Dylan’s Elusive ‘Chronicles, Volume Two:’ The Two Albums I’d Like to Read About
Like so many of you, I loved reading “Chronicles, Volume One,” Bob Dylan’s excellent and highly literary 2004 memoir. I couldn’t wait to check out volume two.
Guess what? I’m still waiting.
Sure, the maestro has blessed his fans since then by releasing three new studio albums (not to mention the ever-present and rewarding Bootleg stuff, too). He has also dabbled seriously in the world of art. Of course, he has played about 4 million concerts al over the world, in places ranging from China to Brazil. We appreciate all of these gifts. Plus, Columbia is poised soon to release a brand new Dylan album, which he recorded a few months ago in Los Angeles. Nice.
Not to sound ungrateful or anything, but what about the next Dylan memoir, Bob? In the meantime, we can enjoy such books as — ahem — the highly promising “Forget About Today: Bob Dylan’s Genius for (Re)invention, Shunning the Naysayers and Creating a Personal Revolution” (which Penguin will be publishing on Aug. 7).
I hope Dylan will grace us with another installment before too long. I don’t know whether he can top his first endeavor. “Volume One” seemed so fresh, vivid, unexpected, dramatic, revealing and flat-out enjoyable. But so what…People probably reckoned in 1965 that he’d never surpass “Highway 61 Revisited” when along came “Blonde on Blonde.” Then he recorded the tracks which became known as “The Basement Tapes,” which led to “John Wesley Harding” and … the man knows what he is doing.
JONFRIEDMAN.NET’S QUESTION OF THE DAY: What albums do you want Bob Dylan to tackle in his next memoir?
I suspect that Volume Two would follow the same general outline as its predecessor. We won’t read a chapter of Dylan talking about the Civil War, for example.He would, and should, stick to what he knows best and (being selfish here) what we care the most about: Bob Dylan, and his music.
In the first volume, we remember, he surprised us by discussing in depth the 1970 “New Morning” and 1989 “Oh Mercy” albums. Both are fine examples of Dylan’s craftsmanship but neither is generally regarded as him performing at his peak. Again, so what? He felt like telling us about the back-stories to those albums and we lapped it up. Dylan told Rolling Stone several years he was toying with discussing “Under the Red Sky” and “Blonde on Blonde.” Well, one out of two ain’t bad.
For the next book, I hope Dylan will delve into the periods surrounding 1967′s ‘John Wesley Harding” and 1979′s “Slow Train Coming,” two albums that depict Dylan in the act of turning a corner and entering somewhat new territory. JWH stood as his first commercial effort (The Basement Tapes sessions were not intended for record stores at the time) following his debilitating July 1966 motorcycle accident.
Slow Train, meanwhile. represented his most unexpected twist: Dylan’s Born Again devotion. Both albums are musically rewarding, to say the least. For example, I would love it if Dylan could tell us exactly what he was thinking and doing during the long train ride down to Nashville in October 1967, where he recorded JWH. It was an engrossing time for him, no doubt. His hero Woody Guthrie had passed away only a few weeks earlier after a long illness. Proving security for his family, he had signed a lucrative recording contract with Columbia. Psychedelia was sweeping through the music industry, and Dylan seemed both bewildered and disgusted by the trend.
Flash forward to 1979: Dylan had embraced Jesus Christ, just come off a one-year, global tour and found himself somewhat on the outs of the public taste, as Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young, to name two peers, had achieved great recording and performing successes in 1978. By contrast, U.S. critics largely panned the American portion of Dylan’s tour, mocking him by saying he had “gone Vegas,” a ridiculous and utterly misleading claim (True, I saw him perform in Buffalo on Oct. 9, 1978 and, no, I wasn’t too jazzed, myself). Dylan’s hastily recorded and very under-appreciated 1978 studio album “Street-Legal” got a lukewarm, at best, reception, too, from the journalism community at home. Something was happening.
