Michael Gray's Blog, page 24

NEW BOB DYLAN STUDIO ALBUM: TEMPEST

Announcement from bobdylan.com today (July 17, 2012):NEW BOB DYLAN ALBUM – TEMPEST - SET FOR SEPTEMBER RELEASECOLLECTION OF TEN NEW BOB DYLAN SONGS
MARKS MUSICIAN’S 50th ANNIVERSARY AS A RECORDING ARTIST

Columbia Records announced today that Bob Dylan’s new studio album, Tempest, will be released on September 11, 2012. Featuring ten new and original Bob Dylan songs, the release of Tempest coincides with the 50th Anniversary of the artist’s eponymous debut album, which was released by Columbia in 1962...
...This year, Bob Dylan was the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor. He was awarded a special Pulitzer Prize in 2008 for “his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.” He was also the recipient of the French Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres in 1990, Sweden’s Polar Music Award in 2000 and several Doctorates including the University of St. Andrews and Princeton University as well as numerous other honors.
John Baldwin's Desolation Row Information Service e-mail newsletter this morning adds that according to Harold Lepidus at the Dylan Examiner (who broke this yesterday), the track list for the new album is this:
1. Duquesne Whistle
2. Soon After Midnight
3. Narrow Way
4. Long and Wasted Years
5. Pay in Blood
6. Scarlet Town
7. Early Roman Kings
8. Tin Angel
9. Tempest
10. Roll on John
These are all reported to be “new and original" compositions by Dylan, and produced by “Jack Frost" (ie. Dylan). It was recorded in the early part of this year. The release date of September 11 falls exactly 11 years after that of his incomparably best 21st Century album, “Love and Theft."

QUAINTNESS OF THE RECENT PAST NO.12

Sinclair and Dorothy Lewis, date unknown

DON EVERLY'S MAGNIFICENT, MOVING FAILURE

There are very many cover versions of the majestic ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale'. Not one comes close to rivalling the Procol Harum original. None persuades.

Yet one soars above the rest: sufficiently to make ‘cover' the wrong word. It's no substitute for the original, but it's a magnificent and moving vocal attempt. It's by Don Everly, and is hidden away on an Everly Brothers album called, er, The Everly Brothers Sing.

It fails bravely  -  confirming Don Everly's immense capacity for fully engaged risk in his singing. As I've written about him in another context, when he sings alone, he lives in the spontaneity of the moment, his phrasing inspired, warm, free. He is an artist.

He's not responsible for the video added to the track (though without it, I couldn't offer the audio here):



And even if you don't take to that, give a few minutes to hearing his beautiful, weird and shimmering recording of the Western standard 'Tumbling Tumbleweeds', from his wrongfully neglected solo album Don Everly:

W.B. YEATS READING SHORT POEMS

QUAINTNESS OF THE RECENT PAST NO. 11

I'm so glad this exists: a “lost" slice of documentary footage by a French filmmaker, 11 minutes long, of people arriving at, and then being at, the 2nd Isle of Wight Festival of Music, in 1969: the year the performers included The Who, Richie Havens, The Band and Bob Dylan. There's hardly a moment of The Who or Dylan, but that's not the point. As so often with documents of the past, it's the footage of ordinary life that fascinates: plus, in this case, the way it catches that moment when there was, or appeared to be, a cultural gulf between “straights" and “underground" people:

MAP OF UPCOMING BOB DYLAN & POETRY OF THE BLUES DATES

Here's a map showing the locations of the October 2012 UK gigs of mine: BOB DYLAN & THE POETRY OF THE BLUES: An Evening With Michael Gray. Click on a blue marker to see the detailed info on where & when, ticket prices, box office numbers and whether it's on sale yet. For a list of these dates, see here . (I still hope further dates might be added before too long.)


