Great Martin Burns Review of Bob Dylan book for DPRP Magazine.

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Great Martin Burns Review of Bob Dylan book for DPRP Magazine.

Opher Goodwin — Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970

country:  UK

year:  2023

Opher Goodwin - Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970

info:

 sonicbondpublishing.co.uk, Instagram, ophersworld.com

8

Martin Burns

Another in the Sonicbond’s On Track series; this time looking at Bob Dylan’s work from his beginnings as a Woodie Guthrie acolyte, through the media-driven frenzy of the “Voice of a Generation” (an epithet that annoyed him enormously), onto the drug-fuelled, electric “Judas period”. We finish in the rehab of the reclusive family man and his temporary re-invention as a country singer.

Opher Goodwin, author of 2022’s On Track: Captain Beefheart book, has now tackled the thornier topic of Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970. He goes album-by-album through the eleven studio releases in that period, as well as covering additional tracks associated with those albums. He also has a chapter on the welter of bootlegs (official and unofficial) that has followed Dylan through his career.

Goodwin starts with an excellent, short introduction. Fleshing out the origins of the Dylan persona. A persona that is slippery and hard to pin-down fully. He is a character that evolved through a lot of self-mythologising. Goodwin tries hard with the unenviable task of trying ‘to unravel the man from the myth’ but it is near impossible to find a complete solution to this conundrum.

There is little connection between Dylan’s music and progressive rock, as his focus was and is on blues, r&b, folk, 1950s rock’n’roll and the American song book. However, arguably, there is a link between his masterful lyrical wordplay, and in his opening-out frol the three-minute straight-jacket of popular music.

From the release of Like A Rolling Stone, a 6 minute 11 second single, the world of popular music rapidly began to blossom and become more complex. Witness the change in The Beatles, who, influenced by Dylan, moved from their rock’n’roll and pop to (four years or so later) releasing Strawberry Fields Forever and more.

Dylan’s lyrics may have had an influence on prog-rock in that I can’t imagine the flights of wordsmithery of Jon Anderson in Yes, nor the prose poems of Peter Hammill‘s solo and with Van Der Graaf Generator, without the freedom afforded by the general changes in popular music, helped in no small way by Dylan.

Goodwin gives a readable and concise take on Dylan’s music, not hiding his fandom, nor so blinkered that he can’t criticise the poor albums Dylan released in the last years of the 1960s. If you want to dip into Dylan, but don’t know where to start, then Opher Goodwin’s On Track…Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970 is a great roadmap to the commencement and growth of the Dylan enigma.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/a6Kv0vF41Bc

Thank You Martin – Much appreciated!

Sha

On Track – Bob Dylan 1962-1970 – The Afterword Review

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On Track – Bob Dylan 1962-1970

07/08/2023 by Bargepole 9 Comments

Author:Opher Goodwin

The sixties isn’t my favourite run of Dylan albums – I’m more of a seventies sort of guy – but it does contain some of my favourite Dylan songs – Visions of Johanna, Chimes of Freedom, It’s Alright Ma, It’s All Over Now Baby Blue to pluck out a few – in fact I’d forgotten just how many there are, and a good best of compilation or Spotify playlist covering these years is essential listening while reading this book.. Of course, there have been plenty of books analysing every word of Dylan’s lyrics, but this does a fine job of providing a potted history of the songs written in that period without getting bogged down in too much detail and interpretation. One thing the book has done is made me relisten to those albums again. I really enjoyed this one, well written and put together and ideal for the more casual fan of Dylan.

Thanks guys!!

Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970 On Track (Decades) by Opher Goodwin (amazon.co.uk)

DPRP Review – My Beatles White Album book!

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Thanks to Jan for a brilliant review!

The Beatles: White Album – Rock Classics: Amazon.co.uk: Opher Goodwin: 9781789523331: Books

Opher Goodwin - Rock Classics: The Beatles - White Album

info:

 sonicbondpublishing.co.uk, Facebook, sonicbondpublishing.co.uk

8

Jan Buddenberg

If one band needs no further introduction then this must surely be The Beatles. Just mention the names of the Fab Four, their countless timeless compositions, and their groundbreaking Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Abbey Road albums, and I’m sure many events, other milestone albums and miscellaneous facts involving The Beatles will come flooding back into memory. Surprisingly, for me, this didn’t include their ninth album The Beatles. Their 1968 effort which is best known as The White Album.

