Pages

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

......and Bob Brings it All Back Home

as Big O notes Bob tried in 1978 his Big Band re-arrangements on the Japanese and the Europeans not least the previous complete Paris sets that are still available here at this time of writing ( August 2013)


Big O Says:
By the time Bob Dylan brought his 1978 Never Ending Tour back to the United States, he had not only ironed out the kinks but the group was a finely-tuned music machine.
So much so that, probably based on the audience-recorded Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte bootleg, Rolling Stone magazine listed this show among (see below)

(The definitive tour recordings from every era of Dylan’s career):
Few eras of Bob Dylan’s live career have a worse reputation than the 1978 tour. Backed by an 11-piece band, the show featured radically rearranged versions of Dylan’s greatest hits – with lots of saxophone and back-up singers. Just weeks into the tour Columbia taped Bob Dylan At Budokan, which was originally only supposed to come out in Japan. Cringe-worthy, slick versions of “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Blowin’ In The Wind” sullied Dylan’s reputation as a live performer for years to come, but when the tour came to America many months later it finally hit a groove. By this point Dylan was playing songs from Street Legal, which was recorded with his touring band. Unlike most of his catalog, these tracks were actually enhanced by the big band. On this tape from Charlotte, Dylan is on fire as the band plays killer versions of Street Legal tracks “Señor (Tales of Yankee Power),” “We Better Talk This Over” and “Changing of the Guards.” With the exception of “Señor,” he’d play virtually nothing from the drastically underrated Street Legal over the next three decades. - Andy Greene
However, the master recording for the Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte bootleg was shared by mr RS and kept alive at Dime by Erik_snow (EricBT). A big round of thanks to everyone involved.

Worth a look
Top Ten Bob Dylan Bootlegs (according to Rolling Stone)

Big O also reminds us:

Released just two weeks before the Dylan and the band hit Paris was Street Legal in the middle of June 1978. This is the album that for the first time featured Bob Dylan in front of a big band with female backup singers. There are two mixes of this album. The original 1978 mix and the revised 1999 mix by Don DeVito. DeVito was the original producer who didn’t like the earlier mix. Since then, all released versions use the 1999 mix. Buy it here .

If you liked what you’ve heard, Dylan did release a live album from this tour. Bob Dylan at Budokan was released only in Japan by Columbia Records. It was recorded at the Budokan in Tokyo on Feb 28 and March 1, 1978. Due to popular demand, it later received a worldwide released in April 1979. It received a critical bashing for being a show-business type of album, too different from what was expected of a singer-songwriter. From Rolling Stone to Robert Christgau, the album was savaged. But Europeans and we presume the Japanese voted heavily with their dollars and bought the album pushing Budokan to No 4 in the UK. You decide, buy it here.

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous4:14 pm


    Suspect you've caught up with this, but just in case...

    http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2013/aug/19/bob-dylan-bootleg-series-ten-self-portrait-stream

    :-)

    ReplyDelete