Old Music Tuesdays: Dylan's 'Great White Wonder'

by Bob Boilen

Streaming from our site today, a week before its release, is Bob Dylan's new The Tell Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series Vol. 8. It strikes me as nothing short of remarkable that previously unreleased recordings (and sometimes incomplete recordings released by a major label) are streaming live on the Web, but maybe that's because I remember the scandal of the first Dylan bootleg.

There was a time when you had to whisper to the guy behind the counter at a record store, "Do you carry bootlegs?" By definition, bootlegs were illegal, and Bob Dylan bootlegs were the first hot property.

In 1968, word got out that there was new music by Dylan, recorded with The Band in a basement in upstate New York. What came out in the spring of 1969, however, was Nashville Skyline -- a good record, but not the one we'd heard about. Then, in the summer of 1969, FM radio began playing pirated Dylan recordings.

The Great White Wonder was the first bootleg I'd ever heard from anyone. On the cheaply packaged double LP, you could hear Dylan singing with The Band on songs such as "I Shall Be Released," "Open the Door Richard," "Too Much of Nothing" and "Tears of Rage." There were also recordings on the LP rumored to be made in a Minneapolis hotel room in 1961. It was all so underground, and it was all so exciting. I still have my copy of The Great White Wonder. Want to hear a cut?

Columbia Records and the record industry as a whole were in a tizzy when the bootlegs surfaced. It was the first cracks we could see in an industry that was consolidating and controlling. Don't get me wrong; I bought all of Dylan's records on Columbia. They did a great job, but as a fan, I wanted more.

Here are two quotes from the day that are enlightening. First, from Columbia, regarding the two guys who were distributing The Great White Wonder:

"They are at one time defaming the artist and defrauding his admirers. For these reasons, Columbia Records, in cooperation with Bob Dylan's attorneys, intends to take all legal steps to stop the distribution and sale of this album."

Then there is this, from one of the two men who were distributing the records around Los Angeles:

"Bob Dylan is a heavy talent," he said, "and he's got all those songs nobody's ever heard. We thought we'd take it upon ourselves to make this music available.

"Do you know what will happen if you get away with it?" he added. "Why, if John Mayall or anybody opens at the Whisky tonight, there'll be a live recording of it on the stands by the middle of next week."

That last quote was prophetic. It wasn't long before someone stole tapes of The Beatles from the Let It Be sessions. Live recordings of bands began to fill the bins, not just in mom-and-pop record shops, but in chain stores. A cottage industry built around music-hungry fans grew. Columbia couldn't stop it; no one could.

These days, there are legal bootlegs, illegal bit torrents and podcasts filled with professionally recorded music. What fans want is access to the musicians they love. They've been saying it for so long and so loud. Sometimes, someone listens. Thanks to Bob Dylan and Columbia, for releasing Tell Tale Signs, and for making it available here first.

Bob Boilen

11:39 AM ET | 09-30-2008 | permalink

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Shout Out For Some Rock Nerd Help

by Bob Boilen

Will Sheff plays DJ on All Songs Considered this week. Will is the songwriter and guiding light for Okkervil River.

One of the songs Will picked was by a group called The Penetrators. He thinks the band is from Syracuse, and says they might be an old soul band or garage rock band, but there's very little information out there about the group. We've seen a live album by The Penetrators on the Web. But the song Will played is from an old 45 he got from a collector friend down in Austin.

The song is called "The Scandalizer."

We want to know:

1. Who are The Penetrators?
2. Who wrote the song?
3. Who is singing?
4. Who is Curtis Seals?
5. When and where was this recorded?

Help us solve the mystery.

"Scandalizer"

Bob Boilen

2:42 PM ET | 09-29-2008 | permalink

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Up For An Emmy

by Bob Boilen

It's Sunday and I'm on a train heading to New York for a chance to win an Emmy. I've been in radio 19 years, and earlier this year, we won an award for "lighting." A lighting award for an organization that not that long ago had all its eggs in radio's basket.

Now, it's Emmy time. We got the nomination for Project Song, under the category "New Approaches to News & Documentary Programming."

Project Song is a peek at the creative process. We give musicians a few days in a studio, we give them an image and a word to spark their creativity, and then they spend their time on a deadline trying to write and record a song. It's been a blast. We've only done a few: one with Stephin Merritt, another with a band called Georgie James, and then another with Nellie McKay. I'm working on another that we finished a while back with Death Cab for Cutie's Chris Walla and J. Robbins of Jawbox and Burning Airlines.

