American Songwriter » January/February 2012

Artists On Dylan

Evan Schlansky — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 17:42:54 +0000

Love Bob Dylan? You're not the only one. We asked a bevy of artists to share their thoughts on the iconic songwriter. Visit Americansongwriter.com daily during our 30 Days Of Dylan countdown to read the full interviews, hear exclusive audio and video, and more.

Alec Ounsworth, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah:

Bob Dylan is probably the reason I attempted to write songs in the first place. He might also be the reason I’m keeping on and somehow I imagine he’ll be the reason I stop too.

Nicole Atkins:

I first got into Dylan when I was young and watching an episode of The Wonder Years. “Like A Rolling Stone” was playing in a scene and I just out of nowhere started bawling crying. The song moved me that much. It kinda freaked me out.

Matthew Ryan:

I can’t remember not being a Bob Dylan fan. For a songwriter, it’s like asking when did you get into breathing?

Jeffrey Lewis:

Like probably every teenager who hears Dylan you get inspired to just string words together and write these rhyming nonsense songs. But then you learn that it’s pointless to go in a Dylan direction, he covers his own territory completely, there’s no way to write like him without seeming like a pale imitation. So he’s a good artist to be inspired by but a bad artist to be influenced by.

Peter Morén, Peter, Björn and John:

As a kid I could put on the earphones and see a Dylan-movie, or read a Dylan-novel, if you like. Even the ostensibly least understandable songs makes you go places you wouldn’t dream up by yourself. All good music takes you places but I think with Dylan in his prime the overwhelming amount of words just drew you in and made you wanna stay forever.

Ian O’Neil, Deer Tick:

My favorite albums are John Wesley Harding and Time Out Of Mind. They are both stark in their delivery and I like when Bob Dylan has an intimidating, almost frightening seriousness. Lyrically, they span both interesting ideas and emotions. I think The Basement Tapes also has a very similar feeling to it.

Joshua Britt, The Farewell Drifters:

The first Dylan album I bought was The Times They are A-Changin’ and I was stuck listening to “Boots Of Spanish Leather” on repeat for a year. Dylan has the unique ability to sound like he is from 200 years ago and modern at the same time. Those old recordings of finger-picking tunes like “One Too Many Mornings” or “Tomorrow Is A Long Time” take me somewhere that no other music does. It is the most honest and real sounding music I have ever heard. As a songwriter this is what I am chasing.

Jaron Lowenstein:

It’s hard to trace all the ways he’s influenced me because of all the other artists he has influenced who have influenced me. Directly, every time I think I’ve written something pretty special I hearken back to a Dylan song and realize he’s already tackled the subject and done it much better. He’s the spot in the clouds all artists aim to reach.

Taylor Goldsmith, Dawes:

His structure really shaped how I write. How he filters down to a title and how, in a song like “Tangled Up In Blue,” he’ll rhyme the end of each verse with “blue” to really set it up definitively. Devices like that have been something I’ve always wanted to get better at.

Matt Costa:

Sometimes when I don’t know how to treat a song I will listen to Bob Dylan and that will help me find my way. He’s also the reason I picked up harmonica.

Amanda Watkins, Miss Willie Brown:

The simple fact that Bob Dylan can play any style of music he wants and still be true to himself is probably the greatest gift a musician and writer can have. The man can put out Christmas music and a Christian album and pull it off. Seriously ... bad ass.

Hamell on Trial:

He influenced everybody’s music. Especially those that have non-traditional voices and want to take it in a more “literary” direction. Also, I’ll go to my grave saying Masked And Anonymous is a great movie ... check the dialog.

Seth Avett, The Avett Brothers:

Bob Dylan is someone who has become a leader in many ways without an articulated desire to do so. He has never claimed to be the legendary/mythical figure that we have made him out to be, which ironically has just become one more reason people have watched and become so interested in him through the years. What stands above all other reasons for this fascination however, and the reason it will remain for centuries to come, is the sheer quality of the man's work, and the consistent dedication to an ever-changing artistry.

Sarah Jarosz:

I am constantly rediscovering Bob Dylan’s music. I can always hear something new in his lyrics even if I’ve listened to the songs a million times. It’s the depth and soul which keep me coming back to his songs time and time again. As a singer, songwriter, and musician, I have been so inspired by his ability to keep me on a never ending journey through his music.

The White Buffalo:

When I was 19 or so a friend of mine’s father played some Dylan and John Prine songs just sitting round the living room. The following day I went and bought my first guitar from a pawn shop for $125 and immediately started writing songs.

Dylan has set the possibilities of songwriting free. To an utterly limitless level. He dissolved the notion of song structure even before it was discussed. I mean, how the hell do you write seven, eight-minute songs with no choruses or musical changes? You can’t. Bob Dylan can make you sit on every word.

Jorma Kaukonen, Hot Tuna:

I first really picked up on what I thought he was doing when I saw him at the Yale Folk Festival in 1960, which was the only show I caught in its entirety. I also was one of Phil Lesh’s friends on one of those Phil And Friends tours where he split the bill with Bob. He shook my hand at the Phil And Friends show and said, “Hey Jorma, long time.” How much better than that does it get?

Amy Lavere:

I saw him play at a casino in Tunica. He was playing keyboards all night and it was really wacky and I was digging it. This idiot, drunk frat kid screamed “pick up the acoustic Bob!!!” through the whole show. For me, it added to the experience and I was proud Dylan chose not to. I think half the audience wanted to strangle the kid and the other half wanted to chant with him. It was wild.

Henry Wagons:

I saw him play for the first time just recently at a big festival in Byron Bay, Australia called Bluesfest. It coincided with me buying my first ever chili-infused coffee from a Moroccan food tent at the festival. They were the perfect match. Both Bob and the coffee were kinda spicy and bitter, but in the best possible way. He turned off all the screens so no one could see him and he played all of his songs quite differently to what many were expecting. I thought it was a proud and bold artistic statement and I loved every minute. He’s a cheeky bastard.

Ben Kweller:

I saw him in New Jersey, around 2001. I was pretty bummed actually because at the time, I’d been immersed in Another Side, Bringing It All Back Home, etc., and I was expecting to see “young Bob Dylan.” It was my own unrealistic expectations that led to my disappointment. If I saw that show today, I’d have a completely different perception.

