1b. Bob Dylan - part two

I am looking forward to hear the second CD in the collection, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan with the iconic record sleeve and the even more iconic 'Blowin' in the Wind' as its first song. But I have forbidden myself to listen to a new CD when I have not yet finished writing about the old one, so I have to wait a bit. A waiting that, as always in such cases, reminds me of the verdict (was it Norbert Elias?) that culture basically is the postponement of satisfying one's needs - something I guess children need to be trained in: not only do they, aged nine, want to become a DJ once they have discovered there exists something like a DJ mix set, they also want to buy the set tomorrow.

But anyway.

I find myself also becoming a  bit tired with listening to the first album. I don't know why - it is nice enough, inspiring enough, with enough variation to keep listening to it every now and again, I guess. But still, I feel I want to listen to the next record. Is it because of that deeply human (or western?) need for progress - the trait of not being satisfied with playing three chords on the guitar if it would also be possible to play four? And then wanting to learn the fifth chord too? One of my dreams is to live in a simple house and sit on a simple chair and be satisfied with that, rather than longing for another kind of chair or fantasizing about another place where the simple house could stand. I am not sure if I will ever reach even a tenth of this Buddhist level of satisfaction. But I promise I'll keep trying (a true Buddhist would tell me that it is exactly the trying that stands in my way, of course).

But anyway.

What I wanted to write about Bob Dylan. That I like Dylan's guitar playing here, which is very functional, even when the guitar is slightly out of tune or when there is an occasional mistake (great to hear a mistake on a record - Sounes' biography learned me that Dylan usually did not rehearse with his bands but just wanted them to play along as he went and often was satisfied with the first take of a new song). That I hear some of Dylan's later voice foreshadowed in this album - the way he pronounces "dove" in the sentence "a lady like a dove" in 'Pretty Peggy-O' (a song which is very much an English ballad - I even know one or two Dutch equivalents to the song, content-wise).  That I hear the famous 'Beatle-chord' in 'Baby Let Me Follow You Down'. That Dylan's control of voice in his version of 'House of the Rising Sun' (the version that has become the standard - listen to the very different version of Woody Guthrie here - it reminds me slightly of the famous song John Henry, which I know from a very old recording (not available on YouTube, I guess) I used when I was teaching music in a secondary school) is stunning to me, as is his control of voice (falsetto!) in 'Freight Train Blues'. That 'Man of Constant Sorrow' reminds me, of course, of the Coen-movie Oh Brother, Where Art Thou (receiving a Grammy for its soundtrack -check out 'Man of Constant Sorrow' live by Alison Krauss and Unions Station here from 2.40, but also look at the start of the clip and check out Krauss with Emmylou Harris and my favorite female American singer Gillian Welch in the middle - and if you like it, check out the Down from the Mountain-concert with live performances of the music from the movie; which then might lead me to refer you to Dolly Parton's  the Grass is Blue album, et cetera). That the title of 'Fixin' To Die' reminds me of the 'Fixin' to Die Rag' - in my mind is the idea that the 'Fixin' to Die Rag' was played on the Woodstock Festival (where Dylan was very absent) but I am too lazy to check this idea or to listen to the song. And so on, and so forth (a saying which reminds me of Wilco's Dawned on me again because they use it in a song...).

And what comes to mind also: that Dylan, a Jewish boy, sings a traditional repertoire in which religion, God and Jesus are present in every song, sometimes in every verse, in an often very moving way. It's the same with the Cash repertoire, maybe with American repertoire in general - maybe the very fact of singing this repertoire for decades eventually ripens the soul for a conversion to Christianity?

And now I can finally start listening to The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.

1. Bob Dylan - part one

So I read Dylan's biography by Howard Sounes, and have been hesitant to start this little piece about Dylan's first LP, simply called Bob Dylan. I am not sure if both are related. From Sounes' biography I learned that Dylan is a not-always-nice and intriguing person. From listening to Dylan's first album I learned he was, at age 20-or-so, already an intriguing singer.

It is tempting to listen to this first recording in the light of his later biography. It is also tempting for me not wanting to do that; wanting to write a review as if I was living in 1962. Trying to relive the 'authentic experience' of 1962. Nót taking into account (my knowledge of) his later work.

But I am not going to strive for such an 'authentic' review, ignoring what I have learned from 1962 onwards (I was born in 1964, by the way). In the first place because that is, of course, impossible anyway. When I write, I write now. But also because the point of this blog is not to write 'authentic' reviews - if you want them authentic, search the web for reviews written in 1962 (but be aware that you will not be able to read them in 1962...). The point of this blog is to trace what listening to Dylan, here and now, brings me. The fact that I listen chronologically to Dylan's albums is not very meaningful - I could have chosen listening alphabetically (starting with his 1964 album Another Side of Bob Dylan) or by color (starting with his 1988 Down in the Groove with a nearly all-black sleeve).