The competition is talented and very different. We are up against the New York Times, a couple of pieces produced by Frontline, the Washington Post and the Detroit Free Press.

The awards ceremony is Monday night. I may add to this blog live from the site if there is much that I could convey in a blog.

I'm proud of what we've done with musicians, giving them a place to create and grow. For now, the only Emmy I've ever had was a cat, and she's dead.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Footnote 09/23/08

We didn't win the Emmy, though we were honored to be nominated.
Here is the winner.

Congratulations to the Detroit Free Press.

Bob Boilen

6:03 PM ET | 09-21-2008 | permalink

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Pink Floyd's Richard Wright: 1943-2008

by Robin Hilton

Pink Floyd fans have long argued over which band member was the most important. Some say it was Syd Barrett, the founding member who gave the group its name and guided the then-unknown band in maniacally imaginative directions. Others argue that it's Roger Waters, the bassist who took over as lead songwriter after Barrett left the band in 1968; Waters led Pink Floyd through its most successful period. Then there are the David Gilmour fans, who say that the lead guitarist was most responsible for Pink Floyd's widely influential and groundbreaking sound. But for me, the heart and soul of Pink Floyd was always keyboardist Richard Wright, who died today at age 65.

I first heard the music of Pink Floyd, thanks to an older brother, when I was in elementary school in the 1970s. The album was Dark Side of the Moon. All these years later, I can still vividly remember listening to the record on headphones, with my eyes popping at the mindblowing sound I heard. Dark Side showed me that music could be so much more than the standard three-chord pop dreck on the radio. It could be transporting.

Of all the incredible sounds on Dark Side of the Moon -- and there are many -- it was Richard Wright's simple and beautifully elegant piano and organ that struck me the most. One of the songs he wrote for that album was the hypnotic and poignant "Us and Them."

While Wright's contemporaries -- keyboardists like Rick Wakeman of Yes or Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake and Palmer -- were focused more on synthesizers as a driving (and often brash) force in music, Wright chose a more restrained style. He loved what a simple organ or piano line could bring to a song. His tasteful mix of jazz and neoclassical forms proved to be the perfect complement to the blues- and folk-flavored psychedelic rock of his bandmates. It's not that Wright didn't love synthesizers; some of his best work was largely synth-based. (Check out Wish You Were Here for proof.) But Wright's voice was always one of calm and control. It's one of the reasons the band rarely allowed extended jams during live shows: The songs were composed with such precise melodies, they didn't really lend themselves to free-form improvisations. Wright had a lot to do with that.

Richard Wright inspired me to be a musician. My parents forced me to take piano lessons when I was 6 and finally allowed me to quit when I was 9 because I loathed it so much. Wright made me want to return to the keyboard. More than 30 years later, the music I play and love today is shaped greatly by his music and what he brought to Pink Floyd.

When Waters and Wright left Pink Floyd and the band more or less fell apart for good in the mid-'80s, Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason soldiered on with the largely forgettable 1987 album A Momentary Lapse of Reason. It was obvious to most longtime fans that Waters' lyrics were no longer steering the ship. But for me, the most glaring omission was Wright's piano and organ. When the regrouped Pink Floyd returned in 1994 with The Division Bell, Waters was still gone, but Wright had returned -- and the band's new music was noticeably improved.

Like any Pink Floyd fan, I've long hoped the band would tour again. I'm not ashamed -- okay, it's a little embarrassing -- to say that I got misty-eyed when Waters, Gilmour, Mason and Wright reunited briefly in 2005 for a Live 8 performance. It sparked a lot of rumors and speculation that Pink Floyd would finally hit the road again. But now, with Wright's death, those hopes have come to an end.

Wright wrote my all-time favorite Pink Floyd song, one with a title suited to commemorate his passing. I'd like to think he's playing now in the "Great Gig in the Sky."

Robin Hilton

3:42 PM ET | 09-15-2008 | permalink

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Video: Calexico Part Two

by Robin Hilton

Calexico is marking the release of its new album, Carried to Dust, with a series of videos that include some nice, live performances of their new songs. This is the Second installment:

I've been spending time with Carried to Dust, and think it may be the band's best album. It's an elegantly produced collection of songs, with some wonderfully haunting moments. Joey Burns and John Convertino, the duo behind Calexico's music, draw heavily on their favorite sounds: Portuguese fado, spaghetti westerns, Mexican mariachi, folk and rock. It all comes together on Carried to Dust as a richly seasoned and mature mix.