Pegi Young (On Neil and Bob’s relationship):

There’s mutual admiration there. Probably the common denominator is that they keep changing. It’s nice that Neil is mentioned in “Highlands.” Of course, he was in a Lynyrd Skynrd lyric too.

Judy Collins:

If you listen to those early records people may not have thought that he was Pavarotti, but you could always hear the words. Albert Grossman brought me a tape in ’61 and asked me, “What do you think? People say he can’t “sing” and I said, “Oh, he can sing.” They were spectacular songs, every word was understandable, and they were for a long time. Maybe he doesn’t care anymore, I don’t know. It’s hard to argue with a genius.

David Crosby:

I first heard him in New York City and he was the hot new thing right then. Everybody was listening to him and was very impressed with him so I went to hear him. Of course, my first thought was, “Well shit, I can sing better than that!” Then I started listening to the words [laughs]… I had to think really hard if I wanted to try and stay in the music business. He was such a good lyricist. His songs took you on voyages and I was completely impressed by the time I walked out of there.

Tom Russell:

I got to talk to him, briefly, behind the Santa Monica Civic in 1963, I believe. A bunch of us kids brought harmonica boxes for him to sign. He rolled down the window of his station wagon. He asked me: “Hey, kid, where’s the nearest liquor store?” We followed his car for a few blocks, and they stopped, and Dylan got out and danced around our car, like a circus performer, and then he got back in his station wagon and they raced off. Into history. It’s like a dream now. The next time I saw him, I was backstage at the Hollywood Bowl, and he’d just debuted “Desolation Row.” Unreal. I was standing back there next to Johnny Cash. The world turned upside down for me at that moment. I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I sort of allude to that in my song “Mesabi.”

Dave Stewart:

What’s he like as a person? He’s really kind, and gentle, and incredibly sensitive. I used to have a driver, a really sweet, huge guy of Jamaican descent, who didn’t have much education. Dylan was at my house once, and he wanted to leave to go back to London. I said okay, my driver will take you there. So they set off, and I get a call about two hours later. It was Dylan on the phone, saying, “ermm, we’re outside of London now.” The driver had been really panicked because he had Bob Dylan in the back, and missed all the signs, and had gone miles beyond, into the countryside. I said, “Oh, you know he has a problem reading.” My driver told me later that Dylan got out of the back and sat next to him and read all the signs, and talked him all the way back to the middle of London, and told him all sorts of things about his life.

Ruth Gerson:

In the late ‘90s I wanted to put “Forever Young” on an album of live shows I had compiled called Not Around Town, songs I had performed in Italy, Israel, Sweden ... I sent it to the person responsible for Bob Dylan’s publishing. A few weeks later I got a call that his manager heard it and Bob Dylan had heard it and he was going to come see a show. I was shocked. I scrambled to make sure the show was going to be perfect. I did not expect it to actualize, but I was excited that it could.

The day of the show I received a very kind call that he couldn’t come because of a rehearsal, but he generously invited me over to play some songs during the day. I sat with him, one on one for about an hour and a half. He was so kind. My stomach wouldn’t stop shaking anyway, but he did everything he could to put me at ease. We played songs together. We sat there knee to knee and he soloed on one of my songs called “Summer Waters.” I really could not believe, and looking back still can’t believe that that happened. Bob told me he really liked my songs, especially one called “Roof Jumping” – and whether he really did or not – if he was just saying it to be nice, those words from him have always kept me going.

Bob also noticed on the back of my record there were a bunch of press quotes that praised me as a songwriter. He read them and looked at me, tapping the jewel case with his nail, and said, “Don't let them call you that. You’re a song performer, not a songwriter. You don’t write the song to sit there on a page. You write it to sing it.” He said – or I remember as – it’s not a song, if you’re not playing it. I’m not sure if I’m quoting him exactly right, but that’s my memory of what he said, and I hope I have it close to right, because that’s what I think about every time I play.

G. Love:

I love Bob like a musical father. I honestly feel like no one has been inspired by him like I have. I guess I’m a psycho fan. He didn’t die, he didn’t sell out, he didn’t pander, he has done it all right. He’s never made a cheesy record. There’s no artist that’s had such a long prolific career and had such an impact on music and society as Bob Dylan. And at the same time, it’s clear to see that from the start and to this very day it’s always been about the music and only the music.

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Taylor Guitars Puts You In The Luthier’s Seat