View Bob Dylan & the Poetry of the Blues, Oct 2012 in a larger map

ON RICKS ON LARKIN

uncredited photo taken from Amanda French's blogTwo details especially struck me when I read the highly alert, warm review by Christopher Ricks (in the New York Review of Books) of The Complete Poems of Philip Larkin, edited and with an introduction and commentary by Archie Burnett, published this year in New York by Farrar Straus & Giroux.
First is the pleasing way that when he comes to sum up the strengths of the new edition’s editor, Ricks draws  -  provocatively, one’s now forced to say, though it shouldn’t be so  -  upon the resounding phrase of T.S. Eliot's that gave F.R.Leavis the title of his collection of rebarbative essays The Common Pursuit, first published exactly 60 years ago. Ricks, still an old soldier in the theory wars, it would seem, writes:

‘[A]lthough editing asks critical acumen the editor’s job is rightly understood as not the issuing of critical pronouncements or appreciations but the provision of such information textual and contextual as makes possible the common pursuit of true judgment.’

Second  -  and this is in the fond and celebratory spirit of the whole very substantial review  -  here is Ricks on Larkin, using Larkin on an earlier, less well-known figure:

‘I’ve often found myself gratefully retorting upon Larkin the anecdote with which he honored the Dorset predecessor of Hardy William Barnes: Nor was his appeal limited to men of letters: “an old Domestic Servant” wrote to him in 1869 having found his poems among some books she was dusting: “Sir I shook hands with you in my heart and I laughed and cried by turns.” ’

FOUR OLD MEN

And the oldest (Chuck Berry) looks the best preserved... photo © Rick Friedman/Kennedy Library Foundation

MY OCTOBER UK LIVE EVENTS

THURSDAY OCTOBER 4
ISLAND ARTS CENTRE, NORTHERN IRELAND
Island Arts Centre, The Island, Lisburn BT27 4RL
Box Office: 028 92 509509
Bob Dylan & the Poetry of the Blues
talk with loud music and rare footage
price tba; tickets go on sale early July

FRIDAY OCTOBER 5
DOWN ARTS CENTRE, NORTHERN IRELAND
Down Arts Centre, 2-6 Irish Street, Downpatrick,
Down BT30 6BP, UK
Box Office 028 4461 0747
Bob Dylan & the Poetry of the Blues
talk with loud music and rare footage
tickets £10, £8, on sale very soon

SATURDAY OCTOBER 6
CRESCENT ARTS CENTRE, BELFAST
Crescent Arts Centre, 2-4 University Road
Belfast BT7 1NH
Box Office 028 9024 2338
Bob Dylan & the Poetry of the Blues
talk with loud music and rare footage
start time, price & booking details to follow

FRIDAY OCTOBER 12
THE TOLBOOTH, SCOTLAND
The Tolbooth Arts Centre
Jail Wynd, Stirling FK8 1DE
Box Office 01786 274000
Bob Dylan & the Poetry of the Blues
talk with loud music and rare footage
8pm; tickets £10, £8 on sale now

SATURDAY OCTOBER 13PAISLEY MUSEUM, SCOTLAND60 High Street
Paisley PA1 2BA
0141 889 3151
Working with Gerry Rafferty
lunchtime talk
12.30pm; free admission

SATURDAY OCTOBER 13
PAISLEY ARTS CENTRE, SCOTLAND
New Street, Paisley PA1 1EZ
Box Office 0141 887 1010
Bob Dylan & the Poetry of the Blues
talk with loud music and rare footage
7.30pm; tickets £10, £6 will go on sale in August

TUESDAY OCTOBER 16
GUILDHALL THEATRE, DERBY 
Guildhall Theatre
Market Place, Derby, DE1 3AH
Box Office 01332 255800 or online
Bob Dylan & the Poetry of the Blues
talk with loud music and rare footage
7.30pm; £13.25, £11.25 (but cheaper online) on sale now

