Gloss on the tracks may have been a better way of describing Dylan's greatest collection of love songs, at least as they were first released into the world. We didn't know that before, but we do now that the underlying songs, what Dylan first intended to release as a follow up to Planet Waves, have been revealed.
I had known from Clinton Heylin's excellent biography Behind the Shades that Dylan recorded most of these songs, in September 1974, in the familiar confines of the Columbia Records studios in New York, several with just his guitar and harmonica as accompaniment. And I knew that somewhere along the way, he'd scrapped those versions, recorded in less than a week, only to re-record them with a band in Minneapolis. His brother, as I recall, had predicted the album would be a commercial flop, and after the success of Planet Waves and his '74 tour with the Band, Dylan wanted his comeback, and his return to Columbia after his interlude with Geffen Records, to continue.
What I didn't know until I read Jon Pareles' surprisingly good piece this week in the Times was that when Blood On The Tracks was released in 1975, Dylan had the tracks slightly speeded up, which to me accounts for why, classic song that it may be, "Tangled Up In Blue" has never been completely satisfying. It has always seemed just a little off.
On the one-album set, released today, of outtakes entitled More Blood, More Tracks, the version of "Tangled Up In Blue," with just Dylan and his acoustic guitar is a revelation. Hearing it in this version has a similar impact to hearing the versions of "Someday Baby" or "Can't Wait" on The Bootleg Series, Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs. You can never again go back to listening to the "original," never go back to the song that was released. In almost every case, the versions Dylan, or his management and record company, chose not to release are more raw, more emotionally affecting, less commercial than what we first heard.
As with those songs, and so much of what comes out on his remarkable Bootleg Series, all of the songs on More Blood, More Tracks are the way we should have heard them. The real Blood On the Tracks, finally available, consists of simple, blues-based acoustic folk songs, enraptured memories of the women in his life — Suze Rotolo, Sara Lownds, Ellen Bernstein — narrated by a series of characters invented for just this occasion.
Instead what we got in 1975, and what was still good enough that it has long been considered one of Dylan's classic works, was a sped-up, fairly slick pop album, even if the instrumentation was dependent on its folk underpinnings.
But this is the real thing — "Meet Me in the Morning" containing all the pain of Dylan having to explain to his children why their mother wasn't with them, "Simple Twist of Fate" cutting deep enough for real blood to drip from the turntable's needle.
Dylan once had to chase away the likes of A.J. Weberman, who was intent on literally going through his garbage in order to find out more about the resonant cultural figure of his age. We live now in an era in which, due to the miracles of technology, scientists and restorers can look under the paint to see Leonardo's original brushstrokes. Bob Dylan, Nobel laureate, has for more than 20 years freely flung open the vaults and shown us everything that was in there, sparing us from having to go through his garbage or operate an X-ray machine to find out what's underneath the art that was released into the world. Little by little, bit by bit, he's giving us everything.
Today we learned how much was missing from an album already considered one of the high points of the '70s. Today we learned how great Blood on the Tracks really is. This is a revelation and we are, all of us, so much better for it.
In August, word came that, the night before, Iggy Pop had performed "Grunewald," the best song of Tess Parks & Anton Newcombe's "Right On" E.P. This was the ultimate tip of the cap from one old pro to another (slightly younger one.) We've been playing "Grunewald" for months, a song that sounds like something The Koolaid Electric Company could riff on the whole night through.
On their eponymous new album, Tess Parks & Anton Newcombe continue their work together three years after releasing I Declare Nothing, one of 2015's best records. Tess Parks & Anton Newcombe proves that each is the other's muse. Newcombe has long worked with female vocalists in the Brian Jonestown Massacre, from Miranda Lee Richards to Sarabeth Tucek, and Parks sang on last year's "Fingertips" single. Recording together, though, seems to encourage Newcombe to dig deep into his bucket of velvet hooks, and the results are seldom less than glorious.
Over the weekend, I put together a playlist comprising the best songs the Brian Jonestown Massacre have released over the past five years, coupled with the best songs Anton's recorded with Tess on their two albums and E.P. The playlist is three hours long.
Tess Parks has a limited range and a husky voice, but on the evidence of her strong 2013 album Blood Hot she doesn't actually have to record with Newcombe to find something to say. She's a fascinating artist in her own right — and he is, this many years in, proving that being creative is the best revenge. Their recorded relationship reminds us of how Dave Roback and Hope Sandoval come together in Mazzy Star. Sandoval may have the more beguiling voice, but Parks and Newcombe together are every bit as magical.
Over on our sister site Tulip Frenzy Photography we have updated several galleries and added new ones. And yes, this is a shameless effort to get you to go there. But before the summer of 2018 recedes in our memory, allow us to show some — okay, an indisciplined sample of 25 — of favorite images from a well-documented summer. And if you like any of 'em, on our photo site you'll see how easy it is to purchase 'em.
As makes sense if you consider that our time in D.C. is not spent with a camera glued to our hand in quite the same way it tends to be during the time we spend out West, most of what follows was taken in the Greater Yellowstone. In fact, let's show our favorite pictures from D.C. before we dive into images from the Mountain West.
Okay now. Onto the Tetons, more or less in chronological order.
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