Jake Kelly — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:51:46 +0000

Inside every guitarist lurks a guitar designer: someone wanting to tweak some aspect of the guitar to better suit their needs and desires. Taylor Guitars’ new SolidBody Configurator allows guitarists to release that inner beast and design the instrument of their dreams, see a virtual image of their creation, and then purchase that guitar. We decided we’d put the Configurator to the test by compiling our own version of form and functionality, and submitting the results to Taylor for fabrication. Then, we thought we’d head over to Taylor’s El Cajon, California factory to see if we could catch our soon-to-be reviewed test model during some phase of its construction. Using the online Configurator was easy enough. The user selects a solid or maple-topped chambered body, cutaway configuration, pickups, bridge and finish. As each component is chosen, the on-screen image of the guitar reflects the changes. We opted for an instrument that has classic looks and versatility, but would be something special not offered by other manufacturers. After fussing, swapping out, comparing, pondering, reconsidering, and finalizing our virtual model, we decided on a double cutaway chambered body with a fixed bridge, a pair of high-definition mini-humbuckers, and a Del Mar Edgeburst finish. On a typically sunny Southern California day, we stopped by the sprawling Taylor factory to find the body of our guitar on the docket to be routed for the pickups. At this point, the body’s tone chamber and neck slot had been routed, the figured maple top had been attached and the binding had been inlayed (giving the guitar a classy appearance). Additional work would also be done this day on the body for the contours on the lower bout and inside the cutaways. Taylor uses an intriguing mix of CNC machinery and hand craftsmanship. The computer-controlled machines allow precise tolerances and consistency for woodworking and applying certain finishes. For example: Taylor acoustic guitars feature a bolt-on removable neck that sits in a shallow pocket on the top and side of the guitar, which is indistinguishable from a guitar constructed in a more conventional manner. This innovation allows a neck reset be as simple as unbolting the neck to add or remove a shim; a procedure that can be handled in a matter of minutes. The corresponding procedure on a guitar with a glued on neck is a labor-intensive operation that takes considerably more time and costs hundreds of dollars. Similarly, the Taylor SolidBody features a detachable neck so ingeniously designed, with a tolerance so tight, that it is held in place with a single bolt. As with any fine musical instrument, there are aspects of construction and finishing that can be only handled by craftsmen. Our guitar body once routed and contoured will be headed to another such craftsman (pre-qualified during our visit) for the application of the sunburst finish. This combination of hand craftsmanship and high-tech machinery, along with an equally impressive production protocol and inventory control, not only allows for the efficient manufacturing of a large number of high-quality instruments, but also allows consumer defined instruments (such as our guitar) to trundle through the factory without disrupting regular production. Acoustic guitarists should be happy to know Taylor also offers an Acoustic Build to Order option. After our body is finished, it will be assembled with all our other chosen components. We had ordered direct mount pickups, but Taylor also offers a pickguard mounted pickup option. Guitarists that choose that option can purchase additional Loaded Pickguards with different pickup configurations and solderless connectors that can be swapped out on their guitar in minutes for an even greater pallet of tones. As our visit began winding down, we headed to yet another building on the Taylor complex to visit master luthier Andy Powers at the R & D building to get a look at some one-off special creations, innovations in the works and other dark-ops. Shortly after talking about the wiring in our Solidbody guitar, Powers explains that because of the way the factory is set up and operates –and in keeping with the Taylor philosophy in general – innovations can be implemented into the line at almost anytime. Sadly, we must leave the factory without our Taylor SolidBody in hand: it still has several days in production … and then … a few more days till it reaches our test bench for review, where we’ll evaluate both Taylor’s construction and our own ability to configure a dream guitar.

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Bob Dylan: The Paul Zollo Interview

Paul Zollo — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:17:45 +0000

Photo © Elliott Landy/www.LandyVision.com It was May 8, 1991, and I’d returned to my Hollywood office after lunch to find a pink phone message tacked to the board with an unlikely haiku: “Mr. Dylan appreciates your magazine. He will be in touch.” At first I suspected it was a joke. I’d been trying to land an interview with Dylan since 1987, when I was appointed editor of SongTalk, the journal of the National Academy of Songwriters. But it was no joke; the call came from the office of Elliot Mintz, who was then Dylan’s press rep. The arrangements surrounding the interview were cryptic and incremental. Elliot’s assistant called me periodically, each time divulging a little more information. At first I was given no time or location, told only that it would take place in the middle of the week at a hotel somewhere in the middle of Los Angeles. Also that I should come alone. It felt like arranging a meeting with Batman. On the designated day I was summoned to the Beverly Hills Hotel, the big pink lady where stars have stayed and played since the birth of Hollywood. In a bungalow far in the back, Bob Dylan was in a giddy mood. He sang a few lines from the song “People.” Yes, that “People,” the Jule Styne-Bob Merrill standard from Funny Girl made famous by Barbra Streisand. “People who need people,” he sang a capella in that most famous nasality ever, “are the luckiest people in the world …” Then he paused to ask, with much seriousness: “Do you think people who need people are really the luckiest people in the world?” That he would even know this song, let alone question its premise, says a lot about this man. He thinks deeply about songs, even unlikely ones like this one. Unlike the prevalent perception of him as someone far removed from life as we know it, Dylan pays attention. Searching for some clue as to why he agreed to do this interview with me, he muttered, somewhat in passing, “Man, you and Paul Simon sure talked a lot,” referring to my recent extensive interview with Simon. The “People” exchange, however, was ultimately omitted from the final interview at the insistence of Mintz, who also demanded the deletion of a few other sections, including one in which Dylan questioned if kids who watched Hendrix burn the flag would do so themselves. Mintz also ended the interview himself by physically turning off both of my tape recorders while Bob was in the middle of discussing his song “Joey,” about the mobster Joey Gallo. I’m still not sure why he was impelled to stop our talk then, but I knew Bob could have kept talking for an hour easy. But it wasn’t to be. What was to be was Bob having a lot of fun talking about this elusive art form so profoundly impacted by his own hand. His love for songs and songwriters was palpable as was his curiosity. When I told him I loved playing his songs, he asked, “On guitar or on piano?” He wanted to know. Never before or since has he spoken so directly and extensively about songwriting itself, about walking that fine line between unconscious and conscious creation, and ultimately achieving what he defines here himself as “gallantry.” When you read this, keep in mind that he was smiling. “I’ve made shoes for everyone, even you, while I still go barefoot” From “I and I” Songwriting? What do I know about songwriting? Bob Dylan asked, and then broke into laughter. He was wearing blue jeans and a white tank-top T-shirt, and drinking coffee out of a glass. “It tastes better out of a glass,” he said grinning. His blonde acoustic guitar was leaning on a couch near where we sat. Bob Dylan’s guitar. His influence is so vast that everything that surrounds takes on enlarged significance: Bob Dylan’s moccasins. Bob Dylan’s coat. And the ghost of 'lectricity howls in the bones of her face Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place. The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain from “Visions of Johanna” Pete Seeger said, “All songwriters are links in a chain,” yet there are few artists in this evolutionary arc whose influence is as profound as that of Bob Dylan. It’s hard to imagine the art of songwriting as we know it without him. Though he insists in this interview that “somebody else would have done it,” he was the instigator, the one who knew that songs could do more , that they could take on more. He knew that songs could contain a lyrical richness and meaning far beyond the scope of all previous pop songs, and they could possess as much beauty and power as the greatest poetry, and that by being written in rhythm and rhyme and merged with music, they could speak to our souls. Starting with the models made by his predecessors, such as the talking blues, Dylan quickly discarded old forms and began to fashion new ones. He broke all the rules of songwriting without abandoning the craft and care that holds songs together. He brought the linguistic beauty of Shakespeare, Byron, and Dylan Thomas, and the expansiveness and beat experimentation of Ginsberg, Kerouac and Ferlinghetti, to the folk poetry of Woody Guthrie and Hank Williams. And when the world was still in the midst of accepting this new form, he brought music to a new place again, fusing it with the electricity of rock and roll. “Basically, he showed that anything goes,” Robbie Robertson said. John Lennon said that it was hearing Dylan that allowed him to make the leap from writing empty pop songs to expressing the actuality of his life and the depths of his own soul. “Help” was a real call for help, he said, and prior to hearing Dylan it didn’t occur to him that songs could contain such direct meaning. When I asked Paul Simon how he made the leap in his writing from fifties rock and roll songs like “Hey Schoolgirl” to writing “Sound Of Silence” he said, “I really can’t imagine it could have been anyone else besides Bob Dylan.” Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky With one hand waving free, Silhouetted by the sea, Circled by the circus sands, With all memory and fate Driven deep beneath the waves, Let me forget about today until tomorrow. from “Mr. Tambourine Man”

