Amidst a critical and commercial slump and rumors that he had no plans to record a new LP, CBS record execs (with Dylan’s blessing) set to making money off of their golden goose, leading to this two disc collection. The result is a truly worthwhile look at a proper genius’s full career, including cuts from just about every album he had released up to that point (excepting his debut, Times, and his critically panned Self Portrait) as well as seven unreleased tunes, including the sneering rocker Watching the River Flow and the legendary Quinn the Eskimo.
folk
Record #54: Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited (1965)
Despite his affirmation of Highway 61’s significance as the trotting grounds of country blues legends, this album ends up being just as ironically titled as Bringing It All Back Home, on which Dylan brought just about nothing “Home,” but fled from his roots in a fury of rock bands and surrealism. In many ways, Highway 61 Revisited is Home’s Amnesiac–a further exposition on a previous album that had more to say than one groundbreaking album could say. Continue reading
Record #51: Bob Dylan – The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963)
There’s very, very little I can say about this record that hasn’t already been said. As a twenty-five year old, I can speak very little to the importance of when Bob Dylan emerged from the New York’s Greenwich Village and hit the national (worldwide?) stage, bringing folk music into the popular music sphere. This album in particular is iconic in every sense, from the oft-imitated album cover to the legends that occupy the tracklist–A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall, Masters of War, Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright, and Blowin’ In The Wind, arguably Dylan’s most famous song (but you don’t need me to tell you that). It was a landmark both musically and politically, rocketing Dylan into his reluctant role of Spokesman of a Generation.
Record #10: America – America (1971)
Up until listening to this record (today being its first time on my platter), the only America song I knew, like you probably, was “A Horse With No Name,” a mildly convincing Neil Young impression.
Given that to go on, I was expecting an album that opens with the hit single, and then offers a bunch of attempts to rehash its success.
I was wrong.
The single doesn’t arrive until five tracks in, using the preceding four to reintroduce America to the fan who bought the record solely on the merit of their most well-known song.
And these opening four songs are strong in their own right, showcasing an America that is capable of writing folk-pop songs that bounce higher and rock harder (“Sandman” features a beaten drum set and a fuzzed out lead guitar) than the relaxed, midtempo “Horse,” and the excellent vocal harmonies that weave through all of the songs conjure more Simon & Garfunkel than Neil Young, which is a welcome comparison (compare anyone to Simon & Garfunkel and I’m there).
By the time “Horse With No Name” arrives (which was added on later editions, as it hadn’t been recorded on the album’s debut. Thank you Wikipedia) it’s more impressive than any of the other times I’ve heard it. The band sounds more confident, sure-footed and, judging on the four tracks that precede it, more self-aware of themselves than the amateurish copy-cats that the listener could have dismissed the group as after hearing the single out of context.
America goes on from “Horse” to prove themselves more than competent as songwriters, composers, and instrumentalists, especially on “Here,” which starts with a slow droning chord progression, then bursts into a raucous clap along before an impressively executed acoustic guitar solo takes the front of the mix, dies down, and returns to the opening segment.
Side two opens with “I Need You” (the album’s second single), which is the only weak song on the album. “Here,” America hangs up their guitars and tries their hand at a Beatles-style piano ballad. The result is boring and disappointing, and even the writing suffers (“I need you/like the flower needs the rain.” Really, guys?) “I Need You’s” shortcomings are only augmented as the group takes the guitars back after the next song and continues on the album doing what they do best, which is making guitar songs that, while pretty, explore enough through means of song structure and tempo changes, are still interesting enough to have merited the 1972 Grammy for Best New Artist.
America, we’ll be hearing from you again.
Record #1: Adam Arcuragi – Soldiers For Feet (2008)
And we’re off, with the meager yet satisfying release from singer-songwriter Adam Arcuragi, whose mere 5 tracks I haven’t listened to in maybe three years. But, despite being only five tracks long, it’s a satisfying listen–none of the songs seem to dip below four minutes, and a couple pass the six-minute mark.
He draws an awful lot from old country, spilling verses filled with images of Old America—Hank Williams records, Sears & Roebuck catalogs, the ruins of a house fire, and World War II are all par for the course, with a gang of friends layering his decidedly un-twanging voice with the kinds of harmonies Arcuragi must have fallen in love with as a child watching Grand Ol Opry on television (there’s even a “yodel-ay-hee” chorus, no joke).
Musically, it seldom strays from the acoustic guitar plus accompanying lap steel, horns, and backup vox. The two notable exceptions are “Almost Always,” the weakest track on the record in the form of a sappily sung piano ballad; and the noise interlude at the very end of the excellent “The Belgian.”
Overall, it’s a little refreshing to hear an honest to goodness old fashioned country western channeling record from a year when so many acts were hipstering the medium up (no offense to Fleet Foxes), even if the last track undoes much of what the previous four great songs did to restore the country music goodness of old.