Oh Mercy. Trotsky and Bob Dylan Cover Art

This should interest a few Bob Dylan fans.  The original study for the album art for the Bob Dylan OH MERCY record cover.  It was done by Trotsky, who was a muralist active in New York City's Hell Kitchen neighborhood.  Dylan saw the mural while riding past on his bicycle, and obtained permission to use the painting, which was on the wall of a Chinese restaurant, for the jacket. 

Trotsky was a friend of mine and I obtained this piece, a pastel, from him.  Long ago.  The mural is, of course, long gone...and I sold the piece here long ago as well.  It is now on some other wall, and I hope loved as much as I did.  A wonderful little tribute to Mr. Dylan and the street artist Trotsky.

As you can see, in the original study there was a third person in the work which was the artist.  Some have speculated the painting was a fellow with a gun in his hand, but as you can see in the study, nope.  They were dancing!

The album was released in 1989, and as I recall I was guest at Dylan's Radio City Music Hall that year courtesy Trotsky.  Not only did Dylan's folks pay to use the painting, they gave the artist a few comps.

Original photograph "In Situ" by Jim Linderman 1986. 

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Baby Betty on Highway 61

Baby Betty RPCC Collection Jim Linderman

In a convoluted story which reads like a mid-1960s Bob Dylan song off Highway 61, Fat lady Baby Betty sued sword swallower Patricia Smith for $3000 after being hit on the head with a soda bottle.  See the original story reported HERE by the AP, or use your imagination.

There was little midgets
and a long-haired gal
Great Shackles Charles
at the nasty trial

Dainty Dotty turned
to show some leg
her stockings fell
the judge turned red

Them Hula dancers
witnessed the row
Just keep quiet honey
and you'll get yours

Baby Betty Real Photo Postcard circa 1940 Collection Jim Linderman

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Spider Woman! Victorian Woman Caught in a Web (Bob Dylan Expecting Rain Basement Tapes Reid Miles)

I really do not know why early photographers thought it chic to use this web protective overlay, but several did.

Short post today...I've been working on a piece about Bob Dylan and the designer Reid Miles who did the Basement Tapes album jacket (as well as most of those beautiful and classic Blue Note Jazz covers)...if interested, see HERE.

I am really pleased that it was picked up by Expecting Rain, the primary source for all things Bob Dylan and more...one of the best music sites on the web, and a daily stop for me without fail.

Less than exceptional victorian photograph with web overlay no date collection Jim Linderman

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The Secret of All Along The Watchtower and Bob Dylan

The Greatest Rock song ever written is without a doubt "All Along the Watchtower" by Bob Dylan. Never mind that Jimi Hendrix did it better and Bob has been playing Jimi's version ever since. It has confounded critics for decades, but a simple trick makes the whole song and narrative make perfect sense. Read on.

For 40 years, when Bob Dylan plays "All Along the Watchtower" (as he is now in his tour of the States...travel on, Minstrel boy) It has become THE showcase for whoever has the honor of being Dylan's lead guitar player. Robbie Robertson was first and set the standard...well, maybe Mike Bloomfield. This year's model is again Charlie Sexton, and sexy he is...Handsome as any rock and roller can be, square-jawed, slim...and girls just drop their panties overboard for Charlie. I hope Papa Dylan gets him on the bus safe every night.

The song was written up in Woodstock in 1967-1968 when Bob and The Band were living together, basically taking advantage of a well-earned vacation and creating the Basement Tapes (No, not the sullied and tainted CD called the Basement Tapes for sale on Amazon) The 6 hours of songs Garth Hudson recorded which have only seen light through bootleggers. It looks like I have waited so long they will NEVER come out on a real disc now...since a sequence of bits and bytes suffices for music today. Digital dross wouldn't have scared Garth. He is a natural born tinkerer and could have recorded the songs on a pimped up Morse Code machine if they asked him to. For some reason, I think Garth Hudson knows ways to transmit music we haven't even discovered yet.

The point is that the greatest rock song was immediately transformed from a quiet, acoustic fairy tale into a raging howl of hell-fire and steam by Jimi Hendrix, and I can't think of a more effective cover, one which literally convinced the writer it was better, and so MUCH better he added the later version to his permanent repertoire. Let me tell you...to improve on anything Dylan does is no small feat.

But the post is about the song, Cribbed here from Bob Dylan.com and no, I am not selling ringtones. This, children, is a song.

All Along The Watchtower By Bob Dylan

“There must be some way out of here,” said the joker to the thief
“
There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief

Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth

None of them along the line know what any of it is worth”
“No reason to get excited,” the thief, he kindly spoke

“There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke

But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate

So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late”
All along the watchtower, princes kept the view

While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too
Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl

Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl
Copyright © 1968 by Dwarf Music; renewed 1996 by Dwarf Music


So the Secret? The mysterious secret of the greatest rock song ever written, a standard for the last 45 years? It is simple... Dylan reversed the paragraphs, or phrases. The "correct" lyrics, and the secret of the song's mystery is revealed when placed in proper order.
All Along The Watchtower By Bob Dylan (Reversed Phases)
All along the watchtower, princes kept the view

While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too
Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl

Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl
“There must be some way out of here,” said the joker to the thief

"There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief

Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth

None of them along the line know what any of it is worth”
“No reason to get excited,” the thief, he kindly spoke

“There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke

But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate

So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late”
Remember, it was Dylan himself who said "the first one now will later be last"

So there you go....still plenty of room for guitar pyrotechnics, and we won't be as confused as the confused joker any longer. Simple as that. While listening to Hendrix, you might take a second to realize this is a trio...all the sounds are being created live by three musicians and only ONE of them from Mars.