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Role Models: Robyn Hitchcock

Evan Schlansky — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 12:55:03 +0000

British singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchock is best known for his days in The Soft Boys and his incredible, often psychedelic solo work. Here he discusses his most profound influence.

How did you first get into Bob Dylan?

I was marooned in a penitentiary for overprivileged boys when I was 13 and I heard “Like A Rolling Stone” every day for two months. After that I thought Bob Dylan was my parents and my loyalties shifted.

How has he influenced your music?

By making me decide to become a musician – and a songwriter.

How many times have you seen him play live? What were those shows like?

Five or six. Invariably disappointing – I missed his heyday – but he never does what you want him to anyway: he’s like a cat. My theory is that since 1966 he’s only inhabited himself occasionally on stage, to economize with the emotional gas, if you like.

Does it bother you that he borrows so much in his music?

Everything comes from somewhere. The deeper your roots, the broader your branches: he’s absorbed so much that he can keep putting it out. His song titles aren’t so original these days, but perhaps he’s writing himself into tradition.

Did it take you awhile to get into Bob Dylan, given his strange singing style?

No, it got me straight away. I preferred it when he sang clearly, in the earlier days. When he started out, you couldn’t ignore him: he came to you. Now you have to come to him; he frequently garbles his words and they’re indecipherable live. “What’s that, Bob – what did you say? Excuse me, I didn't quite catch that …”

What’s the closest you’ve ever gotten to him?

He turned up one day when I was in Israel on a Kibbutz, but for once I decided to take a shower before lunch so I missed him. Probably just as well. That was in 1971.

Do you have a favorite Bob Dylan quote or lyric?

“Name me someone that’s not a parasite, and I’ll go out and say a prayer for him” from “Visions Of Johanna.”

What are some of your favorite songs or albums, and why?

Freewheelin’ up to Blonde On Blonde – you can’t argue with those records. He sings beautifully on Planet Waves. Blood On The Tracks has an atmosphere like nothing else ... except Time Out Of Mind. I feel that Dylan peaked on The Basement Tapes; he seemed to have a wisdom that gradually forsook him and an insight beyond his years. He was so much older then. On the arc between cynicism and aw shucks, not even aware he was making a record, blending his voice with Manuel and Danko’s, writing short songs that children might almost sing.

What do you admire about Bob Dylan?

His soulfullness, his timing, his irony, his understanding, his humour. He is a bit of a kvetch, though. Leonard Cohen goes as deep but he’s not so corrosive. It’s probably hard for Dylan to get comfortable. Still, he’s been in such a freakish situation for his whole adult life. We’ll miss him when he’s gone. And without him I don’t know what I would have done with my life.

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Legendary Guitars: Eric Clapton’s Martin 000-28EC

Davis Inman — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 12:48:29 +0000

For most of his career, Eric Clapton has been closely associated with the Stratocaster. It’s the guitar you hear on Derek And The Dominos’ Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs, and also the guitar that one of his idols, Buddy Guy, plays. Clapton even once said the best way to tell the difference between his and Duane Allman’s guitar parts on Layla was by the difference between the Strat and Les Paul. (In fact, Clapton was one of the early stars of the Les Paul, too.) But on MTV Unplugged in 1992, Clapton played a 1939 Martin 000-42 and a 1966 Martin 000-28 (which had actually been modified with 45-style appointments). The show might be seen as a turning point in Clapton’s career, marking the beginning of a wiser, and more mellow, acoustic sound. Dick Boak, Martin’s director of Artist and Public Relations, says when the MTV show aired and started gaining popularity, his phone was ringing off the hook with people asking what kind of Martin Clapton had played. The company decided to approach the guitarist about collaborating on a guitar and Clapton agreed. In 1995, the first Eric Clapton signature model, the 000-42EC, was introduced in a limited production run of 461. Boak says he chose the number 461 in homage to Clapton’s 461 Ocean Boulevard (and because he thought he could sell about 500 guitars). Martin worked off Clapton’s ideas and coordinated the project with his guitar technician, Lee Dickson. The resulting guitar combined features from both of the Martins that Clapton played on the Unplugged show. In his book, Martin Guitar Masterpieces, Boak writes about traveling to the winter trade show in 1995, with cautiously high hopes of unloading all the guitars. “They were all gone in a day. Everyone stood there, myself included, scratching their heads in wonder, wishing that Eric might have resided up the street a mile or two. 1,461 Ocean Boulevard would have sufficed nicely.” Prior to Clapton playing 000 guitars on Unplugged, Boak says, “smaller-bodied Martins weren’t terribly popular.” The company had pared down their line, putting most of the focus on dreadnoughts. “Clapton single-handedly revitalized the 000s,” says Boak. With the rising popularity of the 000 guitar, Martin and Clapton decided to focus on what the guitarist would call his “poor man’s” guitar, a signature 000-28, with less ornate appointments than the previously limited edition 000-42. This guitar would become the stock Clapton model for Martin, and the company has sold more than 17,000 units since 1996. The Clapton years at Martin have been fruitful, with eight projects since 1995, and Boak says there are “more coming.” Every Clapton model has had a 000-sized body, with 14 frets and a short scale neck, but the types of wood and appointments have varied. Clapton was likely drawn to the 000-body shape because of its shorter scale, which makes bending notes easier. “I think he just picked up the 000 and loved it,” says Boak. “He had been playing it very early on, 30 years ago. There are photos of him playing a 000-28 around the Delaney and Bonnie period.” Clapton has stayed true to Martins, even when projects might have beckoned him to pick up other guitars. In the film Sessions For Robert J., Clapton and guitarist Doyle Bramhall II visit 508 Park Avenue in Dallas, Texas, where Robert Johnson played his final session. Sitting in the abandoned warehouse, Clapton plays “Hellhound On My Trail” on his Bellezza Nera, a black 000 designed by his friend Hiroshi Fujiwara, a Japanese artist and musician. The guitar also appears in the painting by Sir Peter Blake on the cover of the 2004 companion album, Me And Mr. Johnson. In another part of the film, Clapton channels Johnson’s “Love In Vain” on a white 000, the Bellezza Bianca.

