Friday, August 30, 2013

Sacred Work / Quite Early Morning


The goal of singing a song is not to reach the end as quickly as possible.  It is a state of creating harmony, beauty, growth and understanding.  The goal of work, as a sacred art, is to use the need for a product or service to develop the greatest possible power on the object, and the users.  Sacred work puts the mind on service to the heart as well.

(Tom Bender, from Silence, Song and Shadows)



QUITE EARLY MORNING
Don't you know it's darkest before the dawn
And it's this thought keeps me moving on
If we could heed these early warnings
The time is now quite early morning
If we could heed these early warnings
The time is now quite early morning

Some say that humankind won't long endure
But what makes them so doggone sure?
I know that you who hear my singing
Could make those freedom bells go ringing
I know that you who hear my singing
Could make those freedom bells go ringing

And so keep on while we live
Until we have no, no more to give
And when these fingers can strum no longer
Hand the old banjo to young ones stronger
And when these fingers can strum no longer
Hand the old banjo to young ones stronger

So though it's darkest before the dawn
These thoughts keep us moving on
Through all this world of joy and sorrow
We still can have singing tomorrows
Through all this world of joy and sorrow
We still can have singing tomorrows

Words and Music by Pete Seeger (1969)
(c) 1969 by Fall River Music Inc.


Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Monday, August 26, 2013

Another Self Portrait (1969-1971) / Talking 37th Dream with Rainbow (2013)

"... 'Copper Kettle' stood out on the original Self Portrait.  Dylan's commitment to this instant folk song -- it was written in 1953 -- was too strong.  But now, with the same vocal, on the undubbed master, you are in a different world. Here, Bob Dylan really does disappear.  1970 disappears.  The sixties never happened.  A moonshiner is telling you why he does what he does:  so he can lie back and think about nothing, forever.  The voice is so clear, so convincing, so plainly the voice of someone who has weighed life's choices and made his, that it shames your own compromises.  With the guitars so slight they could be hands waving in the air and Al Kooper's piping organ, which would be erased on Self Portrait, coming up slowly as the voice of the singer's nighttime dreams, it's as if the words too have disappeared, as if the song doesn't need them, as if the singer can communicate without even opening his mouth, by pure will."

(from the booklet written by Greil Marcus, accompanying the two-CD Another Self Portrait (1969-1971)

Everyone who was there has their own story of the years 1969-1971, when Bob Dylan recorded these songs.  In spring of 1969, my beloved Richard was drafted into the U.S. Army.  We were 19 years old.  He was in Vietnam for year of 1970.  We turned 21 years old in October of that year.  In 1971, we lived through the dark aftermath of his year in Vietnam and separated, "both agreeing it was best," just after our 22nd birthdays that year.  We listened to Bob Dylan's music before, during and after those years.  In one of the last letters I received from Richard, he asked, "How's Bob doing?" My copy of the CD arrived in the mail today.  I'm listening to it right now.

Richard was someone who weighed life's choices and made his.  I have tried not to compromise my life as a result.   I hear Richard's voice in Bob Dylan's voice.  Always have.

I recommend Another Self Portrait (1969-1971) The Bootleg Series Vol. 10.   I can't imagine someone not loving these recordings, but I know by now that not everyone will.

Here's Bob Dylan's 1970 version of "Copper Kettle":



You'll have to buy Another Self Portrait to hear the version without overdubs.  You won't regret it.  I promise.

Friday, August 23, 2013

Thursday, August 15, 2013

If













With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.
-- Abraham Lincoln


Well, now time passed and now it seems
Everybody's having them dreams
Everybody sees their self walkin' around with no one else
Half the people can be part right all of the time and
Some of the people can be all right part of the time but
All the people can't be all alright all of the time
I think Abraham Lincoln said that
"I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours", I said that
-- Bob Dylan (lyrics from "Talking World War III Blues")





"Good luck to ya"




Update:  Blue Moon





















Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

"Pretty Saro" / Bob Dylan 1970



Looking forward to hearing more of "Another Self Portrait" when it is released on August 27, 2013.


Tuesday, August 6, 2013

He's got a friend who calls him Shaman Perplexy






"It's more like we're Tonto and Tonto."(Thomas-Builds-The-Fire from "Smoke Signals")

One of the best movies ever.

Friday, August 2, 2013

"Lummi Nation Sees No Compromise On Gateway Pacific"





















Read here.

Photo and headline from Bellingham Herald.



May the Lummi message be heard and may Mr. Peabody's coal trains be stopped from shipping coal to China through the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal.