THE BOOTLEG SERIES VOL. 10: ANOTHER SELF PORTRAIT (1969-1970; 2012)
CD I: 1) Went To See The Gypsy;
2) Little Sadie; 3) Pretty Saro; 4) Alberta #3; 5) Spanish Is The Loving
Tongue; 6) Annie's Going To Sing Her Song; 7) Time Passes Slowly #1; 8) Only A
Hobo; 9) Minstrel Boy; 10) I Threw It All Away; 11) Railroad Bill; 12) Thirsty
Boots; 13) This Evening So Soon; 14) These Hands; 15) In Search Of Little
Sadie; 16) House Carpenter; 17) All The Tired Horses;
CD
II: 1) If Not For You; 2) Wallflower; 3) Wigwam; 4) Days Of '49; 5) Working On
A Guru; 6) Country Pie; 7) I'll Be Your Baby Tonight; 8) Highway 61 Revisited;
9) Copper Kettle; 10) Bring Me A Little Water; 11) Sign On The Window; 12)
Tattle O'Day; 13) If Dogs Run Free; 14) New Morning; 15) Went To See The Gypsy;
16) Belle Isle; 17) Time Passes Slowly #2; 18) When I Paint My Masterpiece.
The farther you go, the harder it gets to push
out new incarnations of «The Bootleg Series» that would not merely be of
historical interest, but actually worthy of Bob's general reputation and
enjoyable to the average ear without having to be preceded by a three-hour
lecture on how Bob Dylan changed the world in so many ways. The Witmark Demos was already something
like the equivalent of Vol. 25 of Leo Tolstoy's Collected Oeuvres, located so
far down the bookshelf that only professional philologists ever get there. But
with Vol. 10, the Bootleg Series
Team and their grumpy old endorser from Hibbing, Minnesota, have found an
unpredictable and exciting twist that clearly shows — «Dylan still got it» even
when it comes to digging around in forty-year old trash that most people would
have probably recycled a long time ago.
This, in fact, is nothing less than «Dylan's
revenge»: a double CD of demos, outtakes, and alternate cuts from his least
critically respected era — the year of Self
Portrait (which everybody hated) and New
Morning (which everybody could
have hated were it not for it being the follow-up to Self Portrait). Was the team crazy or something? Not in the least.
Even as the original terminator-style reviews of Self Portrait pretty much secured the album's encyclopaedic status
of «Dylan's lowest creative point», over the years, more and more people came
to realize that the record was really «not all that bad» — meaning, of course,
that it was pretty good, as long as you did not hold it up to the standards of
a Highway 61 Revisited. All one had
to do was wait — and Dylan waited just long enough. The timing could hardly be
better: with his string of derivative, non-revolutionary, but still modestly
brilliant artistic successes in the 1990s and 2000s he got fans and critics
alike to recognize and respect that «Dylan cannot always be great, but he can
be consistently good». And here comes a memo of the distant past — just admit
it, guys, I've always been at least
consistently good, even when you said I stunk. Just let it go. Drop a load.
You've always liked Self Portrait,
I'm sure, you were just too embarrassed to admit it.
To drive the final nail in the coffin of Self Portrait's musical-Frankenstein
legend, none other than Greil Marcus, the author of the original famous «what
is this shit?» review, is called in to repent and atone for his sins by writing
a new set of liner notes. Honestly, I have not even opened them — I am just
amused by the power that Bob Dylan has over people. Of course, he may have also
reiterated what other reviewers have said: many of them, so as to save face,
published glowing reviews along the lines of «Dylan was on such a creative roll
in 1970, really, it is a pity and a shame that his outtakes were actually so
much better than the official record. Yeah, truly and verily, the only thing
that is better than ʽCopper Kettleʼ and ʽBelle Isleʼ without the orchestral
overdubs is ʽDays Of '49ʼ without the rhythm section!»
This is all rubbish, of course. Self Portrait was cool (including Bob's romantic takes on ʽBlue
Moonʼ and ʽLet It Be Meʼ, rather than excluding them), and Another Self Portrait simply adds to that coolness. If there is one
thing that it adds to our understanding of Dylan circa 1970, it is that the man
was not merely driven by the desire
to release something «humble» and «epochally irrelevant» to get the
Messiah-seekers off his front porch — he really was exploring various musical avenues and corners, even if that
exploration so often focused on material written and recorded by other people.