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Glen Campbell: Memory Maker

Allen Morrison — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 12:47:51 +0000

It’s an essential part of the late 1960s time capsule. That well-scrubbed, apple-cheeked, All-American boy on Sunday night TV. The golden brown, blow-dried hair carefully parted on the right. The turtleneck. And especially that glorious voice, all full-throated sincerity and cowboy-virtuous. He made his first inroads into the national psyche with his record of John Hartford’s gorgeous piece of Americana, “Gentle On My Mind,” his first major hit. Then the Jimmy Webb masterpiece, “By The Time I Get To Phoenix.” Later, he made perhaps his biggest impression singing one of the greatest lines in all of pop music – “… and I need you more than want you / And I want you for all time” – and America wanted him right back. “Gentle On My Mind,” “Wichita Lineman,” “By The Time I Get To Phoenix,” “Galveston.” Any one of them a career song. Glen Campbell had four. * * * * * * The door to the posh midtown Manhattan hotel suite swings open, and there, incongruously, is tall, lanky, craggy-faced Glen Campbell at 75. He grins and offers his hand. I was told he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease six months earlier and was beginning to show symptoms. In fact, friends agree he had experienced memory lapses for years. I wasn’t sure what to expect but was reassured that Kim, his wife of 28 years and constant companion, would be there to help jog his memory and smooth out the rough edges. As we’re getting settled in the comfortable living room, his road manager, Bill Maclay, stops in to say hello. Kim introduces me. Bill has traveled the world with Glen for the last 33 years. Glen seems a bit confused – “He’s your road manager,” she gently tells him. “He is?” Glen asks. Okay, maybe this is going to be a little tougher than I thought. This is not his first interview of the day. He and Kim are in town for 24 hours before heading to the U.K. to promote what is described as Glen’s final album, Ghost On The Canvas, and his “farewell tour.” He’s jet-lagged. Maybe fatigue is contributing to his symptoms. I show him the cover of American Songwriter’s 2010 “Legends” issue, with Neil Young on the cover. “Oh,” he practically squeals to Kim, “look at Neil! I haven’t seen him in a hundred years,” he exclaims with evident affection. Okay – this is good, he still remembers people. “Old Neil – he does a good job.” Kim tells me that since the Alzheimer’s diagnosis and final tour was announced, James Keach, producer of the film Walk The Line, has begun to document Glen’s daily life, including medical appointments, for a forthcoming biopic. You’re letting it all hang out, I say. “Yeah!” Glen says, with enthusiasm. Then he tries to remember the name of the disease. “Alzheimer’s,” Kim gently prompts him. “Alz-heimer’s,” he repeats softly, musing. Then to me: “I’m getting forgetful, you know that?” * * * * * * Glen has always meant one thing to his millions of fans, but another thing, different and special, to musicians. His adoring fan base may have responded to his soaring tenor, his personal warmth, and the way he projected a combination of masculinity with sensitivity and country innocence. But, from his earliest TV appearances, musicians immediately recognized he was one of them. “He’s this extraordinary American treasure, gifted like Achilles was gifted,” says his friend Jimmy Webb, who wrote what are generally considered to be Glen’s greatest records. “He could have probably played any instrument he chose to play. It was our good fortune that he became our troubadour. And it was my personal good fortune that he became the interpreter of my music.” Ghost On The Canvas has gotten mostly positive reviews and is selling (it reached Number 6 on the Billboard Country Albums chart). It combines contemporary songs by Paul Westerberg (of The Replacements), Jakob Dylan, Teddy Thompson, Robert Pollard (Guided By Voices) and other contemporary writers, with Glen’s own compositions, written with producer Julian Raymond. The album, like the previous Campbell/Raymond collaboration, 2008’s somewhat ironically titled Meet Glen Campbell, is a deliberate attempt to take contemporary songs and “make them sound like classic Glen Campbell tracks” from Glen’s golden era, approximately 1967-1977, Raymond says. Raymond jumped at the chance to work with Glen in 2008, when he was a staff producer at Capitol Records. “In 2008,” he says, “someone in what they used to call the ‘heritage’ department, which is responsible for legacy artists, asked me if there was anybody on the label that I’d like to work with. I said, Glen Campbell – that would be a dream.” “He was always on in my house,” says Raymond. “My parents had every album, on vinyl, 8-track, or cassettes. I rediscovered Glen as a teenager, especially the Jimmy Webb/Al DeLory era productions – they’re among the greatest stuff ever done.” The songs on Ghost seem personal, almost autobiographical. Glen was more involved in creating the album than one might suppose, given his declining condition. To collaborate on the five tracks they wrote together, Raymond followed Glen around with a notebook, jotting down his thoughts and casual utterances. Some of them became song lyrics, which Raymond turned into first-draft songs. “I’d basically come to him with a song that was fairly well-realized in my mind, and we’d work on it together. Then he’d start doing that famous Glen Campbell thing: he’d start changing chords, and the tempo and key, and singing it a little differently, and it became an amazing partnership.” Raymond also selected several dozen outside songs, often preparing and singing demos himself to show Glen how the song might be done ‘Glen Campbell-style.’ “Glen listened to everything, and was very involved in making the final cut. We were trying to stay focused on songs that were loosely based on his life and what he’s going through now.” “Ghost On The Canvas,” and “Any Trouble,” both by Paul Westerberg and both addressing the issue of mortality, sound as if they were written to order for Glen in the twilight of his life. They weren’t. Westerberg put out his own versions of those songs: “Ghost” in 2009, and “Any Trouble” back in 1999. It felt good to have someone as legendary as Glen Campbell record his songs, Westerberg has said – “and (someone) who has the pitch to sing them correctly.”

