Blood on the Tracks
From Rolling Stone
Bob Dylan once introduced this album's
opening song, "Tangled Up in Blue," onstage as taking him ten
years to live and two years to write. It was, for him, a
pointed reference to the personal crisis -- the collapse of his
marriage to Sara Lowndes -- that at least partly inspired this
album, Dylan's best of the 1970s. In fact, he wrote all of
these lyrically piercing, gingerly majestic folk-pop songs in
two months, in mid-1974. He was so proud of them that he
privately auditioned almost all of the album, from start to
finish, for pals and peers including Mike Bloomfield, David
Crosby and Graham Nash before cutting them in September -- in
just a week with members of the bluegrass band Deliverance. But
in December, Dylan played the record for his brother David in
Minneapolis, who suggested recutting some songs with local
musicians. The final Blood was a mix of New York and
Minneapolis tapes; Dylanologists still debate the merits of the
two sessions. Yet no one disputes the album's luxuriant tangle
of guitars, the gritty directness in Dylan's voice and the
magnificent confessional force of his writing: in the
existentialist jewel "Simple Twist of Fate," the wrung-dry
goodbye of "If You See Her, Say Hello" and the sharp-tongued
opprobrium of "Idiot Wind," his greatest put-down song since
"Like a Rolling Stone."
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Blood on the Tracks is singer-songwriter
Bob
Dylan's 15th studio album, released in 1975 by Columbia
Records, which marked Dylan's return to Columbia after a
two-album stint with Asylum
Records.
The album, which followed several years of lukewarm
reception for Dylan's work, was greeted respectably by fans and
critics. In the years following its release, it has come to be
regarded as one of his very best albums - making it quite
common for subsequent records to be labeled his "best since
Blood on the Tracks."[1][2][3][4]
It is also commonly seen as a standard for confessional
singer-songwriter albums; though Dylan has denied that the
songs are autobiographical, his son Jakob
Dylan has stated: "The songs are my parents
talking."[5]
Most of the lyrics on the album revolve around heartache,
anger, and loneliness.
The album reached #1 on the Billboard
U.S. pop charts and #4 in the UK. The single "Tangled Up
in Blue" peaked at #31 on the Pop singles chart. The
album remains one of Dylan's all-time best-selling studio
releases, with a double-platinum US certification to
date.[6]
Notes
The songs are largely seen as inspired by Dylan's personal
turmoil at the time, particularly his separation from his then
wife Sara
Dylan.
All ten songs on the album were originally recorded at
New York
City sessions produced by Phil
Ramone. With Columbia set to release the LP, Dylan
pulled back at the last minute, and at year's end
re-recorded five of the ten songs in Minneapolis
with a crew of area session musicians assembled by his
brother, David Zimmerman.
Dylan's fans theorize endlessly about his reasons for
revamping the album, with one unconfirmed view being that the
musical feel of the album had been monotonous, with too many
songs in the same key and the same languid rhythm. It has also
been said that, just two weeks before the release of Blood
on the Tracks, Dylan played an acetate of the record for
his brother, his ensuing comments leading Dylan to re-cut the
album.[7]
Told of the album's lasting popularity, Dylan was later to
say (in a radio interview by Mary
Travers): "A lot of people tell me they enjoy that
album. It's hard for me to relate to that. I mean, it, you
know, people enjoying the type of pain, you know?"
In Dylan's 2004 memoir, Chronicles,
Vol. 1, he claims that although one album of his
songs was entirely inspired by short stories by Anton
Chekhov, many of his fans and critics treat it as
autobiographical. This passage is often cited as a reference
to Blood on the Tracks.
The song "Up to Me", which plays like a companion of
"Shelter from the Storm" (and perhaps a bookend to the record),
was not released on this record but appeared on Biograph.
Track listing
Side one
Side two
- "Meet
Me in the Morning" - 4:22 (NYC, Sept 1974)
- "
Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts" - 8:51
(Minneapolis)
- " If
You See Her, Say Hello" - 4:49
(Minneapolis)
- "Shelter
from the Storm" - 5:02 (NYC, Sept 1974)
- "Buckets
of Rain" - 3:22 (NYC, Sept 1974)
Chart positions
| Year |
Chart |
Position |
| 1975 |
Billboard 200 |
1 |
Personnel
- Bob Dylan - Vocals, Guitars, Harmonica, Organ,
Mandolin
- Bill Peterson - Bass
- Eric Weissberg - Banjo, Guitar (NYC Sessions)
- Tony Brown - Bass (NYC Sessions)
- Charles Brown, III - Guitar (NYC Sessions)
- Bill
Berg - Drums
- Buddy Cage - Guitar (Steel)
- Barry Kornfeld - Guitar (NYC Sessions)
- Richard Crooks - Drums (NYC Sessions)
- Billy
Preston - Bass
- Paul Griffin - Organ, Keyboards
- Gregg Inhofer - Keyboards
- Thomas McFaul - Keyboards (NYC Sessions)
- Chris Weber - Guitar, 12 String Guitar
- Kevin Odegard - Guitar
- Phil Ramone - Engineer
- Pete Hamill - Liner Notes
- Ron Coro - Art Direction
See also
References
-
^ Rosen, Jody. "Bob Dylan's Make-Out
Album", Slate, August
30, 2006.
Retrieved on 2007-03-22.
-
^ Christgau, Robert. "Not Dead Yet", Spin,
March 1998. Retrieved on 2007-03-22.
-
^ Lankford, Ronnie D. (March
27, 2003).
Tangled Up in Contentment: Bob Dylan in
Love. PopMatters.com. Retrieved on
2007-03-22.
-
^
Connelly, Christopher. "Bob Dylan: Infidels - Album
Review", Rolling Stone, November
24, 1983.
Retrieved on 2007-03-22.
-
^ Sounes, Howard. Down the Higway The Life
Of Bob Dylan Doubleday 2001.
ISBN 0-552-99929-6 p333
-
^ The Rolling Stone 500 Greatest
Albums of All Time. Rolling
Stone (November
1, 2003).
Retrieved on 2007-03-22.
-
^ Salon | Sharps and
Flats
|