It was all just a part of the general plan to «get back to the roots» (which he
shared with the Beatles, the Byrds, and quite a few other people around the
same time) and it worked far more often than it did not.
Of those songs that have previously been
available only in real bootleg form,
most would have fit in well on Self
Portrait, although I do not feel like spending much spacetime discussing
them — mostly a mix of blues, folk, and country oldies and a few originals,
ranging from the stylishly romantic (ʽPretty Saroʼ) to the epic western
(ʽRailroad Billʼ) to the working man's song (ʽThese Handsʼ) to even a satirical
send-up of Jimmy Reed's classic style (ʽWorking On A Guruʼ); only the cover of
Eric Andersen's ʽThirsty Bootsʼ, a stately song of consolation and repose,
makes a humble swipe at «classic» status, but somehow remains incomplete.
Still, it is kinda fun to imagine all of them, along with a few early versions
that would later be reworked for New
Morning, making it on to the regular Self
Portrait and turning it into a triple
album. What would Greil Marcus have said in 1970?
The most interesting stuff, actually, is not
the «naked» versions of songs that did make it to Self Portrait (I personally do not mind the strings and backing
harmonies on ʽCopper Kettleʼ at all),
but those early versions of New Morning
songs that are often completely dissimilar to their official equivalents. ʽIf
Dogs Run Freeʼ, in particular, is an actual song
here rather than just a recital, with a gospel chorus to boot; ʽNew Morningʼ
itself is aggrandized with a horn section, giving it a flashy «Stax» feel;
ʽTime Passes Slowlyʼ opens up in full-blast rocking mode, and ʽIf Not For Youʼ
features a retro-romantic, if not too well polished, violin part from some
wannabe Jascha Heifetz — I can see why Dylan ended up hating the idea, but it
was funny while it lasted. Collectively, these songs are very different in aim and scope from the final «homebrewn», relatively
minimalist product, and, as good as New
Morning ended up anyway, it would have been interesting to see it as this
far more ambitiously conceived project; the album would have no obvious
equivalent in the rest of Bob's catalog.
Two of the songs also feature additional
numbers from Bob's 1969 Isle of Wight gig with The Band, but if you're lucky,
you might end up with the 3-CD deluxe edition whose bonus disc contains the
show captured in full. Since it was Bob's first official gig after a three-year
break (and would also be the last, an appearance at Harrison's Bangla Desh
concert excepted, for another four or five), everything is as crude as it
seemed on the official Self Portrait,
but not without its own period charms — this is where Bob would sing (for about
half of the show) in his «angelic» voice, putting a special spin on oldies like
ʽIt Ain't Me Babeʼ and ʽTo Ramonaʼ, butchering ʽI Pity The Poor Immigrantʼ in
the process, and, together with The Band, turning his old rockers into
rambling, half-drunk traveling minstrel show ballads. Not a great show, but a
fun experiment — and another live Dylan album that sounds nothing like any
other live Dylan albums. Plus, that Robbie Robertson guitar solo on ʽQuinn The
Eskimoʼ, cleaned up and remastered, has never sounded more fiery and
inspirational.
Happy to say that I have no qualms whatsoever
about giving this one a thumbs up — I, for one, have liked (and sometimes
even loved) Self Portrait since the
day I first heard it, and it is only natural to extend that liking to Another Self Portrait, since it sort of
lets you in much deeper on Dylan's general state of mind at the time.
I know you are not big on the Basement Tapes which would explain your silence on Bootleg #11, but it is more than a month (or two) since the release of Bootleg #12 and surely you have a few words to say about THAT?
ReplyDeleteNot to speak of #14 (More Blood, More Tracks).
ReplyDeleteI do have a tangentially related question/request that I can't ask anyone else I know. So here goes...
This recent September I visited the great land of Russia for the first time enroute from Ulaan Bataar to Saint Petersburg, getting off at several cities on the way, traveling entirely by train. One of these cities was Ekaterinburg where I came across this skyscraper named after a bard whose impact on Russia and Russian culture can be compared to that of Bob Dylan. I have Russian friends who know Vysotsky but none of them know Dylan. My curiosity is always piqued by these comparisons and I always want to know if these are tossed carelessly for impact or if there is genuine thought behind it.
What would your thoughts be on this?