{"id":75,"date":"2013-10-16T11:21:02","date_gmt":"2013-10-16T15:21:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/?p=75"},"modified":"2025-05-12T16:25:12","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T20:25:12","slug":"another-self-portrait-in-conversation-with-michael-simmons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/2013\/10\/16\/another-self-portrait-in-conversation-with-michael-simmons\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Self Portrait: In Conversation with Michael Simmons"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>By Rob Ribera<\/p>\n

In August, Bob Dylan and Columbia Records released, Another Self Portrait<\/i>, the tenth in a series of official bootleg recordings.\u00a0 Collecting nearly forty tracks of unused takes, alternate versions, half-starts, and demos, the album provides a much clearer picture of one of the most divisive years in Dylan\u2019s career.\u00a0 After a motorcycle crash in 1966, the details of which are still relatively unknown, Dylan remained in Woodstock to recharge and continue creating music on his own terms.\u00a0 The results were startling, which is saying a lot for an artist who at that time had successfully changed his musical persona so many times that it really shouldn\u2019t have been a surprise.\u00a0 John Wesley Harding<\/i>, Nashville Skyline<\/i>, the Basement Tapes<\/i>\u2014these albums from the late 1960s capture an artist finding a new voice, experimenting with his style, and in the case of the oft-bootlegged recording sessions in the basement of Big Pink that he did with the Band, plain just having fun and getting back to his roots.<\/p>\n

Of course Dylan was always experimenting and getting back to his roots.\u00a0 Coming out of the \u201cfolk scare\u201d of the late 1950s and early 1960s, Dylan had been called the spokesman for a generation\u2014a moniker, mantle, and responsibility that he neither wanted nor agreed with.\u00a0 He\u2019d \u201cgone electric.\u201d He dared to write some love songs instead of political songs on an album very clearly titled Another Side of Bob Dylan<\/i>.\u00a0 By the late 1960s, he was given his chance to retreat, and he did so.\u00a0 That did not stop people from seeking him out, chasing him around Woodstock or rummaging through his garbage when he moved back to New York City, but he tried.\u00a0 The music that came out of this period remains a personal favorite of mine, including the usually maligned Self Portrait<\/i>. In the original release, Dylan collected some songs that he loved from the contemporary scene, traditionals, as well as some tunes pulled straight from the pile of Sing Out!<\/i> magazines he had next to him.\u00a0 This new version, which culls the best outtakes and alternate versions from Self Portrait <\/i>as well as the underrated New Morning<\/i>, expands our understanding of these sessions and just exactly what Dylan was trying to do.\u00a0 It is, quite simply, one of the best albums released this year\u2014forty-three years after the fact.<\/p>\n

Michael Simmons, is a journalist and musician who writes for Mojo<\/i>, The Huffington Post<\/i>, and many others, has written a great deal about Bob Dylan over the years, agreed to talk with me about his liner notes for the album as well as plenty of other topics.\u00a0 What I hoped would be a fifteen-minute conversation soon spread out over an hour, and we spoke not only of Another Self Portrait<\/i>, but also about Dylan the live performer, his latest work, politics, and more.\u00a0 What follows is an unedited conversation, which we both thought captured our riffs much better than a condensed version.\u00a0 Many thanks to him for agreeing to talk with me.<\/p>\n

How did you get involved with this project?<\/b><\/p>\n

I\u2019d written about Bob more than any single artist and in the June 2010 issue of Mojo<\/i> I did a feature article about the year of 1970 in Bob Dylan\u2019s life.\u00a0 And from what I understand the powers that be read it, and they dug it, and one thing led to another.<\/p>\n

So they actually plan these out a couple years in advance then?<\/b><\/p>\n

No, no.\u00a0 They just remembered it.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think they were planning it.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think that means anything.\u00a0 So when they were working on it they asked me to do this.\u00a0 It does partly have to do with that one article, but I\u2019ve written so much about Bob over the years.\u00a0 So, they dug that piece about 1970 and here was a Bootleg Series<\/i> that was devoted to that year, so they asked me if I would contribute a set of liners and I said, \u201cI\u2019d be honored.\u201d<\/p>\n

So you\u2019ve written about this before\u2014can you set the scene for us\u2014Dylan post \u201866?\u00a0 We know there was a motorcycle accident, and a search for peace and quiet.\u00a0\u00a0 Dylan away, out in Woodstock trying to just be with his family. But at the same time he\u2019s always making music. <\/b><\/p>\n

Dylan was obviously burned out, or evidently burned out.\u00a0 If you watch No Direction Home<\/i>, the documentary Martin Scorsese did about the \u201866 European tour with the Hawks, there\u2019s a scene with a very crispy<\/i> Bob sitting with his head in his hands going, \u201cI just want to go home.\u00a0 I just want to go home.\u201d\u00a0 He went home and apparently got his act together.\u00a0 Settled down.\u00a0 Woodstock with Sara.\u00a0 You know, had a passel of kids.\u00a0 He brought the Band up, they continued to play in the basement at Big Pink as well as Bob on his own, but privately.\u00a0 It was a very mysterious time for Dylan fans.\u00a0 There was all kind of conjecture, etc.\u00a0 But Bob was always creating.\u00a0 Bob has never stopped creating.\u00a0 In fact, I know he was painting at that time, of course, I mean, the cover of Big Pink<\/i> was painted by Bob.\u00a0 And he was hanging out with a painter, maybe others in Woodstock.<\/p>\n

