THE 2011 AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
BOB DYLAN TRIBUTE ALBUM
COMMEMORATING 50 YEARS BOB DYLAN TRIBUTE ALBUM
OF AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
The Cover Version In Context
'And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it,
And reflect from the mountain so all souls can see it.
Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin'
But I'll know my song well before I start singin''
('A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall' - Bob Dylan, 1963)
'And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it,
And reflect from the mountain so all souls can see it.
Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin'
But I'll know my song well before I start singin''
('A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall' - Bob Dylan, 1963)
The appearance this year of Amnesty International's impressive
4-CD compilation of previously unreleased covers of Bob Dylan's back-catalogue,
issued to mark the organisation's 50th anniversary, may give us pause to consider,
along with the actual album, the place of the cover version in popular music. Incidentally, this is not Amnesty's first fund-raising foray in the field;
they issued a 2-CD set of John Lennon songs in 2007 - Instant Karma. The Campaign To Save Darfur). Nowadays, the covers-album is pretty much
recognised as a genre in itself, but it's easy to forget that, once upon a
time, just about all albums were effectively covers-albums. The original sales
charts of the music industry were, of course, based on songs published as sheet
music to be performed not only by radio and stage entertainers but by the
general public gathered around stand-up pianos in public houses and domestic
parlours. By the 1950s, the charts that represented the sales of records and
singles were soon joined by albums which usually threw together a couple of hits
with a few makeweight odds and sods, including an established standard here and
there (songs became standards by virtue of accumulating a high number of cover versions).
The great engine room that drove the music industry at
that time was New York 's
legendary Tin Pan Alley which churned out songs to be bought in their original
form as well as being covered and translated the world over. London 's Denmark Street was the other market
leader, although a long way behind the Americans. Stateside hits were routinely
covered in the UK and it was
not uncommon for there to be several very similar versions of the same song
charting simultaneously either side of the Atlantic .
During the Rock & Roll phase, singer-songwriters such as Chuck Berry and
Buddy Holly briefly weakened the traditional stranglehold, but of course, King
Elvis would always be reliant on songs being presented to him and regarded
covers as a stock in trade. Even the
great names who would later shape the age of 'Rock Music' - an era which
demanded that singers and bands produce original material if they were to be deemed
artists rather than mere pop acts - padded out their early albums with covers. It's worth remembering that all through
the 1960s, the hugely successful Tamla Motown label still held even its most
prized performers' albums in low regard, filling them up with an incestuous and
repetitive mix of songs from that remarkable song-writing hothouse of Holland/Dozier/Holland.
To a large extent, the industry's priority with singles
has always seen songs as product rather than art. By the mid to late '60s, however,
record companies were prepared to allow their signings to indulge themselves
artistically on album cuts and this coincided with some of the best and most enduring
long-players ever made. Even in today's digital age of downloads and iPod
shuffles, the album retains a cultural cachet rarely attained by the single. At
the same time, songs have been recommodified to serve as backing tracks to
celebrities twirling around on Strictly Come Dancing or to provide vehicles
for the karaoke generation to compete with on the likes of American Idol and
The X Factor. These global TV franchises have done little to encourage
distinctive singing, playing or song-writing, but they have been a shot in the
arm for the cover-song (consider, for instance, X Factor winner Alexanra Burke's huge hit with Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah' - which prompted several other previous covers of the song by Jeff Buckley, John Cale and Rufus Wainwright to be reissued - all of them, by the way, far superior to Burke, who managed to get the lyric wrong).
The songs of The Beatles and Bob Dylan have
accumulated a vast and ever-growing number of cover versions a very long way
beyond that achieved by any of their contemporaries. During the late '60s, two particular songs,
both of them album tracks - 'With a Little Help
From My Friends', one of the slighter cuts from The Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper and 'All Along
The Watchtower' from Dylan's back-to acoustic
John Wesley Harding, also from '67 - were taken on in ways which raised the bar on what was
possible with a cover version. The first was a towering reconstruction by Joe Cocker
& The Grease Band, whilst the second was an electrifying
tour de force by Jimi Hendrix. Dylan has subsequently attempted to copy it himself in live performances
many times since. No other cover versions have ever quite epitomised the onward
and upward aesthetic of the Rock culture as much as those two extraordinary
records.
