Bob, we have been the back-office administrators for a number of catalog investment vehicles. We've seen first-hand how many of them operate. It's easy to tout how great your marketing department is if you're getting a ton of licenses by giving quotes on your newly purchased assets at a third of what they're worth. (I'm not talking about any company in particular here). And we had one client who sold their songs a year ago to one of the ubiquitous catalog buyers, and only just this month we got a note from BMI informing us of the new income claimant. Writers can expect income to go down if they sell to someone whose administration is done based on the lowest percentage administration cost rather than by finding the highest quality administrator who is going to collect a hell of a lot more money (like us) than the low-cost leader. 90% of a big pie is a lot more than 97.5% of a tiny pie.
Other factors: Are first negotiation rights to buy additional publishing or writer shares involved in these sales? Are there back-end bumps to the purchase price if income goes up over the next few years? And are both of these factors an incentive to the buyer to not collect and/or report the maximum amount of income after they own the catalog?
Read the full prospectus on some of these publishing investment vehicles. Does anyone have matching rights to buy the assets if they bankrupt the company? Do any of the fund leaders get a percentage of what they can spend, catalog investment quality or expected return be damned? How is the track record of the folks who have put these things together, and have they made money for their investors in the past? What are these companies spending on their own salaries, offices, advertising, parties, PR firms, and overhead compared to the rest of the industry?
And what kind of safe return can your heirs get in an alternative investment (to the extent that you yourself don't blow it all before you die)? After you pay 20% in capital gains and (let's just say) 10% to your lawyers and advisors, you're maybe getting ¾ of 1% in a money market fund on a balance that is 70% of the value of the appreciating asset you once had. Is your lawyer or manager driving the sale so he/she has something to charge you a lot of money for that probably wasn't something he/she should have advised you to do in the first place?
And as Diane Warren pointed out in her comment on the Dylan sale, these songs may be special to you or may even have changed the life of someone you don't even know.
I don't know a single person that has sold their catalog that hasn't eventually regretted it. I always try and talk clients out of selling, and when they ignore me I feel more comfortable in making them an offer.
Anyway, I hope these thoughts are useful and interesting to someone. As a person who has built a career out of protecting creators, it just kills me to see people selling their lives' work in this manner.
Best regards.
Randall Wixen
Wixen Music Publishing, Inc.
24025 Park Sorrento #130
Calabasas, CA 91302
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Thursday, 10 December 2020
Noel Paul Stookey-This Week's Podcast
Noel Paul Stookey was "Paul" in Peter, Paul & Mary. Listen to Noel tell stories of Greenwich Village in the early sixties, the folk scene, turning Albert Grossman on to Bob Dylan, having hits, being on the road, embracing Christianity and keepin' on keepin' on, writing and performing to this day. Noel is erudite and articulate and it's a thrill to hear him opine on what once was, he was there, and soon this era will be lost to the sands of time. This is a treat.
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/id1316200737
https://open.spotify.com/show/3QQChyYncANduSOs72eCbV
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/The-Bob-Lefsetz-Podcast
https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast
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https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/id1316200737
https://open.spotify.com/show/3QQChyYncANduSOs72eCbV
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/The-Bob-Lefsetz-Podcast
https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast
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Wednesday, 9 December 2020
Diane & Mary
From: Diane Warren
To Bob Lefsetz
Hi! Hope U are ok and staying safe and sane or at least safe! Saw your article about selling your songs and I agree. I would never EVER sell my catalogue, it would be like selling my soul and it's not for sale. The money being offered is insane but there is no amount of money that could ever make me do that. It's like selling your kids or something. It's so weird since someone like Dylan doesn't exactly need the money. I have one of the most valuable catalogues in the world and there's only one writer, me! But that catalogue and that writer are not for sale! Anyway, hope to see U one of these days when we can see people again Diane
______________________________________
From: Mary Bono
Re: Babe
Hi Bob:
A mutual friend of ours forwarded me your article. So glad you got to discover the timelessness of my late husband's song, "I Got You Babe." I found myself experiencing a rollercoaster of emotions reading your thoughts – from mild anger, to laughter to satisfaction and smiles that you got it right in the end.
Then to see how it touched the lives of so many of Sonny's (and Sonny and Cher's) industry friends. What a treat! I never got the chance to meet many of your readers who knew and loved Sonny. I'd love to thank all of those who felt compelled to walk with me down memory lane. So great to know "I've got you to talk with me."
Many thanks again. Be well.
Mary
Hon. Mary Bono
Member of Congress, Ret.
www.marybono.com
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To Bob Lefsetz
Hi! Hope U are ok and staying safe and sane or at least safe! Saw your article about selling your songs and I agree. I would never EVER sell my catalogue, it would be like selling my soul and it's not for sale. The money being offered is insane but there is no amount of money that could ever make me do that. It's like selling your kids or something. It's so weird since someone like Dylan doesn't exactly need the money. I have one of the most valuable catalogues in the world and there's only one writer, me! But that catalogue and that writer are not for sale! Anyway, hope to see U one of these days when we can see people again Diane
______________________________________
From: Mary Bono
Re: Babe
Hi Bob:
A mutual friend of ours forwarded me your article. So glad you got to discover the timelessness of my late husband's song, "I Got You Babe." I found myself experiencing a rollercoaster of emotions reading your thoughts – from mild anger, to laughter to satisfaction and smiles that you got it right in the end.
Then to see how it touched the lives of so many of Sonny's (and Sonny and Cher's) industry friends. What a treat! I never got the chance to meet many of your readers who knew and loved Sonny. I'd love to thank all of those who felt compelled to walk with me down memory lane. So great to know "I've got you to talk with me."
Many thanks again. Be well.
Mary
Hon. Mary Bono
Member of Congress, Ret.
www.marybono.com
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Tuesday, 8 December 2020
Mailbag
Subject: Re: Re-Satisfaction
Satisfaction is interesting track for me because my mentor Dave Hassenger who taught me the art of engineering, recorded and mixed that song along with a number of others at RCA studios in Hollywood.
He told me great stories of the night he mixed that song and he woke up Mick & Keith at 6am to play it for them and neither of them thought it was a single.
Val Garay
___________________________________
Subject: RE: Why He's Bob Dylan
A quickie re. Dylan at Newport. I was there in the fenced off section right in front of the stage...standees only...performers, press, etc. I was there playing guitar at the festival with Ian and Sylvia; and she and I were standing in maybe in the 5th row if one could say there were rows. The reports of booing? Highly over-hyped. No, the old school folkies...Pete Seeger and his crowd were not happy about Dylan so abandoning the Woodie Guthrie clone sound. And some back in the audience didn't like it. But I do not remember hearing much protest. The performance was loose, to say the least. It was chaotic. The sound system could not handle the on-stage volume. Joe Boyd and Paul Rothchild had hell on their hands re. sound. But it was exciting as hell.
Rick Turner
___________________________________
From: Michael Craig
Subject: Re: Why He's Bob Dylan
Friends of mine - both Dylan fans - once went to the same Dylan concert unbeknownst to each other. Much later they met up and the topic turned to Dylan live. One guy said he had recently been to see Bob and thought it the best show he had ever attended. The other guy said he had seen Bob and thought it the worst. Only after another 10-15 minutes of banter did they figure that they were talking about the same show. Meanwhile, a covers playlist assembled by my friend Lionel - thanks for the Faces tip!
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/56xSZ587zFgb40SI4Qn52c?si=UgVs2B-RTDG8UfxJGiFTCw
___________________________________
From: Martin Schwartz
Subject: Re: Why He's Bob Dylan
It was 1983, I was in my office at Paramount producing a TV show called Rock of the 80's. At that point we had eleven stations in the US and one in Austraila that bought the KROQ format that I was pitching. My secretary buzzed me and she sounded rattled. She said Bob Dylan was on the phone. I laughed and told her someone was messing with me and to ignore the call. She walked in my office and said she was sure it was Bob on the line. I took the call then Bob asked me if he could come over and play me his new record. I cautioned Bob and told him I don't make programming decisions for KROQ. but.he insisted. The Paramount lot was a buzz that Dylan is coming on the lot. My office was adjacent to Lucy Park named after Lucille Ball. I walked outside and saw a group of people gathering in the park including high level Paramount brass. In walked Bob and gave me the record. I told him I will listen and get back to him..the thought of listening to the record in his presence was daunting. He insisted so we put the record on and we listened..to the entire record. The record was not exactly KROQ friendly. I had pitched a lot of music by then but never had a record pitched to me by an artist…. Bob Dylan no less.