You know, there\u2019s this part in my liner notes to Another Self Portrait<\/i> where I actually quoted something Bob said to Jon Pareles in the New York Times<\/i>.\u00a0 He\u2019s talking about traditional music, traditional songs.\u00a0 He says, \u201cThose old songs are my lexicon and my prayer book. All my beliefs come out of those old songs, literally, anything from \u201cLet Me Rest on That Peaceful Mountain\u201d to \u201cKeep on the Sunny Side.\u201d You can find all my philosophy in those old songs. I believe in a God of time and space, but if people ask me about that, my impulse is to point them back toward those songs.\u201d\u00a0 Now, obviously Dylan came up through the \u201cFolk Scare\u201d as we used to call it in the early Sixties, late Fifties and early Sixties, and then he took that music and revolutionized it.\u00a0 When he\u2014post crispy Bob in Woodstock\u2014trying to get his shit together reached back to those songs.\u00a0 You can hear that on The Basement Tapes<\/i>.\u00a0 He\u2019s always done that, he\u2019s always reached back into that song book.\u00a0 You know he did it later in the early nineties with the two acoustic solo albums Good as I Been to You<\/i> and World Gone Wrong<\/i>.\u00a0 He told\u2014when he began recording Self Portrait<\/i>\u2014in addition to the originals, Al Kooper told me that he had stacks of Sing Out!<\/i> magazines.\u00a0 Do you know what Sing Out!<\/i> is?<\/p>\n

Oh sure, yeah.<\/b><\/p>\n

You know, the folk magazine that\u2014<\/p>\n

Yeah, he\u2019d just pick songs, pick through it and find the songs.<\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah.\u00a0 Literally they\u2019d sit around and with Al and David Bromberg on guitar, Kooper on piano, and Bob would have these stacks of Sing Out!<\/i> magazines and he\u2019d go through them and say, \u201cOh, let\u2019s do this one.\u201d And he was going back to, apparently, going back to his roots.\u00a0 And he finds some kind of\u2026it works as some kind of a muse for him.<\/p>\n

There seems to be an obvious parallel here between these years and the mid-90s acoustic albums, Good As I Been to Y<\/i>ou and World Gone Wrong<\/i>, like Dylan recharging by revisiting his roots.\u00a0 Do you think that that is similar to 1970\u2014a moment to recharge by reaching back?<\/b><\/p>\n

Oh absolutely that\u2019s what it is.\u00a0 I mean also, just purely and simply, aside from anyone trying to read into what Bob Dylan was thinking, or is thinking, which is kind of a loser\u2019s game, you know we never really know.\u00a0 And ultimately it\u2019s none of our business although it\u2019s fun to conjecture about it.\u00a0 You know he was having fun.\u00a0 He loves that music, and he\u2019s a musician, and it\u2019s fun for him to play music he loves.\u00a0 Sometimes it boils down to something as simple as that.\u00a0 In addition to that he may have been looking for inspiration. You know I say all this stuff in the liner notes about him looking for his voice and I think he was, but you can hear by the way he was experimenting with his singing voice there in 1970.\u00a0 And you know, most famously, in that Nashville Skyline<\/i> voice that took everyone by surprise.\u00a0 I remember when Nashville Skyline<\/i> came out people were like, Huh<\/i>?\u00a0 Although they didn\u2019t knock it for some reason.\u00a0 I mean, I love the album.\u00a0 I loved Self Portrait<\/i> too.<\/p>\n

You bring up the idea of him trying to find his voice.\u00a0 You can think of that in a few different ways, but just thinking of the most literal way of him singing differently there are some really beautiful standout tracks\u2014for me \u201cPretty Saro\u201d\u2026I wish that had been around for the past forty years, but it\u2019s nice to get a listen now.<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cPretty Saro\u201d is extraordinary.\u00a0 It was also, for the older material, the one cut that really stood out when I first heard Another Self Portrait<\/i>.\u00a0 It\u2019s great singing no matter how you look at it, no matter who\u2019s singing it.\u00a0 It\u2019s great singing.\u00a0 You know, there\u2019s that old adage that Bob Dylan can\u2019t sing.\u00a0 Well that\u2019s bullshit.\u00a0 Bob Dylan\u2019s an incredible singer, even when he was singing the clich\u00e9, the corny clich\u00e9 of Dylan, that hee-haw rasp or whatever you want to call it of Highway 61<\/i>, \u201cPositively 4th<\/sup> Street,\u201d I mean, some of that singing is incredible.\u00a0 It\u2019s just not what people were used to hearing.\u00a0 But in \u201cPretty Saro\u201d he sings in a classically beautiful voice.\u00a0 And he is wailing man, he is wailing.<\/p>\n

