Five Things I Saw & Heard This Week
Transcripts from the everyday world of music by Martin Colyer
Monday, December 21st
December 21, 2015 by martin colyer 2 Comments
Sorry, I forgot the link to Henry "Red" Allen's red-hot performance. It is now added…
VISUAL OF THE WEEK
This video, shot by Eric Feigenbaum, for Charles Bradley singing "Changes".
EVEN THE SILENCES SOUND EXPENSIVE…
I was trying to put my finger on why Adele's "Hello" doesn't convince, and then Clive James in The Guardian did it for me: "It could be said that Adele is Mama Cass born again, but she needs a song to match her voice. I have listened several times to her smash hit, "Hello". I was hoping that the shapely beauty of her opening phrase would hook me for what remains of my forever. But the opening phrase never really arrives. The whole number is one of those big ballads in which the singer whispers her way through a verse section that hasn't got a melody and then goes soaring and bellowing into a chorus section that hasn't got a melody either. The virtuosity leaves you yawning with admiration. Whitney Houston drove herself bonkers yelling stuff like that, and Celine Dion at full volume puts up such a barrage that she might be part of Canada's anti-missile defence system. But Adele still has time for better things."
BOBCAT BIRTHDAY!
Through the generosity and efforts of my loved ones I was totally surprised this week by the arrival of The Holy Grail. Nothing to do with Dan Brown – it was the 18-CD Collectors Edition of Vol 12 of The Bootleg Series. It's an extraordinary object, with facsimile 7-inch vinyl, books of essays and ephemera, original filmstrip of a release print of Don't Look Back, and more Dylan than you can shake a stick at.
I've barely started on the box set itself, as Columbia decided that – if you'd bought it – they'd give you the Christmas gift of all Dylan's live shows from February to December 1965. So positive tsunami of songbytes streamed down to my mac. Of note so far: 1) the erroneous iTunes info that the Royal Albert Hall is in Manchester (!). 2) the chance to play "Compare the Drummer!" as Forest Hills and the Hollywood Bowl have Levon Helm (with Harvey Brooks on bass), the Berkeley Community Theatre has Bobby Gregg, and the previously issued 1966 UK tour has Mickey Jones. Me, I love the sledgehammer that was Mickey, pushing and goading both band and singer onto ever more fantastic heights. 3) the chance to hear "Positively 4th Street" played live in fairly decent audio at Berkeley Community Theatre with Bobby Gregg on drums. 4) as far as I know, the only acoustic version that exists of "Tombstone Blues" – feeling like a cousin to "It's Alright, Ma" – recorded live at the Contemporary Songs Workshop at the '65 Newport Folk Festival. The audience are so hip that they actually laugh in all the right places.
I WISH I HAD MORE RIVER…
River was the most intriguing detfic of the year, as visually striking as London Spy, only way, way better (coherent, grounded, not in love with itself, didn't filtch an ending from Thelma & Louise). River's epicentre was a powerful Zapruder-like sequence of the shooting that triggers the story – endlessly replayed in an attempt to discern any clues hidden within it. Its co-star, the excellent Nicola Walker, was asked by The Guardian's Stuart Heritage if she has a clause in her contracts that she has to sing in all her shows (she sings in both River and Unforgotten, the other policier that she was the lead in, most memorably Tina Charles' "You Make Me Feel Like Dancin'"): "Yeah, that's just what I do now. I turn up and I say: It's very important that I sing 1970s disco hits. Wasn't that weird? Things like that, you don't really think about when you're doing the job, and then they both come out together. I'm not a singer, but I enjoyed it because Stellan (Skarsgård)– even though he was in Mamma Mia – makes a great deal of the fact that he's not a singer. He's very good at making you feel like you can do anything."
RED ROCKS!
One of the things I most enjoy about writing Five Things is the chance discoveries made when I'm checking spellings or dates. You always learn something new, or find some compelling performance. I was sent a scan of a Christmas card that trumpeter Henry "Red" Allen sent years ago, by Tony Standish, an Australian book seller and old friend of the family. And, as is the way of these things, came across this amazing performance from a 1964 Jazz625 with Alex Welsh's band. Henry starts by listing great New Orleans musicians over a comping piano and walking bass – "I was there with 'em, I couldn't miss 'em, my father had the band, Henry Allen Snr, New Orleans!" before launching into a blistering "St James Infirmary", the song Dylan leaned on when he wrote "Blind Willie McTell". Check the stance, legs tensed as he takes a short break, and the section where he just hollers St James! three times. Actually, the whole vocal is terrific, as is his long solo – avoiding most of the usual clichés – and when the song comes to an end, he just shouts and starts it up again. Then after a shared round of solos it ends again, only to have Henry conduct the band to vamp as he tops it off with a terrific bit of long-note showmanship.
Filed Under: Weekly Roundup Tagged With: Adele, Bob Dylan, Charles Bradley, Clive James, Henry "Red" Allen, Jazz625, Nicola Walker, River, St James Infirmary, Stellan Skarsgård, The Cutting Edge, The Guardian, Vol 12 of The Bootleg Series
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On the Music Player this week
Bob Dylan, "Going Going Gone…"
Planet Waves sessions
Dylan in 1973
I recently found this isolated vocal track of "Going, Going, Gone" from Planet Waves. It doesn't seem to be the released take, but it's fascinating to hear Bob's unadorned singing [apart from some interesting chords and riffs on his acoustic guitar]. It's impassioned and dramatic, and the timing is fantastic — listen to the delays on the title phrase.
Village Recorders in West Hollywood, where Planet Waves was recorded