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Bob Dylan - Tell Tale Signs
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Is Dylan A Genius? Brian Wise offers some more evidence.
BOB DYLAN
TELL TALE SIGNS: THE BOOTLEG SERIES VOL.8 1989-2006
COLUMBIA
It is a measure of the abiding interest in Dylan’s career that this eighth instalment of the Bootleg Series, has been released as both double and triple disc deluxe sets with 27 and 39 songs respectively. It is also a measure of his artistry that his albums are so often the feature in these review pages.
There are few other artists in popular music who warrant such attention, scrutiny even. It is difficult not to feel compelled to write about Dylan’s work when he is prepared to expose so much of it.
It is salient to remember that with Dylan’s three most recent albums - Time Out Of Mind, Love And Theft and Modern Times – he has proven that his creativity is almost as powerful as it was at any stage of his career. Supposedly stricken with writer’s block after Oh Mercy in 1989, because he released two albums of cover versions, Dylan put a lie to that theory.
We are accustomed to bulky box sets from jazz artists detailing the minutiae of their careers - there are numerous box sets of Miles Davis’ projects such as Bitches Brew, Jack Johnson, In A Silent Way and more. But few musicians working in popular music idioms deserve such attention. The usual attitude is that once a song has been recorded it is set in stone and fans want faithful reproductions at concerts.
Of course, Dylan does not work like that; changing the arrangements of songs sometimes from day to day in concert. What emerges on one of his albums might be completely different than the first take of the song weeks earlier in the studio.
There is an entire album (unofficial, of course) of versions of ‘Tell Old Bill’ (one version of which appears here) that show Dylan experimenting with the arrangements, instrumentation and lyrics over the course of a long recording session. This fascinating process of experimentation and improvisation can also be clearly heard throughout this box set. If you purchase the deluxe set you will hear three different versions of ‘Mississippi,’ one of them very much a blues take on the song.
Covering an eighteen year period of outtakes, movie tracks and alternate versions of songs from Oh Mercy, World Gone Wrong, Time Out Of Mind and Modern Times (along with selections from live shows) Tell Tale Signs is yet another treasure trove of Dylan material.
The highlights are many. There is an eight-minute version of ‘Red River Shore,’ an unreleased song from the Time Out Of Mind sessions that makes you wonder why it was never included on the album and how many more brilliant songs Bob has tucked away. Jim Dickinson told me earlier this year that it was the best song from the sessions and even he couldn’t believe it wasn’t released back then.
There is a piano demo of ‘Dignity,’ followed later by a more complete version recorded during Oh Mercy. (If I had to choose another song from the Oh Mercy sessions that I would have liked to have seen included it would have been ‘Shooting Star,’ one of Dylan’s best ballads – but I suppose he felt it couldn’t be improved upon).
There are also two previously unreleased versions of ‘Born in Time’ from those sessions, and, while Dylan’s relationship with Daniel Lanois was something special, the simpler less produced versions work even better than the eventual album version that appeared on Under The Red Sky (which Don was had a hand in).
The versions of ‘Mississippi,’ from the Time Out Of Mind sessions, move from a stripped back reading to one that gives a totally different feel to the song. Continuing the Mississippi theme, ‘Miss The Mississippi,’ a tribute to Hank Williams, comes from the David Bromberg-produced sessions in 1992 that never saw the light of day. From that same time comes a fantastic previously unreleased version of ‘Duncan & Brady’ (only on Disc 3).
If you do not have ‘’Cross the Green Mountain,’ from Gods and Generals, the television series about the American civil war, then you will find it here in all its glory. It meanders but it is mesmerising.
‘The Lonesome River’ with Ralph Stanley, is taken from Clinch Mountain Country, while ‘Huck’s Tune’ comes from the Lucky You soundtrack and Dylan even tackles Robert Johnson’s ‘ ‘32-20 Blues’ – and actually credits Johnson (unlike Modern Times). There is also the gospel-inspired ‘Marching To The City,’ which shows the breadth of Dylan’s influences over the years.
The live material is taken from shows that go back to 1992 when he performed ‘The Girl On The Green Briar Shore' in France. Other performances come from Bonnaroo (a fabulous version of ‘Cold Irons Bound’), Portland OR, Niagara Falls, New York, Vienna and London.
So many of the songs here have such different arrangements to what we have previously heard – and there is enough previously unreleased material - that it is difficult not to think of this as a new album, rather than a compilation. This is what will bring the general music fan as well as the fanatic to this collection – it is certainly not just a recycling of old material.
The ultra-cheap double disc version and the extremely expensive deluxe set (which I did not buy) feature liner notes by Larry ‘Ratso’ Sloman (who wrote a book about the 1975 Rolling Thunder tour). Whether or not you go for the deluxe version that includes an art book of sleeves from Dylan singles on Columbia depends on the fanaticism of your collecting and the depth of your pockets. (But I am sure that, like me, you will have friends who will let you listen to disc three!)
I am not certain that Tell Tale Signs will win many new fans but it is essential for existing devotees, and it is further proof, as far as I am concerned, that Bob Dylan is a genius.
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