One thing that I love about this set is that you can see on the original logs that it\u2019s written as \u201cPretty Saro\/a.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 So obviously, Sara.<\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah, that occurred to me when I heard it.\u00a0 Saro\u2026Sara.\u00a0 It\u2019s not a stretch.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s like finding a love story that is much older than your own and bringing it to your own moment.<\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah.<\/p>\n

So \u201cSaro\u201d is a standout track.\u00a0 What else was surprising to you when you were listening to all this unheard material?<\/b><\/p>\n

Well, the other track that I instantly fell in love with was \u201cNew Morning\u201d with Al\u2019s horns.\u00a0 You know, his old Stax<\/i> Memphis horns.\u00a0 I love those horns.\u00a0 In fact I had hoped that they would release \u201cNew Morning\u201d as a single now<\/i>, with the horns. In other words, for Bob Dylan\u2019s new single to be a song that was recorded 43 years ago with a horn section on it, a new horn section on it.\u00a0 Although it\u2019s not new it was recorded back then, but all that stuff was discussed way before I got involved.\u00a0 Not that I have any say what gets released, I\u2019m just a writer, but I love that track, man.\u00a0 I love Al\u2019s horn arrangement on \u201cNew Morning.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s just fun.\u00a0 It brings a smile to my face.\u00a0 It\u2019s gleeful<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Yeah, there\u2019s a video out there where he\u2019s saying it was nice or smart of Dylan not to erase that.\u00a0 Somehow I don\u2019t think there\u2019s a lot of erasing going on as he\u2019s in the studio.\u00a0 I mean they keep finding new things to put out and every time they put one of these out\u2014outtakes\u2014and this is probably one of the best albums of the year.<\/b><\/p>\n

It\u2019s kind of extraordinary when you realize that what is, possibly for American popular music, the best album for 2013 was recorded for the most part in 1970.\u00a0 That\u2019s an amazing fact that has all kinds of implications and tangents that we can get into, but we don\u2019t have time to, it says something about Dylan, Dylan\u2019s music.\u00a0 It says something about the music of that period.\u00a0 It says something about the music of this<\/i> period.\u00a0 It\u2019s really quite an achievement and quite a statement.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

Getting back to the original series of albums, it does seem bold at first glance to revisit such a polarizing album\u2014what do you think warranted a second look other than outtakes?<\/b><\/p>\n

Well I think that the outtakes were the initial motivation to the album but then everything fell into place afterwards.\u00a0 They evidently found a mix tape of stripped-down songs that were to be sent to Nashville to be overdubbed with strings and horns, singers, whatever.\u00a0 And the powers that be were blown away by the quality of the recordings of the songs and Bob\u2019s singing.\u00a0 In addition to the stuff where the arrangements are stripped down from Self Portrait<\/i>, beyond that, some of the stuff like \u201cThis Evening So Soon,\u201d \u201cThirsty Boots,\u201d which is an Eric Andersen song, \u201cBring Me a Little Water Sylvie\u201d\u2014these are great songs, and these are great performances. And Bob is singing his ass off, and its again, like \u201cPretty Saro,\u201d you think, These are sitting on a shelf for forty three years<\/i>.\u00a0 It\u2019s like \u201cBlind Willie McTell,\u201d do you know the story of Bob bringing \u201cRatso\u201d [Larry Sloman] in to hear\u2014<\/p>\n

Sure, yeah.<\/b><\/p>\n

So Bob invited him and Bill Graham to go and hear Infidels<\/i> when it was finished in the early eighties and I guess Ratso had heard some of the recordings, and had been in some of the sessions or whatever, and so he hears the finished album and Ratso goes, \u201cWhat happened to \u201cBlind Willie McTell?” Where is \u201cBlind Willie McTell?\u201d\u00a0 Because, you know, it\u2019s an incredible song and Bob didn\u2019t put it on the album.\u00a0 And Bob said, \u201cRatso, calm down. It\u2019s only a song, it\u2019s only an album.\u00a0 There will be other songs, other albums.\u201d\u00a0 And Ratso was ferklempt.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know, I honestly don\u2019t know why some of these decisions are made.\u00a0 I think some of the stuff on Another Self Portrait<\/i> is as good as the stuff that was released on Self Portrait<\/i>.\u00a0 Some of it is even better.\u00a0 But at the same time, I still maintain that Self Portrait<\/i> was a great album.\u00a0 The problem with Self Portrait<\/i> was that everybody, young people, particularly the so-called spokespeople\u2014the press, Rock cognoscenti and the politically correct hippies.\u00a0 A lot of this stuff was music that was generally made by the so-called enemy, i.e. red necks, people perceived to dabble in easy listening music.\u00a0 There were strings on the album, there were singers.\u00a0 It befuddled people.\u00a0 It was a very polarized era.\u00a0 You know, it was tough for them to understand.\u00a0 I am from New York, but I always loved Nashville country, what is sometimes referred to as countrypolitan music.\u00a0 Even in the Sixties when I was a kid. I loved that stuff, and so to me Self Portrait<\/i>, I wasn\u2019t shocked by it or surprised by it.\u00a0 I knew where Bob was coming from.\u00a0 And I knew that he wanted to experiment and to try things.\u00a0 And I dug, I think Self Portrait<\/i> is great.\u00a0 I mean there\u2019s a couple of tracks that I can do without, but that goes without saying for almost anything\u2014though not usually Dylan.\u00a0 I think it\u2019s a fine album.<\/p>\n

