Tag Archives: Paul Williams

Today: Pete Townshend is 68

Posted on May 19, 2013 by | Leave a comment

pete townshend

No one knows what it’s like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes
~Pete Townshend (Behind Blue Eyes)

“If you don’t want anyone to know anything about you, don’t write anything.”
― Pete Townshend

“Rock ‘n’ Roll might not solve your problems, but it does let you dance all over them”
― Pete Townshend

Baba O’Riley:

Pete @ Letterman Nov. 2012 – Great fun:

Wikipedia:

Birth name Peter Dennis Blandford Townshend
Also known as Bijou Drains
Born 19 May 1945 (age 68)
Chiswick, London, England
Genres Rock, art rock, hard rock, power pop, progressive rock, British beat, jazz
Occupations Musician, singer-songwriter, musical arranger, author
Instruments Vocals, guitar, bass guitar, harmonica, keyboards, banjo, tin whistle, mandolin, ukulele, violin,accordion, drums

Peter Dennis Blandford ”Pete“ Townshend (born 19 May 1945) is an English rock musician, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, songwriter and author, known principally as the guitarist and songwriter for the rock group The Who, as well as for his own solo career. His career with The Who spans more than 40 years, during which time the band grew to be considered one of the most influential bands of the 1960s and 1970s.

Townshend is the primary songwriter for The Who, having written well over 100 songs for the band’s 11 studio albums, including concept albums and the rock operas Tommy and Quadrophenia, plus popular rock and roll radio staples such as Who’s Next, and dozens more that appeared as non-album singles, bonus tracks on reissues, and tracks on rarities compilations such as Odds & Sods. He has also written over 100 songs that have appeared on his solo albums, as well as radio jingles and television theme songs. Although known primarily as a guitarist, he also plays other instruments such as keyboards, banjo, accordion, harmonica, ukulele,mandolin, violin, synthesiser, bass guitar and drums, on his own solo albums, several Who albums, and as a guest contributor to a wide array of other artists’ recordings. He is self-taught on all of the instruments he plays and has never had any formal training.

pete townshend

Behind Blue Eyes:

Townshend has also been a contributor and author of newspaper and magazine articles, book reviews, essays, books, and scripts, as well as collaborating as a lyricist (and composer) for many other musical acts. Townshend was ranked No. 3 in Dave Marsh’s list of Best Guitarists in The New Book of Rock Lists, No. 10 in Gibson.com’s list of the top 50 guitarists, and No. 10 again in Rolling Stone magazine’s updated 2011 list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. Townshend was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of The Who in 1990.

pete townshend

Tea and Theatre + The Seeker (Live Royal Albert Hall 2008):

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Bob Dylan’s best songs – Every Grain of Sand 11

Posted on May 4, 2013 by | 13 Comments

bob dylan smoking 1981

That was an inspired song that came to me. I felt like I was just putting down words that were coming from somewhere else, and I just stuck it out.
~Bob Dylan (“Biograph” notes)

“That’s an excellent song, very painless song to write,… It took like 12 seconds – or that’s how it felt.”
~Bob Dylan (to Robert Hilburn – Feb 1992)

…But “Every Grain of Sand” is something special: the “Chimes of Freedom” and “Mr. Tambourine Man” of Bob Dylan’s Christian period. A pearl among swine, it has surety and strength all down the line. Also vulnerability.
~Paul Nelson (from his famous “Rolling Stone Magazine” review of “Shot Of Love” – Oct. 1981)

shot of love

On 11th place on my top 200 list comes this diamond. A masterpiece with lyrics so beautiful you almost loose the music listening to it… the music is also fantastic and it contains two of Dylan’s best harmonica solos’s.

It was recorded early May 1981 @ Clover Recorders, Los Angeles, California.

The love in ‘Every Grain Of Sand’ , though firmly rooted in Dylan’s conversion experience and his Bible studies, immediately and obviously reaches beyond it’s context to communicate a deeply felt devotional spirit based on universal experiences: pain of self-awareness, and sense of wonder or awe of the beauty of the natural world.
~Paul Williams (BD Performing Artist 1974-86)

As Paul Williams points out.. you don’t have to be a religious person to find beauty & comfort here:

I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn, there’s someone there, other times it’s only me
I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man
Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand

Here is a GREAT video… matching pictcures to the lyrics in a brilliant way:

The key to the performance is its motion: it moves like the sea, forth and back and forth and back, filled with the quality of restfulness but never resting.
~Paul Williams (BD Performing Artist 1974-86)

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Today – Bob Dylan – 15th Infidels recording session in 1983 – 30 years ago

Posted on April 27, 2013 by | 1 Comment

infidels

…..I did the album, and I call it that, but what it means is for other people to interpret, you know, if it means something to them. Infidels is a word that’s in the dictionary and whoever it applies to… to everybody on the album, every character. Maybe it’s all about infidels.
~Bob Dylan (to Kurt Loder in March 1984)

Foot of Pride:

 ”Bob’s musical ability is limited, in terms of being able to play a guitar or a piano,….. It’s rudimentary, but it doesn’t affect his variety, his sense of melody, his singing. It’s all there. In fact, some of the things he plays on piano while he’s singing are lovely, even though they’re rudimentary. That all demonstrates the fact that you don’t have to be a great technician. It’s the same old story: If something is played with soul, that’s what’s important.”
~Mark Knopfler

“I’ve made shoes for everyone, even you, while I still go barefoot”
~Bob Dylan (from “I and I”)

