Adam writes… Ahead of the UK release of the movie A Complete Unknown, I’ve been spending a lot of time with Bringing It All Back Home…
Bob Dylan released two albums in 1965 – Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited. I’m looking forward to celebrating the latter with a special 60th anniversary walking tour later in the year. But as I blog this, it’s the 60th anniversary of the recording of Bob’s first 1965 album – his fifth album in total and already his last studio album to feature solo acoustic recordings for nearly 30 years.
It’s an album that changed the course of rock’n’roll history, and it was all laid down on tape in the blink of an eye… a mere three days in January 1965 – 13th to 15th January. By the end of day two, half of side one of the album will be done-and-dusted – including the legendary opener Subterranean Homesick Blues. Next day Bob will return with the band and blast Maggie’s Farm in one take before nailing all of side two on his own before the end of the day. It is an extraordinary three day’s work.
Haven’t heard it in a while? Remind yourselves of it here…
Outtakes
Before & After: Demos & Live
The album contains one of his most famous songs – Mr Tambourine Man. By the time it was recorded in January 1965, it had been floating about, in one shape or another, since early 1964. The following playlist features the now famous Whitmark Demo (Vol.9 of The Bootleg Series) with Bob accompanying his famous lyric not on guitar but piano. Track 4 comes up on my Bob Dylan in 60s London walking tour, recorded at the Royal Festival Hall in May 1964 – the first major concert performance of the song. Slow and trippy yet with a neat and precise delivery, it’s interesting to see how it has come along since the demo.
The song next features on the famed Halloween gig at the NY Philharmonic (track 12). Bob is confident and clear on Leonard Bernstein’s hallowed stage, and a devoted audience hangs on his every word. But they’ve come to see a shadow. The Dylan they worship – the “protest singer” – is already gone. The protest songs – “the finger-pointing songs” as Bob dubbed them – are washed away in the cascading imagery of his new, personal songs – of which Tambourine Man is an exemplar. Yet they cheer him to the rafters. Didn’t they notice? Didn’t they want to notice?
The rest of the playlist follows the live progression of tracks form the BIABH album…
Cover Versions
I’ve been able to track down all but two of the album’s tracks in cover version form. the next playlist begins with Timotheé Chalamet‘s dynamite version of Subterranean Homesick Blues for the soundtrack of A Complete Unknown – the movie is released in the UK in the week that BIABH celebrated the 60th anniversary of its recording. If You Gotta Go Go Now never made it to the final LP, but gave Manfred Mann a UK No.2 hit in September 1965. Scott Walker croons a Love Minus Zero with all the earnest intensity you would expect from The Walker Brother-in-Chief. Tracks 7, 8 and 9 see Marianne Faithfull and Susannah Hoffs on contrasting versions of the album cast-off track I’ll Keep It With Mine and Joan Baez‘s version of Farewell Angelina.
The playlist rounds-off with my own all-time personal favourite Dylan cover version. Them – with a young Van Morrison at the mic – tearing into a shimmering, overwrought version of It’s All Over Now Baby Blue. (What’s your favourite Dylan cover? Drop me a line or add a comment below.)
The Sleeve
The woman in the red dress is Sally Grossman, wife of Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman and the shoot location is the Grossman’s home in Woodstock. Oh, and what records can be seen on the sleeve? The Impressions, Robert Johnson, Lotte Lenya, Ravi Shankar and Eric Von Schmidt. And Bob’s previous album, Another Side of Bob Dylan, is tucked away at the back of the shot. At the front, and only visible in the outtakes – 23-year-old photographer Daniel Kramer took 10 shots – there’s an EP by the French singer Françoise Hardy Tous les garçons et les filles. Françoise therefore appears twice – kinda – as she gets a namecheck on the back of Another Side.
And finally… what was America listening to outside the walls of Columbia Studios, NYC, as the album took shape? Here’s the Billboard Top 10 from that week in January 1965. Not too shabby, if you ask me…
I’ve added a special Bob Dylan in 60s London walking tour to mark the release of A Complete Unknown. It goes out on Sunday 26th January at 10.45am…
The movie hits cinemas in the UK from 17th January. Watch trailers HERE. And if you’ve seen the movie, let me know what you think…
