Bob Dylan "Shadows in the Night"

In a Mikal Gilmore story from '85, Dylan and the Heartbreakers cover "That Lucky Old Sun."

*according to

yeah they played it at farm aid! i think he may have even done that one back w/ the rolling thunder revue?

it's 7am and i've been sitting here since 11pm trying to review this, it's great, destroys tempest

I told Tyler yesterday it's his best record since Love and Theft.

better than the Xmas record?!

a little. Better material.

ha, i'm not sure i'd go as far as best since love & theft just yet, but i do really like it.

there's a whole disk in the Genuine NET covers bootleg box called "Croonin' In The Night", from the late 80s and early 90s

http://www.bobsboots.com/CDs/cd-g41_6.html

i like modern times a lot too though

but yeah where has this singing been?

i know he was smoking at least fairly recently, i'm wondering if maybe he gave up cigs and tempest was the time period when he was clearing out and now maybe his lungs are a little better? i dunno, it's kinda striking

might be the absence of drums that's kinda letting him open up a bit more?

I can see the Mediterranean from my front step and yet it's going to snow here tonight and so this is the perfect album right now

re: smoking - the main detail my daughter seems to have retained about Dylan is that if you smoke cigarettes for 50 years, you sound like he does on the Xmas record

so he's a cautionary tale, basically

although she likes 115th Dream, cuz it's just a funny story

I don't think there's any Dylan voice I dislike, apart from whatever he was doing on Nashville Skyline (and it's only tough to take on "Country Pie").

I absolutely love Gravelly Bob. Easily my favorite Bob voice/approach after the live 1966 stuff.

wow on "That Lucky Old Sun" I hear a little of 1966 live singing, or "Positively 4th Street": "paradise", "wash all our TROUBLES away", and so on

and that is the best Dylan singing era ever imo

I absolutely love Gravelly Bob. Easily my favorite Bob voice/approach after the live 1966 stuff.

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Tuesday, February 3, 2015 11:46 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it may have been an "approach" to a degree, but -- for example -- "Soon After Midnight" off of Tempest isn't far from a song off Shadows in the Night, but contrast how this sounds like he just physically can't sing some of the notes with how assured he is on the new album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCt9Tfv-Ft4

yeah i mean, the amount of shows he does can't be great for wear and tear on the vocal chords. maybe this one was recorded during an extended break?

Seriously, though, Dylan is 73. Springsteen is 65 and plays shows twice as long with three times as much yelling. Macca is 72 and we're really just starting to hear the cracks, and he goes long and loud, too. Only voice I can think of worse than Dylan's is Leonard Cohen, and he is 80, but he owns his croak a bit better than Bob. Also, Cohen could never really sing to begin with, imo.

what's the deal w/ this some enchanted evening cover? we know what it sounds like from one of the greatest bass voices ever so let's now hear it in dylan's scratchy mumble?

bob felt like doing it

i mean i also love singing some enchanted evening [tho only in the shower] so i understand

i mean i'm not being flip it's just asking "what's the deal with [something bob dylan did]" that's p much the answer

anyway i'm digging the album on the whole even though i don't really dig sinatra type stuff that much

whether you like it or not, isn't the whole concept of the "standard" based on how a song changes in the hands of different interpreters?

i've been listening to a lot of nina simone interpreting the old standards recently (she made some great choices) and i'm really in love with the simple but solid as a brick house lyrics. they're just these perfectly formed things.

Mordy a partisan for Il Divo, who knew

lol had no idea they covered enchanted

wonder if Dylan is referencing this album, which also leads off w/ "I'm A Fool To Want You"...?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/86/LadyInSatin.jpg

I wish our copy of AARP mag would show up -- maybe I got one of the 50,000 free copies.

Seriously, though, Dylan is 73. Springsteen is 65 and plays shows twice as long with three times as much yelling. Macca is 72 and we're really just starting to hear the cracks, and he goes long and loud, too. Only voice I can think of worse than Dylan's is Leonard Cohen, and he is 80, but he owns his croak a bit better than Bob. Also, Cohen could never really sing to begin with, imo.