Here to make me never forget about this earliest of proto-prog albums comes author Opher Goodwin with his expertly told and in depth reconstructed Rock Classic interpretation on the album.

Living to tell the tale first-hand, Goodwin, aged 19 in 1968, starts of by painting the rural 60s with great cultural insight. And following a sum up of preceding singles (Strawberry Fields Forever, All You Need Is Love, Lady Madonna, Hey Jude) and other ventures like the Magical Mystery Tour and Yellow Submarine movies, quickly arrives at the challenges that The Beatles were facing prior and during the recordings of The White Album.

Well researched and comprehensively told with plenty of interesting historic details, Goodwin elaborates on The Beatles’ growing wealth, their new-found spiritualism, the individual marital changes of McCartney and John Lennon (enter Yoko Ono) and the disastrous sudden passing of their manager Brian Epstein which left the band fairly rudderless in approach to The White Album.

Just how directionless becomes perfectly clear in the 50+ pages that Goodwin objectively devotes to The White Album. Loaded with biographical information it is this lengthy chapter that creates a clear understanding towards the gradually forming split between the various Beatles members, and the resulting eclectic/fragmentary (take your pick) outcome of the album.

Sharing all the ins and outs on the making of the album this includes the thoughts behind the album cover, the various lyrical topics, Eric Clapton’s involvement on George Harrison’s composition While My Guitar Gently Weeps, and the many takes done before songs were finally approved for album inclusion. As well as a complete insightful rundown of songs that next to pop songs like Back In The USSR and Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da includes tracks that touch upon such genres as folk, country rock, British blues, proto-metal (Helter Skelter) and the avant-garde (Revolution 9).

Add to this Ringo Starr’s two week Beatles-divorce, Yoko Ono’s studio invasion, the walk out of producers, and the fact that only 16 of the 30 recorded tracks actually included all four Beatles members, and it’s almost a miracle that The White Album was ultimately finalised. Much like the view of critics and listeners who rate the release to be one of the greatest albums of all time.

Successfully teasing readers to further investigate by mentioning demos, outtakes, the excluded album-related gem Not Guilty which they worked on for 102 takes, and related topics such as the Plastic Ono Band  and cult leader/murderer Charles Manson’s obsession with several album songs, I find Goodwin’s substantiated narrative to end somewhat abruptly and not fully rewarding towards my own accumulating curiosity of what happened to The Beatles afterwards. An aspect Goodwin apart from a few words about the album’s legacy doesn’t particularly elaborate upon.

Personal preferences aside: Opher Goodwin’s book does exactly what it is supposed to do. It enthuses willing musical guinea pig readers like myself and those generally interested in music to explore the album. And all together offers a captivating in-depth and well-written analysis of The Beatles’ biggest-selling album to date. Simple conclusion: job well done!

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The Complete Unknown – Review

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The Complete Unknown – Review

I must admit I went into this film with a great deal of apprehension. My experience of these rock music biopics is that the truth is bent to create more drama. Drama always seems to ace reality. They pay lip-service to the truth.

I find that annoying. I feel that a biopic should be a historical document as much as a dramatic invention. In my view it should be possible to create a drama without distorting the facts.

Being a big Phil Ochs fan, and having read the reviews, I was apprehensive. Having recently completed books in the On Track: Every Album, Every Song series on both Bob Dylan’s 1960s albums and Phil Ochs, I was well conversant with every aspect of both Bob and Phil’s lives. I was prepared for disappointment.

I was very pleasantly surprised. I loved the film. I thought the acting of Timothée Chalamet was outstanding. He captured both the early Dylan (even to the fluttering eyelashes) and the later polka-dotted pent-up rebel, perfectly. The atmosphere and feel of the film felt authentic.

As one might expect there was a lot of poetic licence regarding events. The characterisation of Woody, Pete Seeger and Suze was rather two-dimensional and drained of complexity. I loved the Joan character (and her voice) and thought that Albert Grossman was spot on. Probably could not expect much more in the time given – it was already 2.30 hours.

The early years between 1961 and 1964 were glossed over. I reckon they had the idea of culminating in the electrification at Newport and that guided everything. That dramatic device was a little muddied. They combined the Newport set with the Manchester gig for more dramatic impact. But I could well cope with that.

They bigged up the Johnny Cash and downplayed many other important characters – Dave Van Ronk, Phil Ochs, Peter La Farge, Buffy St Marie, Tom Paxton , David Blue and Richard Farina come to mind. There was a whole community of important characters.

