Infidels

Bob Dylan’s Best Songs: Blind Willie McTell (recorded May 5, 1983)

Posted on by Egil Mosbron

Blind-Willie-McTell & Bob Dylan

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]Kurt Loder: I heard an outtake from the Infidels sessions called Blind Willie McTell. Is that ever going to come out? It’s a great song.
Bob Dylan: I didn’t think I recorded it right. But I don’t know why that stuff gets out on me. I mean, it never seems to get out on other people.
~Kurt Loder interview 1984

[Blind Willie McTell] He was just a very smooth operating bluesman. His songs always reminded me of… As trains, but that ‘s just my hang up, you know, trains. And his vocal style, and his sound seems to fit right in with that lonesome sound. His kinda, you know, Ragtime… kinda thing on a 12 string guitar, so it made everything he did sound, you know, give it a little higher pitch. You know, you could probably call… You could probably call… you could probably say he was the Van Gogh of Blues. You could probably say he was the Van Gogh of the country Blues.
~Bob Dylan (Eliot Mintz Interview, March 1991)
[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Released version:

Unreleased “electric” version:

Continue reading “Bob Dylan’s Best Songs: Blind Willie McTell (recorded May 5, 1983)” →

April 16: Bob Dylan recorded Someone’s Got a Hold of My Heart in 1983

Posted on by Egil Mosbron

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]This is not the jokerman. This is someone whose heart can be got ahold of. And in a real sense this person is more vulnerable, and even more in need of a place to hide, than the genius who could write and perform “Blind Willie McTell.”
~Paul Williams (Bob Dylan: Performing Artist, Vol 2: The Middle Years 1974-1986)

It’s getting harder and harder to recognize the trap
Too much information about nothing, too much educated rap
Never could learn to drink that blood, and call it wine
What looks large from a distance, close up is never that big
~Bob Dylan (Someone’s Got a Hold of My Heart)[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Great song recorded during the “infidels” sessions April 1983, but sadly not included on the released album.

It later developed into “Tight Connection to My Heart (Has Anybody Seen My Love)”, recorded during the “Empire Burlesque” sessions in 1985 (and released on that album).

Continue reading “April 16: Bob Dylan recorded Someone’s Got a Hold of My Heart in 1983” →

Susan Tedeschi – Lord Protect My Child – The Best Dylan Covers

Posted on by Hallgeir Olsen

Susan Tedeschi – Lord Protect My Child – The Best Dylan Covers

 

There’ll be a time I hear tell
When all will be well
When God and man will be reconciled
But until men lose their chains
And righteousness reigns
Lord, protect my child

Hope and Desire is the sixth studio album by Susan Tedeschi. It was released on October 11, 2005. The album is a slight step away from Tedeschi’s electrifying compositions and wild guitar work, as she concentrates on singing. All songs on Hope and Desire are covers of famous standards. It has a fantastic version of Bob Dylan’s Lord Protect My Child!

“Lord Protect My Child” is a song written by Bob Dylan, who recorded it at New York City’s The Power Station in ten takes on May 2, 1983. The song is an outtake from Dylan’s album Infidels that was later included in The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991 on Volume 3. It is not known why Dylan decided not to include “Lord Protect My Child” on Infidels. It is a Christian song, the lyrics of which express concern for Dylan’s child. Reviewer Jonathan Lethem called the song “an achingly candid blues-plea which [provides] a rare glimpse of Bob Dylan-the-parent”.

Susan Tedeschi, Derek Trucks, and Dave Brubeck recorded this great interpretation of “Lord Protect My Child”, which was produced by Chris Brubeck and used as the theme song for the human trafficking documentary film, Not My Life.

Susan Tedeschi – Lord Protect My Child (Studio version):

Continue reading “Susan Tedeschi – Lord Protect My Child – The Best Dylan Covers” →

October 27: Bob Dylan released Infidels in 1983

Posted on by Hallgeir Olsen

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]….I wanted to call my next album, whenever I made it, Surviving In A Ruthless World. I wanted to call it that. Before we even went into the studio, “The next album I do I’m gonna call Surviving in a Ruthless World”. But something was holding me back from it, because for some reason… somebody pointed out to me that the last bunch of albums that I made all started with the letter S. And I’d say, “Is that right?” There must be a story or something. I didn’t want to do another one beginning with S just f for superstitious reasons. I didn’t want to get bogged down in the letter S whatever the letter S stands for. And this Infidels came out, just came into my head one day, I guess. This was after we had that album done that it just came in my head that this is the right title for this album. I mean, I don’t know any more about it than anybody else really. I did it. I did the album, and I call it that, but what it means is for other people to interpret, you know, if it means something to them. Infidels is a word that’s in the dictionary and whoever it applies to… to everybody on the album, every character. Maybe it’s all about infidels.
~Bob Dylan (to Kurt Loder in March 1984)[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Bob Dylan – Jokerman (official video):

 

Continue reading “October 27: Bob Dylan released Infidels in 1983” →