Bob Dylan 16: Planet Waves

For his Asylum Records debut—on a roster that boasted (at the time) the likes of Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, the Eagles and Tom Waits—Dylan devised a winning combination: all new songs with the full-fledged accompaniment of The Band, followed by a full-fledged tour. (This wrinkle would surely have been as much of a boon for The Band, as despite success on the concert circuit, their best work was behind them and they’d reached something of a creative standstill.) The resultant album, Planet Waves, was recorded rather quickly and released in time for the tour.

“On A Night Like This” continues the homey sentiments of Nashville Skyline and New Morning, with something of a duel between harmonica and accordion. “Going, Going, Gone” offers a little more mystery, wound up nicely with a stirring bridge and Robbie Robertson’s trademark pinched tone. “Tough Mama” and “Hazel” sing of other unspecified women, both sporting clever rhymes and catchy melodies, while “Something There Is About You” is a little more straightforward.

Two versions of “Forever Young” are included, back to back; allegedly the slow burner that ends side one was considered too “mushy”, but it’s also much more effective than the fast hoedown that starts side two. (The song still runs rings around Rod Stewart’s overblown paraphrase that still gets airplay on “lite” stations.)

“Dirge” is one of the album’s highlights, consisting of just piano, Bob’s voice, Robbie’s acoustic guitar interruptions and an undercurrent of something downright sinister. After five minutes of self-loathing, “You Angel You” sounds a little funny coming next, but “Never Say Goodbye” brings some of the mystery back, complete with a teasing reference near the end of a “Baby Blue”. And as he’d done before, a solo acoustic performance closes the album. “Wedding Song” would be heard as autobiographical, and its inherent conflicts take us out on an odd note.

Was this the sound people had been hoping to hear since the motorcycle crash? Planet Waves certainly gave critics yet another chance to trumpet the “return” of their bard, and the album has endured as a cozy listen. It’s not one of his greatest works, but it’s a worthy chapter in the ongoing saga. (When Columbia retained the rights to the album in 1982, the cover art was modified to remove the original handwritten liner notes; these were restored on the 2003 SACD reissue.)

Bob Dylan Planet Waves (1974)—3

John Lennon 12: Live In New York City

Back before he completely lost his mind, Geraldo Rivera was a TV journalist who initially made his name exposing bad behavior a la 60 Minutes. Following an exposé on the living conditions at a home for the mentally ill, he convinced John and Yoko to stage a benefit concert in the summer of 1972, which they did. In the end, two shows were staged.

Nearly fourteen years later, an album of the event finally got an official release. It had been a TV special a decade earlier, and would occasionally show up on the radio; plus being John’s only full length solo concert performances outside of Toronto, what became Live In New York City had certainly gained stature. Yoko was nice enough to take out all of her songs for the LP version (yet left some in for the concurrent VHS release); purists still cried foul over the remixing and choice of performances, as most came from the afternoon show. “Welcome to the rehearsal,” John himself says at one point, and rightfully so.

The overall performance is rushed and sloppy; despite what anyone thought, Elephant’s Memory—fresh off the recording of Some Time In New York City—was simply not that good a band. Tex Gabriel was okay on the guitar, and saxophones are a matter of personal taste, but when Jim Keltner is onstage as the second drummer that should tell you something. And why exactly did they need two bass players? Still, they took care of John’s needs at the time, and he didn’t have the patience to audition people like Paul did. (He also didn’t pretend to be democratic.)

The fact that he showed up and rose above the other guys on stage makes up for the lackluster details. The most entertaining segments are the between-song comments—especially “Someone shouted ‘Ringo!’ That was last year” and “Here’s another song I wrote after I left the Rolling Stones”. “Imagine” and “Instant Karma” at the piano make for cool listening, and “Hound Dog” is thrown in to show off his roots. The last track is a minute’s worth of “Give Peace A Chance”, a different mix from the one on Shaved Fish but just as much of an afterthought.

