San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
In ‘1970,’ Dylan evolves
New box set of ‘Self Portrait’ and ‘New Morning’ demonstrates the difficulty of artistic reinvention; meanwhile, ‘Leverkusen ’97’ is a showcase for British-born guitar innovator Allan Holdsworth
Bob Dylan, with special guest George Harrison, “1970: 50th Anniversary Collection” Columbia/legacy
Bob Dylan, who will turn 80 on May 24, was a young legend of 28 when he began the March 1970 recording sessions featured on this new three-cd collection. He was just a few months past 29 when the concluding set of sessions was completed in August of that year.
The fabled singer-songwriter was also a shape-shifting music icon, who had already spent several years attempting to torpedo his status as the “spokesman of a generation.” Dylan’s desire to do so was further spurred by the 1966 birth of his first child, son Jesse, and a desire to trade the spotlight for a quieter life as a family man who, by late 1969, had three more children.
Being a father, husband and a musician appealed to him. Being a largerthan-life cult of personality figure, clearly, did not.
It is telling that Dylan released only two albums in between 1967’s “John Wesley Harding” and 1970’s willfully perverse “Self Portrait,” after making a dizzying seven albums between 1962 and 1966. His slowing pace suggests he wanted, and needed, to pause, recharge and recalibrate.
Like no one before him, Dylan had transformed popular music with his visionary reinvention of songwriting. He had a singular ability to combine unfettered emotion, richly textured poetry and deep literary allusions in songs that sounded earthy and otherworldly, topical and transcendent. He did so with a unique mix of charisma and mystery, realism and mythology, sly wit and sometimes lacerating cruelty.
This striking combination made Dylan seem like both an age-defying seer and a postmodern shaman. A babyboom generation philosopher, he could create wondrous works of beauty in his songs, or use them to sneer and satirize with equal skill and conviction. His love and knowledge of folk, country, blues, rock, pop, bluegrass, jazz, Celtic music and more gave him a deep well of resources with which to paint his masterpieces.
So, what happened when Dylan burned out and his muse appeared to have vanished, in a far from simple twist of fate?
The sometimes disquieting, yet undeniably intriguing answers can be found on “Self Portrait” and “New Morning,” both of which were recorded and released in 1970. It is these two Dylan albums that form the basis of “1970: The 50th Anniversary Edition.”
At first glance, it seems like an almost surreal move to pair the 36 songs from that pair of albums and add 37 alternate versions, outtakes and previously unreleased tracks in one collection. Dylan himself disowned both albums in his revelatory 2004 memoir “Chronicles Vol. 1.”
Recalling the much-reviled “Self Portrait,” whose two dozen largely slapdash songs included only eight written by Dylan, he candidly wrote: “I just threw whatever I could think of at the wall and whatever stuck, released it, and then went back and scooped up everything that didn’t stick and released that too.”
What didn’t stick, to cite a few examples, was his Mariachi-tinged “Wigwam” (whose lyrics are hummed, not sung), an almost unlistenable version of Paul Simon’s “The Boxer,” and Dylan’s inexplicable decision to make “Self Portrait” a double album. (In a 1984 Rolling Stone interview, he offered a cogent rationale: “If you’re gonna put a lot of crap on it, you might as well load it up.”)
Writing in “Chronicles” about “New Morning,” Dylan opined: “Maybe there were good songs in the grooves and maybe there weren’t — who knows? But they weren’t the kind where you hear an awful roaring in your head. I knew what those kind of songs sounded like and these weren’t them . ... I just wasn’t feeling the full force of the wind. No stellar explosions. I was leaning against the console and listening to the playbacks. It sounded okay.”
He was right about both albums. Less than essential when they came out, they are hardly required listening now for non-devotees. But heard 51 years later in expanded form, “Self Portrait” and “New Morning” provide welcome insight into Dylan at a key turning point in his life. And they vividly illustrate the difficult process he underwent while trying to find himself again during his trial-and-error period of transition.
At his best, his worst, and various points in between, Dylan has always embraced experimentation and spontaneity while making his albums and crafting his songs (many of which only really took shape as the tapes were rolling in the studio). His approaches to different songs and their arrangements could, and did, evolve and change from take to take in the studio. So did his vocal phrasing, guitar work, time signatures and even the musical style in which a song was being performed.
Of course, greatness in any art form is never a given. It is the false starts, blind alleys, abandoned attempts and glaring failures that provide the essential building blocks for a definitive creative statement. While “1970” contains almost nothing that can be called definitive, it thoroughly documents how an artist can —and, crucially, must — struggle to reclaim their bearings.