Griel Marcus\u2019 oft-repeated first line from his original review of Self Portrait<\/i>\u2014\u201cWhat\u2019s this shit?\u201d\u2014seems to be an obligatory note for any review now.\u00a0 Can you talk a little bit more about the original reactions and then the act of revisiting, both as a fan and a journalist? <\/b><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure what you mean by revisiting.\u00a0 I mean, I think the album is great.\u00a0 In fact I think it\u2019s one of the best Bootleg Series<\/i> yet.<\/p>\n

I guess maybe I mean\u2014there are people who almost take a thrill at saying that if you are a Dylan fan you are a cultist, that you devour all this stuff that if it were someone else you wouldn\u2019t think it\u2019s that meaningful.<\/b><\/p>\n

That\u2019s subjectivity.\u00a0 And that boils down to an argument over taste.\u00a0 Partly an argument over taste, and partly an argument over assholes who have nothing better to do than criticize. \u00a0My response to those people is: Go fuck yourself.\u00a0 Period.\u00a0 The thing is with Bob is that the level of quality\u2014he\u2019s made some less than great albums\u2014but overall, the level of consistency and quality is unparalleled in American popular music rooted in folk and through Rock and Roll.\u00a0 Say, American popular music of the last fifty years.\u00a0 There is no one who equals him, no one, in terms of quality and consistency.\u00a0 So people can say whatever the hell they want.\u00a0 And they will.\u00a0 And I\u2019ll tell you something else.\u00a0 With the advent of the Internet you hear more of that, what I call \u201cthe noise\u201d from what I also call the geek G-E-E-K chorus.\u00a0 You know, people just blabbing away and arguing, and they have opinions about this and opinions about that.\u00a0 And it\u2019s like, \u201cShut up and go make your own fucking album.\u00a0 See if you can do better than Bob Dylan.\u201d\u00a0 I hope that answers your question.<\/p>\n

It does.\u00a0 I guess it\u2019s different knowing that you enjoyed the album originally.\u00a0 So it\u2019s not like walking into an archive and finding something you\u2019ve forgotten about or has been disregarded and is later deemed a hidden gem, although there is some truth to that because for years the album, the original album, has been deemed a lesser work.\u00a0 But now, paired with the Bootleg<\/i> releases, you see not just a fuller picture, but you can appreciate it even more.<\/b><\/p>\n

Well you see a fuller picture of what he actually was doing at the time as opposed to\u2014you know there was one<\/i> bootleg in 1970.\u00a0 It was called the Great White<\/i>\u2026<\/p>\n

Wonder<\/i>.<\/b><\/p>\n

Right.\u00a0 You know there weren\u2019t bootlegs.\u00a0 There was no Internet.\u00a0 There were no people trading endless Bob Dylan bootlegs.\u00a0 He\u2019d only been recording for ten years or whatever it was.\u00a0 There wasn\u2019t that much.\u00a0 And people thought about what did he did in 1970.\u00a0 Well all they knew was Self Portrait<\/i> and New Morning<\/i>, but in terms of, again, what amazed me was how good some of these songs were and how great the singing was.\u00a0 And not just the covers like \u2018This Evening So Soon\u2019 or \u201cThirsty Boots,\u201d but also the variations of the originals.\u00a0 The version of \u2018If Not For You\u2019 that kicks off the second disc, I think it has just Bob on piano and a violinist, and it\u2019s beautiful<\/i>.\u00a0 \u2018If Not For You\u2019 has always been this kind of jaunty\u2014I love it, it\u2019s a great song\u2014but it\u2019s always been this kind of jaunty love song.\u00a0 The version on disc two here is a beautiful, aching, pleading ballad. \u00a0It sounds like he\u2019s down on one knee begging<\/i> for the woman\u2019s love, telling her he\u2019d be nothing without her.\u00a0 These performances are revelatory.\u00a0 Nobody knew this existed except maybe some of the more assiduous bootleggers.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t aware of it and I\u2019m a pretty big Bob fan.\u00a0 But all told, Another Self Portrait<\/i> is extraordinary for that reason.\u00a0 They\u2019re each little revelations, each track.\u00a0 Is that closer to what you\u2019re looking for?<\/p>\n

Sure, yeah\u2026 yes.\u00a0 Yes.<\/b><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t say it just to make me feel good. \u00a0[Laughs].<\/p>\n

One thing that I find really fascinating is not just grabbing the old copies of Sing Out!,<\/i> but what songs Dylan thought worthy of covering from his contemporaries\u2014such as \u201cThe Boxer.\u201d\u00a0 There are some mixed results with those\u2014<\/b><\/p>\n

