T-Bone / Dylan project: Lost On The River

Pretty self-explanatory
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The Gentleman
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Re: T-Bone / Dylan project: Lost On The River

Post by The Gentleman »

The first volume was very evenly weighted towards each of the five artists involved. I don't think a second volume would have that luxury, resulting in EC and Taylor Goldsmith dominating the lion's share of the set. Does this possibility make a second volume less likely?
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Re: T-Bone / Dylan project: Lost On The River

Post by cwr »

I think if they have a ton of unreleased recordings, they WILL somehow see the light of day-- perhaps not a full-fledged thing like the first NBT release, but it's hard to imagine them just gathering dust in a vault forever if T Bone likes 'em.

I hope it's sooner rather than later.

Certainly, if they are planning on releasing the concert film, that would be a good time to put out any remaining recordings they have, in one form or another.

(ALSO: EC has always had a fantasy of pulling a Beyonce and releasing an album without any advance warning, maybe this would be a good opportunity to do that. He wanted Warners to put out Kojak Variety without any advance notice, which they didn't do, and he came slightly closer with Momofuku's initial vinyl-only surprise attack, but it's slightly surprising that in the age of iTunes, he has never gone and dropped a full album without telling anybody.)
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Re: T-Bone / Dylan project: Lost On The River

Post by verbal gymnastics »

cwr wrote:...but it's slightly surprising that in the age of iTunes, he has never gone and dropped a full album without telling anybody.)
He already might have done but we don't know about it...
Who’s this kid with his mumbo jumbo?
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And No Coffee Table
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Re: T-Bone / Dylan project: Lost On The River

Post by And No Coffee Table »

cwr wrote:(I believe that it was mentioned in one of the articles or maybe even the doc that EC showed up with versions of all the songs, or most of them, anyway.)
There's this quote from Jim James: "They gave us 16 songs and told us we could write all of them or none of them. I wrote eight of the 16; then they had eight more surprise songs they didn’t tell us about until we got there, and I only wrote for one of those. I wrote nine out of 24. And Taylor and Elvis wrote like 40 versions for each one."

There's also another quote where he says Taylor wrote 18 songs and Elvis "wrote like 850 versions of every song."
The Gentleman wrote:The first volume was very evenly weighted towards each of the five artists involved. I don't think a second volume would have that luxury, resulting in EC and Taylor Goldsmith dominating the lion's share of the set. Does this possibility make a second volume less likely?
It's a good question. The fact T Bone is still talking about a second volume makes me think he doesn't see it as an obstacle.
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Re: T-Bone / Dylan project: Lost On The River

Post by sweetest punch »

http://www.americansongwriter.com/2015/ ... continued/

A Q&A with Sam Jones, director of Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued

In 2014, T Bone Burnett brought musicians Elvis Costello, Marcus Mumford, My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, Rhiannon Giddens and Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith together to record a series of newly discovered Bob Dylan lyrics written just before the recording of his revered album with The Band, The Basement Tapes. These sessions were documented by acclaimed documentarian Sam Jones and turned into the Showtime documentary Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued. We talked with Jones about the project’s origins, the stories he aimed to tell and what was cut during the editing process.

How did Lost Songs come about?

[Executive producer Larry Jenkins] called me and told me that they had these lyrics and they were trying to figure out what to do with them. He wanted me to collaborate on figuring out what band members should be in it, how we should do it and how we should get the people involved. It was a very exciting project for me from the beginning.

Are you a big Dylan fan?

I had a high school classmate that got me really into him when I was pretty young. And I’ve always really appreciated his songwriting. It was a perfect thing for me.

In regards to this project, it was an amazing thing that he was letting people into his dirty laundry, because there was no control. There was no, “Hey, you can’t use this, you can’t change this.” He was pretty much open to whatever, and that was pretty surprising.

Was the documentary component sort of an addition or was it a part of the project from the start?

It was there from the start. I was brought in before any musicians. I think the idea being, in this day and age, it’s sort of josh to Dylan fans. To people who love this kind of music, it obviously seems like a huge thing, but I think to the general world out there, you still need to figure out a way to be seen and be noticed and market and all that business-like stuff. I think from the start they thought, “If we’re going to get some big name people and do a high profile project, we’re going to need a film component.”

What is your general approach to filmmaking? What do you have in mind going into the process?

I think that I’m always just trying to make something that connects to people who maybe wouldn’t have been fans in the first place. The idea is, my dad, my mom or somebody that doesn’t connect to the musical genres that I find interesting could still come across a film of mine and get engaged in it and stick with it to the end. Then I’ve made a successful film. You hope that you can make a film that appeals to the die-hards and the insiders; where there’s enough stuff in there for the super die hards, but that you can also tell a story that’s universal enough for someone who’s not a fan of Dylan or a fan of any of the people in it, can still be engaged in the story.

On this particular film, I really tried to look at the relationships that artists have with each other, but also with the material and the way they struggled. And I try to put it in the context of what is universal about the creative process and that feeling of being overwhelmed by greatness and the intimidation you can feel at any level. I don’t care if you’re Elvis Costello; if you’re given these lyrics, you’re going to feel some anxiety about trying to live up to the person who wrote them. That’s something that I think anyone can relate to.

I always feel like a film at its heart is about its relatability, and can a viewer put themselves in the shoes of the characters and sort of make a comparison/contrast in real time comparing and contrasting their own life and how they would respond to those decisions and those challenges.

Were you nervous going into this project?

Not really. I think for me or probably any other filmmaker, the anxiety always comes from the delivery of something within the time that people want it delivered. Because it was a big subject, and when you start a documentary especially, but even when you start a scripted film, the material and the story and the ideas, they’re way bigger than what the final film has to be. You look at it and go, “Oh my god, this could be an eight-hour film,” so how do you chisel that down into the most lean story you can tell.

I had anxiety on how to deal with the history of the album and teaching viewers a little bit about what The Basement Tapes were originally because there’s a lot of people that just tangentially know or understand what The Basement Tapes were. So how do you tell that story and also keep people engaged in a story that’s happening in 2014. We had a pretty tight deadline, so I think the anxiety I felt was more about, I knew there was a great story there, but how do I tell it in less than two hours and do it justice?

Are there any parts of the story that you wanted to tell that didn’t quite make it into the documentary?

Absolutely, and I think that happens with every documentary and every film, really. There was a whole giant story that we spent a lot of time on about the whole bootleg industry that sprung up, because The Basement Tapes was the first bootleg. Dylan has always been this guy that has mystified his fans with all the unreleased stuff that has never seen the light of day, and this has been going on since back then, in the sense that people like Dylan and Neil Young, and [other artists] that would make whole albums but not release them.