Here's the first video installment:

Burns and Convertino have long been taken by what they see as the majesty and mystery of the American Southwest, particularly their hometown of Tucson, Ariz. (They talk a lot about this in the videos). The sprawling city, where they've lived since the mid-'90s, has been the subject and inspiration for much of their music over the years, and Carried to Dust continues to drink from that well with ghostly narratives about the "strange people" they've encountered. Calexico colors the scorched landscapes with enough romance and strange curiosities to make you want to linger.

Stay tuned for more!

Robin Hilton

11:15 AM ET | 09-10-2008 | permalink

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iTunes Genius?

by Bob Boilen

Apple has just introduced iTunes 8 -- and with it, a Pandora-like feature called "Genius." Here's how it works: You pick a song in your library and hit the "genius" button, and it creates a playlist based on the one song. You can then copy that playlist to your iPod.

I randomly tried two songs two songs this morning as a quick test, starting with "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" by Arcade Fire. Pleasantly and predictably, I heard Wolf Parade, Bright Eyes, David Bowie and Jeff Buckley. When I tried another random song in my library -- "It's Over" by Roy Orbison -- it seemed to just pull any '60s tune it could find, so I wound up with The Electric Prunes and The Seeds; good songs, but not in the spirit of a song like "It's Over." But then again, it played Roxy Music's "Virginia Plain," which was a brilliant choice in some odd way. Orbison had a unique crooning style, and so does Roxy Music's Bryan Ferry.

Genius works by looking at the songs you play and the songs you skip. It analyzes the data, along with all the data from everyone else in the world who uses iTunes and Genius, and picks artists it thinks you'll like. The more people use Genius, the better it should work.

If you use Genius or Pandora or any other playlist generator, I'm curious to hear what you've discovered -- the strengths and weaknesses of each -- and I'm always intrigued by the quirks.

Bob Boilen

9:58 AM ET | 09-10-2008 | permalink

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Radiohead Live: Now Online

by Bob Boilen

Just a quick note to let you know that Radiohead's gift to its fans, an entire concert from the band's 2008 tour, is now online at NPR Music.

Thanks to the band, you can download the show by subscribing to the All Songs Considered "Live in Concert" podcast.

photo credit: jesse groves

You can also hear Thom Yorke play DJ on All Songs Considered. Thom and I talk about the music he loves and how he and the band created some of the songs for In Rainbows.

I also did an extensive blog post about seeing the band perform live in Santa Barbara, Calif., where this concert was recorded.

Listen, enjoy and let me know what you think.

Bob Boilen

11:53 AM ET | 09- 8-2008 | permalink

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A Gift From Radiohead

by Bob Boilen

Back in February, All Songs Considered invited Radiohead's Thom Yorke on the show to discuss the music he loved. He was happy to talk about someone else's music, after months of being asked about the record business and the decision he and his band made to release In Rainbows as a pay-what-you-want download. So Thom Yorke played DJ for us, turned me and others on to new music, and talked about creating In Rainbows. We had a good chat, but our meeting was long-distance; he was in Oxford and I was in Washington. We made mention of meeting when the band came to America for its tour.

We knew we wanted to include Radiohead in our live concert series. The best date seemed to be at the Santa Barbara Bowl on the last night of the tour. The band loves the venue, and there are plenty of good vibes and good people. It's gorgeous.

We weren't sure how it'd go, but we were told that, if the band was happy with its performance, we could put the entire concert online. If the band wasn't happy, then we couldn't.

I booked my plane ticket and headed west.

My first impression was that I was awestruck by the beauty of the Santa Barbara Bowl. Built as part of a WPA project in the 1930s, the place is magic and majestic, with unique stone work helping to make for a spectacular setting.

Having seen the show earlier in the tour, there were two people I wanted to talk to. The first was Jim Warren, the sound engineer for the band's live show. We talked about his job, mixing the front of house (the sound you hear when you're at a concert); it's a complicated job made more so by a band that tours with 60 songs in its bag of tricks. Each one of those songs can be sonically tricky.

Then I met Richard Young, the production manager for the tour. When I saw the show in Virginia, I was floored by the lighting, which was all LEDs.

Young said that the driving force behind using LEDs was a desire to "decrease the carbon footprint" of the tour. LEDs are so much more efficient than traditional theatrical lighting. No one had ever done anything quite like this, so they basically had to invent how to make this work and also make it tourable. It is a stunning sight: candy for the eyes and a wonderful complement to the music.