That\u2019s probably my least favorites from Self Portrait<\/i>.<\/p>\n

But it is interesting to think about who he deemed worthwhile to cover, for example Paul Simon, as someone he might think is a worthy songwriter alongside what he\u2019s doing or the older songs he\u2019s looking at. <\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah.\u00a0 You know, may I say one thing with some reference to what you just said?\u00a0 One of the cuts from the original Self Portrait<\/i> that I love and for some reason that often gets slammed is his cover of \u201cEarly Morning Rain.\u201d\u00a0 Now, Gordon Lightfoot, even though he was an incredibly commercially successful artist was often looked down on as a kind of a pop-folky\u2014<\/p>\n

Sure\u2014<\/b><\/p>\n

Not a serious or authentic folk artist, and yet Gordon Lightfoot may be, after Dylan, maybe the best folk, post-folk, whatever you want to call it, songwriter.\u00a0 He\u2019s one of the most\u2014he\u2019s truly an overlooked genius in many respects.\u00a0 But Dylan is hip to Gordon Lightfoot.\u00a0 You know there\u2019s interesting stuff in Chronicles<\/i>, where he says stuff like, \u201cI always dug Kingston Trio.\u201d And that was kind of heresy because the Kingston Trio, in certain circles, not for me because I loved the Kingston Trio, they were deemed three corny, square, clean-cut folkies.\u00a0 But Bob never cared about what people, what the so-called, self-professed hip people thought.\u00a0 He liked what he liked, and he didn\u2019t care what other people thought.\u00a0 And also he could appreciate genius that would last, like he could appreciate Gordon Lightfoot.\u00a0 Gordon Lightfoot has really stood the test of time, in terms of quality.\u00a0 And yet if you ask some asshole who only listens to Captain Beefheart, nothing against Van Vliet, I\u2019m a fan, but some of these rock snobs, they wouldn\u2019t give Gordon Lightfoot the time of day, but Bob Dylan would.\u00a0 He never cared what other people thought.\u00a0 And that is one of the marks of a great artist and one of the marks of a genius.\u00a0 He shares that with other geniuses like Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker and probably Mozart, though I don\u2019t know enough about Amadeus to tell you that, but I do know enough about the jazz crowd to know that they felt that way too.\u00a0 You know Charlie Parker used to say something to the effect of, \u201cNever dismiss a great melody.\u201d<\/p>\n

I mean sure, even just tackling the American Songbook in an instrumental way\u2014<\/b><\/p>\n

Well that was part of the jazz tradition, but Bird loved certain music that some of the so-called \u201chipper\u201d cats wouldn\u2019t give the time of day to.\u00a0 And he\u2019d say, \u201cNo no, listen to the melody, it\u2019s a gorgeous.\u201d because the record was too corny, or they didn\u2019t like the singer or something.\u00a0 He\u2019d go, \u201cNo no, there\u2019s something there.\u201d\u00a0 He looked beyond categories and these false walls of genre.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t care what people thought about him.\u00a0 And Bob never cared about what people thought about him.\u00a0 And I think that that is freeing for an artist.\u00a0 It\u2019s the difference between an artist and a hack.<\/p>\n

Sure.<\/b><\/p>\n

I mean, a hack will give you what you want every time.<\/p>\n

<\/a>I was thinking about how Dylan even revisits himself here.\u00a0 \u201cOnly a Hobo\u201d is a song found all the way back\u2014I say all the way back on the Witmark demos when that\u2019s only a few years earlier.\u00a0 Some of these songs have a longer personal history with him, Dylan working with them over time.\u00a0 Can you talk a little bit about how some of these songs have drifted for a few years.\u00a0 That didn\u2019t even appear on Self Portrait <\/i>at all and now we have this version.<\/b><\/p>\n

There\u2019s Bob the recording artist and then there\u2019s Bob the artist.\u00a0 So we are talking about Bob\u2019s records, but I can\u2019t speak for Bob Dylan.\u00a0 But you know, Bob Dylan is always taking his songs and retooling them.\u00a0 He\u2019s done it his entire career and continues to do it.\u00a0 What\u2019s interesting about Another Self Portrait<\/i> is that you can hear him do it within a very short period of time in 1970. But over the years people have even complained that they go to see Bob and they don\u2019t recognize \u201cThe Times They Are a-Changin\u2019\u201d or something.\u00a0 He\u2019s always played with his songs.\u00a0 You know, a friend of mine who played with Bob once said to me it\u2019s like playing with Bird.\u00a0 It\u2019s like playing with an improvisational artist.<\/p>\n

Sure, one would also think that it would become very boring for Dylan to repeat himself, especially coming from his immediate crowning as the king of all protest and obviously trying to get away from all that. \u00a0I\u2019ve seen him a couple of times live, and sometimes it\u2019s a challenge\u2014 <\/b><\/p>\n