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 17
THE MET, BURY
The Met, Market Street, Bury, Lancs BL9 0BW
Box Office 0161 761 2216 or online
Bob Dylan & the Poetry of the Blues
talk with loud music and rare footage
8pm; tickets £10 on sale now

THURSDAY OCTOBER 18
GALA, DURHAM
Gala Durham, 1 Millennium Place,Town Centre, Durham DH1 1WA
Box Office 0191 332 4041 or online
Bob Dylan & the Poetry of the Blues
talk with loud music and rare footage
7.45pm; tickets £15 on sale now

FRIDAY OCTOBER 19
QUEEN'S HALL, HEXHAM
Queen’s Hall Arts Centre, Beaumont Street
Hexham, Northumberland NE46 3LS
Box Office 01434 652477
Bob Dylan & the Poetry of the Blues
talk with loud music and rare footage
price & booking details to follow in July

MONDAY OCTOBER 22
UNIVERSITY OF YORK
The Berrick Saul Auditorium
Humanities Research Centre
University of York YO10 5DD
talk title tba
6.30pm; free public admission; reservation details tba

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 24
CANTERBURY FESTIVAL 2012
Canterbury Festival, Festival House
8 Orange Street, Canterbury, Kent CT1 2JA
Box Office 01227 787787
Bob Dylan & the Poetry of the Blues
talk with loud music and rare footage
5.30pm; tickets £8, on sale July

THURSDAY OCTOBER 25
ARLINGTON ARTS CENTRE, BERKS
Arlington Arts Centre, Mary Hare, Newbury RG14 3BQ
Box Office 01635 244246 OR ticketweb OR boxoffice@arlingtonarts.co.uk
Bob Dylan & the Poetry of the Blues
talk with loud music and rare footage
8pm; tickets £10 on sale now

FRIDAY OCTOBER 26
BEDWORTH ARTS CENTRE, nr. COVENTRY & NUNEATON
Bedworth Arts Centre, High Street, Bedworth
Warwickshire CV12 8NF
Box Office 024 7664 3255 www.ticketsource.co.uk/bedworthartscentre
Bob Dylan & the Poetry of the Blues
talk with loud music and rare footage
8pm; tickets £10; booking details to follow

GEORGE COCHRANE: LONG TIME COMING...

 Long Time Gone is an ongoing Graphic Novel, conceived, designed and being written by the Brooklyn NY based artist George Cochrane. It tells an autobiographical tale in 24 chapters, but spanning just one day and night, with each 24 page chapter depicting one hour's events and atmosphere. Modelled on Homer's Odyssey (told in 24 chapters) and James Joyce's Ulysses (the Odyssey compressed into one day), the chapters are emerging separately and in sequence. Cochrane works with his young daughter Fiamma on the novel (she was 6 years old when he started and is now 10), incorporating ideas, drawings and writing of hers. In fine postmodernist tradition the result will be a creative work partly about the creative process itself.
The title is taken from the Bob Dylan song ‘Long Time Gone', which, when the project began, was still a relatively obscure old recording and still unreleased. This confesses Cochrane's interest in inserting into his narrative Dylan songs not commonly known outside of collector circles - including ‘Bring It On Home' and ‘Sign On The Cross' from the Basement Tapes, ‘Lonesome River Edge' from the Banjo Tape and so on. These lyrics are woven into the story along with references to the history of Western Fine Art, comics, jazz (especially Lester Young and Charlie Parker) and what Cochrane calls “certain works of canonical literature".

Some of Long Time Gone's pages have also been exhibited: at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, MA and at the Tweed Museum of Art in Duluth, MN.
The first four chapters have been published, have sold out and are now being reprinted. They are, respectively, ‘Bird Gets the Worm', ‘A Nick of Time', ‘In A Mist' and ‘Calypso Tap Number'. There are also two wanderings-off from this main structure so far: smaller print-run and different-shaped volumes numbered 3a and 4.4. Cochrane is working on the latter and on the main Chapter 5. His website is here .