because I really dig some of the songs here.

I think that was part of my initial squeamishness (that and the fact that all the songs are slow rollers) - but I have since learned that's just Bob being Bob...I am curious to see if I can keep that objectivity when it comes to the 00s albums that Harry venerates and I claim to despise.

DumpJack · **Posted:** Tue Aug 03, 2010 11:06 am

Senator Lou Garra Wrote:

DumpJack Wrote:

I've always found his voice to be too distracting on this record for me to properly dig in. It's like he's got tonsillitis. And it's a shame because I really dig some of the songs here.

I think that was part of my initial squeamishness (that and the fact that all the songs are slow rollers) - but I have since learned that's just Bob being Bob...I am curious to see if I can keep that objectivity when it comes to the 00s albums that Harry venerates and I claim to despise.

We've got some rough albums ahead of us, to be sure. I don't dislike this album at all, it's just would have been much, much better with his regular "voice".

Yail Bloor Wrote:

"Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You" is probably one of my ten favorite Dylan songs.

Hard to argue against.

harry · **Posted:** Tue Aug 03, 2010 11:50 am

Hmm. Yeah, that's interesting. I value the various voices he brought to the Dylan menu in later years, but when this one dropped I really was put off by this album. The warm sappy voice and mediocre songs. I don't hate this album completely but I never need to hear either Lay, Lady, Lay or the Cash duet ever again.

Yail Bloor · **Posted:** Tue Aug 03, 2010 12:40 pm

DumpJack Wrote:

Yail Bloor Wrote:

"Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You" is probably one of my ten favorite Dylan songs.

Hard to argue against.

And as a further case against the "Nashville Skyline Voice", I would throw on the live version on the Rolling Thunder Revue 99 times out of 100 if I had a hankering for the song.

"Lay Lady Lay" has always sounded like a ghouls anthem--something Buffalo Bill might have hummed while knitting his "coat"

andyfest · **Posted:** Tue Aug 03, 2010 12:57 pm

I think I feel about the same way everyone else does on Nashville Skyline - a couple good songs but overall I've never really liked it that much.

"Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You" is great as is "Lay Lady Lay" (though I agree it never really needs to be played again). I love the version of "I Threw It All Away" on Hard Rain but don't care much for this version.

Although JWH and Nashville Skyline aren't bad albums really, the decline in quality that lasts until Blood on the Tracks is definitely evident at this point.

Radcliffe · **Posted:** Tue Aug 03, 2010 2:27 pm

This is awful. I remember a friend tried playing this to me in 1978 and thinking it was the worst kind of country trash. I think I may dislike it even more now.

billy g · **Joined:** Mon Oct 25, 2004 1:41 pm **Posts:** 9020

I'm not going to argue that Nashville Skyline is one of his best, but its the first Dylan album that I really liked and I still like it a lot more than most of you do.

The DJ and Gar Saga Continues-The Bob Dylan listening thread

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