“Miss the Mississippi” is a song by Bill Halley (not to be confused with Bill Haley, the rock ’n’ roll pioneer whose name is spelled with one l) first recorded in 1932 by country singer Jimmie Rodgers, one of the first superstars and pioneers of country music. Rodgers died the following year of tuberculosis. He was known as the singing brakeman and the father of country music. Dylan, who owes him an artistic debt, paid a touching tribute to him with this adaptation of “Miss the Mississippi,” a faithful rendering of the original version. In addition, it is a beautiful evocation of the Mississippi River itself. The narrator is tired of the city lights and dreams of returning home and walking the banks of the “old river.”
It is surprising, however, that Dylan rejected this version, because it is superb. His interpretation is moving, and the musicians accompanying him are all excellent. An enigma, especially because his rejection of this song is preceded by the release of Under the Red Sky, an album probably less faithful to his musical aspirations of the time.
Duncan & Brady
Traditional / Arrangement Bob Dylan / 3:12
Musicians: Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar; David Bromberg: guitar; Glen Lowe: guitar; Dick Fegy: mandolin (?); Jeff Wisor: mandolin (?); Christopher Cameron: keyboards; Robert Amiot: bass; Richard Crooks: drums / Recording Studio: Acme Recording Studio, Chicago: June 1992 / Producer: David Bromberg / Sound Engineer: Chris Shaw / Set Box: The Bootleg Series Volume 8: Tell Tale Signs: Rare & Unreleased 1989–2006 (CD 3) / Date of Release: October 6, 2008
This song reports the tragic events that took place in the Charles Starkes Saloon in St. Louis on October 6, 1890. Police officers entered the bar, where a fight had broken out. Among them was James Brady, an Irish cop. When they were about to arrest the owner of the bar, a shot rang out and Brady collapsed, dead on the floor! Who shot him? Starkes, the owner, or the bartender, an African-American from Louisiana named Harry Duncan? Both men denied it. Duncan was arrested, convicted of murder, and sentenced to death. He appealed several times without success and was hanged on July 27, 1894.
Like “Frankie & Johnny” and “Stagger Lee,” “Duncan and Brady” is a traditional murder ballad. The song was first recorded by Wilmer Watts and the Lonely Eagles in 1929. Since then, it has been recorded many times. The best-known versions are by Leadbelly (1947) and Dave Van Ronk (1959).
Dylan and Bromberg’s version is excellent. It is a dynamic blues-rock song that wonderfully showcases saturated slide guitar solos. It also has very good mandolin passages—a successful interpretation that could easily have found its place on an official album.
World
Gone Wrong
World Gone Wrong
Love Henry
Ragged & Dirty
Blood In My Eyes
Broke Down Engine
Delia
Stack A Lee
Two Soldiers
Jack-A-Roe
Lone Pilgrim
THE OUTTAKES
32-20 Blues
Mary And The Soldier
Twenty-One Years
Hello Stranger
Goodnight My Love
DATE OF RELEASE
October 26, 1993
on Columbia Records
(REFERENCE COLUMBIA CK 57590 [CD] / C 57590 [LP])
World Gone Wrong:
A Tradition Revisited
The Album
With World Gone Wrong, Bob Dylan continued what he had started with Good As I Been to You. With his traditional acoustic guitar and deep voice, he’s like a pilgrim preaching the gospel throughout rural America. The album draws on British ballads of the last century, Appalachian tunes, and music of the Mississippi Delta from the early decades of the twentieth century. In listening to this album and the one before, it seems that the songwriter has immersed himself in his old 78-rpm record collection and decided, after extensive analysis, to give them a new reading. Most of the selected titles are obscure songs from bluesmen unfamiliar to the general public. Dylan again proves his love for this style of music, as he had throughout his career. To some extent, this album serves as a link between the traditional and the digital age.
If World Gone Wrong sounds like a logical extension of Good As I Been to You, this new LP distinguishes itself by its atmosphere. The title alone, World Gone Wrong, announces the album’s intention and emphasizes violence. The brutality of daily life appears in “Broke Down Engine.” Dramatic violence from newspaper accounts appears in three murder ballads: “Love Henry,” “Delia,” and “Stack a Lee” (or “Stagger Lee”). The bloodshed of war is represented by “Two Soldiers,” and the clash of hurt feelings, which turns up again and again in Dylan’s repertoire, by “Blood in My Eyes.” The only message of hope: the heroine’s love for a young sailor in “Jack-a-Roe” and the tribute of a preacher to a lonely pilgrim.