In the early 1970s; there appeared a brief flurry of
covers albums, most of them regarded at the time by critics as lightweight
side-projects: David Bowie's Pin-Ups (1973) his homage to the bands he saw around
the London
clubs during the 'Swinging Sixties'; Harry Nilsson's A Little Touch Of Schmillson in the Night (1973), the first trawl through 'The Great American Songbook'
by a rock performer; several excursions by Bryan Ferry on leave from Roxy
Music; and not forgetting Dylan's own Self
Portrait (1970), dismissed at the time by
that most intellectual of American rock critics, Greil Marcus, as 'shit' ...
When they did appear, covers albums, like the
increasingly prevalent live albums, were often delivered by performers as contract-filling
assignments. Rod Stewart, however, was to be seen in the twilight of his career
releasing several albums of reliable old chestnuts from that Great American
Songbook - like Linda Ronstadt before him and Robbie Williams afterwards. It's
a deep well that McCartney has also visited of late (like his old partner John,
Paul has also released a set of Rock &
Roll covers).
Cover versions often appear on the 'free' CDs which
music magazines such as Mojo 'give away' these days. These may be commissioned
as 'tribute albums' devoted to classic artists or classic albums and often
include previously unreleased performances. Covers still popped up on the singles
charts and flourished during the doldrums years of the 1990s and the early 21st
century when the craze for anodyne boy bands, singing actors and TV talent show
'stars' was at its height. Few, if any of these records though, aspired to, let
alone attained the lofty peaks of Mounts Cocker and Hendrix.
The "Chimes Of Freedom" Compilation
('For every unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a
jail')
This is merely the latest of numerous Dylan tribute
albums to appear over the years: its real importance derives from its purpose
to raise funds for a truly worthy cause as well as marking Amnesty's 50th
anniversary and reminding us of how Dylan, like no other songwriter of this
period, 'sings of how the world can conspire against individual freedom – and how,
insidiously, ordinary people can be complicit in that conspiracy', as Sean
Wilentz puts it in his sleeve-note.
The scope of the enterprise is ambitious: 72 tracks
featuring artists from far and wide (although predominantly American), ranging
from fresh-faced pop stars to grizzled veterans and legends to obscurities,
playing in many different styles - the vast majority of whom more than do justice
to the songs. I had thought that I'm
Not There (the 2001 OST of
Todd Haynes' interesting though flawed film about Dylan) would take some
beating, but the quality, variety and sheer quantity of Chimes Of Freedom manage to pull it off. I've played the whole thing
several times now and can find only two real clunkers. These are, firstly,
UK singer-songwriter, Natasha Bedingfield's unwitting ruination of 'Ring Them Bells', which gradually descends into a shrill, faux-gospel mess; and the
unmitigated, sniffing, sobbing disaster of 'Don't Think Twice, It's Alright' by US singer / rapper Kesha, which forces one to redefine the word 'overwrought'.
It could well be inferred that these performances are an
indirect product of the 'X Factor' approach where phoney emoting of the Whitney
& Maria School Of Over-Singing is mistaken for real soul
power.
The modus operandi of the project was that all of the performances,
apart from Dylan's original title-track, should be previously unreleased - but
I'd have liked just a little more flexibility in order to have included Bruce Springsteen's
epic version of 'Chimes' to perhaps have opened the set and provided a bookend
to Dylan's original which closes the collection.l Failing that, one has to
wonder why there is no version of 'Masters
Of War', which would have also been an
ideal curtain-raiser. Given the project's aims, the omission of this particular
masterpiece is both glaring and puzzling.
My only other criticisms would be minor ones. Firstly, the sequencing
occasionally leaves something to be desired - for instance, CDI ends with
three ballads very similar in style and tone ('Boots Of Spanish Leather', 'Girl From The North Country'
and 'Restless Farewell') whilst
CD3 has back-to-back punk rushes of 'It's
All Over Now, Baby Blue' and 'Desolation Row' which might, to some ears, seem rather a clash.
Secondly, the neat, fold-out design of the package is attractive
and functional, but, apart from telling us that Bob Clearmountain mixed the
whole shebang, has no recording information whatsoever about the artists - many
of whom will be unknown to purchasers. An insert would have been useful.