I've never told this story..who would have believed it anyway?
___________________________________
Re: Bruce Hornsby In Relix
Bob.... Bruce has been a friend for a long, long time. I have always been in awe of his talents, ever since our first encounter In a club in Virginia when I had Sea Level... must have been around '76/77. He scared the crap out of me then, but was ... and has been ever since... all these years, a gracious, fun, inspiring, dynamic personal friend, for which am eternally grateful. RESPECT...
He is fearless as an artist, and I admire that so much. Everything he has done guesting with others has lifted the music a notch or ten and made things better. Bruce, Hail and Love for all you have contributed to our instrument, songwriting, rock and others genres ... not to mention the beautiful voice. Groove on...Yer Pal, Chuck Leavell
___________________________________
From: Steve Lukather
Subject: Re: Bruce Hornsby In Relix
Bruce Hornsby is a huge gift.
Known him casually since the late 70's. My brother and genius engineer-producer Elliot Schiener produced his breakout album, David Foster turned me on to him when we were all so young. We all learned of him thru '
The Way It Is ' but man.... he is so much more as great as that is.
His songwriting is amongst my favorite outside of his virtuosity.
The stuff he wrote for outside artists... incredible stuff he gave to others or wrote for them,....'End of the Innocence'- I Can't make you Love Me' ...2 of the best songs ever written in my opinion.
His style is so recognizable and huge sounding.
His piano voicings alone should be studied. He is a musician you can't pin down as he could and has done everything. And one hell of a nice Man on top of it all.
He is like Bobby McFerrin, Zawinul, Corea w/ Spain etc.... although classics., Coltrane did Giant Steps different all the time , different tempos arrangements, Miles the same... Bruce is up there with those cats to me.
Luke
PS Longevity is key. I still practice everyday. Not get get faster or better but to expand my vocabulary. Keep the muscles loose ( I'm old now)
You will never hear a real musician say ' Well thats it, I know it all now, pass the beer please'. Not the guys I know. Pat Metheny comes to mind. His touch alone is insane + His musical vocabulary is like speaking 50 languages. Touched by God... and Bruce and him worked together so.. 'Nuff said.
___________________________________
Subject: Re: Bruce Hornsby In Relix
Hi Bob,
That was a great piece on Hornsby.
I used to manage Bruce, in the early 2000s. The "management playbook", if there is such a thing, definitely got thrown out the window while working with him, and I mean that in the most positive of manners. I learned more from Bruce than I have from anyone in the business. He was never compromised by people's expectations - not once, even in the smallest of ways but certainly not with his show setlist. Even his band didn't know what was coming next from night to night, or even song to song. It made each performance exciting and special. From my perspective he played the stage like it was a basketball game. He was there for the enjoyment of it, and to win - musically speaking. Being an excellent musician was top priority for him, and it shows.
I'll forever respect him and his approach to music and I do my best to pass those principles along to the next generation of artists.
Dave Rose
Deep South Entertainment
___________________________________
From: Dean Budnick
Subject: re: Bruce Hornsby In Relix
Hi Bob,
Thanks for the kind words on Relix.
The evolution you describe really began when Peter Shapiro came on board as our publisher in 2009. He certainly is a fan of the good ol' Grateful Dead but his eyes and ears are so much more expansive.
You've previously written about the struggles that print publications currently face, so you're well aware that we are fighting the good fight.
Having said that, during this particularly challenging moment, I look to the artists who continue to inspire us.