An Informed Reading of the Tradition
After violence, tribute is the second key word in this album: tribute to the glorious elders. On this album, Bob Dylan is neither author nor composer. He is the interpreter of a dynamic musical legacy that he has always claimed as his own. His vocals and guitar playing are in unison as he sings with those who have guided him on his path. He borrows twice from the Mississippi Sheiks repertoire, once for “World Gone Wrong” and another time for “Blood in My Eyes,” songs from the thirties. He covers “Ragged & Dirty,” a song previously recorded by Blind Lemon Jefferson and Sleepy John Estes; “Broke Down Engine” and “Delia,” titles that inspired Blind Blake and Blind Willie McTell (to whom he dedicated a song!); and “Stack a Lee,” one of the main blues standards (from Ma Rainey to Mississippi John Hurt). Similarly, he adapts beautiful traditional British ballads, “Two Soldiers,” “Jack-a-Roe,” and probably “Lone Pilgrim.”
World Gone Wrong was released on October 26, 1993, with liner notes by Dylan in which he comments on each song on the album in an original style, far different from the psychedelic digressions of some of his liner notes on former albums, such as Highway 61 Revisited. Like his earlier work, this twenty-ninth studio album attracted widespread attention. Rolling Stone appreciated his second return to the sources, seeing a “genius blues singer.” Robert Christgau in the Village Voice judged this album as both “eerie and enticing.” Even better, World Gone Wrong won the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album. One regret, however, is that the album reached only number 70 on the US Billboard charts and number 35 in the United Kingdom, which does not reflect Dylan’s respectful and informed reading of these traditional songs.
The Album Cover
Ana María Vélez-Wood took the cover photograph during the shoot of the video for the album’s single, “Blood in My Eyes,” directed by Dave A. Stewart in Camden Town, London. Dylan, wearing a black top hat, is seated at a table in a restaurant called Fluke’s Cradle (located just in front of the counterculture bookstore Compendium Books). Behind Dylan, there is a painting by the Irish artist Peter Gallagher that was inspired by The Stranger by the French novelist Albert Camus. Unfortunately, the artist signed the painting in the bottom right-hand corner, where it is obscured by Dylan’s hat. This is why Peter Gallagher is not credited on the album. A few months later, Dylan purchased this painting. In fact, Sony New York asked two of Dave A. Stewart’s employees in London to acquire the painting. The back sleeve, a photo of Dylan in an orange tone, was shot by photographer Randee St. Nicholas (Prince, Whitney Houston, Bee Gees). The design of the entire album was done by Nancy Donald (Weather Report, Michael Jackson, the Neville Brothers).
The Recording
In May 1993, Dylan and sound engineer Micajah Ryan retreated to Dylan’s Malibu garage studio to work on World Gone Wrong, using the same method as Good As I Been to You. The unexpected success of this latter record had restored their confidence, and Dylan produced the album by himself without the assistance of Debbie Gold. There is a clear difference in the sound quality of this new work: Good As I Been to You has a “full” sound, with Dylan’s guitar recorded in stereo; World Gone Wrong sounds m
ore raw. Listeners can hear breathing and distortion. Some of the recordings were clearly made on a cassette tape recorder, a procedure similar to that used by Bruce Springsteen, who recorded his magnificent Nebraska in 1982 on a four-track cassette recorder, the famous Tascam Portastudio. Nothing to date confirms this supposition; the fact remains that the result is a triumph. As always Dylan transcends mere technique by highlighting the emotion that he always wants to place at the center of his musical expression.
The Instruments
The guitars used during the sessions for this album are probably the same as for Good As I Been to You. Dylan used only one harmonica, in C.
FOR DYLANOLOGISTS
Dylan recorded Good As I Been to You to fulfill his contract with Columbia, and it was the last album under the terms of this contract. When he produced World Gone Wrong, he was no longer under contract. It was only after the release of his last work that he signed a new contract for ten additional albums with Columbia (Sony).