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T Bone Burnett: The Taste Maker

Hal Bienstock — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 12:44:34 +0000

Over the course of 40 years in the music industry, T Bone Burnett has made a lot of friends in high places, producing albums for artists as varied as Robert Plant, B.B. King, Tony Bennett, Elvis Costello and Willie Nelson. Last year, he got many of them together for a good cause, creating the three-city Speaking Clock Review tour to raise money for The Participant Foundation, which supports the inclusion of music and arts education in public school systems, among other causes. This fall, he released a live album that includes performances from Costello, Gregg Allman, Neko Case, John Mellencamp, Elton John & Leon Russell, and Ralph Stanley to keep the fundraising going. We talked with Burnett about the project, his producing style and the current roots music revival.

How did the Speaking Clock Revue come together?

It started because I was at a screening of the movie Waiting For Superman at a friend’s house and was talking with the filmmakers and Jeff Skoll of Participant Media. It’s an interesting 21^st Century media company in that a big part of its mission is devoted to charity, or the redistribution of wealth. The whole center of their company is a database of two million activists gathered through the films it makes. It made films like An Inconvenient Truth and Food Inc., a lot of interesting documentaries. It also makes good fiction like Syriana and Good Night And Good Luck. The company was putting out this film [Waiting For Superman] on the state of public education, so we decided to put together a short tour to benefit it.

What inspired you to get involved in supporting music education in schools?

It’s something that’s been a concern of mine for a long time. Here we have the 3 Rs – reading, writing and arithmetic. The Greeks had the 3 As – academics, athletics and arts. Plato said that education stands on those three legs. Without any one of those three, education will fall down. In this country, the arts are the first thing eliminated, especially in public schools. What they’ve found is when the arts are eliminated, children get bored and tired of school. When the arts are included, children’s imaginations are allowed to run wild.

Whenever so many talented artists come together, there are always some surprises. What was the most unexpected thing for you on the tour?

The most surprising thing to me in the whole show was Ralph Stanley getting up with one acoustic guitar and a string bass and completely flooring the whole place. He was the most hardcore rock and roll star of them all.

Are there any artists you’re targeting for future Revues that you couldn’t get this time?

I’m working with young folk artists. I did some of that on this edition with The Punch Brothers, for instance. That’s one of the most incredible bands this country has ever produced. Chris Thile, their mandolin player, is probably a once in a century musician, like Louis Armstrong was a once in a century musician. Chris is one of those kind of cats.

What other young artists do you like?

I like The Cave Singers. I love Arcade Fire and My Morning Jacket. I love the Decemberists. I think Colin Meloy is a serious American writer.

The artists you were able to get to perform speak to the respect people have for you as an artist and a producer. Do you have an overarching philosophy when it comes to producing?

I’ve been through so many different stages in my own life. The thing that’s been consistent all the way through it is that at the base it’s storytelling. All record making, all songwriting, all singing is storytelling. I’ve always tried to keep that in mind. First, you look for the voice.

So you focus mostly on the vocals rather than the music or the sound of an album?

The sound of the music is completely dependent on the sound of the voice. That’s reality. The instruments are more or less the same. The human being is completely different. Of course, I don’t mean all instruments are exactly the same. There are great and bad sounding instruments, but even bad ones can make a beautiful tone. The person and the voice are so distinct that it changes the way you make sound out of either good or bad instruments. It’s about blending the instruments with the tone of the voice.

It seems like the public has become a lot more interested in roots music over the past decade than it was in the ‘80s and ‘90s. What do you attribute that to?

There are a couple of big trends going on in the world. One is toward globalization, the other is localization or tribalism. This is the music of our tribe. The Scots-Irish, Black people, Italians, the people that came here and started cooking up this music. I think things have gotten very depersonalized in the modern world. It started in the 20^th century, the century of the self. This is a way to touch base. These songs are hundreds of years old, but they’ve been rewritten and have grown into all kinds of things.

Does roots music speak to a longing for something more authentic?

I think there’s always that. My view is that we live in a very de-authenticated world, especially in music. All music has been de-authenticated because it has been compromised so heavily by current technology. We’re still using the MP3 format, which is really attached to the dial-up modem. It’s completely outdated technology. We’ve already outgrown it. We’ll be in 5G in a couple of years. There’s no reason to have degraded audio.

Do you think technology has been bad for the music industry?

The access [technology] offers is beautiful. The communication is good. I’m not a Luddite. I want to move on to the next thing. I just worked with a band called The Civil Wars. They’re incredibly good and they have the benefit of it all. Today, we have access to everything.

We need to work something out so musicians can get paid. Last year or the year before, Google billed $30 billion in advertising. Nine percent of that was driven by music searches. Musicians deserve part of that $30 billion, just like radio shares part of its advertising revenue with songwriters.

What’s happening now is similar to what happened to the music industry in the 1920s. In the 1920s, when radio proliferated to big cities, the record industry collapsed. That’s why they began recording all this [roots] music. Before that, it was classical and show tunes. When that collapsed because radio was playing it for free, they went down south where people didn’t have electricity and recorded those songs with a pulley system. The original country songs were recorded without electricity.