The issue of Relix with the Bruce Hornsby article you reference features a Trey Anastasio cover story. Trey just wrapped up an eight week run live from the Beacon Theatre, connecting with his community while offering free music (and no song repeats) via Friday night Twitch streams. What's more, he solicited donations for the Divided Sky Fund, which will be administered by Phish's non-profit, the WaterWheel Foundation, to assist people affected by addiction (the pandemic has taken its toll here) and also to facilitate the creation of a treatment center in Vermont.
https://tiltify.com/@thebeaconjams-dsf/divided-sky-fund
I also think of the band Galactic, which purchased their hometown venue, New Orleans' iconic Tipitina's at the end of 2018, with the hopes of sustaining a local cultural treasure. As a result, not only are the band members currently facing personal challenges given their loss of gigs due to COVID, but their hardships are compounded by the fact that these are dark days for venues. Meanwhile, Tip's is scrambling not only to maintain its own survival but continues to aid others in need by raising funds on their behalf (Last night Tipitinas.tv hosted a show that benefitted the Second Harvest Food Bank, which provides sustenance to folks in South Louisiana).
https://www.tipitinas.com/
So even as we maintain our own mission here at Relix in support of the sweet sounds, we draw inspiration not only from wonderful musicians but also from deeply admirable people…
Take care,
Dean
___________________________________
From: Robert Falgiano
Subject: Re: Bruce Hornsby In Relix
Hi Bob. I've booked Hornsby multiple times and seen him live a few more. I totally understand what he says about performing what you're most passionate about. The difference got hornsby is that he has the raw talent to pull it off whereas others just can't. His piano playing is so evolved and interesting that he can improvise strongly without wasting air. I enjoyed him on and offstage. A small thrill was when he came down the hallway before a show and wondered what he should open solo with. I told him I loved the letter instrumentals like Song C and Song D, so he went out and knocked one out with gusto. Pretty awesome. I would see him repeatedly because he doesn't crank sausages. He keeps evolving. Again, not everyone can pull it off. Rob
___________________________________
From: Tom Kenny
Subject: Page and Plant - Hurdy Gurdy | Gallow's Pole (Live)
Bob,
I was very fortunate to be page and plants lighting designer .
We went t, the ends of the earth and blew everyone away with a show that was like a 747 taken off .
Europe , the states ...Asia ..South America ..the eastern block
The word stunning doesn't get close to how good the shows were received ,
We used to land like an alien space ship,
They even were my wedding infamous wedding band in western ireland ,
Be safe
Tom
https://youtu.be/466HEu-rdf4
___________________________________
From: Juan Mier
Subject: Re: Re-I Got You Babe
I am surprised no one mentioned the best version—the one with Beavis & Butthead, turning the oboe into guitar through a few distortion pedals
https://youtu.be/C91WgKc541s
___________________________________
From: Marius de vries
Subject: Re: Re-I Got You Babe
hey bob
i couldn't read this without sharing one of the strangest and most fun sessions i've ever done.
guess the guitarist!
all best mdv
https://youtu.be/C91WgKc541s
___________________________________
From: Jamie Kitman
Subject: Re: Tom Werman-This Week's Podcast
Tom was my next door neighbor growing up - I babysat for him and his wife's first two children — and I can credit him w both my going to Columbia as an undergrad and the idea that there was a living to be made in the music business. An inspirational fellow you might say.
P.S. To amplify, this was in Leonia Nj when Tom was a junior A&R man signing as a yet unsuccessful Rupert Holmes. He taught a class in the music business in his home at night in our public alternative high school. There he introduced us to editing songs (c Quadrophenia) and Dave Marsh and Peter Knobler who edited Crawdaddy. He invited me to represent my generation, one of three, in an upcoming theme issue, with the other two writers being Studs Terkel and Muhammad Ali. I'm convinced all the august company got me into college despite an uneven pass-fail grade record. Tom also turned me on to The Byrds for which I will be forever grateful, as well as pre hit Peter Frampton, Thunderclap Newman and a bunch of other cool stuff. And he was at the very first They Might Be Giants gig in LA at the Club Lingerie (I'd stay at his house) in Studio City and was very supportive despite it being far removed from what his new life as LA's premier hair metal producer was about. I remember being at his place in Studio City when the LA Guns sent over a celebratory gift 911 coupe when their record went platinum:multi platinum something. He was on top of the world.
But I also remember c1982 when The Meat Puppets who I managed wanted him to produce what become their only gold record Too High to Die. We knew it had a hit (Backwater) but the label didn't believe it and grudgingly said he could produce it on spec; no money upfront. We were very embarrassed and saddened. Grunge had arrived and he was out and it all seemed so unfair. Ultimately Paul Leary - w the endorsement of Kurt Cobain, whose enthusiasm for the Pups helped turn the label around - got the gig and it was also fine album in the end.