Everyone thought Dylan had sparks coming out of his brain (and) could write 20 songs a day. This whole industry sprung up around this one record called The Great White Wonder. When you look into that story and how the music got taken out of the hands of the record labels and put in the hands of fans for the first time and that method of delivery changed, that to me was a fascinating story. We went out and interviewed all the main players in the bootleg history, and sadly in the end it was probably a two-minute, 30-second little chapter in the film.

I think also as a documentary filmmaker, you had your bets and at the beginning, you say “okay, well there’s this fascinating bootleg story,” but then you find out also that there’s this really fascinating story about this woman, Rhiannon Giddens, happening in the present. You start having to make these choices as to what you give weight to. In the end, I felt like I didn’t want this to be a historical film as much as I wanted it to be a film about the creative process. And it’s a balance thing. Our first rough cut had a lot more history and a lot more recreations and Basement Tapes stuff in it. That slowly changed over some editing.

I noticed that you gave a lot of camera time to Rhiannon, Marcus, Taylor and a lot of the people who were newer to the industry in that position where people know their names, but they’re still not Elvis Costello or T Bone Burnett. What stories were you trying to tell there?

A good story [involves] the classic elements of conflict and discovery and an arc of growth. I think that in those characters you mentioned, Marcus and Rhiannon and Taylor, they are younger and they were probably much more intimidated, honored and much more in the moment about this because it was a newer, more visceral experience for them than someone like Elvis Costello, who’s been in the studio and made 30 records. I don’t think in your 60s or your 50s that you can be changed as radically by an experiment like this as someone like Taylor Goldsmith, who still is just so excited about the songwriting process and the mystery around songwriting, or someone like Rhiannon Giddens, who really is a self-proclaimed baby songwriter. I found their stories more interesting because it was new to them.

I think for a viewer to follow a story, they would much rather have someone not teaching them and telling them how to do something, but if they can go along for the ride with somebody, that’s much more interesting. And in the case of Elvis Costello, he got the lyrics and had some time to sit with them and he created a whole bunch of demos. And Jim James works very fast, he got the lyrics and started finding old snippets of recordings he had, and he started making demos. But Marcus Mumford, I felt, was extremely brave going into this and the same with Rhiannon Giddens. Both of them were extremely brave, and they both sort of followed the spirit of the project, which they were under the impression was going to be more of a collaboration.

So they came in unprepared with the idea that they get to sit down and write a song with Elvis Costello, or they get to sit down and write a song with Jim James. Whereas some of these other people I think approached it a little bit more like an experienced songwriter would, which is “Okay, if collaboration happens, that’s great, but I’m not going to go in unprepared because we’ve got our two weeks in the studio and I’m going to do my thing and I’m not going to get out of my routine.” Once you get set working in one way, you know, Elvis Costello is not a guy that’s going to walk in and say, “Okay, what should we do today?” because he probably has more experience of how often a scenario like that is resolved in disaster and nothing coming out of it.

For Marcus to go in there and not really have anything prepared, that was true balls; and I feel the same way with Rhiannon. And she may have come in thinking, “Oh, the idea of this is we’re supposed to collaborate, and so I’m not going to prepare.” And I think that that made their connection with the material much more flexible, and it made their stories much more exciting to me.

Have you considered the possibility of a follow-up with some of the artists?

I think the film is sort of a nice little thing that’s in the present. The thing I like about this film is that there were no real exit interviews. I didn’t go back to any of them after we edited it and say, “What story are we missing?” and I like that. I like that it’s its own little encapsulated story. I haven’t really considered a follow-up.
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Re: T-Bone / Dylan project: Lost On The River

Post by johnfoyle »

Elvis has tweeted a reaction to this interview -

https://twitter.com/ElvisCostello/statu ... 1308160001


Elvis Costello ‏@ElvisCostello

This wonderful, cooperative record was not the soundtrack of a film cast by this presumptuous, deluded charlatan @AmerSongwriter @samjones


https://twitter.com/ElvisCostello/statu ... 3220237312

Elvis Costello ‏@ElvisCostello

By the way, the laughable opening shot of the film was lifted directly from "Lawrence Of Arabia" @AmerSongwriter @samjones
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Re: T-Bone / Dylan project: Lost On The River

Post by johnfoyle »

Elvis Costello ‏@ElvisCostello

By the way, the laughable opening shot of the film was lifted directly from "Lawrence Of Arabia"

Hmm...what I posted here last November -

Image


Elvis's Twitter account has more comments -

Image


For what it's worth , here's my comment from earlier in this thread -

johnfoyle » Mon Nov 24, 2014 10:52 pm

I just watched the Showtime documentary . It's a very thorough portrayal of the project, focusing very much on the participants. At one stage one of them say the project isn't about the songs ' but the process'. The resulting album very much shows that in that it consists mostly of slight songs performed very well. Rhiannon Giddens is , as I keep saying, the standout and this film has the honesty to emphasis this (when it's not "repeatedly showing Marcus Mumford's tortuous 'artistic process' ) by regularly showing her with questioning looks as the boys fiddle with their hats & do tricks with music software. Elvis is seen being aware of the camera most of the time, wearing his hat , scarf & tinted glasses indoors. Tellingly one scene shows him & TBone going through a list of recorded songs etc., deciding what needed to be done again , not done at all, seeming to show who was calling the shots overall. There was very much an air them being the elder statesmen and no harm in that. They are seen as being very supportive and facilitating to the participants but in that little sequence they seemed very business like and consultative exclusively as a duo.Fascinating in a lot of ways.
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Re: T-Bone / Dylan project: Lost On The River

Post by johnfoyle »

Elvis has tweeted again -

https://twitter.com/ElvisCostello/statu ... 6676303873


Elvis Costello ‏@ElvisCostello

"A Great Artist Speaks" @AmerSongwriter. A Q&A with Sam Jones, director of Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued - http://bit.ly/1FcDbkh
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Re: T-Bone / Dylan project: Lost On The River

Post by bambooneedle »

Hmm.. I'm wondering 'why does EC care so much about the director's vanity?' I mean the whole project was a scraping-of-the-bottom-of-the-barrel exercise from the get-go anyway, engineered by T-Bone and him, involving a few other enthusiastic musicians of the day, and had it not been documented in film as it was it would have been all the more forgettable.
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Re: T-Bone / Dylan project: Lost On The River

Post by cwr »

My sense is that A) he doesn't have that cynical a take on the experience, any more than he would consider working with Geoff Emerick "some old washed-up Beatles engineer" or Bacharach "some Easy Listening has-been." (I tend to be of the opposite opinion, that being allowed to write music for a handful of forgotten Dylan lyrics would be a more exciting opportunity than a "scraping the bottom of the barrel" exercise...)

