One of the reasons I first became attracted to your writing is your obvious love for Roxy Music and Bryan Ferry. You responded to a question recently regarding when you first heard Music From Big Pink and you spoke of how quickly the music grabbed you and how big an event it was in San Francisco and indeed throughout the country.
Another excellent set of conversations, thanks. Thanks also to James Stacho for finding a link between ‘Long Black Veil’ and ‘Baby’s in Black’, which is there lyrically if not intentionally. I’ve never heard it as a Beatles country song, but a strange Beatles blues. Last year, jazz pianist Brad Mehldau included the song on his stunning LP of solo interpretations of Beatles songs, ‘Your Mother Should Know’. On first listen, ‘Baby’s in Black’ is the hardest to recognise: he has slowed it down, and uses broad chords with heavy cadences. He’s turned it into a *gospel* song. https://youtu.be/0lmfpP5Oh2c?si=C6DrQ6FtYKCJZH6a
Greil and I have certain artists in common e.g. Dylan, The Band, but have different tastes on specific songs. He hates Gates of Eden whereas I like it. He dismisses Endless Highway while I enjoy it. I play and have played music live for people and so experience the sensation of making a song come alive via guitar or keyboards, but Greil comes at it from, I assume, a purely academic listening perspective. And to play Long Black Veil and Baby's In Black back to back is fun for a musician and it makes perfect sense to me that they share some tangential relationship. As for The Kinks Where Have All The Good Times Gone, I have read that is more about their loss of innocence v. any commentary on The Beatles' Yesterday. For commentary on The Beatles by Ray Davies, look up his published review of Revolver in 1966. Ray is very critical of certain songs, likes others, admires few. But I love his work and again Greil, dismisses some great Kinks albums: VGPS and Lola v. Powerman and The Moneygoround. Those are top Kinks records in their high prime. Great band, great songwriter. Lastly, I'm surprised he didn't know about the stage snafu on Dylan/The Band's Tour '74 during the opening night. It's an interesting curiosity that Bob was playing Band songs onstage for a set. It was also probably a disaster as Dylan did not know those songs well enough, I presume, to play them along with The Band. They quickly changed tactics the next night as I described and the rest is recorded history.
I’ve performed onstage and even from the paltry perspective of the Rock Bottom Reminders’ Critics Chorus (Roy Blount, Jr., Matt Groenng, Dave Marsh, Joel Selvin, and me) I know what it means to give energy to an audience and get it back, and vice versa. I don’t know what academic listening is. I put stuff on and when something catches my ear I play it again, and then maybe five or ten times again.
A woman at a Dylan concert in Berkeley put me off ‘The Gates of Eden’ forever when Dylan began it and she leaned over to her ten year old and whispered ‘LISTEN TO THE WORDS!’ Sorry—just can’t help it. I hear that song and can’t get past that moment. Even then I knew that wasn’t how to talk about music.
Thanks for letting me know. I always thought you'd make a decent songwriter, but you had a higher calling: books! Always delighted to have you take time to answer my questions however arcane they are. Peace & Love, as Ringo says.
Another excellent set of conversations, thanks. Thanks also to James Stacho for finding a link between ‘Long Black Veil’ and ‘Baby’s in Black’, which is there lyrically if not intentionally. I’ve never heard it as a Beatles country song, but a strange Beatles blues. Last year, jazz pianist Brad Mehldau included the song on his stunning LP of solo interpretations of Beatles songs, ‘Your Mother Should Know’. On first listen, ‘Baby’s in Black’ is the hardest to recognise: he has slowed it down, and uses broad chords with heavy cadences. He’s turned it into a *gospel* song. https://youtu.be/0lmfpP5Oh2c?si=C6DrQ6FtYKCJZH6a
Greil and I have certain artists in common e.g. Dylan, The Band, but have different tastes on specific songs. He hates Gates of Eden whereas I like it. He dismisses Endless Highway while I enjoy it. I play and have played music live for people and so experience the sensation of making a song come alive via guitar or keyboards, but Greil comes at it from, I assume, a purely academic listening perspective. And to play Long Black Veil and Baby's In Black back to back is fun for a musician and it makes perfect sense to me that they share some tangential relationship. As for The Kinks Where Have All The Good Times Gone, I have read that is more about their loss of innocence v. any commentary on The Beatles' Yesterday. For commentary on The Beatles by Ray Davies, look up his published review of Revolver in 1966. Ray is very critical of certain songs, likes others, admires few. But I love his work and again Greil, dismisses some great Kinks albums: VGPS and Lola v. Powerman and The Moneygoround. Those are top Kinks records in their high prime. Great band, great songwriter. Lastly, I'm surprised he didn't know about the stage snafu on Dylan/The Band's Tour '74 during the opening night. It's an interesting curiosity that Bob was playing Band songs onstage for a set. It was also probably a disaster as Dylan did not know those songs well enough, I presume, to play them along with The Band. They quickly changed tactics the next night as I described and the rest is recorded history.
I’ve performed onstage and even from the paltry perspective of the Rock Bottom Reminders’ Critics Chorus (Roy Blount, Jr., Matt Groenng, Dave Marsh, Joel Selvin, and me) I know what it means to give energy to an audience and get it back, and vice versa. I don’t know what academic listening is. I put stuff on and when something catches my ear I play it again, and then maybe five or ten times again.
A woman at a Dylan concert in Berkeley put me off ‘The Gates of Eden’ forever when Dylan began it and she leaned over to her ten year old and whispered ‘LISTEN TO THE WORDS!’ Sorry—just can’t help it. I hear that song and can’t get past that moment. Even then I knew that wasn’t how to talk about music.
Thanks for letting me know. I always thought you'd make a decent songwriter, but you had a higher calling: books! Always delighted to have you take time to answer my questions however arcane they are. Peace & Love, as Ringo says.
Because the reference has always struck me, too, noting the autocorrect error with "Canoga Park."
I’ve never heard of Canola Park. I have no idea where that came from.