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Legendary Guitars: Dave Matthews’ Taylor 914CE

Rick Moore — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 12:40:37 +0000

Now entering its 21^st year, the Dave Matthews Band has become a part of the musical fabric of America, and Dave Matthews has become a major inspiration for many singer-songwriters. Matthews and the DMB became known for an innovative sound that initially eschewed the usual use of an electric lead guitarist, and instead favored violin and saxophone solos with Matthews’ own innovative acoustic rhythm guitar style on original compositions that were anything but mainstream. Matthews was, and may still be, one of the closest things to the heyday of FM rock when bands were allowed to be themselves and were marketed on their originality and talent. Matthews’ songs are sometimes in odd time signatures, with chord voicings and progressions that are a far cry from “normal” American pop or country music. The DMB has filled arenas for nearly two decades now, and has secured a place in music history with a dozen platinum or multi-platinum albums that feature such hits as “Too Much,” “Crash Into Me” and “Crush.” Matthews’ guitar of choice for live performance and composition is the Taylor, especially the 914 CE, which Taylor’s Dave Matthews Signature Model, sometimes referred to as the “Grux” guitar, is based on. Craig Baker has been Matthews’ guitar tech for the past four years, and said that a 914 CE Matthews bought at Dusty Strings in Seattle has long been Matthews’ number one axe. “He has three 914s made in 1999, but his main 914 he bought so many years ago is a sturdy workhorse,” said Baker, who has also worked with Pantera, Alicia Keys’ band, and another well-known singer-songwriter and guitarist, John Mayer. “The other Taylors Dave uses are mostly more recent ones and the ‘Grux’ signature model.” “I check the set up on the main 914 CE daily,” Baker said, “and sometimes, though rarely, make a truss rod adjustment. Dave plays hard, not just with his right hand but with his left as well. About every two years, with regular touring, I have his main 914 refretted as he will scallop the frets. I try to be proactive and do it on a break so it doesn't become an issue or need to be done in the middle of a tour.” “For Dave’s right hand,” Baker continued, “it’s obvious from any photo that there’s substantial pick wear on his main 914, especially above the soundhole, so to prevent wearing through the top of the guitar we treated the wear mark and resealed the top. As far as the strings, I restring, on average, every seven songs. I do this to prevent breaks and substantial interruptions to the song and show. Also, every DMB performance is a possible live release, so to keep the sound homogenous throughout the set, changing strings usually midway helps keep the guitar sounding fresh from the first song to the last.” Matthews’ first Taylor was a 714, and he also employs a Taylor W65 12-string. Baker said that, unlike some artists who sometimes have an air of secrecy about what they do, especially in the writing process or in the studio, Matthews has him on hand for just about everything. “I’m there almost every time Dave plays guitar in public or the studio,” Baker said. “I’m fortunate to be with him year ‘round whether we’re on tour or not. Working with him in the studio has been a great learning experience and given me more skills for what I do in the live environment. It’s a remarkable process to see a Dave Matthews song go from an idea or a few chords to a finished piece.”

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The Reawakening of Bob Dylan

Stephen Deusner — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 12:40:09 +0000

On the evening of February 13, 2011, Bob Dylan sang a baffling version of “Maggie’s Farm” at the Grammys. The performance came at the end of a medley of Americana acts that included Mumford & Sons and The Avett Brothers, two young bands that borrow from some of the same music that inspired Dylan in the late 1950s and 1960s. Each of their songs was marked by a sepia-tone melancholy and what sounded like an effortful sincerity, so it was all the more entertaining when Dylan emerged from behind the curtain wearing a silk shirt, ascot, polished white shoes, and an expression of bemusement.

The onstage collaboration was perhaps intended to be a passing-the-torch moment, with Dylan anointing a new generation of folk revivalists and New Americana troubadours. But the performance became something else entirely, as Dylan, despite the bad sound and his gruffer-than-usual voice, vamped and mugged wildly through “Maggie’s Farm,” throwing his arms wide as though he had learned his moves from Al Jolson. Beyond merely upstaging the two younger acts, he revealed them to be conservative and achingly earnest artists, and in the process he reasserted his nuanced, often contradictory relationship to America’s weird musical history in general and to his own past in particular.

Old-time music should not be approached reverentially. Rather than shorthand for authenticity or emotional directness, it can be as sophisticated as a Radiohead groove, as outrageous as a Lady Gaga outfit, as cruel as an Odd Future rap, and as lusty as an R. Kelly slow jam. But only one guy on stage seemed aware of all the possibilities.

Dylan wasn’t passing the torch at the Grammys. He was playing keepaway with it.

* * * * * *

That Grammy performance punctuated what has proven to be an especially productive and compelling period in Dylan’s career, one in which he shed the stigma of ‘60s burnout and emerged as a specter from some dark corner of American history. His career is notorious for its many highs and lows, for its hairpin turns and comeback feints. Starting out as a sincere folkie, he ascended – somewhat against his will – to the status of generational mouthpiece, which he reacted to first by plugging in and later by dropping out altogether. For the past forty years, Dylan has struggled, recording some one-off returns to form, like Blood On The Tracks in 1975, but those catalog essentials are outnumbered by albums that only his most ardent followers remember. While there are many fans who will argue ferociously in favor of his Christian gospel period or his Self-Portrait self-sabotage, there are so many phases in Dylan’s career when it seemed like one of America’s greatest songwriters had forever lost his spark.

That only makes the past fifteen or so years all the more impressive and seemingly impossible, as Dylan has not only released a handful of albums to rival his best work, but sustained a period of intense creativity. It began in 1997, with the release of his thirtieth album, Time Out Of Mind, which was his first collection of new material in seven years – the longest, most worrisome dry spell of his career. Following the commercial belly-flop of 1990’s Under The Red Sky, Dylan retreated with a pair of covers albums full of pre-rock American and British folk songs. The lessons of those old, weird tunes, along with a new, stream-of-conscious songwriting technique, inspired Dylan’s finest batch of songs in more than twenty years. Instead of a rock veteran coasting on fumes, he sounded like an artist whose trials and tribulations could lend his music new gravity and new electricity.

It’s ironic that the rebirth of his career is often mistaken for actual death. Upon release, Time Out Of Mind was interpreted as Dylan’s mortality album, even though the life-threatening pericarditis wasn’t diagnosed until well after the album had been released. That doesn’t mean, of course, that some form of obsolescence, whether biological or cultural, wasn’t on Dylan’s mind at the time. Although the songs sound highly personal – he inhabits that first-person pronoun boldly – Time Out Of Mind sounds like an album about the public Dylan rather than the private man: the larger-than-life legend projected by the real-life human being. So many long years in the wilderness had shrunk that figure considerably, such that intimations like “It’s not dark yet but it’s getting there” conveyed the doom of finality, no matter how Dylan himself tried to dismiss such an interpretation.