-- and that B) the presence of the documentary crew seems to have been the one annoying thing about an otherwise fun process. EC actually devotes one small paragraph near the end of UM&DI to complain that the filmmaker had the lights turned up as bright as Wal-Mart.

I think in addition to that, I think he probably is sensitive to the narrative the film develops, where I get the feeling that Sam Jones took what are possibly the natural struggles of the creative process and inflated them a bit to create some personal drama for the arc of the doc. EC does have a history of being sensitive about how he is portrayed by others, and to sometimes having a pretty intense response...
The Gentleman
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Re: T-Bone / Dylan project: Lost On The River

Post by The Gentleman »

bambooneedle wrote:Hmm.. I'm wondering 'why does EC care so much about the director's vanity?' I mean the whole project was a scraping-of-the-bottom-of-the-barrel exercise from the get-go anyway, engineered by T-Bone and him, involving a few other enthusiastic musicians of the day, and had it not been documented in film as it was it would have been all the more forgettable.
We have almost 40 years of work to look back upon. Even if we don't like the results of some or all of EC's various collaborations and projects, it seems fair to suggest he seems to consistently pursues work that appeals to him on a genuinely creative level. Aside from some one-off soundtrack recordings ("Party Party" and "She" I'm looking at you) I feel like you have to go back to PTC/GCW to make a strong case he embraces commercial expediency over his artistic impulses, however idiosyncratic they might be.
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Re: T-Bone / Dylan project: Lost On The River

Post by johnfoyle »

I wonder if Elvis turned up at the CINEMATIC WORLD PREMIERE of this documentary at Picturehouse Central , London today ? Unlikely , considering the recent tweets.


http://www.docnrollfestival.com/films/l ... continued/
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Re: T-Bone / Dylan project: Lost On The River

Post by sheeptotheslaughter »

Ok I admit I've made a mistake. I had no interest in this album what so ever. I am not a massive Dylan fan and I feared this might be a sort of 'secret, profane and sugarcane' tedious Americana effort.

I've recently started my spotify account up again and the thread on here made me think give it a go.

Low and behold the album is an absolute humdinger. The first notes of down at the bottom had me hooked. Elvis version of Lost On The River is one of the best things he has done in years.

I will be investing straight away and little sheep brought me home on of those 'dre beats pill things' this album will be the first thing I play on it.

Wonderful record
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Re: T-Bone / Dylan project: Lost On The River

Post by docinwestchester »

Dylan comments on the project:

http://www.bobdylan.com/news/qa-with-bill-flanagan/

Q: For The New Basement Tapes, T Bone Burnett put together a group with Elvis Costello, Rhiannon Giddens, Jim James, Marcus Mumford and Taylor Goldsmith, to finish songs based on old lyrics of yours. Did you hear any of those songs and say, “I don’t remember writing that?”

A: Did you say Taylor Swift?

Q: Taylor Goldsmith.

A: Yeah, OK. No, I don’t remember writing any of those songs. They were found in an old trunk which came out of what people called the Big Pink house in Woodstock, mostly lyrics left over when we were recording all those Basement Tapes songs. T Bone said he could do something with them, said he could finish them. I didn’t remember anything about them. For years I thought we’d used them all.


[Haha - Taylor Swift]
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Re: T-Bone / Dylan project: Lost On The River

Post by Man out of Time »

This interview with T-Bone Burnett by Christoph Dallach appeared in Der Spiegel, on November 27, 2014. Here is the original article in German:

"Dylan-Projekt "Lost on the River"
"Bob hasst es zurückzublicken"

Eine Handvoll Musiker hat uralte Texte von Bob Dylan ausgegraben und neu vertont. Initiator T-Bone Burnett erklärt im Interview, wie stark er die Originalzeilen veränderte - und wie es war, sich zwei Wochen dafür im Keller einzuschließen.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mister Burnett, was brachte Sie auf die Idee, ungenutze Texte von Bob Dylan vertonen zu lassen?

Burnett: Das war Dylans Idee, nicht meine. Sein Agent rief mich vor einiger Zeit an, ließ von Bob grüßen und teilte mir mit, dass sie einen Kasten mit ungenutzten Texten der "Basement Tapes"-Ära von 1967 gefunden hätten - und dass Bob fragte, ob ich damit etwas anstellen wolle. Wollte ich? Verdammt noch mal, ja! Die Chance, mit dem 26-jährigen Bob Dylan zusammenzuarbeiten, bekommt man nicht alle Tage.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Ließ Dylan Ihnen Anweisungen zukommen?

Burnett: Nichts! Das war ihm alles egal. Seit 50 Jahren lausche ich seiner Musik, das ist mir Anleitung genug. Es hilft auch, dass wir uns schon lange privat gut kennen. Ich weiß, was ihm wichtig ist, was seinen Geschmack ausmacht. Die potenzielle neue Musik musste selbstverständlich in den Kanon seiner anderen Arbeiten passen. Ein Experiment wäre mir nicht in den Sinn gekommen.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joseph Henry "T Bone" Burnett, geboren 1948 in St. Louis, ist einer der gefragtesten Produzenten und Filmmusikkomponisten der Gegenwart. Er arbeitete mit Pete Townsend, Ry Cooder und Bono zusammen. Er entdeckte Bands wie die Los Lobos und die BoDeans. Zuletzt lieferte Burnett den Soundtrack zu dem Coen-Brothers-Film "Inside Llewyn Davis" und für die gefeierte HBO-Serie "True Detective".
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Die originalen "Basement Tapes"-Sessions sind ja schon Legende, weil der Großteil der Musik lange nicht veröffentlicht wurde. Sie waren Mitte der Siebziger mit Dylans "Rolling Thunder Revue"-Tournee unterwegs. Haben Sie ihn da ausgefragt?

Burnett: Nein, gar nicht. Bob hasst es zurückzublicken. Lustigerweise wurde die erste Auswahl der "Basement Tapes" veröffentlicht, während ich damals mit ihm auf Tour war. Er nahm keinen der Songs in sein Konzertprogramm auf und verlor überhaupt kein Wort darüber. Okay, ich glaube, wir spielten mal "I Shall Be Released", aber mehr nicht. Bob war einfach nicht daran interessiert.

SPIEGEL ONLINE' Ihre Version der neuen "Basement Tapes Sessions" war ihm dann auch egal?

