BOB DYLAN: HARD RAIN (1976)
1) Maggie's Farm; 2) One Too
Many Mornings; 3) Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again; 4) Oh
Sister; 5) Lay Lady Lay; 6) Shelter From The Storm; 7) You're A Big Girl Now;
8) I Threw It All Away; 9) Idiot Wind.
Conventional legend has it that The Rolling
Thunder Revue, Dylan's last major outburst of extrovert energy that left him all
spent and exhausted and ready for a shot of Jesus, began with a mighty bang
and ended with a pitiful whimper — and that the Hard Rain album, released as a memento of the tour, inexplicably
culled its material from the later,
second leg rather than the far more inspired, energetic, and unpredictable
first part of the tour. Back then, unless you were an active bootlegger or
actually went to several shows yourself, it was hard to tell, but these days,
with a careful selection of performances from the first round of shows finally released
as Live 1975, even a young Justin
Bieber fan can throw in an unbiased opinion.
My take on the situation would probably be as
follows. Bob's whole venture — going out on a spontaneous cross-country «magical
mystery tour», more like a crazyass traveling circus than a disciplined team of
performers, enlisting everyone who'd agree to tag along and not giving a damn
about what tomorrow might bring — was, on the whole, a fine jolt, aimed at
getting himself out of his depression; and, perhaps, somehow he hoped it might
miraculously help him settle his family issues, too. But, like so many other
spontaneous initiatives, generated on the spur of the moment, there is only a
certain time that they will preserve the initial freshness before turning into
petty routine — and it is quite likely that, by the time these May 1976 shows
in Texas and Colorado rolled along, Rolling Thunder was showing signs of petty
routine.
Upon first sight, both Live 1975 and Hard Rain
are loud, bombastic, rip-roaring affairs, with Bob making full use of the
little army assembled behind his back, and throwing in his own two cents in the
form of ultra-loud, ultra-aggressive bellowing, sometimes outroaring even his
already far-from-timid delivery level on Before
The Flood. Still, looks like two different kinds of roar to me — the first
one triggered by the sheer novelty of it all, and the second one by frustration
and desperation at the sight of it all squandered and falling apart. Live 1975, behind its decibel-rattling
facade, had subtlety and variety of approach; Hard Rain throws subtlety out of the window and just blasts, on and
on and on. Compare the only song that overlaps between the two releases — ʽOh
Sisterʼ, initially performed with Bob on acoustic guitar, carefully modulating
his vocal tone, and then, on Hard Rain,
switching to the same bloody electric and with the vocal performance
«streamlined» to fit more in line with the bark-heavy attitude of everything
else.
Not that this isn't, in its own way, fascinating
to behold, or impressive on an emotional level. But in the end, the problem remains
the same as on Before The Flood: not
all of these songs deserve to be treated this-a-way. Certainly not ʽLay Lady
Layʼ, once again taken up in a loud arrangement (though at a much slower tempo
this time) with a brand new set of lyrics — and a fairly clumsy one, because
how is it that one first asks the
lady to lay on one's big brass bed, and then
to forget this dance and come upstairs? Unless they happen to be dancing on
beds, this is just another indication of the man's rather confused state of
mind at the time.
The three highlights of the album, I'd say, are
the three songs from Blood On The Tracks
— ʽYou're A Big Girl Nowʼ is the only performance here to break the mold, with
acoustic guitar and piano and Scarlet Rivera's violin embellishments nicely
fitting the slowed-down tempo; ʽShelter From The Stormʼ works tremendously well
with an arena-rock electric arrangement — it already had plenty of anthemic
potential in its original version, so the reinvention was perfectly asked for;
and the best is saved for last — I am not at all sure that the band used to
close any of their shows with ʽIdiot Windʼ, but it is clear that in the context
of this album, it occupies the same space that is usually reserved for ʽLike A
Rolling Stoneʼ, which, in a way, it is
now, updated for the 1970s. On ʽIdiot Windʼ, after fluctuating to and from for
a while, it all comes together for a picture-perfect thunderstormy finale, which
was well worth the wait.
Together with Desire, Hard Rain puts
the cap on what could conveniently be called «Dylan's Silver Age» — a strange,
unexpected era in which the man once again became the focus of collective
attention and the source of unpredictable happenings. It is not all that much
to my liking: for kick-ass energy, Live
1966 and even Before The Flood
are preferable, for a more comprehensive overview of what the real Rolling Thunder Review was all
about, Live 1975 is far better
suitable, and for sheer bizarreness, I'd even take the Budokan album over this
straightforward rock'n'roll show. But, like all of Dylan's live albums, it
still does not sound exactly like
anything else (for that matter, it is interesting to notice that, aisde from
his joint deal with The Grateful Dead, Bob has not sanctified even a single
live release ever since he embarked upon «The Never Ending Tour» in 1989 —
possibly because he wouldn't have any more strength to drastically vary the moods
and approaches of the shows), so I'm still happy to recommend it with a thumbs up
— just remember, though, that it makes more sense when juxtaposed next to Live 1975.
Incidentally, Bowie fans should probably also
care about picking it up — but if any of them expects Dylan to be as kind as
to let Mick Ronson seriously interfere with his glam guitar chops anywhere in
the show, they'd better think again. (On Real
Live, Bob would be far more tolerant towards Mick Taylor's lead playing,
but I guess that the basic Rolling Thunder deal was always the same: «nobody gets to show off except the boss,
or we're all going down»).
Check "Hard Rain" (CD) on Amazon
It's interesting (and probably telling) that A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall isn't even on the album. The Live 75 version is one of the better re-arrangements that Rolling Thunder did for one of his classics (along with that weird "rock waltz" take on Hattie Carroll) and also one of the few moments Ronson gets to shine on a live Dylan record.
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