I also had Tom give a speech at Columbia to a group of students and alumni about reinventing himself after his life in rock's fast lane. It was brilliant and left many, myself included, w tears between the smiles and laughs.
No one was, is or ever will be perfect, but Tom Werman has rocked my world.
___________________________________
Subject: Re: The Warren Miller Documentary
In flatland Chicago everyone would dread the onslaught of winter but the one bright spot was dressing up in our new neon ski jackets to watch Warren's films. We knew our people - those so desperate for snow and a slope that we would fly out to Copper or A basin for Thanksgiving, even with one lift open.
Years later I had tea with Warren in Montana and we discussed our shared love for the other magical place in his life, Orcas Island. He had recently broken his back skiing and he was in a lot of pain. Moreover you could tell he was realizing this was the big one, the thing that would make it almost impossible to ski like he had before.
We'd always see him on the slopes because he was such a big man. He was the ski ambassador for the Yellowstone Club, which for a long time was a haven for Midwestern powder junkies like us, with a portable trailer for a lodge, before it went bust and then became a celebrity haunt for Justin Timberlake, Cindy Crawford and Russian oligarchs with ski bunny prossies. He didn't fit in that new version of the club and was sincerely embarrassed about it. Hence the discussion about his other pure love for the water in Washington State. Nevertheless, he was a gentleman and very discrete and welcoming to everyone, despite his fame. He urged me to go to those special places in my life while I still could, and I often revisit that gentle conversation over tea. I do miss his sweet humor and the simplicity of getting amped for the season with him.
Johanna
___________________________________
Subject: Re: L.A. Locks Down
Date: November 28, 2020 at 11:07:26 AM PST
Bob,
I have a NEW perspective. I live in Bedford in Westchester where it seems everyone is a Millionaire or Billionaire.
I'm not. I worked for twenty years at Lehman Brothers wher I made a lot and spent a lot. It was Ok because between the 401K and ESEP plans, I always had a fallback.
Lehman went bankrupt and unlike Bear Stearns and AIG, I guess it wasn't too big to fail.
I went into the Music Business and despite being a self admitted Music Business wannabe, I succeeded in the tween pop Business and built a boy band called Dream Street, (Signed by Flom- Malls to Madison Square Garden- Beatlemania albeit with cult like numbers....before it imploded)
I wrote and produced a Movie Musical called Drama Drama and after screening and signing with Endeavor Content and a Hot Shot Forbes 30 under 30 Agent, complete with the promise of a Netflix Original Deal- NOTHING..
And with 2 college age kids and NO INCOME, I survived until the Virus raged on.
At 61, having worked for myself for 22 years, and still shopping my movie- I needed a job -not a career- (not that anyone was offering).
One of my Film Investors owns a very large Candy Distributorship. He offered me a job on the night shift (5:00 PM to 5:00 AM) 5 days a week.
I work with amazing latin guys. They are fast, strong and grateful to have a job.
I kvetch and drink Black Iced Coffee for 12 hours 5 nights a week.
What's my point? We in the warehouse are ALL going to get Covid. It seems unavoidable, Prior to working there, I would glare if someone in the Socially Distanced Bagel Store or Whole Foods let their mask slip below their nose.
In the warehouse, masks are often, falling or removed including my own.
The business is considered an essential business and will stay open.
The job might kill me, but I need the money. Most of my co-workers are 25-30.
My point is this is how Covid spreads and this is how it's become hard to contain and this is a world that I guarantee none of the Bedford women in their Lulu Lemon wearing Designer Masks knows exits.
I feel fine today. God willing I'll dodge this bullet.
Regards,
Brian Lukow
___________________________________
From: David Stopps
Subject: #ILoveLive Campaign for UK stage crew - Mark Knopfler, Nick Cave, Radiohead, Pete Townshend, Elbow participating
Hi Bob
I'm organising an #ILoveLive Stagehand Crowdfunder Prize Draw campaign to raise money for stage crew here in the UK
Here's how it's going: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/i-love-live
It's going amazingly well. Mark Knopfler is miles out-front but Elbow, Nick Cave, Eric Clapton and Liam Gallagher are moving on up. Radiohead launched today at 1.00pm and are flying.