[Laughs]. Uh huh.<\/p>\n

I guess I mean that in the best way, where sometimes you\u2019re a couple of minutes into the song and you\u2019re like, \u201cThat\u2019s what he\u2019s playing\u2026\u201d and I like that.\u00a0 I\u2019ve enjoyed that, but I think that\u2019s apt, that it\u2019s like playing with a jazz improvisator.\u00a0 But even going back to our conversation earlier, at this point by 1970 he\u2019s changed as an artist a few times.\u00a0 Thinking about not just being the \u201cfolk artist\u201d and \u201cspokesman of a generation\u201d and all that crap\u2014<\/b><\/p>\n

Well we\u2019re talking within eight or nine years approximately he\u2019s already had nine lives or ten lives. And that was just in less than a decade up until Self Portrait<\/i> and New Morning<\/i>.\u00a0 He\u2019d already been the folkie and the leather-bedecked rocker, and the biblical parable teller, the country singer, and then Lawrence Welk or whatever.\u00a0 He does everything by then, not everything because he\u2019d go on to do even more things.\u00a0 The man has had more lives than anyone.\u00a0 It\u2019s incredible.\u00a0 He\u2019s so mutable.\u00a0 He\u2019s so curious about things.\u00a0 You know, obviously the Christian period is so intriguing about why some Jewish cat would go off for a few years and be this fire and brimstone fundamentalist.\u00a0 But he wrote some great songs in that period.<\/p>\n

Yeah, that would be an interesting Bootleg<\/i> Series<\/em> release\u2014collecting that near decade of music.<\/b><\/p>\n

Well some of that live stuff was incredible because he had a great band.\u00a0 He\u2019s always had great bands. But he had a particularly interesting band back then with Jim Keltner and Tim Drummond and Al Kooper played with him for a while live back then.\u00a0 Fred Tackett of Little Feat<\/i>.\u00a0 A really killer band, killer live band.\u00a0 So they were really cooking.\u00a0 I\u2019ve heard a bunch of stuff from those shows.<\/p>\n

Is there anything you\u2019d like to hear from this era that is not here?\u00a0 There\u2019s just so much.\u00a0 The idea of taking 1970 and a little bit before and a little bit after\u2014there\u2019s just still so much there.\u00a0 The Dylan\/Cash sessions, more of the Dylan\/Harrison stuff I would have like to have heard. <\/b><\/p>\n

You know, somebody once said you can\u2019t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you might find you get what you need<\/i>.\u00a0 You know, one of the things I\u2019d like to hear is\u2014I was interviewing D.A. Pennebaker who directed Don\u2019t Look Back<\/i> and shot much of Eat the Document<\/i>, and he says he sat and filmed Bob and Robbie Robertson in a hotel room during the \u201966 tour making up songs all night long one night. And I think there are snippets of them in Eat the Document<\/i> but he said they were just making things up. You know, maybe there\u2019s a Hank Williams song in there, but he says there\u2019s all kinds of things they made up. I\u2019d love to see that footage. Stuff like that.\u00a0 There was supposedly a bunch of songs that Bob wrote after Rolling Thunder<\/i> that he played for some of the musicians and he said you know, “I\u2019ve got an albums worth of material.”\u00a0 And they were supposedly very bleak songs.\u00a0 This has been spoken about before, more than one person has talked about this batch of songs.\u00a0 And they said they were incredible, and then they just disappeared.\u00a0 I mean, we think they disappeared.\u00a0 But they haven\u2019t appeared, so I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if they were properly recorded, or even recorded at all, but he wrote them evidently because people heard them.\u00a0 So I\u2019m curious about that period\u2014the late Seventies after Rolling Thunder<\/i> before he became a Christian was apparently a difficult period for him so I\u2019m curious what kind of art he didn\u2019t release that he had on the shelf that reflected that period.\u00a0 Nobody does bleak as good as Bob.\u00a0 He\u2019s the king of bleak.\u00a0 He\u2019s the king of everything else, but he does bleak great.\u00a0 “A Hard Rain\u2019s a-Gonna Fall” being an obvious example.\u00a0 But even an album like Tempest<\/i>, a more recent album.<\/p>\n

I was going to ask you about that\u2014how do you feel about the new albums? It\u2019s actually really interesting to go back to something like Together Through Life<\/i> where it didn\u2019t hit me right away, I\u2019ve listened to so many times now.\u00a0 The last couple of albums are just incredible.\u00a0 I\u2019m just waiting to see what comes next because he\u2019s\u2014<\/b><\/p>\n

Aren\u2019t we all?<\/p>\n

I mean he\u2019s hit a groove with, I don\u2019t want to say this style<\/i> of music, but obviously these last few have been drenched in a little more blues.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know where he\u2019s going next, but I want to take the journey.<\/b><\/p>\n

Well obviously you are taking the journey.\u00a0 You know, I think Together Through Life<\/i> is one of the most underrated albums he\u2019s ever done.\u00a0 I love Together Through Life<\/i> and nobody ever points to it as anything more than, at best, OK.\u00a0 And I love it.\u00a0 It\u2019s got some sad love songs and some poignant love songs, but there’s also some really sly and funny stuff on there.\u00a0 And pointed, sarcastic humor like, \u201cMy Wife\u2019s Home Town\u201d and \u201cIt\u2019s All Good,\u201d\u00a0 which to me is incredibly biting and sarcastic.\u00a0 I\u2019m a sucker for mean humor.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s all Good.\u201d It\u2019s really mean.<\/p>\n