Oh. one other thing...there should not be any confusion what the song is about in either version. It is about recording contracts, managers and an artist being taken advantage of. Again...Simple!

by Jim Linderman

Mixed up Confusion! The MYTH that Bob Dylan Went Electric

One of the greatest misconceptions and misunderstandings about music in the 20th century is that Bob Dylan "went electric." This concept has become so central to "understanding" his myth and oeuvre that it is basic to rock and roll history. One of those commonly understood notions not questioned at all. Dylan went electric at Newport, someone yelled "Judas" during the tour with the Hawks and the next thing you know howling acid rock has ruined youth from here to Carnaby Street.

Only it is wrong...and like virtually everything we assume to be true, it doesn't hold up.

Want to know who REALLY went electric? Muddy Waters, and he did it when Bob Dylan was a toddler. It wasn't done to startle the establishment (another myth) it wasn't done to "create shockwaves in popular culture" and it certainly wasn't done to piss off Pete Seeger. It was done so Muddy could be HEARD. Chicago wasn't Clarksdale, Mississippi, and Mr. Waters wanted to be noticed in the loud, smoky juke joints of the south side of Chicago. So he plugged in and played, amplification simply being natural to any musician hoping to entertain a dancing crowd.

Know who else went electric? George Jones, the finest country singer alive. Among his earliest recordings were the tunes cut by one "Thumper" Jones. A shameless attempt to cash in on the Rockabilly scene, but again, a decade before Dylan supposedly gave the music world an electric shock to their ass.

And who else went electric? Dylan HIMSELF years before Dylan! Released as the b-side to Corrina, Corrina in 1962, Mixed-Up Confusion is a song written and recorded by Dylan with an electric band on November 14th 1962 during the sessions for his second LP. You can find it...and you can rock out to it, well before Peter, Paul and Mary got rich off Blowin' in the Wind.

In a curious little aside, Dylan's drummer during the 1965 tour was Levon Helm, who quit the tour claiming he was tired of being booed at, but was more likely upset Bob was usurping his role as leader of the Band. Which wasn't the Band yet, but still. There is also speculation Levon didn't get along with Dylan's wicked manager, Albert Grossman. This year Levon snatched "Best Americana" Grammy from fellow nominee Bob Dylan. Revenge is sweet, even if 40 years later.

By the way, the illustration here is a painting by Bob Dylan from around 1967. I guess painting was something he did long before we think too.
Jim Linderman

Time for Bob Dylan to Record an Album of Charley Patton Covers

Bob Dylan once said "If I made records for my own pleasure, I would record only Charley Patton songs." For someone of his writing skills, that is a considerable proclamation and one I do not doubt. Gospel, Blues, Proto-Blues, Gut whoops and hollers, slide-finished words, gruff "voice masking" as old as Africa. Patton was so fugging good he could play 4 characters in one three minute song, make them all real and make every one of them sound like they were in a different room. His voice could be Man, Woman and God all at once and it was all done live in front of a primitive microphone while it was being etched into WAX. He could sing and talk to himself out loud at the same time! Nothing since has matched or met it. But Dylan keeps working at it and he increasingly SOUNDS like him, a compliment I am sure he would appreciate. It is no coincidence the most impressive song he has performed over the last few years is the one he specifically wrote for Patton. Like all his songs, he has played with it, shuffled it, jacked it up and down...even put a banjo in for a while. I've heard it scream with a guitar fed through a vocoder and a drum pound break Levon might be able to play, but with a sound he couldn't even imagine. I've heard a growl thrown at the song like Patton would, a genuine grit-teeth roar deep from inside somehow and as though each moment of the song was critical. A live version from 2003 was released on the Tell Tale Signs CD which spits and stutters to a fantastic finish. The song name-drops Big Joe Turner, another under-appreciated performer. They say Charlie Sexton's return to the band has brought vitality to the gigs. He certainly looks good from the audience clips I've seen.

Dylan's "never-ending tour" is an enormous misnomer, as musicians PLAY. I suppose it is born from his reclusive days, when he took time to start and raise a family, something which it is increasingly obvious he did well despite what must have been enormous pressure. I was shocked to read Sara turned 70 in October. I do not follow the offspring, but one is an accomplished performer and another a film maker who has been involved only in most laudable projects. That their father chooses to work is no surprise at all, and we should only HOPE it never ends. I recall when he did hit the road again (after what is now realized as only a brief respite) it was such an out-of-scale, stadium-filled steamroll no less than Bill Graham had to handle the ticket requests, millions of which were unfulfilled and the performers had to shout to be heard. Geffen bought the product and it set Dylan adrift a bit after, but he got back to Hammond's label and although there were some ups and downs, he's since had an artistic 5 disc run which has now matched the first one. And that is a considerable proclamation as well.

But this is about Patton. And that quote. It has been 8 years since the magnificent Charlie Patton box set by Revenant dropped. Literally. It is time to listen to it again. It is called "Screamin' and Hollerin' the Blues" and it is with no question the greatest CD box-set ever released. From the pea-vine graphics to the erudite texts, it was as fitting a tribute one could create for this part Cherokee Black man who was born and died on plantations within 20 miles of each other in Sunflower County, Mississippi. It has taken me eight years to fully appreciate the box and Mr. Patton, though I first heard him in headphones in junior high school on an LP put out the year before I was born.

Dylan had a song on an album way back in 1978 titled "New Pony" which smells just a little bit like Patton. The tribute song "High Water" which refers to the floods that put Delta citizens atop the levee (the lucky ones anyway) is even closer. But to my knowledge, Dylan has never covered the master. It might be time. In fact, might I suggest an entire album of covers? I bet I could find him a label to put it out.