Each band has their own prize draw and tickets are £5 each. It ends on 17 Dec and all proceeds go to helping UK stage crew. Some of the prizes are amazing
Tomorrow we launch with Pete Townshend who has put up his gold Fender Strat that he used at Wembley Stadium last year.
Surprises are 2 Glastonbury Tickets which have attracted over £20,000 and Marillion who you may not know. They're a prog band from where I live (Aylesbury in the UK) and operate completely under the radar. They have an astonishingly enthusiastic, devoted and generous worldwide fanbase. You never hear them on the radio but boy do they look after their fans.
Love peace and live music
David (Tom Bailey manager)
P.S. Don't know if you're keeping an eye on this but it's fascinating. Nick Cave & Warren Ellis stepped up a gear yesterday and went past Radiohead and 2 Glastonbury tickets.
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/i-love-live
I can't believe that the biggest bands in the world are competing with 2 Glastonbury Tickets….but hey it works for us.
Pete Townshend is moving up steadily. He went past Nile Rodgers this morning.
It's a test of which artists are in touch with their fans and which aren't.
We just went past the quarter of a million pounds mark….and Mark Knopfler went past £50K on his own.
___________________________________
From: Steve Stewart
Subject: Re: Dylan Sells
HI Bob -
This is really a question of long term vs. short term gain. Song rights are an uncorrelated asset class that is seeing a "resurgence" in value due to Merck and the big banks lining up to finance his company and the other music acquirers.
We started Vezt (www.vezt.co) to give artists the ability to hold on to their rights, while monetizing them on a fractional basis at a RETAIL level - from their fans. Basically, crowdfunded publishing.
Streaming is still in its nascent stage - sure there's penetration in most first world countries (with the exception of Japan - the world's second largest music market, where physical is still 83% of music sales), but plenty of growth potential in second and third world countries where billions live and love music, too. Ten years from now, not only will artists be paid more per stream, there will be 10X more streams, as new platforms and micro-licensing opportunities continue to expand.
Merck will make his money back and much, much more. His formula is genius - take the cream of the crop. Where other publishers have huge overhead and have catalogs where most songs are not generating huge revenue, Merck cherry-picked the best songs and has (so far) kept overhead down, focused on "managing" songs, rather then just sitting back and collecting. Remember, buying at a 15 multiple means he will break even on the purchase in 15 years if the income remains the same as it is at the point he purchases. If income goes up, that breakeven timeframe gets smaller.
It's hard to turn down hundreds of millions of dollars - Brendan O'Brien (who produced 5 records for Stone Temple Pilots when I managed them) was the biggest catalog Merck acquired - for a minute. Something like 1,400 songs - most of the big hits from the 1990's. He sold, as did some of the biggest artists, writers and producers over the last 40 years. Were they right? Only time will tell.
I've run across many artists and writers who have sold their catalogs for what seemed like a windfall at the time - and every single one of them regrets it...
-Steve Stewart
CEO Vezt
Satisfaction is interesting track for me because my mentor Dave Hassenger who taught me the art of engineering, recorded and mixed that song along with a number of others at RCA studios in Hollywood.
He told me great stories of the night he mixed that song and he woke up Mick & Keith at 6am to play it for them and neither of them thought it was a single.
Val Garay
___________________________________
Subject: RE: Why He's Bob Dylan
A quickie re. Dylan at Newport. I was there in the fenced off section right in front of the stage...standees only...performers, press, etc. I was there playing guitar at the festival with Ian and Sylvia; and she and I were standing in maybe in the 5th row if one could say there were rows. The reports of booing? Highly over-hyped. No, the old school folkies...Pete Seeger and his crowd were not happy about Dylan so abandoning the Woodie Guthrie clone sound. And some back in the audience didn't like it. But I do not remember hearing much protest. The performance was loose, to say the least. It was chaotic. The sound system could not handle the on-stage volume. Joe Boyd and Paul Rothchild had hell on their hands re. sound. But it was exciting as hell.
Rick Turner
___________________________________
From: Michael Craig
Subject: Re: Why He's Bob Dylan
Friends of mine - both Dylan fans - once went to the same Dylan concert unbeknownst to each other. Much later they met up and the topic turned to Dylan live. One guy said he had recently been to see Bob and thought it the best show he had ever attended. The other guy said he had seen Bob and thought it the worst. Only after another 10-15 minutes of banter did they figure that they were talking about the same show. Meanwhile, a covers playlist assembled by my friend Lionel - thanks for the Faces tip!