Dylan worked with producer Daniel Lanois, who had also helmed Oh Mercy, but his sonic landscape on Time Out Of Mind is much more nuanced and complex, with a reverb settling over every piece of terrain like a low, ominous fog. It’s an evocative melancholic setting for Dylan’s croaky vocals, although he and many of his fans dismiss the album for bearing the signature of its producer over that of its performer. And yet, in retrospect, it’s the right sound for the right moment in Dylan’s life, a deliberate warping of the “thin wild mercury” aesthetic he captured in the mid ‘60s.

Perhaps more impressive, however, has been Dylan’s ability to sustain that surge in creativity and relevance well into the twenty-first century, with more strong studio albums, countless reissues, a phlegmatic Christmas collection, a beloved radio show, an excellent memoir, a slew of movies and documentaries, and of course his Never Ending Tour. That run, even interrupted by a cinematic disaster like 2003’s Masked And Anonymous or a lackluster album like 2009’s Together Through Life, represents the longest period of quality and confidence in Dylan’s career, which is incredible for an artist who just turned 70.

What Dylan has experienced, then, is not exactly a comeback, but something more akin to Johnny Cash’s nearly simultaneous resurgence: it’s a reawakening, a redefinition of how a legendary figure can age and grow and become more human without sacrificing quality or mystery. How has Dylan been able to reach this comfortable point in his career, when he remains relevant enough to play with younger bands at the Grammys and feisty enough to leave them in his wake?

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Icons: Dave Stewart

Paul Zollo — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 12:39:00 +0000

Meeting with Dave Stewart at his Hollywood dream factory is a dizzying experience, not unlike what one imagines visiting Warhol’s factory was like in the day, minus the zombies and cocaine. There’s a whole lot of people in a unified space doing a whole lot of art all the time. To Dave, it’s more Wonka than Warhol, “except instead of candy we make ideas.”

A lot of ideas. The Dave engine, which sprawls over two stories above Hollywood & Vine, goes 24-7, sparking always in many directions at once: besides his myriad musical projects as artist, songwriter and/or producer (including his glorious recent solo album The Blackbird Diaries and his most recent supergroup Superheavy, which includes bandmates Mick Jagger, Joss Stone, A.R. Rahman and Damian Marley), there’s films (he films everything always), books, TV shows, photographs and always more. Dave’s staff is forever editing and mixing and working away to his instructions, though remarkably agile when it comes to showing a visitor a film of Dave and Shakira dancing in a barn, or soloing Stevie Wonder’s miraculous harmonica solo on The Eurythmics’ “There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart).”

He’s the great collaborator. Most famous of course for the Eurythmics, his collaboration with Annie Lennox, his genius is for humbly standing behind the singer – whether it’s Annie or Mick or Tom Petty (they concocted “Don’t Come Around Here No More”) or any of the other stars with whom he’s written songs (such as Bono, Dylan, Bryan Ferry, Stevie Nicks and Sinead O’Connor), and making them shine. “There’s only two kinds of people,” his mother told him. “There are drains and radiators. People who drag you down and people who spark you up.” Without a doubt, Dave Stewart is a radiator. He brings out what is essential and best about an artist, whether it’s Dylan, Petty or Jagger.

He believes that rock and roll should never be over-calculated, and to avoid this, he makes albums fast. “People are so used to taking forever on every project,” he says in signature fedora and shades. “I like to make an album in a week. Just did Joss Stone’s album in six days, did mine in five days. Written and recorded. Annie and I [in Eurythmics] used to take ten days or two weeks top. I was amazed when I found out people would take a whole year. I do it like they did it at Motown – two or three records in a day.”

Of course, just like at Motown, the trick is starting with a great song, and Dave has a remarkable capacity for coming up with a constant stream of them, quickly and unquestioningly. Many of the songs on Blackbird were born on the plane to Nashville. By throwing himself fully into each project and following each spark, his music is as infectious as it is passionate. “I like every aspect of it, even the tiniest noodle on a guitar,” he says, “to writing a song with Dylan. I love it all.”

Also like Motown is the wisdom to be surrounded by great musicians who know how to make a song kick and breathe. Stewart found these players most recently in Nashville, where he recorded The Blackbird Diaries in all of four days at Blackbird Studios. It worked so well he stayed around to record its still-unreleased sequel, The Ringmaster General.

On working with Jagger: “People say, ‘Dave, you’ve written a few songs with Mick.’ I say we’ve written about fifty! Mick only makes a solo album once every ten years or so. But as writers we never stop writing.” To illustrate this point, he asks his assistant Ned to play “Time Drags On,” which is essential Jagger – soulful, visceral and with a greatly tuneful chorus bolstered by a female choir. It sounds like the finished master of Mick’s next hit, yet here it’s just yet another secret treasure waiting for release.

“It used to be you might write 47 songs,” he says, “but only have room for twelve on an album. Then you tour for three years before you do another one. So what do you do with all those songs? Now it’s becoming a world where I can do it all. I can create a cloud and put every song on it, every film, every track. I told Mick he should do ‘Hey You, Get Into My Cloud.’” [Laughs]

When asked about his haunting duet with Colbie Callait, “Bulletproof Vest,” he says, “I like melancholia, especially in a girl’s voice. I like raw blues soul power or melancholy. And usually the best singers can do both. Like Etta James – “And Annie Lennox,” I interject. “Well, yeah,” he agrees. “That was like our whole thing, this melancholy thing that suddenly went very powerful.”

“I think there is great strength and power in things people think are sad. Acceptance of death gives you great strength to live the day. I love a garden when it’s all sort of overgrown and the roses are blood-red, not the bright tight spring buds. I love the tangled disarray where it seems like it’s falling apart. And I’m trying to put that into music and words.”

Ultimately it’s about discovery, about being receptive to the magic soul of a song. “It’s like following Tinkerbell,” he says. “I’m always looking to discover what is the magic thing. The magic thing in it might come from something you weren’t expecting. It might be a mistake or a word that just pops into your head. And what I’ve got the ability to do is just scrap the rest and go for that magic.”

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