Live In New York City doesn’t have the raw energy of Live Peace In Toronto, or the giddiness of his appearance with Elton John in 1974, but as a historical document it’s still essential — assuming you can find it, as it’s out of print now — and that’s where it gets its points. It was a pleasant surprise to be getting more authorized visits into the archives, and we no idea where it would go from here, if at all.

John Lennon Live In New York City (1986)—3½
Current CD availability: none

David Bowie 12: Changesonebowie

By the mid-‘70s, it had become common for a major artist with several hit singles and albums under his or her belt to release a “greatest hits” album. Elton John, Linda Ronstadt, the Eagles and the Carpenters were just some examples of performers who were doing just fine on their own but saw their royalties skyrocket when their hits albums shot to the top of the charts and stayed there.

For all his projected perversion, David Bowie was hardly the exception to the marketing norm. His label had been carefully backing his singles with various album tracks, to the point where someone who only bought 45s would have collected all the lesser-known tracks worth having as B-sides. All of which makes Changesonebowie all the more impressive for providing a cohesive (and chronological) review of David Bowie since his emergence as a major artist.

Beginning with “Space Oddity”, the album presents the Bowie familiar to top 40 radio listeners. To add a level of consistency it used similar packaging to Station To Station (namely, run-on titles and a stark photo) to present the key album tracks and most of the hits in order. It gets points for including “John I’m Only Dancing”, a great track that died on the charts, but demerits for also including all six minutes of “Diamond Dogs”. The flow on side two, from the decadence of that track and “Rebel Rebel” through the funk of “Young Americans” and “Fame” to the funk (again) of “Golden Years”, makes the trajectory seem so much more natural than if you’d bought the albums one at a time upon release. It’s a testament to Bowie that these songs all hang together so well.

If you were going to delve into the original albums based on this sampler, you’d be in for a surprise. It might even be a pleasant one. However, unless you bought this album used on vinyl, you might not know it existed. When Rykodisc picked up the Bowie catalog in 1990, they put out an expanded CD called simply Changesbowie—a nice idea that included some post-1976 tracks, but also replaced one key hit with a modern remix called “Fame ‘90”. Since then, various single-disc hits collections have sought to retell the story, but this one is still the king, and was made available again as is for its 40th anniversary.

David Bowie Changesonebowie (1976)—4½
1990 Changesbowie expanded reissue: “same” as 1976, plus 7 extra tracks

Pete Townshend 8: Another Scoop

Atco Records must have been happy with Pete’s sales, because soon enough fans’ cups ran over with Another Scoop, an equally satisfying sequel to his first collection of demos. While it still reached back to his earliest home recordings, this one leaned more on the mid-‘80s synth experiments and orchestral sessions from the ‘70s, along with the familiar Who sketches. None of the instrumental tracks really stand out; we’re here for Pete’s vulnerable voice, which rings like a bell on every track where he sings.

The familiar songs of course provide an alternate view, running the gamut from “La-La-La-Lies”, “The Kids Are Alright”, and “Call Me Lightning” to “Happy Jack”, “Pictures Of Lily”, and “Substitute”, “Christmas”, “Pinball Wizard”, and “Long Live Rock” to “You Better You Bet” and “Don’t Let Go The Coat”. Some of these are sequenced back to back in odd juxtapositions. As with the first volume, his liner notes give some background to each track, with even more detailed into about recording location, instruments used, even tape format and speed.

Many of the “new” songs deserve better exposure. “Girl In A Suitcase” is a mildly sarcastic turn from 1975. Two orchestral experiments provide quite the juxtaposition: “Brooklyn Kids” is heartbreaking, while “Football Fugue” is pompous but fun. “Holly Like Ivy” shows how much equipment he was able to bring on the Who’s Farewell Tour, though it’s nearly impossible to discern the lyrics. The transition from “Begin The Beguine”—recorded for a Meher Baba tribute album—into “Vicious Interlude”—wherein the artist at work has to scold a naughty child—makes the whole album. But the given excerpts from the aborted Siege project (the robotic “Cat Snatch” instrumental and the less repetitive but still frustrating “Ask Yourself”) show that the Who as well as the fans were probably better off without that final album.