Burnett: Genau, er schickte die Texte vorbei und ließ mich machen. Ich wollte Bob aber auch gar nicht einbeziehen. Verstehen Sie das bitte nicht falsch, aber er hatte wirklich genug um die Ohren, er stellte ja zuletzt sein eigenes neues Album fertig. Solche "Bob-was-würdest-du-tun?"-Fragen nerven ihn ohnehin sehr.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Sie luden dann Musiker wie Elvis Costello, Marcus Mumford, Jim James und Taylor Goldsmith ein, um Musik zu Dylans ungenutzter Lyrik zu schreiben. Wie wählten Sie die Kandidaten aus?

Burnett: Erst mal war wichtig, dass sie diverse Instrumente beherrschen - in Anlehnung an Bob und die Band, welche die echten Basement Tapes einspielten. Die Idee war: ein paar Knaben, die beisammen sitzen und Freude daran haben, sich Song-Ideen zuzuspielen. Es ging weniger um Virtuosität, sondern viel mehr darum, dass jeder sich mal ans Schlagzeug setzen konnte, wenn er Lust hatte. Es ging darum, dass jeder mit jedem spielt. Für Leute mit großem Ego war da kein Platz.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Waren die ausgewählten Musiker überrascht, als Sie anriefen?

Burnett: Oh ja! "Ist das ein Witz?" - "Nein!" Als ich den Anruf bekam, klang das auch alles dubios. Es war ja nicht mal klar, wie viele dieser Dylan-Texte es gibt. Erst bekam ich 16 Textblätter. Dann noch mal acht. Am Ende wurden es dann 25. Jeder suchte sich aus, was ihm gefiel. Es war wie damals bei der Beat-Generation. Wir haben nicht alles benutzt. Manches war einfach zu fragmentarisch.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Nun sind ja auch gerade die vollständigen originalen "Basement Tapes" veröffentlicht worden. Haben Sie die zur Vorbereitung gemeinsam gehört?

Burnett: Nein, es gab keinerlei Vorbereitung. Jim James von My Morning Jacket kannte das Original ohnehin auswendig von Bootlegs. Aber andere hatten noch nie einen Ton davon gehört. Weder von mir noch von Bob gab es jedoch Anweisungen. Ich versuchte nur, eine ähnliche Arbeitsatmosphäre zu schaffen. Das habe ich bei meiner Arbeit für Hollywood-Filmmusiken gelernt: Atmosphäre ist wichtig! Wir haben uns deshalb auch in einem Keller einquartiert, bei Capitol Records. Da gab es zwei große Räume, in denen wir uns fast zwei Wochen lang einschlossen. Wir schafften 45 Songs in zwölf Tagen. Alles live aufgenommen und analog. So wie damals, weil es eben besser klingt.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Trauten Sie sich, die Dylan-Texte zu verändern?

Burnett: Die meisten haben wir exakt so belassen, wie Bob sie 1967 aufgeschrieben hat. Elvis hat hier und da ein paar Zeilen dazu geschrieben. Das eine oder andere Wort mag verändert worden sein, aber größtenteils wurden Bobs Texte nicht angetastet.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Wie passt Johnny Depp, der ja auch hereinschneite, zu Ihren Sessions?

Burnett: Johnny vertrat Elvis, der einen Abend lang in Las Vegas auftreten musste. Johnny ist ein virtuoser Musiker, ein toller Gitarrist. Der hätte auch damals mitspielen können.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: ' Wollten Sie, dass die Musik wie Dylan klingt?

Burnett: Nein, genau das nicht. Es sollte etwas Neues, Individuelles dabei herauskommen. Das ist uns, glaube ich, auch ganz gut gelungen.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Hat Dylan die Resultate kommentiert?

Burnett: Ich frage meine Klienten nie nach ihrer Meinung. Auch Bob nicht. Ich spiele lieber Gitarre mit ihm, als mit ihm über Musik zu sprechen."

Or in "English" via Google Translate:

"Dylan Project "Lost on the River"
"Bob hates to look back"


A handful of musician has dug old texts of Bob Dylan and re-tuned them. Initiator T-Bone Burnett explains in the interview how strongly he changed the original lines - and how it was to include himself in the cellar for two weeks.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mister Burnett, what brought you to the idea of ​​letting poor lyrics by Bob Dylan?
Burnett: That was Dylan's idea, not mine. His agent called me some time ago, had Bob greet me and told me that they had found a box of unused texts from the "Basement Tapes" era of 1967 - and that Bob asked if I wanted to do something with it. I wanted? Damn it, yes! The chance to work with the 26-year-old Bob Dylan does not get every day.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Did Dylan give you instructions?
Burnett: Nothing! He did not care. I've been listening to his music for fifty years, that's enough for me. It also helps us to know each other privately. I know what is important to him, what makes his taste. The potential new music naturally had to fit into the canon of his other works. An experiment would not have occurred to me.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joseph Henry "T Bone" Burnett, born in St. Louis in 1948, is one of the most sought-after producers and composers of contemporary music. He collaborated with Pete Townsend, Ry Cooder and Bono. He discovered bands like the Los Lobos and the BoDeans. Recently, Burnett provided the soundtrack to the Coen Brothers movie "Inside Llewyn Davis" and for the celebrated HBO series "True Detective".
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The original "Basement Tapes" sessions are already legends because the majority of the music was not released for a long time. They were on the road with Dylan's "Rolling Thunder Revue" tour in the middle of the 1970s. Did you ask him?
Burnett: No, not at all. Bob hates to look back. Funny, the first selection of the "Basement Tapes" was released while I was on tour with him. He did not record any of the songs in his concert program and did not even talk about it at all. Okay, I think we played "I Shall Be Released", but not more. Bob was just not interested.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Your version of the new "Basement Tapes Sessions" did not matter to him?
Burnett: Right, he sent the lyrics over and let me do it. But I did not want to include Bob. Do not get it wrong, but he really had enough, he finally finished his own new album. Such "Bob-what-would-you-do?" Questions annoy him very much anyway.

SPIEGEL ONLINE : They then invited musicians like Elvis Costello, Marcus Mumford, Jim James and Taylor Goldsmith to write music on Dylan's unused lyric. How did you choose the candidates?
Burnett: First of all, it was important that they master a variety of instruments - based on Bob and the band, who played the real Basement Tapes. The idea was: a few boys who sit together and enjoy playing song ideas. It was not about virtuosity, but much more about the fact that everyone could get to the drum if he wanted to. It was about everyone playing with everyone. There was no room for people with a great ego.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Were the selected musicians surprised when you called?
Burnett: Oh, yes! "Is this a joke?" - "No!" When I got the call, it all sounded dubios. It was not even clear how many of these Dylan texts there are. First I got 16 text sheets. Then another eight. In the end it was then 25. Everyone wanted what they liked. It was like the Beat generation. We have not used it all. Some things were simply too fragmentary.