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/56xSZ587zFgb40SI4Qn52c?si=UgVs2B-RTDG8UfxJGiFTCw
___________________________________
From: Martin Schwartz
Subject: Re: Why He's Bob Dylan
It was 1983, I was in my office at Paramount producing a TV show called Rock of the 80's. At that point we had eleven stations in the US and one in Austraila that bought the KROQ format that I was pitching. My secretary buzzed me and she sounded rattled. She said Bob Dylan was on the phone. I laughed and told her someone was messing with me and to ignore the call. She walked in my office and said she was sure it was Bob on the line. I took the call then Bob asked me if he could come over and play me his new record. I cautioned Bob and told him I don't make programming decisions for KROQ. but.he insisted. The Paramount lot was a buzz that Dylan is coming on the lot. My office was adjacent to Lucy Park named after Lucille Ball. I walked outside and saw a group of people gathering in the park including high level Paramount brass. In walked Bob and gave me the record. I told him I will listen and get back to him..the thought of listening to the record in his presence was daunting. He insisted so we put the record on and we listened..to the entire record. The record was not exactly KROQ friendly. I had pitched a lot of music by then but never had a record pitched to me by an artist…. Bob Dylan no less.
I've never told this story..who would have believed it anyway?
___________________________________
Re: Bruce Hornsby In Relix
Bob.... Bruce has been a friend for a long, long time. I have always been in awe of his talents, ever since our first encounter In a club in Virginia when I had Sea Level... must have been around '76/77. He scared the crap out of me then, but was ... and has been ever since... all these years, a gracious, fun, inspiring, dynamic personal friend, for which am eternally grateful. RESPECT...
He is fearless as an artist, and I admire that so much. Everything he has done guesting with others has lifted the music a notch or ten and made things better. Bruce, Hail and Love for all you have contributed to our instrument, songwriting, rock and others genres ... not to mention the beautiful voice. Groove on...Yer Pal, Chuck Leavell
___________________________________
From: Steve Lukather
Subject: Re: Bruce Hornsby In Relix
Bruce Hornsby is a huge gift.
Known him casually since the late 70's. My brother and genius engineer-producer Elliot Schiener produced his breakout album, David Foster turned me on to him when we were all so young. We all learned of him thru '
The Way It Is ' but man.... he is so much more as great as that is.
His songwriting is amongst my favorite outside of his virtuosity.
The stuff he wrote for outside artists... incredible stuff he gave to others or wrote for them,....'End of the Innocence'- I Can't make you Love Me' ...2 of the best songs ever written in my opinion.
His style is so recognizable and huge sounding.
His piano voicings alone should be studied. He is a musician you can't pin down as he could and has done everything. And one hell of a nice Man on top of it all.
He is like Bobby McFerrin, Zawinul, Corea w/ Spain etc.... although classics., Coltrane did Giant Steps different all the time , different tempos arrangements, Miles the same... Bruce is up there with those cats to me.
Luke
PS Longevity is key. I still practice everyday. Not get get faster or better but to expand my vocabulary. Keep the muscles loose ( I'm old now)
You will never hear a real musician say ' Well thats it, I know it all now, pass the beer please'. Not the guys I know. Pat Metheny comes to mind. His touch alone is insane + His musical vocabulary is like speaking 50 languages. Touched by God... and Bruce and him worked together so.. 'Nuff said.
___________________________________
Subject: Re: Bruce Hornsby In Relix
Hi Bob,
That was a great piece on Hornsby.
I used to manage Bruce, in the early 2000s. The "management playbook", if there is such a thing, definitely got thrown out the window while working with him, and I mean that in the most positive of manners. I learned more from Bruce than I have from anyone in the business. He was never compromised by people's expectations - not once, even in the smallest of ways but certainly not with his show setlist. Even his band didn't know what was coming next from night to night, or even song to song. It made each performance exciting and special. From my perspective he played the stage like it was a basketball game. He was there for the enjoyment of it, and to win - musically speaking. Being an excellent musician was top priority for him, and it shows.