Finally, it should be noted that only four songs – all from Time Out Of Mind (1991) - represent the last 22 years of Dylan's
recording career. Perhaps not all that surprising, but it might
have been interesting to hear the odd new slant on some of his more recent
songs (his last few albums have, after all, been very
successful, both critically and commercially).
The Range
Of Styles
Cover versions tend to fall into different types of
rendition. There have been a number of themed covers albums of Dylan songs
ranging from soul to strings sets. Chimes
Of Freedom ticks most, if
not all of the boxes in its eclectic approach to Dylan's vast back-catalogue.
What follows is an unashamed exercise in pigeon-holing, but readers should bear
in mind that the categories are not hard and fast and sometimes overlap.
* ACOUSTIC TO
ELECTRIC (& vice versa)
* THE TEMPO
CHANGE
The thrashing rampages mentioned above of 'Baby Blue' and
'Desolation Row' by US
outfits Bad Religion and My Chemical Romance both work quite well. Similarly, 'Hollis Brown' gets
a powerful Punk Rock treatment from Rise
Against. '4th Time Around' is slowed down by Israeli singer songwriter Oren Lavie in
a beautifully languid and dreamy fashion which features breathy vocals accompanied by
sitar and cellos.
* MALE TO FEMALE
VOCAL (& Vice Versa)
About a third of the tracks feature female leads
including the World-conquering Adele with a live take of her huge hit, 'Make You Feel My Love'. Patti Smith, who did Dylan's 'Changing Of The Guard' on her own recent covers album, Twelve (2007), here offers a fine, countryish pass at 'The Drifter's Escape '. Thea
Gilmore really makes something of the rather nondescript 'I'll Remember You' and Joan Baez resurrects the dusty 'Seven Curses' (and if that is
her eloquent and nimble guitar, then age is certainly not withering
her).
* THE GENRE
SWITCH
Irish band Flogging Molly turn 'The Times They Are A-Changin' into a raucous Poguesian romp, whilst Elvis Costello's almost
Doo-Wop reading of 'License To Kill', complete with falsetto backing vocals, is curiously
effective (his wife, jazz artist, Diana Krall, is on top form
with her stately, piano-led version of 'Simple Twist Of Fate', by the way). Then there is veteran US soul star Betty Lavette's convincing
take of 'Most Of The Time'.
* LOW KEY TO BIG PRODUCTION
There are no orchestrated arrangements on the album although
Adele's contribution somehow implies the big treatment despite her being
accompanied only by solo piano (when she thanks the audience at the end, we're
alsogiven a blast of her chavtastic speaking
voice).
* THE
DECONSTRUCTION
Perhaps the most radical reworking on the album is Somalian K'Naan's gentle
urban rap version of 'With God On Our Side' in which he rewrites
the verses whilst retaining the original chorus. Iranian singer Sussan Deyhim
offers a slow, highly formal reading of 'All I Really Want To Do' in
which she changes parts of the melody as well as delivering the title in her
native tongue.
* THE
INSTRUMENTAL
Only one on 'Chimes': US art outfit, The
Kronos Quartet's Nymanesque rendering of 'Don't Think Twice'.
* THE
CARBON-COPY
Apart from its sax and trumpet solos, the Lenny Kravitz
version of 'Rainy Day Women' , is probably the arrangement which comes
closest to the Dylan original on Chimes, although Steve
Earle's duet with US actress and violinist, Lucia Micarelli is a pretty
faithful reflection of 'One More Cup Of Coffee'. Meanwhile, Mick Hucknall's take
on 'One Of Us Must Know' is a lovely homage to Dylan's classic Blonde
On Blonde era singing style.
Hucknall's version is one of my favourites on the set, but I think I
detected that even the famous Simply Red larynx can't hold a note quite as long
as Bob could back then. It reminds me of Dylan's tongue-in-cheek boast to
reporters during the Dont Look Back film about his breath control. It
also brings to mind that old CBS marketing slogan that 'Nobody Sings Dylan
Like Dylan', which indirectly seemed to address the commonly held view that
Dylan couldn't really sing at all, whilst at the same time cleverly implying that
the way he sang was so radically different and distinctive as to defy
comparison.