JWH and Slow Train are viewed with great affection — and for good reason. The music has held up brilliantly.
Now, I’d like to find out what the man behind the excellent music has to tell us about them.
Guess what? I’m still waiting.
Sure, the maestro has blessed his fans since then by releasing three new studio albums (not to mention the ever-present and rewarding Bootleg stuff, too). He has also dabbled seriously in the world of art. Of course, he has played about 4 million concerts al over the world, in places ranging from China to Brazil. We appreciate all of these gifts. Plus, Columbia is poised soon to release a brand new Dylan album, which he recorded a few months ago in Los Angeles. Nice.
Not to sound ungrateful or anything, but what about the next Dylan memoir, Bob? In the meantime, we can enjoy such books as — ahem — the highly promising “Forget About Today: Bob Dylan’s Genius for (Re)invention, Shunning the Naysayers and Creating a Personal Revolution” (which Penguin will be publishing on Aug. 7).
I hope Dylan will grace us with another installment before too long. I don’t know whether he can top his first endeavor. “Volume One” seemed so fresh, vivid, unexpected, dramatic, revealing and flat-out enjoyable. But so what…People probably reckoned in 1965 that he’d never surpass “Highway 61 Revisited” when along came “Blonde on Blonde.” Then he recorded the tracks which became known as “The Basement Tapes,” which led to “John Wesley Harding” and … the man knows what he is doing.
JONFRIEDMAN.NET’S QUESTION OF THE DAY: What albums do you want Bob Dylan to tackle in his next memoir?
I suspect that Volume Two would follow the same general outline as its predecessor. We won’t read a chapter of Dylan talking about the Civil War, for example.He would, and should, stick to what he knows best and (being selfish here) what we care the most about: Bob Dylan, and his music.
In the first volume, we remember, he surprised us by discussing in depth the 1970 “New Morning” and 1989 “Oh Mercy” albums. Both are fine examples of Dylan’s craftsmanship but neither is generally regarded as him performing at his peak. Again, so what? He felt like telling us about the back-stories to those albums and we lapped it up. Dylan told Rolling Stone several years he was toying with discussing “Under the Red Sky” and “Blonde on Blonde.” Well, one out of two ain’t bad.
For the next book, I hope Dylan will delve into the periods surrounding 1967′s ‘John Wesley Harding” and 1979′s “Slow Train Coming,” two albums that depict Dylan in the act of turning a corner and entering somewhat new territory. JWH stood as his first commercial effort (The Basement Tapes sessions were not intended for record stores at the time) following his debilitating July 1966 motorcycle accident.
Slow Train, meanwhile. represented his most unexpected twist: Dylan’s Born Again devotion. Both albums are musically rewarding, to say the least. For example, I would love it if Dylan could tell us exactly what he was thinking and doing during the long train ride down to Nashville in October 1967, where he recorded JWH. It was an engrossing time for him, no doubt. His hero Woody Guthrie had passed away only a few weeks earlier after a long illness. Proving security for his family, he had signed a lucrative recording contract with Columbia. Psychedelia was sweeping through the music industry, and Dylan seemed both bewildered and disgusted by the trend.
Flash forward to 1979: Dylan had embraced Jesus Christ, just come off a one-year, global tour and found himself somewhat on the outs of the public taste, as Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young, to name two peers, had achieved great recording and performing successes in 1978. By contrast, U.S. critics largely panned the American portion of Dylan’s tour, mocking him by saying he had “gone Vegas,” a ridiculous and utterly misleading claim (True, I saw him perform in Buffalo on Oct. 9, 1978 and, no, I wasn’t too jazzed, myself). Dylan’s hastily recorded and very under-appreciated 1978 studio album “Street-Legal” got a lukewarm, at best, reception, too, from the journalism community at home. Something was happening.
JWH and Slow Train are viewed with great affection — and for good reason. The music has held up brilliantly.
Now, I’d like to find out what the man behind the excellent music has to tell us about them.
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