The film was what it was. It told a story very effectively. I was very pleasantly surprised. As a historical document it was much better than most. As a drama it was superb.

I left thinking that there was another movie there that could have been told in more depth. That movie would have focussed in more detail on the 1961-1963 period. That would have featured the Phil Ochs relationship, Dave Van Ronk and the whole New York club scene – the blues guys, old folkies, new contemporary folkies,  Irish singers, the folk groups  – the intrigue, competition, rivalry, card games, drinking, smoking, sex and relationships. But that’s a whole different film.

Loved this one! Off to see it again!

Excerpt – Beatles White Album – Classic Albums

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Excerpt – 1967 had been the year of great change. Psychedelia had swept through with the Pink Floyd’s piper, Hendrix’s experience, Traffic’s fantasy and Cream’s gears. Acid rock had stormed in from the West Coast. Bringing the strange days of the Doors, Captain Beefheart dropping out, Zappa freaking out, the Byrds being notorious, Love forever changing, Country Joe and the Fish applying electric music for the mind, and Jefferson Airplane taking off.

The music had evolved. In the 1950s, rock ‘n’ roll had been viscerally subversive; in the 1960s that had taken on a more sophisticated cerebral direction. Whereas rock ‘n’ roll had been music to madly jive to, psychedelia was music to get stoned with, to lose yourself in its intensity and nuance, to dance expressively, listen intently with friends or sit with headphones on and absorb the sounds and words. An album had to be pawed over, concentrated on and sucked dry of all that it contained. The cover and liner notes were studied and analysed, the lyric sheet searched for meaning and the music internalised through repeated listening. Albums were sacred.

But by 1968 the rot had started. The tendrils of exploitation were creeping in. Revolution was big business. Money bred excess. The values were already being undermined and trust tested. The casualties were beginning to surface. Reality hit home. In San Francisco in October 1967, they held a march for ‘The Death of Hippie’ in protest at how the values had become commercialised. The ‘Summer of Love’ was officially dead. The sharing culture, love and peace, equality and freedom, was tainted.

Amusing AI review of Ron Forsythe

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Ron Forsythe’s books are enthralling and written with clarity and power3. His most popular book is Neanderthal2. In his novel God’s Bolt, Forsythe begins with the total destruction of Earth and follows the story of the only survivor, scientist Helen Southcote145.

https://wordpress.com/view/ronforsytheauthor.wordpress.com

A 2000 post re-evaluation. What do you think?

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This is my 2000th post on Opher’s World.

I started blogging in May 2014 so I suppose that is quite good going. At any milestone it is always good to re-evaluate what the aims are and what has been achieved.

I set out to write my blog to do a number of things:

  1. To share all the various aspects of my creative life (My writing, poetry, photography and art)
  2. To have an outlet for my views and opinions
  3. To publicise my books
  4. To hone my skills in a different way
  5. To influence the world and be part of a positive force for change
  6. To highlight the huge problems with overpopulation, environmental destruction, extinction of species, political madness, fundamental religion and social stupidity
  7. To communicate my love of nature
  8. To share my musical tastes
  9. To have a bit of fun

So? Whose to judge the success of this venture? Well I can give my opinion but the real arbiters are you – the readers of my posts. I seemingly have 5500 followers in 150 different countries (though I never hear from most of them – I think they are fictitious). Have you found them informative, inspiring, entertaining and purposeful?

From my perspective it has been a mixed bag.

  1. I’ve certainly shared my creativity. There’s a wealth of writing, poems, photos and painting in these 2000 posts
  2. I’ve vented my spleen on anything that’s taken my fancy
  3. I’ve noticed that every single time I publicise my books the sales dip. I’m not sure what that tells me? In that sense it appears to have been counterproductive
  4. It has been interesting to try writing (and thinking) in a different medium
  5. I haven’t yet solved all the world’s problems. But I do believe that we have to keep plugging away. There are millions of us out there. We can make a difference.
  6. I have certainly highlighted problems and solutions.
  7. I hope I have communicated my love of nature
  8. There are heaps of posts on lyrics, bands, singers and Rock Music (in its widest sense) – the things and people that have influenced me.
  9. I have had fun and interacted with some brilliant new friends all over the world.

Well Thank you all. I’m not quite sure where this journey is going. I think I will likely take a break from blogging for a while and see what else life has to offer. Blogging is remarkably time consuming. It has distracted me from my books.

Perhaps it is time to put it into perspective.