Yeah, very bleak in a very different way.<\/b><\/p>\n

A different way than Tempest<\/i>, yeah, or anything else.\u00a0 It\u2019s gallows humor.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to talk a little bit about the stuff with George Harrison.\u00a0 It seems so loose in the studio.<\/b><\/p>\n

Oh, completely.<\/p>\n

Obviously they had a relationship before, but I wonder if that did anything for him going forward, almost absorbing another artist\u2019s style a bit.<\/b><\/p>\n

Well if you listen to \u201cTime Passes Slowly\u201d they do these Beatles la la la\u2019s<\/em> and it\u2019s so cool.\u00a0 It gives you a glimpse of what it might have sounded like if Bob Dylan had recorded with the Beatles.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know the story about how that session came about but my guess is that George called up Bob and said, \u201cI\u2019m going to be in New York for the day what are you doing?\u201d and I imagine Bob said, \u201cWhy don\u2019t you join me in the studio, and we\u2019ll have some fun?\u201d\u00a0 I know they did some shit like they recorded \u201cYesterday\u201d with Bob singing it, some crazy stuff.\u00a0 But \u201cWorking on a Guru\u201d is just fun, he\u2019s obviously just making it up as he goes along.\u00a0 Working on a Guru<\/i>?\u00a0 What the hell is that all about? They\u2019re pranking, you know? And I just love George\u2019s guitar playing on it.\u00a0 He\u2019s just rippin\u2019 and it\u2019s a chance to hear George where he\u2019s not just worked out a pristine solo and he\u2019s just jamming.<\/p>\n

I think that\u2019s one of the things that I really appreciate about this kind of release where it\u2019s not polished all the time, so if it\u2019s just Dylan working out a song there\u2019s spontaneity there.\u00a0 One of the things that I really enjoyed about Tell Tale Signs<\/i> is that there are three versions of \u201cMississippi\u201d in there.\u00a0 \u201cMississippi\u201d is one of my favorite Dylan songs.\u00a0 The first version on that set is so completely different, a polished version that could be the best song on any other album, but that just wasn\u2019t the one.\u00a0 Looking at these releases, they don\u2019t seem like demos.<\/b><\/p>\n

Well I don\u2019t know that they are demos.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if they\u2019re demos of if they\u2019re not demos\u2014what\u2019s interesting is that they weren\u2019t chosen for the first release, that another take was chosen for some reason unknown to us.\u00a0 And yet there are these other takes of the same song that are equally as good and in some cases even better.\u00a0 And that\u2019s fascinating. Again, back to the jazz comparison: if you listen to Thelonious Monk it\u2019s so interesting to hear him do his own compositions over the period of his career, how they started in the late forties and when he started recording for Blue Note and then Riverside and then Prestige and later for Columbia.\u00a0 And you hear the same songs or you hear live concerts where he\u2019s doing the same song\u2014how the song changes a little bit or how he starts to have fun with songs and doesn\u2019t stick to the original arrangement.\u00a0 He throws in some musical jokes.\u00a0 And Dylan does the same thing in his own way.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t do the exact same thing that Monk does.\u00a0 They remind me of each other very much, Dylan and Monk.<\/p>\n

Thinking about politics\u2014it\u2019s one of the things people maybe misunderstand is that his music after the original couple of albums is still very political but it\u2019s more personal, so there are human stories, there’s the humanistic aspect of what he\u2019s doing.\u00a0 And I think that on this release you can see that too, so it\u2019s not just \u201cThe Days of \u201949\u201d\u2014that can be a very political song too if you think of it in that respect.<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cOnly a Hobo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yeah, that\u2019s one of the most fascinating aspects of his career, even today, thinking of the last couple of albums finding more than what\u2019s just on the top layer.<\/b><\/p>\n