Studio A
Power Station
New York City, New York
27 April 1983

Produced by Mark Knopfler and Bob Dylan

  1. From Paul
  2. Foot Of Pride
  3. Foot Of Pride
  4. Foot Of Pride
  5. Foot Of Pride
    ….Composing it was alright, it probably had a bunch of extra verses that probably… most likely weren’t necessary, they should have been… they should have been combined. But, the reason why it was never used was because the tempo speeded up, but there wasn’t any drum machine used on that, the tempo just automatically took off, for some vague and curious reason.
    ~Bob Dylan (to Eliot Mintz – March 1991)
    -
    Foot of pride is in fact, in the words Dylan used to describe the composition “Like A Rolling Stone,” “a long piece of vomit”. … it’s about how pride destroys us and turns us into monsters.
    ~Paul Williams (BD performing artist 1974-86)
  6. Union Sundown
  7. Union Sundown
  8. (Unidentified Song)
  9. (Harmonica)
  10. (Unidentified Song)
  11. I And I
  12. I And I
  13. I And I
  14. I And I
  15. I And I
  16. I And I
    …according to author/critic Tim Riley, “updates the Dylan mythos. Even though it substitutes self-pity for the [pessimism found throughout Infidels], you can’t ignore it as a Dylan spyglass: ‘Someone else is speakin’ with my mouth, but I’m listening only to my heart/I’ve made shoes for everyone, even you, while I still go barefoot.’” Riley sees the song as an exploration of the distance between Dylan’s “inner identity and the public face he wears”.
    ~Wikipedia
    -
    “I and I”, the other epic from these sessions, is a beautiful song, powerfully sung, with a wonderfully moody and evocative instrumental setting….
    ~Paul Williams (BD perfroming artist 1974-86) 
  17. I And I
  18. I And I
  19. I And I
  20. Julius And Ethel
  21. Julius And Ethel

infidels back

Musicians:

  • Bob Dylan (vocal, harmonica, keyboards & guitar)
  • Mark Knopfler (guitar)
  • Mick Taylor (guitar)
  • Alan Clark (keyboards)
  • Robbie Shakespeare (bass)
  • Sly Dunbar (drums)

6, 7, 20, 21 Clydie King (backing/shared vocal)

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Bob Dylan – 3rd Street-Legal recording session, 27 April 1978

Posted on April 25, 2013 by | 8 Comments

Bob-Dylan-Street-Legal

“On this album, I took a few steps backward, but I also took a bunch of steps forward because I had a lot of time to concentrate on it. I also had the band sounding like I want it to sound. It’s got that organ sound from ‘Blonde on Blonde’ again. That’s something that has been missing.”
~Bob Dylan (to Robert Hilburn – May 1978)

Jonathan Cott interview – Sept. 1978:
Jonathan Cott: What do you think of all the criticisms of Street Legal?
Bob Dylan: I read some of them. In fact, I didn’t understand them. I don’t think these people have had the experiences I’ve had to write those songs. The reviews didn’t strike me as being particularly interesting one way or another, or as compelling to my particular scene. I don’t know who these people are. They don’t travel in the same crowd, anyway. So it would be like me criticizing Pancho Villa.

bob dylan street legal2

First of all… “Street-Legal” is a fantastic album. I have never “understood” all the criticism it got.. and still gets, and I even dig the original overall sound & production.

The first & second recording session (April 25 & 26) did not produce much (probably only a master of “We Better Talk This Over”), but on this  sessions we (probably) got 4 masters: No Time To Think, Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat), True Love Tends To Forget & Changing Of The Guards.

from wikipedia:

……..With [Jerry] Scheff replacing [Rob] Stoner, Dylan began recording his new material with his touring band. Sessions were held at Rundown, with Dylan renting a mobile truck to record the proceedings. (The mobile truck was equipped with 24-track capabilities, something his studio did not have.) “I didn’t want to do it there,” Dylan later recalled. “[I] couldn’t find the right producer, but it was necessary to do it. So we just brought in the remote truck and cut it, [and] went for a live sound.” Dylan would ultimately settle on Don DeVito as his producer, even though he was dissatisfied with DeVito’s work on Desire.bob dylan street legal backDylan already had a European tour scheduled for June, but he still had enough time to record his album. Over the course of just four days Dylan would record nine of his own compositions. Dylan knew exactly which songs he wanted to record, and though three songs co-written by Helena Springs were also recorded during these sessions (“Coming from the Heart”, “Walk Out in the Rain”, “Stop Now”), there is no indication that these songs were ever serious contenders for the album.Because the sessions lasted only four days, there were still a number of problems. “The biggest problem…was how it was recorded,” recalls [David] Mansfield, “with Bob getting impatient with the engineering assistants…baffling and checking levels and getting sounds in sync…and the recording crew just having to scramble to get mikes into place, and get something on tape, while we were playing the thing the few times we were gonna play it. Consequently, the music is very poorly recorded, but that stuff sounded marvelous in the room, tons better than Budokan. It really was sort of like Bob Dylan meets Phil Spector in the best way…as if it had [just] been recorded so the instruments sounded full and well-blended.”

This truly central album is Street Legal (1978). It brings it all together: Dylan the consistent moralist, Dylan the writer who draws heavily on the Bible, Dylan caught in the struggle between the flesh and the spirit, Dylan ending his key relationship, Dylan the betrayed victim both of what he sees as love in vain and of all of us. Consummately, Dylan pulls all these strands together on this album, both on its minor songs and its three outstanding major works, ‘Changing of the Guards’, ‘No Time to Think’ and ‘Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat)’
~Michael Gray (BD Encyclopedia)

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