SPIEGEL ONLINE : Now the complete original "Basement Tapes" have just been released. Have you heard of the preparation together?
Burnett: No, there was no preparation. Jim James of My Morning Jacket knew the original by heart by bootlegs anyway. But others had never heard of it. Neither Bob nor I had any instructions. I just tried to create a similar working atmosphere. I learned this from my work for Hollywood movies: atmosphere is important! We have therefore also quartered in a cellar, at Capitol Records. There were two large rooms, where we stayed for almost two weeks. We made 45 songs in twelve days. All recorded live and analog. Just as it is, because it sounds better.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Do you dare to change the Dylan texts?
Burnett: Most of us left exactly the same as Bob wrote it down in 1967. Elvis has written a few lines here and there. One or the other word may have been altered, but Bob's texts have not been touched for the most part.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: How does Johnny Depp, who has also been in charge, fit into your sessions?
Burnett: Johnny represented Elvis, who had to perform in Las Vegas for an evening. Johnny is a virtuoso musician, a great guitarist. He could have played back then.

SPIEGEL ONLINE:
Did you want the music to sound like Dylan?
Burnett: No, not exactly. Something new and individual should emerge. This is, I think, quite successful.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Did Dylan comment on the results?
Burnett: I never ask my clients about their opinion. Even Bob did not. I prefer playing guitar with him than talking to him about music."

Clearly we still await the rest of the 45 songs to be released.

MOOT
johnfoyle
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Re: T-Bone / Dylan project: Lost On The River

Post by johnfoyle »

Interesting. Maybe Ms Giddens might persuade some of her New Basement Tapes collaborators, including Elvis, to reprise a few tunes from that project. I saw Elvis at the Cambridge festival in 1995 , where he made jokes about spies and sang The Stephen's Day Murders as he thought a Christmas song might cool down the crowd in the sweltering heat.


https://www.cambridgelivetrust.co.uk/fo ... 6o.twitter

CAMBRIDGE LIVE
Folk festival


Rhiannon Giddens announced as Guest Curator for the 2018 Festival


MONDAY 31 JULY 2017

A huge hit previously at Cambridge, she is known as the lead singer, violinist, banjo player and a founding member of the Grammy-winning country, blues and old-time music band Carolina Chocolate Drops. She is a native of Greensboro, North Carolina, and a 2000 graduate of Oberlin Conservatory, where she studied opera. In addition to her work with the Drops, Giddens has released two solo albums: Tomorrow Is My Turn and Freedom Highway this year.

Delighted to be taking over as guest curator, Rhiannon said: ‘I am honoured to be the next guest curator for Cambridge Folk Festival following on from the amazing Jon Boden who has done a wonderful job this year. Having played the Festival before I know how special Cambridge is and I am really excited to be contributing to the line-up next year as well as performing.’Welcoming Rhiannon Giddens’ forthcoming role at next year’s Festival, Cambridge Live Managing Director, Steve Bagnall said: ‘In the same year as the Festival’s historic twinning with America’s legendary Newport Festival, we are truly delighted that such an exciting talent as Rhiannon has accepted the role of guest curator for 2018. It has been a huge success in the hands of Jon Boden and fascinating to see the artists he has chosen to programme. We continue to find innovative new ways of developing the potential of the Festival through initiatives like our 1965 Club, the artist guest curator role and placing diversity, emerging talent and young artists at the heart of what we do.’
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And No Coffee Table
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Re: T-Bone / Dylan project: Lost On The River

Post by And No Coffee Table »

This is possibly old news, but I notice the CD has been repackaged with an outer sleeve emphasizing the participants and the concept.
nbt.jpg
nbt.jpg (59.48 KiB) Viewed 30324 times
It's the 15-track "standard" edition, not the (far superior!) 20-track "deluxe" edition.
sweetest punch
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Re: T-Bone / Dylan project: Lost On The River

Post by sweetest punch »

https://bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/9116

Santa Cruz: Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello unusual song not on the NBT series.

Aaron Galbraith tipped me off about this song, and has with enormous dedication given us the opportunity to read the lyrics

This is one of the New Basement Tapes songs with of course lyrics by Bob Dylan and music by Elvis Costello. But it is not on the NBT album. Elvis Costello has performed it three times, according to his website, listing Munich and Gateshead (England) as two of the venues.

The reason for the fact that it didn’t make the album is, I think, quite easy to hear – this is an incredibly idiosyncratic musical arrangement song by Costello – which is very much in keeping with the lyrics left by Dylan. And this is why the work of Aaron is so helpful because it is very hard to pick up the lyrics from the recordings – and no one else seems to have tried as yet.

In each recording that there is of the song, Costello changes the lyrics slightly but more to the point between different versions of the song he changes the melody a lot. I’ve chosen one version below which makes the most sense to my ear, but you might prefer to go hunting for the others.

And the lyrics…

SANTA CRUZ

I was spending my pay in Monterey
And I left my beast back east
The weather really wasn’t on my mind
But it was hot to say the least
Upon every rattled street I stamped
feeling so sharp and snide
who but a young man driving by
said “Hello” to me and asked if I wanted a ride.

“Oh, where would you be going to
my dear loveless one?”
And with whom will you be gone
“I was just driving up to Santa Cruz,” she said
And then commenced to yawn
“Shut your mouth,” a gentleman across the street did squeal
just as she turned back to look at him
I swerved right in behind the wheel

Oh, Santa Cruz please don’t make me choose
I’ve painted in reds and whites and blues
I’ve got smokeless powder and a splintered board
all the way, all the way, all the way
down that crooked road to Santa Cruz

Now I’m not one to brag upon
but when I did hit the gas
I tore right out of there so quick
her [????] blast
everything was in front of me that day
but there was nothing that I didn’t pass
oh but when we pulled into Santa Cruz
she said “Oh boy, you sure got class.”

Oh, Santa Cruz please don’t make me choose
I’ve painted in reds and whites and blues
I’ve got smokeless powder and a splintered board
all the way, all the way, all the way
down that crooked road to Santa Cruz

Oh, Santa Cruz please don’t make me choose
I’ve painted in reds and whites and blues
I’ve got smokeless powder and a splintered board
all the way, all the way, all the way
down that crooked road to Santa Cruz

In one sense this is akin to the tales of the lost and dissolute that Dylan’s songs around this time sometimes had. It reads to me like an abandoned sketch trying to create another “Tom Thumb’s blues” with, in the early sections, different characters just popping up without any context or relationship with each other.

