Had I simply downloaded this show, I probably would have listened to it once and then forgotten about it forever. However, there’s something about owning music on physical media that forces me to devote a little more time to it than I might otherwise. I've been listening to this CD every so often for a while, and over time I’ve come to enjoy it a lot.
Early 1993 was a time of transition for Bob Dylan. The previous year had seen him add multi-instrumentalist and pedal steel extraordinaire Bucky Baxter to the band, bringing a variety of new textures to what had previously been a hard rocking garage band sound. There was also increasingly prominent Grateful Dead influence: not only had Bob hired a second drummer (originally Charlie Quintana, who was then replaced by Winston Watson in September 1992) to play alongside the soon-to-leave Ian Wallace, but by the end of '92 he was also stretching the songs out with ever-expanding instrumental jams.
This particular trend would continue into 1993, and arguably become the defining feature of the year's performances. Just looking at some of the track times on the back of this CD gives you a taste of what was going on: ‘Tangled Up in Blue’ (11:32), ‘Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again’ (10:38), ‘It Ain’t Me, Babe’ (9:11). These songs were being stretched to the limit, and sometimes beyond.
I initially found the long track times and endless jamming off-putting, but over time I’ve come to see that that there was a certain logic to it. A possible explanation for it can be found in the Winston Watson documentary Bob Dylan Never Ending Tour Diaries: Drummer Winston Watson’s Incredible Journey. At one point Winston is talking about band chemistry, remarking that real bands are people who grow up playing music together for years. How do you replicate that kind of chemistry when you’ve been hired to play with people you’ve never met before? Winston explains that, when you’re being paid, that chemistry just has to happen.
I think that these long jams were Dylan’s way of making sure that it did happen – and it worked. Within a year, the John Jackson /Bucky Baxter/Tony Garnier/Winston Watson line-up had evolved into one of the tightest, most cohesive bands Bob would ever play with. Early 1993 shows like this one were simply the first tentative steps towards getting to that point.
Another interesting aspect of this show is Bob’s general onstage demeanour. He seems laser-focused, as if he knows exactly what he’s doing onstage and what he’s hoping to achieve. The difference from a couple of years earlier is remarkable; where 1991 often found Bob looking lost and engaging in strange between-song patter, this 1993 show finds him silent and stern, completely locked into the task at hand. You definitely get the sense that he’s hearing a sound in his head that he wants the band to reproduce – they aren’t quite there yet, but they will be.
Dylan is also doing interesting this with his voice. Playing around 100 shows every year had taken a swift and dramatic toll on Bob’s vocal chords, and Bob appears to have concluded that, if he was going to continue doing this, he needed to find a new way to sing. Here, we find him pushing himself beyond the limits of his range, using the melody of a song as a jumping off point from which to experiment. Once again, the fruits of this new approach would be revealed long-term, with the vocal renaissance of 1994-5. Dylan was playing the long game.
But what about the performance itself? Well, there’s not much particularly noteworthy about this show – it’s good, but perhaps best listened to in the context of what came afterwards. It does, however, contain my all-time favourite version of the Australian folk song ‘Jim Jones’ from Dylan’s 1992 album Good as I Been to You, with Bucky Baxter’s accordion giving the song even more of a nautical flavour than it already possesses. You can listen to it here.
This particular trend would continue into 1993, and arguably become the defining feature of the year's performances. Just looking at some of the track times on the back of this CD gives you a taste of what was going on: ‘Tangled Up in Blue’ (11:32), ‘Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again’ (10:38), ‘It Ain’t Me, Babe’ (9:11). These songs were being stretched to the limit, and sometimes beyond.
I initially found the long track times and endless jamming off-putting, but over time I’ve come to see that that there was a certain logic to it. A possible explanation for it can be found in the Winston Watson documentary Bob Dylan Never Ending Tour Diaries: Drummer Winston Watson’s Incredible Journey. At one point Winston is talking about band chemistry, remarking that real bands are people who grow up playing music together for years. How do you replicate that kind of chemistry when you’ve been hired to play with people you’ve never met before? Winston explains that, when you’re being paid, that chemistry just has to happen.
I think that these long jams were Dylan’s way of making sure that it did happen – and it worked. Within a year, the John Jackson /Bucky Baxter/Tony Garnier/Winston Watson line-up had evolved into one of the tightest, most cohesive bands Bob would ever play with. Early 1993 shows like this one were simply the first tentative steps towards getting to that point.
Another interesting aspect of this show is Bob’s general onstage demeanour. He seems laser-focused, as if he knows exactly what he’s doing onstage and what he’s hoping to achieve. The difference from a couple of years earlier is remarkable; where 1991 often found Bob looking lost and engaging in strange between-song patter, this 1993 show finds him silent and stern, completely locked into the task at hand. You definitely get the sense that he’s hearing a sound in his head that he wants the band to reproduce – they aren’t quite there yet, but they will be.
Dylan is also doing interesting this with his voice. Playing around 100 shows every year had taken a swift and dramatic toll on Bob’s vocal chords, and Bob appears to have concluded that, if he was going to continue doing this, he needed to find a new way to sing. Here, we find him pushing himself beyond the limits of his range, using the melody of a song as a jumping off point from which to experiment. Once again, the fruits of this new approach would be revealed long-term, with the vocal renaissance of 1994-5. Dylan was playing the long game.
But what about the performance itself? Well, there’s not much particularly noteworthy about this show – it’s good, but perhaps best listened to in the context of what came afterwards. It does, however, contain my all-time favourite version of the Australian folk song ‘Jim Jones’ from Dylan’s 1992 album Good as I Been to You, with Bucky Baxter’s accordion giving the song even more of a nautical flavour than it already possesses. You can listen to it here.
I'm very fond of this show, even though there are many NET performances I would listen to ahead of it. As a physical object, it feels like a possession, a souvenir of an age (that I’m too young to have experienced) where CDs like this would have been like gold dust, a rare document of a Bob Dylan show that had taken place in some faraway country. I’m grateful to live in a time where live recordings are much more accessible, but that doesn’t stop discs like Bob Dylan and the Never Ending Tour Band from having a strange aura of magic about them.
No comments:
Post a Comment