World Gone Wrong
Traditional / Arrangement Bob Dylan / 3:58
Musician: Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar / Recording Studio: Bob Dylan Garage Studio, Malibu, California: May 1993 / Producer: Bob Dylan / Sound Engineer: Micajah Ryan
Genesis and Production
The recordings made by the guitar and fiddle players Mississippi Sheiks in the first half of the 1930s have earned the group and their guitarist Sam Chatmon a place comparable to that of Charley Patton and Robert Johnson in the history of blues—folk blues, in this case. More than thirty years later, they left an indelible mark on the rock movement as a whole. Thus, from the Grateful Dead to Jack White, several generations of musicians have claimed the legacy of the group from Bolton, Mississippi.
A few months after covering the first Mississippi Sheiks’ success, “Sittin’ on Top of the World,” for the album Good As I Been to You, Dylan covered another classic from their repertoire, “World Gone Wrong.” He opens his new album with this cover, still contemporary, but harmonically quite far from the original. The songwriter took some liberties with the melody, but the result is a success. His interpretation is heavier than the Sheiks’ original, conveying disillusionment. The sound is more “tense” than that of Good As I Been to You, but the emotion is palpable. Dylan makes a superb introduction to his new album. His first guitar lick (0:36) gives the impression it was added by overdub.
Love Henry
Traditional / Arrangement Bob Dylan / 4:24
Musician: Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar / Recording Studio: Bob Dylan Garage Studio, Malibu, California: May 1993 / Producer: Bob Dylan / Sound Engineer: Micajah Ryan
Genesis and Production
“Love Henry” is an eighteenth-century Scottish ballad, also known under the titles “Young Hunting,” “Earl Richard,” and “The Proud Girl.” It is a traditional murder ballad about a crime of passion. In despair, the heroine stabs her lover, Henry, to death, because he is in love with another, more beautiful young woman. She then throws his body in the deep and cold water of the river.
This dark and romantic love story has been recorded by many musicians, including Tom Paley, whom Dylan mentions in the liner notes. Dylan recorded a very personal vision of the song, full of softness and sadness. Far from Paley’s version, Dylan’s interpretation requires careful listening. There is a slight and discrete reverb on the recording.
Ragged & Dirty
Traditional / Arrangement Bob Dylan / 4:09
Musician: Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar / Recording Studio: Bob Dylan Garage Studio, Malibu, California: May 1993 / Producer: Bob Dylan / Sound Engineer: Micajah Ryan
Genesis and Production
“Ragged & Dirty” originates from an old Memphis blues song, “Broke and Hungry,” recorded by Texan blues singer Blind Lemon Jefferson in 1926. Three years later, Sleepy John Estes cut a cover of this lament from the deep Delta under the title “Broken Hearted, Ragged and Dirty Too.” On July 16, 1942, Willie Brown, who played with Charley Patton and Robert Johnson, recorded “Ragged & Dirty” for the Library of Congress. In his book titled The Land Where the Blues Began (1993), Alan Lomax wrote, “If you’ve never heard the blues, get yourself a record and listen and then come back join us… William Brown’s song can last until the morning.”149
In the album liner notes, Dylan describes Willie Brown’s version as a “superior beauty.” The Delta bluesman did set a high standard, but Dylan won the challenge. His interpretation is up to the level of Brown’s version. Both express the same feelings of hopelessness, fatigue, and weariness, but both also exude dignity. Dylan uses the same hypnotic guitar riff and sometimes plucks a string to convey the essential meaning.
Blood In My Eyes
Traditional / Arrangement Bob Dylan / 5:05
Musician: Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar / Recording Studio: Bob Dylan Garage Studio, Malibu, California: May 1993 Producer: Bob Dylan / Sound Engineer: Micajah Ryan
Genesis and Production
For the second time on this album, Dylan covers another blues song by the Mississippi Sheiks, “I’ve Got Blood in My Eyes for You.” A man has a crush on a woman, so he returns home, puts on a tie, and grabs some money. When he reaches the girl, she looks at him and begins to smile, but the lady has second thoughts and refuses his advances: “Hey, hey, man, can’t you wait a little while?” The man tells her, “You don’t want me, give my money back.” “Rebellion against routine,” is how Dylan describes the songs of the Mississippi Sheiks.
