Well, I See You’ve Got Your Brand New Leopard-Skin Bob Dylan Christmas Album

No kidding! October 13th will see the release of Bob Dylan’s holiday album Christmas In The Heart. This one’s ripe for jokes, of course…I’ve already seen “Snowin’ in the Wind” and “Sleigh, Lady, Sleigh” and I’ll leave it at that. Because I love Bob, and because he’s donating every cent of his royalties (including future royalties “in perpetuity”) to the organization Feeding America. It will help feed more than 1.4 million people this holiday season. Further, international royalties will go toward feeding others worldwide.

(From BobDylan.com): Bob Dylan commented, “It’s a tragedy that more than 35 million people in this country alone — 12 million of those children – often go to bed hungry and wake up each morning unsure of where their next meal is coming from. I join the good people of Feeding America in the hope that our efforts can bring some food security to people in need during this holiday season.”

Cool. And as I sit here pondering how a 2009 Dylan-voiced “Winter Wonderland” will sound on Christmas Eve as we gather ’round the hearth, a light snow falling softly on the peaceful and twinkly neighborhood, I’m also thinking what a great decade the 00’s has been for Dylan and fans: Love and Theft, Chronicles Volume 1, Modern Times, Together Through Life, 3 Bootleg Series releases…I don’t know what Bob has left to do (besides write Chronicles Vols 2 and 3 and a few more albums to round it up to 50), but I hope he keeps doing it.

My Kind of Town…

 

…Chicago is. Moreover: bet’cher bottom dollar you’ll lose the blues in Chicago. That just may be the truth, Judy.

 

Travel seems often to have a rejuvenating effect, and I’m thinking that’s the case for me after a long, down summer. My wife Josephine and I spent last week in Chicago, the greatest city in America, celebrating our 5^th Anniversary.  I recommend a free summer’s eve concert at Millennium Park, a snapshot at “the bean,” and the lattkes at Russian Tea Time.

As to rejuvenation: for the record, this is the 4^th (fourth) restart of this blog. Perhaps best not to make any promises about 3 posts a week and so on. I’ve also not been on Facebook in 4 months, barely met my writing comittments, nor returned any of your calls or emails. Depression is evil… It won a round (but will ultimately lose the fight… dammit!).

 So if you’ll just play along, check in occasionally…

Moving on, there is also something about this time of year (and I mean this exact time of year: the last two weeks of August/first two of September) that lifts the spirits. Oh yah, sure, it’s partly the State Fair ya know, but it’s also something else. As one of those nerdy kids who actually wanted to return to school each Fall (having endured summer ymca camp and endless days of nothingness), when those late August crickets start humming in the evening, my mind tunes to the “starting anew” channel…always…even at age 51.

 

BOOKS: The three-volume set Bob Dylan: Performing Artist by Paul Williams (founder of Crawdaddy…remember?) is a fantastic 1000-page analysis of Bob’s music, but if you don’t have 2 weeks for that, try this: put on 1976’s Desire and let it’s unique sound take over as you think about the fact that this was basically a 2-day jam session. Lot’s more books to tell you about coming up (check back).

 

AMMO: “Don’t tell me sin is rampant and rife/ think of that man who danced with his wife/ in Chicago.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peace/Dale (rejuvenated)

 

 

Tell Tale Signs

Hello. How are you? Yes, you!

Me? Doing all right. The Autumn colors are bursting, my wife Josephine is back from Kenya and the new Dylan CD arrived in yesterday’s mail…all in the same week! I’m not sure Jo would want me to put her picture up (I’ll ask…we’ll see) so I guess it’ll have to be Bob for now.

Q: Dale, how did you get the anxiously awaited Tell Tale Signs (Bootleg Series #8) three days before its official release?

A: I’m either very important, or I ordered it off BobDylan.com some time back. “It’s either one or the other, or neither of the two.”

One problem with me “reviewing” a Dylan CD is that I’d likely love anything  he put out. Please bear this in mind as I attempt to be unbiased here:

This is simply the best CD of the year 

While several of the Dylan bootleg series releases could be recommended for a wider audience –particularly those that feature entire live tour recordings (ala Bootleg Series #5/Rolling Thunder Review Live ’75)– Tell Tale Signs would probably be of most interest to Bobophiles. Containing 27 songs on 2 disks, more than half of the tracks here are alternate/outtakes from Dylan’s last 4 or 5 albums. There is certainly nothing wrong with that, but I feel most would agree that the cuts that “made the cut” on the original albums were probably the best choices, if you get my drift. If you’re into hearing a song’s progress, or what it sounded like as a demo before being fully fleshed out with the band (as I happen to be, for some odd reason), Tell Tale Signs is for you.

Don’t stop reading yet, though! The remaining 10 tunes are what make Bootleg Series Vol. 8 worthy of its title. Four great live performances, including “Ring Them Bells” from Dylan’s acclaimed NY Supper Club shows, and a 1992 rendition of “The Girl On The Greenbriar Shore” begin to make this a buy. A couple of songs Bob wrote exclusively for movies (like “Huck’s Tune” for the Lucky You soundtrack), and a few never-before-heard songs that I’ll leave you to discover, and this 2 disk set settles right into this series well. Overall, it plays like an addendum to the earliest set “Vols 1-3″ in its hodge-podge of selections. It would have been a much better single disk, but I love every bit of it. Does that help?

Oh, and Tell Tale Signs does feature an unreleased version of the song “Series of Dreams”, making it a must-purchase for all avid readers…so “Into the path you are hurled”.