Aaron has also pointed out to me that Sid Griffin’s “Million Dollar Bash” book mentions a song with the name “Santa Cruz” as a rumoured Basement Tape recording – although nothing turned up on the complete version – and all those songs including even the unnamed song have been reviewed here. (See Dylan songs of the 60s and scroll down to 1967 to see the full list).
Now I must admit I haven’t got a clue how to interpret these lyrics apart from the obvious bits. There seems to me to be no linkage of people, but maybe that really is the point.

And for non-American’s like me who haven’t been there, Santa Cruz is on the edige of Monterey Bay, south of San Fransisco. It is home to people living what I think is now called “altnerative lifestyles”, and to the University of California.

I’m hopeful that readers familiar with the area might be able to help further with understanding the meaning of the lyrics – if there is a meaning to be understood.

Santa Cruz: https://youtu.be/NnIyv10qBLM
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
bronxapostle
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Re: T-Bone / Dylan project: Lost On The River

Post by bronxapostle »

Great song indeed sp...sure hope we get a proper release eventually. I think this one:

https://youtu.be/HfzwC4Qv3Vo

has more going for it. A little more clarity on the vocals/lyrics, a touch more successful establishing the melody he likes for the song i think anyway AND lastly, his assuredness with the vocals here surpasses the other one you linked i do believe. Hope you agree and enjoy. Best, ba
MOJO
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Re: T-Bone / Dylan project: Lost On The River

Post by MOJO »

Is Diamond Ring on the release? I love that song.

As for Santa Cruz:

« Oh, Santa Cruz please don’t make me choose
I’ve painted in reds and whites and blues
I’ve got smokeless powder and a splintered board
all the way, all the way, all the way
down that crooked road to Santa Cruz. »

Reds / whites and blues - it’s an old mission town. Old mission buildings are white and red.. blues... could be mind set... could be the bluest sky you’ve ever seen... especially in Santa Cruz.

Smokeless powder - the town is known for manufacturing gun powder

Splintered board - the town is known for its surf culture.

« Down that crooked road » I only know driving a crooked road into Santa Cruz and it’s quite amazing. However, down that crooked road from Monterey only makes sense if hwy 1 wasn’t available and folks would have to travel across the ridge then drive into Santa Cruz through the lush, curvy Santa Cruz mountain roads. Depends on when the lyrics were written and the route taken into SC. I’ve dropped into that beach town from the mountains and there is nothing like it. Beautiful.

That’s my take.. hack job no doubt.

Santa Cruz rules. Hippie vibe with sand, surf and good times!
sweetest punch
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Re: T-Bone / Dylan project: Lost On The River

Post by sweetest punch »

https://www.rockcellarmagazine.com/tayl ... ent-tapes/

Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith on Honoring His Hero, Bob Dylan, with The New Basement Tapes

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were a big part of how we all learned how to do this thing in the first place,” Dawes’ singer and guitarist Taylor Goldsmith tells me when our conversation turns to the legendary rocker, and his band. “Benmont Tench, especially, has become a friend, but he was such an inspiration, too.”

Dawes burst onto the scene from a Los Angeles suburb in 2009, and, after a brief foray into punk, quickly carved out a niche in the burgeoning Americana circuit. Inspired by the music made by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Joni Mitchell, and so many others, in the Laurel Canyon area near Los Angeles in the 1970s, Goldsmith and company quickly made fans of some of their heroes, born out of the infamous Sunday evening jam sessions that included Tench, Jackson Browne, members of the Black Crowes, Connor Oberst, and their friends Jonathan Wilson and Blake Mills, and their participation in the Occupy Wall Street movement.

The band’s latest album, Passwords, was released last year, but it was the T-Bone Burnett-helmed The New Basement Tapes project, Lost On The River, which paired long lost Bob Dylan lyrics from his late-60s Woodstock period with music and melodies by a group that included Elvis Costello, Jim James, Marcus Mumford and Rhiannon Giddons, as well as Dawes’ support slot on Dylan’s 2013 North American tour, that brought Goldsmith to the broader public’s attention.

Goldsmith sat down with Rock Cellar to discuss his hero, Bob Dylan, the impact the legend has on nearly everything he does, and what The New Basement Tapes project taught him.

Rock Cellar: You’ve toured with Bob Dylan, and there are definitely hints of Dylan in your music. Were you a Dylan aficionado growing up, or cutting your teeth as a musician, early on? Were you really familiar with A Tree with Roots or Great White Wonder, or any of the bootlegs that have circulated out there, for instance?

Taylor Goldsmith: I actually wasn’t, really. I mean, I’d heard of Great White Wonder and A Tree With Roots, but I never got a hold of them. But I’m a massive Bob Dylan fan. I have every single record. I know every single song. And I’m obviously very familiar with The Basement Tapes. But I don’t have the bootleg stuff. But Dylan is the greatest songwriter of all time.

Rock Cellar: With Dylan, often it seems for musicians that the more obscure the track is, the better. I interviewed Steve Earle recently, and we agreed that, in learning his songs, you find a real empathy, and that his stories are more straightforward than they might seem, and that his lyrics are much more understandable than people generally give him credit for.
Was there a realization like that for you, especially now that you’re established as a songwriter, and you’ve seen Dylan up close, on tour with him? Is there something new that you feel you bring to the table in what you hear and what you get from his records?


Taylor Goldsmith: I feel like, to me, he’s a lot of different writers. Back when I started listening, I listened to the very protest-driven songs, which are very direct, that black and white, early-era stuff. And then there’s a very abstract “Blonde on Blonde,” “Bring It All Back Home,” “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue” … You know — “binoculars on the head of a mule” — that kind of spirit that I obviously love.

And then there’s the more recent eras, where he’s like a movie singer — a really long-winded story singer — on Desire, Blood on the Tracks.

But I’m a fan of all of this. And I feel like he’s a different singer and a different songwriter, at so many different times. But I do think that when you’re really playing one — when you pick a guitar up and you sing a Bob Dylan song, and you get into the feel in the song — in most cases, you just realize the power of it. The other night, we were at a little party thing at a friend’s house, and someone started singing “Joey.”

They knew all the words to “Joey.” So we all started singing the choruses together. And it was just out of control how good it was. It was just so epic and so ambitious in terms of what he was trying to get after with this song. So, yeah, it’s a story song that you understand, but it also has so much poetry.

So much lyricism to it.

