Bob Dylan – Going Electric

Posted on by Opher

Extract:

   The move away from the ‘authentic purity’ of folk music coupled with the abandonment of what was seen as ‘protest’ created havoc. The folk music purists thought they had been betrayed. The corduroy cap and carefully cultivated scruffy attire bit the dust. A new incarnation was spawned. This period reflected Bob as the hipster, polka-dot, dark-sun-glassed rock star – the coolest dude on the planet. The changes gave birth to three ground-breaking albums of extraordinary depth and innovation but were not without great controversy. The live concerts featured a band with loud electric instruments eliciting shouts of ‘Judas’, much booing and a great split in his audience. Dylan treated the negative reactions with complete disdain – extolling his band to ‘play fucking loud’. Dylan had moved on – all stoked up on amphetamines, mellowed out on hash and now dropping acid, egged on by his equally acerbic friend Bobby Neuwirth, surrounded by an entourage of minders, sycophants and hangers-on, overseen by emperor Albert Grossman, Bob held court with baffling, surreal interviews, caustic disembowelments of reporters or those who managed to penetrate his shield and an increasing helter-skelter of parties, concerts and travel. Life had become a circus in which he somehow managed to keep producing music and poetry of a superlative standard. Albert kept Bob’s nose to the grindstone, milking the holy cow, signing contracts for books, albums and concert tours. The pressure never let up. As the carnival swirled around him, Dylan tapped away on his typewriter, trying to produce the novel Tarantula that he had committed himself to write, trying out new songs on guitar or piano, contemplating the endless stream of concerts and recording contracts that Albert had negotiated. Everything zipped by in a hyped-up, amphetamine-fuelled haze. Bob was permanently wired. The strain was beginning to tell. There seemed only one conclusion to this relentless pressure. Sure enough, it all came to a head.

   While motorcycling around Woodstock, he had an accident in which he injured his neck. Everything went quiet. The rumour mill went into hyperdrive. He’d broken his neck. He was brain-damaged. He was dead. He’d never perform again. In truth, the injuries to his neck were not as serious as thought, but they did allow Bob to get off the treadmill. Having previously taken the cure, he was free of addiction and, due to the accident, also free of all contracts and obligations. After three or four years of relentless pressure, he was suddenly completely free. Dylan holed up in a big mansion in Woodstock, where, along with members of The Band, he kicked back and jammed in the basement of ‘Big Pink’, The Band’s house, for pleasure. The tapes of those sessions became much sought-after bootlegs and later surfaced as The Basement Tapes.

Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970 On Track (Decades) : Opher Goodwin: Amazon.co.uk: Books

Goodbye Robbie Robertson!

Posted on by Opher

The Hawks, The Band and Bob Dylan. A guitarist and songwriter. Another legend leaves the planet and the world is a lesser place!

Thanks for the music! You leaned your head one last time!

The Band ~ The Weight (Easy Rider) (1968) – YouTube

What was Robbie Robertson’s cause of death? (msn.com)

The Band – Opher’s World pays tribute to genius.

Posted on by Opher

The_Band_3
The Band started life as the Hawks – Ronnie Hawkins backing band. Ronnie was a Canadian Rock ‘n’ Roller who roamed the planet with minor success but had a whale of a time. He is supposed to have hired them with the immortal lines ‘You won’t make any money but you’ll get more pussy than Frank Sinatra.’
He was obviously wrong.
In the mid-sixties they broke away from Ronnie and Dylan ended up using them as his backing band. They took over from Paul Butterfield Blues Band who Dylan used for his scorching electric set that upset a lot of people at the Newport Folk Festival but generated a whole new type of music. But that’s something else.
After Dylan’s legendary motorbike accident they set up home in a big pink house in Woodstock and during Dylan’s recuperation they constantly fooled around, playing and rehearsing in the basement. They were obviously fun sessions with no particulate purpose in mind apart from the joy of jamming and playing music together with absolutely no pressure but they were recorded for posterity and became known as the Basement Tapes.
The type of music they were playing was totally different to the stuff any of them had played before. Instead of Rock ‘n’ Roll or the mercurial sound Dylan had created on Blonde on Blonde they were playing old jazz and R&B classics with a bit of Country thrown into the mix. At the time nobody else was doing that sort of thing but now it’s called Americana. In the process they created that new sound and started a new genre. Even the new songs sounded like the others. The Band even looked like outlaw cowboys from the old West.
For me I was too enamoured with the Basement Tapes when I heard them. I wanted more of the vibrant Dylan Electric Highway 61 period with its snarling bullets for lyrics. This was far too gentle and soft for my liking. I didn’t go for mellow.
At the time Acid Rock, Psychedelia, Progressuive Rock and nascent Heavy Metal was setting the pace. The Band, as they were now known, released an album aptly called Music from Big Pink, which, because of the big departure from the style of the time, caused quite a stir. This new style was complex and brilliantly played. The music was melodic and interesting, harked back to the olden days and it captured your attention. I was particularly attracted to the Dylan covers. I liked the album. Eric Clapton saw it as game changing. It was one of the reasons he left Cream. He saw the music as superior to anything Cream were producing and thought it heralded in a new age.
I wouldn’t go so far. The Band were seasoned musicians. The songs were beautifully crafted and the genre spawned a lot of imitators but It was no better than the others, just different.
The Band went on to record a series of great albums and put themselves in the top hierarchy of Rock Bands.