Dylan’s version of this song is much more introspective, cheerless, and almost has a melancholy feel—darker than the feeling of the Sheiks’ version. In Dylan’s interpretation of the song in the music video, directed by Dave A. Stewart in London, he clearly does not joke around. With a top hat, gloves, and umbrella against black-and-white images, he sings his words morosely, signing autographs and even juggling! He provides an excellent performance of both music and image.
To date, Dylan has sung “Blood in My Eyes” live only twice, both times at the Supper Club in New York City on November 16 and 17, 1993.
Broke Down Engine
Traditional / Arrangement Bob Dylan / 3:23
Musician: Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar / Recording Studio: Bob Dylan Garage Studio, Malibu, California: May 1993 / Producer: Bob Dylan / Sound Engineer: Micajah Ryan
Genesis and Production
Blind Willie McTell, born William Samuel McTier, was a Piedmont and ragtime blues singer and a remarkable 12-string guitar player. He played all styles of African-American music, from folk blues to gospel to ragtime. He recorded many blues songs covered by numerous guitarists. Because of the number of adaptations, “Statesboro Blues” is perhaps his most famous song. Also, it is noteworthy to mention “Broke Down Engine Blues,” recorded for Columbia Records in 1931. The tale: The unfortunate narrator feels “like a broke-down engine” because he lost everything in a game and his girlfriend left him: “Been shooting craps and gambling, momma, and I done got broke.” He has only the Lord to implore for his beloved to come back: “I ain’t crying for no religion, Lord, give me back my good gal please.” Blues in all its drama!
According to Dylan, “Broke Down Engine” is one of McTell’s masterpieces. But he totally revises it, offering a very different arrangement. Sometimes it is a bit messy (around 3:07), sometimes at the limit of saturation, but his interpretation comes straight from the heart. He sings with all his soul. It seems he plays on his 12-string Martin D-35, even if the sound is not typical of this type of guitar. This hypothesis is based on the difficulty he has playing some phrases. The only real similarity with McTell’s version is that Dylan hits on the body of his guitar (1:53) to accompany the words, “Can’t you hear me, baby, rappin’ on your door?”
FOR DYLANOLOGISTS
Dylan refers to Blind Willie McTell repeatedly in his songs. He cites him on “Highway 61 Revisited” under his pseudonym, Georgia Sam, and dedicates a song to him on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3: Rare & Unreleased, 1961–1991 (1991).
&nbs
p; Delia
Traditional / Arrangement Bob Dylan / 5:42
Musician: Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar / Recording Studio: Bob Dylan Garage Studio, Malibu, California: May 1993 / Producer: Bob Dylan / Sound Engineer: Micajah Ryan
Genesis and Production
“Delia” was inspired by a tragedy in the Yamacraw neighborhood of Savannah, Georgia, on the evening of December 31, 1900. A fourteen-year-old African-American, Delia Green, was murdered by her boyfriend, Moses “Cooney” Houston, barely older than she was. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and paroled after twelve years. This sad story has been an inspiration for several well-known blues musicians. Blind Blake and Blind Willie McTell were among the first to sing “Little Delia” (or “Delia’s Gone”). The story is told from the boyfriend’s point of view, who is pleading extenuating circumstances, saying that she insulted him.
Johnny Cash recorded “Delia’s Gone” twice: the first time for his album The Sound of Johnny Cash (1962), and again in 1994 for American Recordings, with different lyrics but always using the first person singular. Dylan’s version is written in a double register; the narrator somehow keeps his distance from the drama. He describes Delia as a gambling girl and presents Curtis, not Cooney, as the murderer: “Curtis’ looking high, Curtis’ looking low / He shot poor Delia down with a cruel forty-four.” Each verse ends with the use of the first person singular: “All the friends I ever had are gone.” Dylan, who qualifies the song as a “sad tale,” interprets this murder ballad very smoothly. The tone is melancholy, fragile, and accompanied by a somber guitar riff, not always easy to play.
Bob Dylan All the Songs Page 81