That may be why Dylan sounded so casual, if not disengaged, in 1970 when he rerecorded such self-penned classics as “Rainy Day Women #12 and 35,” “I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Have Never Met)” and “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues.” Heard anew here, they seem to be aural signposts he used to remind himself of what he had accomplished during his miraculous artistic run in the 1960s.
His struggle to get back on the tracks was readily apparent on “Another Self Portrait.” Released in 2013, that two-cd Dylan compilation featured 35 songs from “Self Portrait” and “New Morning.” This year’s “1970” expands significantly on “Another,” with an additional 39 selections.
That many of these songs appear multiple times on “1970” — including eight versions of “Sign on the Window” and six of “If Not For You” — isn’t beside the point. To the contrary, it is the point, especially in response to the question: How do you paint a masterpiece?
In Dylan’s case, by revising it and repainting it as often as needed, by realizing when to stop and move on to something else. And, pivotally, by knowing that great albums are often bookended by good, so-so or glaringly inferior albums. Greatness requires a lot of work — and a willingness to fail.
Witness, on “1970,” Dylan’s woefully misguided version of Jay & The Americans’ “Come a Little Bit Closer” and a halting attempt at The Beatles’ “Yesterday,” which sounds none the better with George Harrison’s tentative accompaniment. Witness, too, how many times Dylan falters with different versions of the same song before he starts to find his way or changes course.
Harrison is featured on nine songs here, which accounts for his co-billing on the cover of “1970,” but the recording quality of their jam session is sub-par at best. Moreover, Harrison was so in awe of Dylan that on “1970” he too often sounds like an overly deferential visitor, not a genuine artistic foil.
That said, hearing the two rip through Carl Perkins’ 1956 rave-up “Matchbox” is a treat. So are the duo’s vocal harmonies on “It Ain’t Me Babe,” which has a decidedly darker tone than Dylan’s original 1964 version. Alas, there is not one note (or even a mention) of “I’d Have You Anytime,” the tender love song Dylan and Harrison co-wrote in the late 1960s.
On the plus side, “1970” features such top musicians as keyboardist Al Kooper, drummer Russ Kunkel, bassist Harvey Brooks, guitarist/bassist Charlie Daniels and multi-instrumental wiz David Bromberg. Dylan has outlived the late Harrison, Daniels and “Self Portrait”/“new Morning” album producer Bob Johnston, who plays piano on some of the songs on “1970.” Dylan has also transcended the hostile reaction accorded both albums upon their release 51 years ago.
With “1970,” Dylan reminds us yet again that achieving greatness requires great tenacity as well as talent, and — ultimately — that it can take dozens of jettisoned or failed songs (or entire albums) before you might strike another mother lode. In his case, that new gold did not come until five albums later, with the release of 1975’s landmark “Blood on the Tracks.” It was well worth the wait.
Allan Holdsworth, “Leverkusen ’97” Manifesto
Carlos Santana, John Scofield and Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello are just some of the top guitarists who have sung the praises of British-born guitar innovator Allan Holdsworth. The late Eddie Van Halen and Frank Zappa were also big fans of Holdsworth, who was 70 when he died at his home in Vista in 2017.
Recorded at a jazz festival in Germany, “Leverkusen ’97” showcases Holdsworth’s brilliance as a composer, band leader and six-string trailblazer who redefined the scope and sound of his instrument. To this day, his supple chordal work, flowing melodies and quicksilver solos stand alone. So do his pinpoint improvisational ingenuity and carefully modulated dynamic control.
The 11 songs on this live album, which also includes a DVD filmed at the same concert, vividly capture Holdsworth’s unique sound and style. He fused elements of jazz, rock and contemporary classical music with skill and originality, always pushing to discover new sonic vistas.
Holdsworth receives near-telepathic support here from former Zappa drummer Chad Wackerman and bassist Dave Carpenter, who died in 2008 and counted Buddy Rich, Peter Erskine and the Los Angeles Philharmonic among his other collaborators. What most impresses about this exceptional trio is how attuned and empathetic they are to one another. While their virtuosity is undeniable, it is the impeccable taste and sensitivity with which they play that most impresses.
Four of the selections here preview Holdsworth’s superb 2000 album “The Sixteen Men of Tain.” The oldest number here, the combustible “Proto Cosmos,” is from “Believe It!,” the seminal 1974 album he made with The New Tony Williams Lifetime.
Happily, all of the music on “Leverkusen ’97” still sounds fresh and vital. The album is a welcome addition to the guitarist’s discography, one that even Holdsworth — a notorious perfectionist — could applaud.