Rock Cellar: There is a spark and spontaneity to Bob’s recordings. As someone who has been influenced by him, is that something you think carried over into the way you work? Since your work on the New Basement Tapes project, do you think the lessons you learned will have carried over into your recordings?

Taylor Goldsmith: I think they have to have carried over. I’m very proud of the records we make with Dawes, but I feel like some of the best guitar playing I’ve ever played was on The Basement Tapes, at least for me. For what I want for myself.

And I think a big part of that was because, you know, we’d get two verses into a Marcus song, and then Marcus would look over and give me a nod, and it was time for the lead guitar solo, and that’s what’s on the record. And so forcing me to think on my feet like that brought out a way of playing guitar that I’m actually trying to do when we’re making Dawes records.

Whereas the Dawes records are tracked; I go back I’ll overdub the solo. And I’ll over-dub it once, and if it’s no good, I’ll over-dub it a second time. And it ends up being this really tough thing, like, “What the fuck? I can play it so well every night on stage. Why am I having a rough time?”

I find that when you take away the comfort zones, when you force yourself to not have the comfort zone, you are just operating at a heightened awareness level.

And I think The New Basement Tapes was forcing us to do that. It was like, ‘Oh shit! We can only do one or two takes of these songs.’ Everything was done live, so the solos had to be the final solos. So it was just, like, I really had to plug in, in a way. And I felt like that’s just downright better than the other way. So it’s true, it’s easy to fall back into old habits. But I feel like it was a learning experience big enough to where I feel that I can’t not do it that way anymore. It was very eye-opening.

Rock Cellar: There are a lot of lessons to learn from the way Dylan works, then?

Taylor Goldsmith: Yeah. You just see how his songs work when you’re singing them. And I feel like The Basement Tapes era is a particularly playful period, when you look at, like, “Million Dollar Bash,” and “Hand Me A Bottle of Red,” and “You Ain’t Going Nowhere,” for instance. There’s a lot of playfulness and a lot of goofiness that I really like to get to play around with.

And then, also, there’s some very serious and weighty stuff, like “I Shall Be Released.” And then, you know, it’s definitely a specific-sounding period for his songwriting, because you can almost hear the immediacy. You can feel that he was writing those words, one song a day, or maybe several a day. So I feel like that really matched the way we approached The New Basement Tapes recordings, as well.

When you sing a song and you see even something as simple where he’s placed a chord, you’re always just, like, “man, that’s amazing.” You develop such an understanding, because there’s such a power there. And I mean, you know, we’re all in the same game of trying to write the best songs we can, so, yeah, I have a pretty deep reverence for him. But at the same time, he’s worked more than anybody. That’s hard to match.

Rock Cellar: How did you end up getting involved in the project? Because, boy, if there was a list of dream projects that a musician could ever imagine, this would certainly be at the top.

Taylor Goldsmith: Yeah. Absolutely. I think, because of my touring with Mumford & Sons, Marcus put in a word for me with T-Bone. And T-Bone was open to it. Also, Van Jones, who made the film and who stayed with us every day in the studio, well, he and I are friends, too. He told me, ‘I mentioned your name at one point, because they were looking for interesting people who could be a part of it.’ I’m in debt to those guys, and anyone else involved.

I realize that, you know, when it comes to guys like Elvis Costello, and Marcus, and Jim James, everyone’s aware of them. So for me to be involved with them had to definitely take a little extra digging. And so I appreciate everyone giving me a shot and letting me be a part of it, because it was truly one of the greatest experiences I’ve had.

Rock Cellar: I can’t imagine being on the floor of Capitol with -– forget everybody else -– but Elvis? I mean, you’ve got to be a little bit intimidated. I’ve talked to him a few times about working with McCartney, which I can’t even fathom, but he was like, ‘Oh, after a while, we were just sitting there writing a song.”

And I’m like … how does that happen? That doesn’t compute.


Taylor Goldsmith: It was very much the same thing. I didn’t meet him till the first day. So we started recording, he came in, and we shook hands, and we all cracked some jokes for an hour or so, and got coffee. And then, eventually, we were putting on instruments and showing each other songs. And it was incredible. I was definitely nervous.

But I came in really, I think, over-prepared. I didn’t want there to be any room for me to be the guy that anyone might think, ‘Oh, this is why you don’t invite the guy that no one’s heard of!’ So I wrote a bunch of ideas, and recorded a bunch of ideas, before we even got in there. And then I got the lyrics — I got a hold of the words, like, a week before we started — and so I worked on some of them on my own, though some of the words we didn’t see till we got in there.

So some of it was written on the fly. You know, there were some times on the record that the part you’re hearing was something that was written down an hour before. I think that’s definitely the case with “Liberty Street.”

That didn’t exist until earlier that day. And then, also, I think, to a certain extent, “Kansas City.” Marcus had been fooling around with it, and then finally when it came time to cut it, he said, ‘Okay, I’ve got to finish that. Okay cool. I’m ready.” So there was a lot of that. It was really a blast, because you don’t hear about records getting made that way anymore. But we didn’t really have a choice.

We recorded, I think, 43 songs in two weeks!

Rock Cellar: That’s an incredible amount of material. And, of course, there are multiple versions of some of the songs. Has anybody said to you, who know the Dylan material, or know The Band well, that you had a sort of Richard Manuel moment there at the keyboards? That you really evoked that kind of spirit? Was that conscious?

You have to be a Band fan, I’m just guessing, from Dawes and your taste and so forth. Was that a conscious thing, or did the song just kind of come out that way?

Taylor Goldsmith: Oh, yeah, I’m a total fan of his. You mean “Liberty Street?” Yeah, it just kind of came out that way. I mean, obviously Richard Manuel is one of my favorite singers of all time. But, yeah. I mean, I didn’t know if we were going to even get to it. It was sort of this last minute thing, where we were in the middle of one and then decided to do another one. That’s kind of how everything was.

I mean, I actually think that we tried to steer clear of emulating The Band, or emulating how Bob Dylan might have written the songs, because we just would have been chasing something that we couldn’t ever really nail. And it just would have been a little transparent, I think. I do like the idea of Elvis Costello writing an “Elvis Costello” song, using Bob Dylan lyrics, though. That’s much more exciting to me than the idea of Elvis Costello trying to approximate how Dylan would write. That’s how we all approached it, though, I think.

Rock Cellar: You said you had the lyrics about a week ahead of time. You were certainly in a crunch, and the clock was ticking, and you wanted to deliver — like you said, you’re kind of the new guy on the block — but did you learn anything about Dylan in that time alone with his lyrics, that either you didn’t expect or that was a treat for you?