Well this bullshit about he stopped being political in 1963 or something is just that, it\u2019s bullshit.\u00a0 First of all, starting with Another Side of Bob Dylan<\/i> and then the first so-called electric album Bringing It All Back Home<\/i> are full of politics.\u00a0 They\u2019re just, they\u2019re not broadsides, no pun intended there, they are not political manifestos, they are more personal.\u00a0 But there are plenty of political songs.\u00a0 What\u2019s \u201cIt\u2019s Alright Ma\u201d but a political song, among other things?\u00a0 What\u2019s \u201cEverything is Broken\u201d from Oh Mercy<\/i> but a political song? What\u2019s \u201cIt\u2019s All Good\u201d from Together Through Life<\/i> but a political song?\u00a0 Half the songs on Tempest<\/i> are political, can be construed as political.\u00a0 Bob\u2019s always been political.\u00a0 Bob reflects the world as we all do, it\u2019s just he chose to talk about politics in a different way than what he had early on.\u00a0 I\u2019m not so sure he was always so ripped-from-the-headlines as people think he was.\u00a0 \u201cThe Ballad of Hollis Brown\u201d is very poetic.\u00a0 There\u2019s a message there, but there\u2019s also poetry, and \u201cHard Rain\u2019s a-Gonna Fall\u201d of course.\u00a0 But Bob\u2019s always been political.\u00a0 I can go through his catalog and give you song after song.\u00a0 I mean talk about ripped from the headlines, what was \u201cHurricane\u201d to be obvious about it?\u00a0 Or \u201cGeorge Jackson\u201d for that matter.\u00a0 There\u2019s stuff on Infidels<\/i> that\u2019s political.\u00a0 Even his Christian period had political content.\u00a0 Bob never stopped being political in 1963, \u201864.\u00a0 He\u2019s a man of the world, like any great artist, and yet he\u2019s apart from it at the same time, like any great artist.\u00a0 He\u2019s certainly not dictated or ruled by the world, although as he did once point out, we all, you gotta serve somebody<\/i>.\u00a0 Anyway, I don\u2019t mean to preach at you.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Outside of this era what might you be interested in for this series?<\/b><\/p>\n

You know, like everybody else, I\u2019d love to get the full Basement Tapes<\/i>, all fifteen CDs or whatever that would be.<\/p>\n

I feel like one day that will wind up being like those old\u2014when people used to buy CDs they\u2019d have those big Mozart complete briefcases\u2014maybe it\u2019ll wind up like that.<\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah, I love the Basement Tapes<\/i>.\u00a0 I have some of the bootlegs, enough to fill up about 11 CDs.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 I just love \u2018em.\u00a0 I love hearing the flubs, I love hearing the mistakes.\u00a0 I love the fact that it\u2019s not slick.\u00a0 I love the fact that we were never meant to hear them.\u00a0 I love the loose, borderline drunk feeling of some of the stuff.\u00a0 It\u2019s a joy, this music, even when it\u2019s bleak.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s one of the fascinating things, I mean, obviously these songs on Another Self Portrait<\/i> were originally meant to be heard even though they weren\u2019t chosen for official release.\u00a0 But the idea of what do you do when you think nobody is listening?\u00a0 Obviously that frees you up a little bit more.<\/b><\/p>\n

True.<\/p>\n

Well one day, maybe. <\/b><\/p>\n

I read an interview with Robbie Robertson where he said he\u2019d love to do them.<\/p>\n

Yeah, just a couple of weeks ago he said that, I read that too.\u00a0 Well, exciting times ahead perhaps.<\/b><\/p>\n

Well there will always be something interesting around Bob for years to come. He\u2019s Bob.<\/p>\n

What was your first bootleg experience?\u00a0 Was Great White Wonder<\/i> your first? <\/b><\/p>\n

It was the first bootleg I ever heard.\u00a0 But the first bootleg I ever had was Get Back<\/i> by the Beatles.\u00a0 It was the album they were supposed to release and it ended up being Let it Be<\/i> with the Phil Spector production on it.\u00a0 But they actually finished the Get Back<\/i> album, what was called the Get Back<\/i> album and didn\u2019t release it.\u00a0 They sat on it and did Abbey Road<\/i>, and it got out.\u00a0 I had a copy, and I remember going with a friend of mine\u2014we were teenagers\u2014and we went to WNEW in New York and Jonathan Schwartz the DJ was on the air, and we tried to get up to the station because we wanted to play it for the world.\u00a0 Schwartz actually came down to the lobby to see us, and here are two teenage hippies standing in the lobby with this bootleg Beatles album.\u00a0 I don\u2019t remember what he said, something about \u201cWe can\u2019t because we\u2019d have legal problems.\u201d\u00a0 So the first bootleg I had was Get Back<\/i>, and what fascinated me about it was the fact that it hadn\u2019t been sanctioned by the Beatles, that it was an illicit recording.\u00a0 It was the closest a hippie teenager in New York could get to being invited into the recording studio because it wasn\u2019t the finished product.\u00a0 And maybe that, in some small part, is the lure of the Dylan bootlegs, is that you\u2019re getting a glimpse of Bob\u2014it\u2019s literally yet another side of Bob Dylan, to play on the title of his fourth album.\u00a0 That\u2019s what this bootleg series is, it\u2019s yet another side of Bob Dylan part twelve.\u00a0 And I hope we get a lot more, and we will, of course.<\/p>\n

Well I really appreciate your talking to me.<\/b><\/p>\n

Well thank you for asking me, it was a lot of fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rob Ribera In August, Bob Dylan and Columbia Records released, Another Self Portrait, the tenth in a series of official bootleg recordings.\u00a0 Collecting nearly forty tracks of unused takes, alternate versions, half-starts, and demos, the album provides a much clearer picture of one of the most divisive years in Dylan\u2019s career.\u00a0 After a motorcycle … Continue reading Another Self Portrait: In Conversation with Michael Simmons<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":328,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[46043,46042,46046,46045,46044,46034],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/328"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":245,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions\/245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}