Then it was showtime.

When I think of the best concert I've seen, I always flash back to Pink Floyd in early 1972. Almost two years before the band released what would become Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd performed the entire suite of songs to the amazement of us all. We'd never heard any of the songs (then titled Eclipse: A Piece for Assorted Lunatics), and with its quadrophonic sound, it still was the most massive musical surprise I've experienced.

Radiohead's show at the Santa Barbara Bowl came as close for musicianship and creativity as any show I've seen in 37 years. I've seen a lot of shows.

These guys write great songs, and sometimes you can even sing along to them, but what they do better than any band is create a sonic adventure -- a soundscape which, at its best, stretches time and allows the mind to wander and rejuvenate. I think of it as resetting the synapses. Creativity breeds creativity. When the music was over, I felt unboxed and changed and pretty darn happy. Drugs are overrated; music is underrated.

There was a small after-party. My guide for the evening was Laura Eldeiry of the band's PR firm, Nasty Little Man. Laura told me to wait around for Thom; that he'd come around and we'd have that face-to-face we'd talked about back in February. More importantly, I was waiting for a verdict from the band. Were they happy enough with their performance to let us webcast it?

I spent my time talking with a 14-year-old guitarist appropriately named Marshall. He was a lucky kid with a mom familiar with the record business and a father who designs effects pedals; it turns out that the dad designed a pedal that Radiohead uses. It is also a delay pedal that I own, the DL4, so we had a lot to talk about.

Then came the best news: Not only was the band happy, but Laura had the CDs from the evening's performance. We can put the entire show from Santa Barbara on the NPR Music site. Come to All Songs Considered Monday, Sept. 8 at noon.

Then Thom Yorke came by.

I've never understood how someone can perform and create for more than two hours and come down to earth enough to carry on a conversation. I could never do it. Thom said he was blasted (tired, that is), but he looked happy and satisfied. We talked a bit of politics; Barack Obama's speech at the Democratic Nation Convention took place in tandem with the Radiohead show.

I told him how unusual I thought it was to have a thinker like Barack Obama running for president; Yorke talked about corruption and lobbying in British politics, and said to be careful about pinning all of your hopes on one person.

On the ride home, I fired up the laptop and heard Barack Obama's speech.

"Today has been the most perfect day I have ever seen."
-- "Videotape" by Thom Yorke

Synapses reset.
Time for new ideas.

Bob Boilen

12:15 PM ET | 09- 3-2008 | permalink

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Jerry Reed: 1937-2008

by Robin Hilton

I just learned that country singer-songwriter and actor Jerry Reed has died. He might not be a familiar name to a lot of younger NPR listeners, but Jerry Reed was one of my childhood heroes, mostly for his recurring role in the Smokey and the Bandit film trilogy. (Film trilogy. That makes it sound so highbrow...) Reed also did the theme song, "East Bound and Down."

Keep in mind that this was the 1970s and I was in elementary and middle school. I've scarcely thought of the movies since, but just a few days ago, I was driving out of town with a friend, we were running late, and I found myself singing, "We got a long way to go / and a short time to get there / We're gonna do what they say can't be done..." That song seems to pop into my head whenever I'm rushing somewhere.

But Jerry Reed was more than an actor in these cornball movies. Originally from Atlanta, Reed moved to Nashville in the early '60s to write songs and work as a session guitarist. His first country hit was "Guitar Man." He later recorded a version with Elvis Presley.

Reed had numerous other hits: "Amos Moses," "When You're Hot, You're Hot" and this one, "She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft)," a song that's really more of a country-rap:

Rest in peace, Jerry. And thanks for the memories.

Robin Hilton

10:29 AM ET | 09- 3-2008 | permalink

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The 1980s: Were They Really That Bad?

by Robin Hilton

First things first: There was great music made in the '80s. U2, Peter Gabriel, R.E.M., Minor Threat, The Replacements, N.W.A, and far too many more to mention. But, when asked to pick the best year for music in our recent poll, nearly everyone who responded skipped the '80s. That is, almost no one would say that the 1980s produced a particularly memorable year in music.

This is the topic of discussion on the latest edition of All Songs Considered. Give a listen, then come back here and tell us what you think.

You can also check out what Carrie Brownstein had to say about the '80s in her Monitor Mix blog.

Robin Hilton

3:29 PM ET | 09- 2-2008 | permalink

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