Some of the younger
performers acquit themselves particularly well - special mention goes to Ziggy
Marley's straightforward but soulful grasp of 'Blowin' In The Wind', the
ghost of his father's voice audible in the muscular acoustic arrangement. The
highly successful US pop band Maroon 5 also do a solid job on 'I Shall Be
Released' and none other than songstress Miley Cyrus, star of TV's Hannah Montana'
and daughter of the God of line-dancing, Billy Ray, carries 'You're Conna
Make Me Lonesome When You Go' very effectively, without succumbing
to the over-singing so much in vogue with her generation (Natasha and Kesha please
take note). Fashionable US Rock bands like The Gaslight Anthem, My Morning
Jacket and Queens Of The Stone Age are present and correct, whilst the
middle-agers are represented by, amongst others Neil Finn, Billy Bragg, Lucinda
Williams and the reverend Sinead O'Connor who righteously grabs 'Property
Of Jesus' by the scruff of its neck. Seal, supported by Jeff Beck, carries 'Like
a Rolling Stone' with confidence, and whilst Aerosmith guitarist Joe
Perry's singing of 'Man Of Peace' may be negligible, he does transform
the song a with triumphant bottle-neck extravaganza.
During Dylan's barren patch in the early 1970s,Bryan
Ferry emerged as a real contender with his songs for Roxy Music but, over time,
Ferry's gift for lyrics faded and his off-stage persona became more
right-of-centre politically. It's interesting therefore to see him involved in
this Amnesty project, his contribution being a pleasant version of 'Bob Dylan's
Dream' featuring his harmonica playing over a clip-clop rhythm, much of a
piece with his own album of Dylan covers, 2007's Dylanesque. Other
oldies on form are Mark Knopfler, Carly Simon, Eric Burdon, Marianne Faithfull and
Taj Mahal who apply their experience to good effect. Pete Townshend is rather
wobbly on 'Corrina, Corrina' though, and Kris Kristofferson does a
curiously downbeat version of 'Quinn The Eskimo' (Manfred Mann it
ain't...). The version of 'One Too Many Mornings', jointly
credited to Johnny Cash &
The Avett Brothers, which opens
proceedings, is a strong cut and is apparently the result of some studio jiggery-pokery
by Rick Rubin who, whilst producing an album for The Avett Brothers, has taken
one of Dylan/Cash duets from the Nashville Skyline out-takes
and replaced the Dylan vocal with those of the band. None more old than Pete
Seeger, of course, and his nonagenarian intoning of 'Forever Young', counterpointed
by The Rivertown Kids, a troupe of children from his neck of the woods
fittingly provides the final cover on the album.
It should be clear from the above that I
think the overall standard of these performances is unusually high for this kind
of tribute album. There are big songs and big names here as well as lesser
known material and artists. Consequently
there were plenty of chances for tripping up - and yet remarkably few missteps
weaken the six dozen covers. This is a testament to the strength of the songs. I really would have liked to describe every
single track but that doesn't seem practicable. Suffice to say that all of the performers
who've gone unmentioned did very good work indeed (and there are some
intriguing people involved here: two notable sons, Dhani Harrison and Ben
Harper figure in the line-up of Fistful Of Mercy, whilst Evan Rachel Wood is the
ex-fiancee of Marilyn Manson; Moroccan songwriter, Red One, meanwhile, has
produced Lady GaGa).
Amnesty International's 50th anniversary aptly coincides with
the 50th anniversary of Bob Dylan's recording career and, with the truly
excellent Chimes Of Freedom, it is a case of honours all round. You owe
it to yourself to make a significant donation to a very worthy cause, so treat
yourself to a copy, because that's what this collection is - a real treat.
N. B.
*I - In actual fact, one of the tracks released on Chimes
Of Freedom has previously been issued. In March 20II, Proper Records
released a digitally remastered and expanded 2-CD 'Collector's
Edition' of Joan Baez 1992 album Play Me Backwards. This
expanded version, released on CD only in the UK and Europe, contained ten
demos recorded by Baez in 1991, one of which was the version of 'Seven
Curses' issued on Amnesty's Chimes Of Freedom.
THIS ARTICLE WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN ISSUE 161 OF ISIS,
THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ALL THINGS DYLAN.
C. IGR 2013
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