Lisnaholic

> Well, I hope you enjoy it, Frownland. It`ll help if you like light, well-crafted covers of old-time music. And you`ve given me some homework to do, as I know next-to-nothing about Taj Mahal. Thanks for prompting me to investigate.

> Yes, without thinking it through, Swordfisherman, I wondered why Music From Big Pink was described as "Ground Zero in the roots rock revival". Maybe it`s a cheap shot, but surely all the tracks on Big Pink are original Dylan/Band compositions; what`s revivalist about that ?

> No way I could work my way through Dylan`s discography either, Chives, however much I like various individual albums. Hat`s off to you for persevering for so long !

__________________
"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953

Gavin B.

A Short Guide to Dylan's Musical Legacy

Dylan's musical legacy of 37 albums is a bit overwhelming for those unacquainted with his work. But of those 37 albums, 8 albums released by Dylan between 1963 and 1975 are the ones that have endured as masterpieces.

1963- The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan- It's the first album in which Dylan wrote all the selections and it established Dylan as an unparalleled songwriter, one of considerable skill, imagination, and vision.

1964- The Times They Are-A Changing- Dylan at the height of his protest music phase.

1965- Bringing It All Back Home Dylan makes his first move away from folk music and into rock and roll by including a few selections recorded with a rock band of studio musicians. But the strongest songs on the album are the acoustic folk songs like Mr. Tambourine Man and It's All Over Now Baby Blue.

1965- Highway 61 Revisited- This is the Dylan album that shook the entire music world. Dylan has completely crossed over from folk music to rock and roll and headlines the Newport Folk Festival backed by a high decibel rock band fronted by blues guitar wunderkind Mike Bloomfield. The crowd boos Dylan and festival organizer Pete Seeger attempts to pull the plug on the show. Seeger damns Dylan as a rock n' roll sellout. Dylan's angry existential anthem "Like a Rolling Stone" rises to #2 on the Billboard chart. The era of folk rock is born is born... there's no turning back after the summer of '65.

1966- Blonde On Blonde- The edginess of Highway 61 is replaced by Dylan's full embrace of surrealism and the existential absurd with the release of Blonde on Blonde. Blonde on Blonde is comprised entirely of songs driven by inventive, surreal, and witty wordplay, not only on the rockers but also on winding, moving ballads like "Visions of Johanna," "Just Like a Woman," and "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands." This is the most poetic album Dylan ever produced.

1967- John Wesley Harding- Dylan returns after being waylaid by a serious motorcycle accident with a quiet minimalist album of country tinged music. The the music is simple, direct, and melodic, providing a touchstone for the country-rock revolution that swept through rock in the late '60s.

1969- Nashville Skyline- This album was very important when it was released because it was Dylan's first full fledged album of country music. Over the years it's influence has diminished because of the quality of the songs. In his autobiography, Dylan slyly insinuates he deliberately wrote inferior quality songs to find out if the public would buy his albums even when the song content was awful. The upside is that Dylan quit smoking and is in the best singing voice of his 50 plus career as a musician.

1975- Blood On the Tracks- For many Dylan fans, Blood on the Tracks is the last truly great Dylan album. It's my own personal favorite because everything is nearly perfect: Dylan's voice is still crystal clear, the back-up musicians are stellar, the production is flawless and the songs are the most personal and self revealing that Dylan ever wrote. The theme of the album is about the dissolution of his 12 year marriage with Sara Londes Dylan who had been the artistic muse of many of his most powerful song over the years. Dylan's songs are alternately bitter, nostalgic, sorrowful, regretful, and peaceful. It's the most authentic set of songs he's ever written.

For a novice Dylan fan: The 8 albums listed above are the ones you really need to get up speed on Bob Dylan's most significant recorded works. Select the albums in an order you want but listen to the entire content of each album to maximize your enjoyment of the music.

Dylan was the first album oriented artist and the songs on these albums add up to larger artistic and philosophical vision. To fully appreciate the concept of each album, it's important to listen to the entire album in the order in which the tracks are recorded. I'm not usually this dogmatic about listening to music but Dylan is one of the few artists who actually selected the songs on his albums with a broader artistic theme in mind.

Many think that three more recent Dylan albums are important: Time Out of Mind (1997), Love and Theft (2001) and Modern Times (2006). I was personally disappointed with much of the content of these latter day Dylan efforts but all three albums are worth checking out, along with some other 2nd tier Dylan albums like Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964), New Morning (1970), and Desire (1976).

Lisnaholic

Does anyone else remember when Donovan was touted in the media as "Britain´s answer to Dylan" - as if Dylan were a question, or challenge that had to be replied to ?
For some reason, people are forever trying to reduce music down to a kind of binary system ( http://www.musicbanter.com/pop/49280...each-boys.html etc. )

Having got that grumble out of the way, I have to say that there really is some justification in calling Skip Spence "America´s answer to Syd Barrett." There is a similar career trajectory from band member ( Quicksilver Messenger /Jefferson Airplane ) to mental illness and withdrawal. And both guys, in passing, produced solo albums that have some qualities in common; laid-back and unpredictable, they sound intimate but at the same time confound intimacy because the lyrics are so bizzarre.

So Skip Spence´s only solo album, Oar , is worth investigating, I´d say, but like Syd´s solo albums, it´s a strange and sad listen, perhaps best saved for those late-night moments when you feel low yourself.

__________________
"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953

TboneFrank

[QUOTE=Lisnaholic;1269016]I`m bumping this thread because the OP is packed with interesting albums and because it seems like a good place to respond to something Frownland mentioned:

I agree with at least a dozen from list of albums from the opening post and heard other stuff from most of the other artists. I will seek out the list since his tastes are in tune with mine. Thanks for bumping it.