Once again the second half is a little more challenging. Two more orchestral-based pieces dominate: “Praying The Game” is something of a musical companion to “Street In The City”, whereas “The Ferryman”—the music for which was heard briefly in the White City film—explores more of his spiritual readings. There are some nice acoustic numbers, such as a take on Charles Brown’s “Driftin’ Blues”, as well as the gorgeous “Never Ask Me”, a big ballad that would have made listeners retch had it appeared on Who Are You as intended. The set ends with “The Shout”, one of Pete’s most personal numbers and one that, despite its importance to its author, would never find a home. It is lovely, though.

While not as consistent as the first, Another Scoop is still essential listening. Considering that Pete must have hundreds of hours of similar tapes in his vault, it gave us diehards hope that more would follow. Moreover, at this point in his career, it seemed as if we were getting spoiled with all the riches, and that he was doing just fine without having to write for The Who. We had no way of knowing it wouldn’t last.

Pete Townshend Another Scoop (1987)—3½

Neil Young 31: Year Of The Horse

By the mid-‘90s grunge had subsided, but Neil was still relevant. He promptly took the Horse on the H.O.R.D.E. tour, playing mostly for kids who’d come to see Phish or Blues Traveler. He also let Jim Jarmusch follow them around with Super 8 cameras, resulting in a film called Year Of The Horse. The accompanying live album was not a “soundtrack”, since much of the music in the film was fragmented and even juxtaposed with older footage. Much like its predecessors, the songs on the CDs are long, loud, slow and sloppy, and that’s fine. There’s enough variety here to differentiate the album from (and improve on) Live Rust and Weld, but just touches the surface of the sheer breadth of songs they played that summer.

Disc one kicks off with a priceless exchange twixt Neil and the audience. A heckler shouts, “They all sound the same!” and our hero retorts, “It’s all one song!” And they all are—no problem. They crash right into “When You Dance I Can Really Love”, in just as good a rendition as on Live Rust. Zuma gets revisited here, with a negligible version of “Barstool Blues” and a strong, drawn-out “Danger Bird” that brings chills. An effective “When Your Lonely Heart Breaks” includes Poncho on the Stringman, followed by the acoustic blues rejig of “Mr. Soul”. “Pocahontas” goes electric psychedelic, and the first disc ends with a delicate “Human Highway”. The second disc features a few tunes from Broken Arrow, plus a nice and sloppy “Prisoners Of Rock ‘N Roll”. Interestingly, the club recordings sound sharper than some of the arena recordings.

Year Of The Horse is Neil’s best live collection of previously released songs, packaged (and some might say mixed) like a bootleg. At 85 minutes he wisely put these out on two discs for the price of one; after all, what could be left off a single-disc edit? However lost Neil may have been in the ‘80s, a decade later he was making up for lost time. And we were happy to have him.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse Year Of The Horse (1997)—4

Bob Dylan 15: Dylan

Now this was just cruel. This compilation of outtakes is generally accepted to be something of an intentional insult by Columbia Records, in response to Dylan’s recent defection to Asylum Records. It was compounded by incredibly lazy cover art and a title—the simple yet direct Dylan—that seemed to suggest that these odd covers were the epitome of the man’s creativity, and just as much of a self-portrait as Self Portrait was. But to make matters worse, most of the tracks came from the New Morning sessions, and were actually in contention for release, giving us a frightening vision of just how awful that album could have been had he not written some actual tunes for it.

“Lily Of The West” is just plain excruciating. “Can’t Help Falling In Love” (yes, the Elvis Presley hit) would have been better had he slept off his cold before stepping up to the mic. “Sarah Jane” is laughable, and “The Ballad Of Ira Hayes” is a protest song without much of a cause. And that’s side one.