This is all wrong, except the bit about Springsteen. Macca's voice may not be technically worse than any of the others but given the range he aims for it's now embarrassingly quavery and weak, as anyone who heard live version of the songs from his last album will be able to tell you. Cohen could never sing in the first place but there's so much more richness and depth to his voice than there used to be, it's such an undeniable presence on his newer records.

Dylan also smoked consistently since at least the early 60s, but cut back considerably in preparation for this record (I remember reading somewhere).

Springsteen never smoked, and McCartney stopped smoking cigarettes in the 60s, I believe (though continued to smoke weed like a chimney). Paul figures that hitting the note is more important than the quality of said note when hit, but still has a fairly impressive range for his age.

Paul should switch to vape

Dylan also smoked consistently since at least the early 60s, but cut back considerably in preparation for this record (I remember reading somewhere).

cool i that was my theory

suffering for his art

unfair to compare him w/ springsteen since that dude has clearly found some kind of fountain of youth

Bruce has always been a health/fitness nut, though. Never smoked, never drank to excess, few (if any) late night post-show crazy parties.

Though rumor has it his upcoming autobiography reveals his rampant mid-90s crack addiction.

i was shocked at how good willie sounded considering his weed intake + lung issues.

Willie's voice is a miracle

It's never shocked me that Dylan's voice has been croaky, the point I was making was that even compared to his peers (even those forces of nature) it's dramatically croaky. Is there anyone else whose voice has fallen so far over the years? Marianne Faithfull? Is smoking the evil secret? Surely others have smoked for decades.

Tom Waits claims he quit smoking before Swordfishtrombones or Rain Dogs and his voice actually got worse!

Is there anyone else whose voice has fallen so far over the years?

I hate to say it but from all accounts: Joni Mitchell (and tbf her voice had much farther to fall)

yeah joni is a real shame....

marianne's got "bad" in a more cool way imo kinda like dylan/cohen/waits

but joni was just, man, what a singer :(

yeah

Kurt Wagner was always a croaker, but the last time I paid attention to any Lambchop he sounded much, much worse than on their first couple of records.

also marianne's "ruined" voice is kind of the whole crux of her breakout album (broken english)

Marianne's ruin, period.

Dylan's voice is an interesting topic for sure, but maybe it needs to go a bit further than good/bad improve/deteriorate. This Lanois quote is interesting to me:

I’ve heard Bob have several voices over the decades and I like them all. I liked the Nashville Skyline era a lot. There was a particular tone that he adopted. The thing about Bob’s voice is that he has very dense print. The microphone loves his voice. He’s got about a 20 dB advantage over other singers – in the sense that he’s got that mid-range in his print. To we record-makers, that means that you get to turn the microphone down 20 dB, because he’s delivering an extra 20, which means you then get a 20dB improvement on your signal to noise ratio. So the bleeding into Bob’s mike is not a problem, it’s an enhancement. But if a quieter singer was in the room, with a lesser print, you could not get away with that recording that we did on Time Out Of Mind cos it would just be junky and mumbo-jumbo.

It's from http://www.uncut.co.uk/bob-dylan/bob-dylan-tell-tale-signs-special-part-ten-interview

Also the p4k quote abt Bobologists scrutinizing lyrics must be from the 60s. Anyway, will see my local record store tomorrow, psyched for this from reading all the posts!

I hate to say it but from all accounts: Joni Mitchell (and tbf her voice had much farther to fall)

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, February 3, 2015 4:27 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Another heavy smoker, too.

has p4k really been behind any dylan album in the last howevermany? i still occasionally remember, who is it, the one they got douglas wolk in for, sniffing at how 'if this were not by dylan people would think it was meh', and then get irked

personally the last one i legit loved was love + theft, and maybe 30% of modern times

same