A few albums I'd add to the list:

Rockpile "Seconds Of Pleasure" (1980) with Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe.

Richard & Linda Thompson "Shoot Out The Lights" (1982)

Levon Helm & the RCO All-Stars (1977)
(Drummer/lead singer from The Band also amazingly made two exceptional albums after surviving throat cancer the first time...May he rest in peace.)
Levon Helm "Dirt Farmer" (2007)
Levon Helm "Electric Dirt" (2009)

Don't miss the tribute to Levon at the Grammies.

Anyone else shocked Dylan's "Tempest" was shunned by the Grammys? I was expecting at least it being up for the best Americana album. I guess they missed the boat again.

Lisnaholic

Hi, Tbone ! Welcome to MB.
Sounds like you`re quite an expert on Americana. When I read that you`re familiar with a dozen of the albums in the OP list, I counted the ones I know; a very modest three or four.

I`ve heard -or rather, read on the internet- good things about the Levon Helm solo albums and so might check them out.

Strictly speaking, R & L Thompson are Brits, but the album you mention wins a lot of praise on Amazon, which makes me curious. Years ago I heard I Wanna See The Bright Lights Tonight . I really loved the title track, but was pretty disappointed with the rest of the album tbh. Do you think Shoot Out The Lights is especially good ?

Don`t worry about those Grammys, Tbone - here on MB, Tempest has won seven "excellent" votes so far. Why don`t you give us your take on the album too ?
http://www.musicbanter.com/country-f...bob-dylan.html

__________________
"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953

gunnels

Hot damn, I had no idea this thread even existed! Excellent guide Gavin, you are a gentleman and a scholar. I will be checking this out fo sho.

__________________
Let's Play TF2 Sometime.|Unrepresentative Last.fm.|Puns, Pokemon, and Miscellany

j.w.

I was a little bit surprised about Dylan not getting a nom, but at the same time not surprised he got pushed out by Mumford & Sons and the Lumineers, even though neither of those are actually Americana records. It's a sad state of affairs, indeed. But I'm all for John Fullbright's nomination.

For what it's worth, here's the Americana/Alt Country records I really dug from last year...

Also, I've been listening to Terry Reid's Seed of Memory a whole lot lately... Terry was Jimmy Page's first choice for a singer for the New Yardbirds (who would become Led Zeppelin), but he was signed to a production deal so Jimmy ended up going to Robert Plant. The production deal ended up killing Terry's career, & eventually he moved to the U.S. & recorded this comeback record with Graham Nash in '76. It starts out & it sounds exactly like a modern Gillian Welch/Dave Rawlings record (and kind of like Harvest, too). A real early alt country forgotten gem.

__________________
[links removed by mod, no advertising]

Lisnaholic

Thanks for posting so many recommendations, j.w.

Last night I listened to, and enjoyed, the O`Be Joyful track; well, you spoke highly of the band and they have an intriguing name. I was very impressed with the lead singer, but thought the backing was a bit "thin" somehow. Don`t you feel that they`re missing an instrument or two ?

Today , I`ll check out another new name from your list; John Fullbright.

In the meantime, if you don`t know them already, you might enjoy these guys`albums :-

http://www.musicbanter.com/country-f...led-album.html
http://www.musicbanter.com/country-f...-brothers.html
http://www.musicbanter.com/country-f...-thompson.html

__________________
"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953

emalvick

Nice thread.

New member at these forums, and thought I'd try to add to the conversation.

I consider myself a fan of Americana, but honestly find it a bit difficult to distinguish (if it is different) from genres such as Alt-Country, and I guess as this thread groups it, with Roots music.

I kind of started into Americana due to more recent Ry Cooder albums, namely what are identified as his California trilogy starting with Chavez Ravine, which Allmusic called Americana, while my favorite album of his is I-Flathead. I haven't explored much of his earlier work. As someone else stated, he can be a bit overwhelming.

I ended up exploring more Americana once I had found those three albums, and have found many albums that AMG calls Americana that I enjoy, although they are all much more recent than the list put up by the OP. The following list is also shows a small bias towards musicians with a Mexican American / Southwest bias, mostly because I grew up in an area where Mariachi music and Mexican music reigned higher than a lot. I'm not a big fan of strictly Mexican music, but I enjoy the Southwestern Sound.

That leads to a lot of my favorite "Americana" albums being rooted in the band Calexico and its members. They get themselves involved in a lot of projects besides their own releases.

My list of Americana and Roots albums I like:

Again, some of these probably aren't quite Americana, but they all work for me and I find them enjoyable. Most of the artists above are worth checking out if you are curious about the genre; just keep in mind that an artist like Robert Plant normally is not Americana (although the Raising Sand album with Allison Krauss fits, too).

TboneFrank

I listened to a lot of those albums on the list in the 70's and 80's before the term Americana was even used in the music industry. Back then it was just country-rock or blues-rock. I wouldn't consider myself an expert. I'd say I'm an intermediate roots music connoissuer.

And you don't have to be American to do American roots music. Mumford & Sons are blokes too and they came away with Album of the Year for an Americana album. And yes Shoot Out The Lights is an awesome album. I've worn out my vinyl of it decades ago. Never got it on CD so I haven't listenned to it since...?..omg...the early 90's. Shame on me. I'll have to listen to it again somehow.

I'm not worried about the Grammys...they are what they are. I'm glad an Americana band won. Sort of redeems them for missing the boat on Tempest...but not much. I've tried writing a review on Tempest but I'm not very good. My words can't give it justice. A lot of fine writers on Amazon wrote some very insightful reviews.

It's sad about Levon. He was such an authentic American musician who fought to the bitter end for his love for music and singing.