Side two includes some baffling renditions that people may have heard before. “Mr. Bojangles”, written by Jerry Jeff Walker and popularized by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, has some truly awful backing vocals, which return on the traditional “Mary Ann”. “Big Yellow Taxi” doesn’t do Joni Mitchell’s bank account any favors, and the last two songs send it all back to Self Portrait—“A Fool Such As I” shows he’s got nothing on Elvis, and the overblown “Spanish Is The Loving Tongue” makes the absence of the more subdued B-side (itself no great shakes) more of a shame.

Forty some years of hindsight can put much of the blame on the mix and arrangements. It would have been very easy to present these songs simply, with just Bob singing and playing guitar, and without the backing vocals and other elements slathered everywhere. In fact, given the 21st-century retool of material from this era, we’d almost welcome unadorned takes of “Lily Of The West”, “Mary Ann”, even “Sarah Jane”, if only to discern why he recorded the songs in the first place. (The key word here is “almost”.) Instead, it was decided to have those mewling vocals pinned to the red—not for the last time in his career—and things like the harpsichord in “Sarah Jane” given as much space in the mix as Bob’s simple guitar. Nowadays we can almost get his appreciation of the Great American Songbook; back then such a thing didn’t fly when talking of the spokesman for a generation (their words, not his).

If you hated Self Portrait, you’ll really hate this. Pointedly, it didn’t appear on CD in the US until it was part of a “complete albums” box set, though you could get it on iTunes as part of a $200 download (with 764 other songs, including several repeats).

Bob Dylan Dylan (1973)—2

Bob Dylan 14: Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid

In the midst of his writing drought, Bob was asked to contribute music to the film Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid, starring James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson in that order. Before too long, Bob got himself a part onscreen, as a character named Alias whose most memorable scene involves reading the various labels off cans on the shelf of a store.

The soundtrack album itself didn’t come much easier. He was never really known for his instrumentals, and he didn’t feel up to writing ten new songs for the movie; instead we got three versions with vocals of “Billy” (none of them very good), two instrumental versions used for the “Main Title Theme” and “Final Theme” (the latter of which is pretty good), some equally iffy instrumentals and the epic (and hit single) “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door”, for which one has to be in the mood.

That’s an admittedly rough assessment, but Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid simply isn’t a major album. There are some moments to be had, however. “Main Title Theme” would be okay if we didn’t have so many repetitions on the same three chords. “Bunkhouse Theme” hearkens back to “To Ramona” in a Tex-Mex way. The bluegrass “Turkey Chase” sounds as unlike Dylan as “Nashville Skyline Rag” or any of the instrumentals on Self Portrait. “Final Theme” manages to inspire a feeling of majesty whenever it hits a welcome minor chord. And Dylan himself would continue to tinker with the verses of “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” onstage, well after people learned the song from the likes of Eric Clapton and Axl Rose.

Still, it’s not bad for an album that mostly arose out of one set of lyrics and several hours of jamming in the studio with a few ringers to keep him interested. It’s far from the worst 35 minutes of Dylan captured on vinyl, but we were still hoping for something, shall we say, substantial.

That didn’t stop people from digging for gold once some of the hours of jamming made it out to bootleg collecting circles. One intrepid prep school kid added more lyrics to a throwaway called “Rock Me Mama” and ended up with an international hit called “Wagon Wheel” that got even more legs when Darius Rucker (aka Hootie) covered it. The original recording was finally released officially, kinda, on 50th Anniversary Collection 1973, along with other such sketches as “Billy Surrenders”, “And He Killed Me Too”, and “Goodbye Holly”, and multiple rehearsals for “Billy”, “Final Theme”, and “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door”. Like his other copyright dump releases, this one had extremely limited availability.

Bob Dylan Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid (1973)—2½
Bob Dylan 50th Anniversary Collection 1973 (2023)—2