harmonica albert wrote:
The blues rhumba beat predates both Black Magic Woman and All Your Love. Elmore James and B.B. King, to name just two of many, both employed the rhumba beat and, like Otis Rush, contrasted the rhumba with a more straightforward blues shuffle within the song. The King song "Woke Up This Morning" dates to 1956. Rush's song was released in 1958, and King's song was likely the model.
The motif probably originates in jazz, perhaps even in Jelly Roll Morton's piano technique. Duke Ellington's masterpiece Conga Brava from 1939 features a prominent Afro-latin beat, switching to a more standard swing rhythm for some section work and some solos. Morton spoke of the "Spanish tinge" in early New Orleans music and how its incorporation into his music led to his "invention" of jazz.
Dylan's song is in a minor key, like Rush's, but the actual guitar parts are not similar. Dylan's song is far less syncopated, much more straightforward, and melodically sounds closer to Black Magic Woman in the vocal. The guitar solos have a bit of Rush in them, not much but more than any overt Santana licks. I just listened to the Dylan track for the first time in months. Not much of a song, over before anything happens. Not bad, not particularly good. Maybe the most significant aspect is its place as cut 1, pointing out the emptiness of what follows.
"Life Is Hard" is just dreadful, betraying Dylan's wooden timing and sentimentality. So sad. It's even worse than the plodding Workingman's Blues #2. People go on about Dylan's "phrasing" when so often his choices in phrasing are just plain ugly and anti-musical. I feel like both in the melody and the vocal there lurks some prior song or singer, but I can't identify a specific source.
"If You Ever Go to Houston" is a sing-song folk melody. It reminds me of 3 Dog Night's "I've Never Been to Spain" by Hoyt Axton, to a different rhythm. The accordian playing is horrifically awful. Surely a better artist would have demanded more than the amateurish sound of half-note squeezed chords obliterating a more interesting acoustic guitar part. Behind Axton's song, Minglewood Blues and its "If you're ever in Memphis" verse may be feeding Dylan's song.
"Forgetful Heart" has the same plodding rhythm in the vocal that is ruining so many Dylan songs in this century. Another minor key 12 bar song that sounds vaguely familiar. It bears a close resemblance to B.B.King's "The Thrill Is Gone"--almost enough for a lawsuit at some points. Minor I, minor IV, major flat VI to major V. Exactly what King's song does, except B.B. uses a minor flat III in transition to the minor IV and a flat VII in the turnaround.
"Jolene" is a generic blues shuffle. Pointless to look for "influences" here. It won't make anyone forget Dolly Parton's far superior "Jolene."
"This Dream of You" is another plodding lugubrious accordian song, vaguely Tex-Mex in rhythm and sound. Another song echoes in my head, something from the 70s with an accordian, especially in the finale to each verse after the bridge. "Tequila Sunrise" had a similar feel. I'm getting a Mink DeVille moment also, maybe "Mixed Up Shook Up Girl?" But some other song is also echoing, can't place it right now. I think this is more a case of genre motives than influence or theft. A decent song played and sung by corpses.
"Shake Mama Shake" is the standard "rolling and tumbling" blues progression in a slightly different rhythm. Not an improvement for the difference, as it emphasizes Dylan's dull timing. One of his most phlegmatic vocals recorded. Did you ever see someone spit a big wad of phlegm on the sidewalk and almost vomit? That's my experience listening to Dylan gargling his effluents in this song.
"I Feel Like A Change Comin' On" almost escapes the plodding that infects so many songs, at least instrumentally. The vocal is the big and fatal limitation. It's a slower, duller kind of rhythm of the sort animating Tyrone Davis's great "Can I Change My Mind". Poor David Hidalgo. I know he can play fine accordian. The song starts out in a very familiar place with the loping bass line. Again, I can't quite recall the song it might resemble if only by coincidence. I think it's a repeated I/IV thing similar to "Just My Imagination" by Smokey Robinson in some ways. Again, not really an influence or source except in the most general and indirect way.
"It's All Good" is a one chord boogie with roots in "Rolling Stone" and other one chord Delta blues songs. The instrumental motif is exactly the main motif of "Got Love If You Want It." A song with one chord and a melody with a half octave range and mostly just one note sounds like the best song for Dylan these days.
Dylan is the weakest link here, unable to sing his own lyrics with any force or authority for more than half a song. That is unforgiveable in a studio album. But this is about as good as Dylan is capable of in his dotage, far from his worst album, and better than Modern Times for sure, if only because the songs are mercifully short.
With all due respect i have to say that you don't seem to get TTL or MD ...
Login
Register
FAQ
)