Taylor Goldsmith: I think what I learned — definitely from the words and from Bob Dylan — but also from the whole project in general, from Elvis, from everybody, from the way that things recorded — was just that things are better when you just don’t treat something too precious. When you get in there and do what you’ve got to do, work your hardest, hope for the best, but don’t over-write things, don’t over-record, that’s when it works out for the best.

I mean, at least for this project, it did. I shouldn’t make that generalization about all music. But I feel like, for me, it was like, “Oh, this feels fresh.” And it feels fresh every time I go back to those recordings of The New Basement Tapes. Because you can hear the fact that we were really thinking on our feet, and working on the fly, and we were all not sure if we were even going to make it to the next chord!

And I feel as though that’s always something that’s infectious. You know, you listen to original The Basement Tapes, and it’s exact same experience, in the same sense. Obviously, with them, they’re in a basement. We were in the nicest studio in the world. But I still feel like that spirit of, ‘Holy shit, here we go …’ was still in play. And I feel like that every time I hear that on a record. I always find myself going back to those records, in a way that, for a certain set of reasons, I don’t go back to other records that you can tell were meticulously labored over, and all that.

Rock Cellar: You said earlier that when you got there, you hadn’t really met everybody. You had a coffee, talked for an hour, joked around, and then got to work. Was there any discussion of the elephant in the room: The enormity of the task? Did T-Bone or Elvis — did anybody — put the fear of God in you, or was that kind of unspoken?

Taylor Goldsmith: No, everybody was so mellow. T-Bone is obviously a man of many talents. But one of those talents is that he’s incredible at not letting stress or anxiety enter into the equation. It won’t happen if he’s around. He’s just really good at always making sure to say, “Oh, we’re good. We got this. We’re cool.”

For all I know, he was secretly panicking in his own head. But I don’t think he was. He was just so good at keeping us smiling and laughing and getting us ready for the next thing. So I never got freaked. That just never happened. I went in there with no idea what to expect, but things went pretty quick. T-Bone would maybe listen to everyone’s version of each song, and he’d pick his favorite version, and then we’d do that one. But in the end we just recorded everything. We recorded, like, five versions of some songs. One day we recorded seven songs! I mean, it was insane. That’s unheard of. So we just recorded absolutely everything, and then he went back and he put the record together. So that was cool, because, I mean, I was kind of really curious. “Well, how are we going to really enjoy this experience while we kind of a good portion of our stuff is left on the cutting room floor?” But instead, we actually got to do it all, and he really did choose the best takes.

Rock Cellar: Were there songs that, when you had them ahead of time, you thought, “Oh, this is going to be great,” but then they didn’t turn out that way? Or were there songs that were a struggle that you now go back to and go and think, “Wow, we really captured something magical”?

Taylor Goldsmith: Yeah, for sure, to a certain extent. There was one of mine — my version of “Lost On The River” — that I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, this is my best one.’ And then we recorded it, and it sounded cool, and I was cool with it. But I’m grateful that the songs of mine that made it are the ones that made it. There were those kinds of moments.

And then, also, in the movie, Rhiannon Giddons was having trouble with one song, but you know how movies are, it was made to seem way more intense than it was. It was actually fine. I know she was bummed, and I felt for her in that moment, because that’s a rough feeling, and we’ve all been there, but no one was worried that we weren’t going to get a performance, or that she wasn’t going to be happy with it.

Like when she says, in the film, ‘Let’s just move on,’ all of us are sort of thinking, ‘Okay, we’ll move on. But we are going back to it, because we are going to get it.’ So that’s about as tough as it got in terms of were we going to not get something.

And even then, we were never scared that we weren’t going to get the versions. And so that it was, in terms of toughness, because all in all it was a really magical experience.
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
MOJO
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Re: T-Bone / Dylan project: Lost On The River

Post by MOJO »

T-Bone, our buddy, preaching the word at SXSW. I've been on board with his ideas in this speech for more than 20 years. T-Bone! Love the dude.

An internet that is vertical could create layers that represent finance, legal, arts, and social media rules... Regulations solidly built into the network infrastructure These young twit-ers today need to stop living on the surface and dive deep into the world of human existence. They didn't invent the Internet, but turned it into a shallow wasteland of worthless information. ( at least a lot of the info is a waste of Internet space. Example : The "Instagram Influencer" whose parents bought her way into an Ivy League university only for her to say she is so busy instragramming her life away." Insanity, man.

Video of speech:
https://livemusicblog.com/news/watch-t- ... sxsw-2019/

Read it here - https://tboneburnett.com/sxsw-keynote-address/

Digging T Bone! He needs to compile a list of recommended reading on his website. So many references to track down.
MOJO
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Re: T-Bone / Dylan project: Lost On The River

Post by MOJO »

Marc Maron interviews T Bone. Dig it!

http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episode-1 ... ne-burnett
sweetest punch
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Re: T-Bone / Dylan project: Lost On The River

Post by sweetest punch »

https://elviscostello.com/#!/news/298446

Where The Secrets Are Kept

The arrival of the “Purse” E.P. and the long-delayed delivery of the 45 RPM, 7” vinyl edition of “Look Now” concludes the release of material from these sessions.

(…)

“Down On The Bottom” was one of a dozen Bob Dylan lyrics which I set to music for possible inclusion on the New Basement Tapes album, “Lost On The River”. If you’ve heard that album then you’ll know that it leads off with a superb mid-tempo setting of this text by Jim James but then the impromptu band of songwriters and accompanists recorded some 42 pieces of music over the next twelve days, including multiple, contrasting settings of the same Dylan lyric by different participants.

Producer T Bone Burnett had the task of making an attractive, balanced programme of all these songwriting contributions and performances. On one session Rhiannon Giddens and I harmonized on my ballad setting of “Down On The Bottom” but we both had to be content with our very different approaches to the title text, “Lost On The River”: being included while all of us saw some fine songs left in the can and a few titles such as “Virginia Gray” that couldn’t be recorded, even at the extraordinary pace that we sustained.

I believe there may be a plan to release another 20-track album of the remaining songs but I think that this is scheduled for 47 years from now and will be called, “The Basement Tapes Of The New Basement Tapes”.

Nevertheless, my ballad setting of “Down On The Bottom” quickly became part of the repertoire for my “Detour” show, especially when I was joined by Rebecca and Megan Lovell of Larkin Poe. We took the song from Cain’s Ballroom, Tulsa to the Circus Krone in Munich, so it was only fitting that our friends should join Davey Faragher and I in the choruses of the cut which closes “Purse”, beamed into Hollywood from their lair in Nashville by the miracle of modern technology.

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Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
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