I'll forever respect him and his approach to music and I do my best to pass those principles along to the next generation of artists.
Dave Rose
Deep South Entertainment
___________________________________
From: Dean Budnick
Subject: re: Bruce Hornsby In Relix
Hi Bob,
Thanks for the kind words on Relix.
The evolution you describe really began when Peter Shapiro came on board as our publisher in 2009. He certainly is a fan of the good ol' Grateful Dead but his eyes and ears are so much more expansive.
You've previously written about the struggles that print publications currently face, so you're well aware that we are fighting the good fight.
Having said that, during this particularly challenging moment, I look to the artists who continue to inspire us.
The issue of Relix with the Bruce Hornsby article you reference features a Trey Anastasio cover story. Trey just wrapped up an eight week run live from the Beacon Theatre, connecting with his community while offering free music (and no song repeats) via Friday night Twitch streams. What's more, he solicited donations for the Divided Sky Fund, which will be administered by Phish's non-profit, the WaterWheel Foundation, to assist people affected by addiction (the pandemic has taken its toll here) and also to facilitate the creation of a treatment center in Vermont.
https://tiltify.com/@thebeaconjams-dsf/divided-sky-fund
I also think of the band Galactic, which purchased their hometown venue, New Orleans' iconic Tipitina's at the end of 2018, with the hopes of sustaining a local cultural treasure. As a result, not only are the band members currently facing personal challenges given their loss of gigs due to COVID, but their hardships are compounded by the fact that these are dark days for venues. Meanwhile, Tip's is scrambling not only to maintain its own survival but continues to aid others in need by raising funds on their behalf (Last night Tipitinas.tv hosted a show that benefitted the Second Harvest Food Bank, which provides sustenance to folks in South Louisiana).
https://www.tipitinas.com/
So even as we maintain our own mission here at Relix in support of the sweet sounds, we draw inspiration not only from wonderful musicians but also from deeply admirable people…
Take care,
Dean
___________________________________
From: Robert Falgiano
Subject: Re: Bruce Hornsby In Relix
Hi Bob. I've booked Hornsby multiple times and seen him live a few more. I totally understand what he says about performing what you're most passionate about. The difference got hornsby is that he has the raw talent to pull it off whereas others just can't. His piano playing is so evolved and interesting that he can improvise strongly without wasting air. I enjoyed him on and offstage. A small thrill was when he came down the hallway before a show and wondered what he should open solo with. I told him I loved the letter instrumentals like Song C and Song D, so he went out and knocked one out with gusto. Pretty awesome. I would see him repeatedly because he doesn't crank sausages. He keeps evolving. Again, not everyone can pull it off. Rob
___________________________________
From: Tom Kenny
Subject: Page and Plant - Hurdy Gurdy | Gallow's Pole (Live)
Bob,
I was very fortunate to be page and plants lighting designer .
We went t, the ends of the earth and blew everyone away with a show that was like a 747 taken off .
Europe , the states ...Asia ..South America ..the eastern block
The word stunning doesn't get close to how good the shows were received ,
We used to land like an alien space ship,
They even were my wedding infamous wedding band in western ireland ,
Be safe
Tom
https://youtu.be/466HEu-rdf4
___________________________________
From: Juan Mier
Subject: Re: Re-I Got You Babe
I am surprised no one mentioned the best version—the one with Beavis & Butthead, turning the oboe into guitar through a few distortion pedals
https://youtu.be/C91WgKc541s
___________________________________
From: Marius de vries
Subject: Re: Re-I Got You Babe
hey bob
i couldn't read this without sharing one of the strangest and most fun sessions i've ever done.
guess the guitarist!
all best mdv
https://youtu.be/C91WgKc541s
___________________________________
From: Jamie Kitman
Subject: Re: Tom Werman-This Week's Podcast
Tom was my next door neighbor growing up - I babysat for him and his wife's first two children — and I can credit him w both my going to Columbia as an undergrad and the idea that there was a living to be made in the music business. An inspirational fellow you might say.
P.S. To amplify, this was in Leonia Nj when Tom was a junior A&R man signing as a yet unsuccessful Rupert Holmes. He taught a class in the music business in his home at night in our public alternative high school. There he introduced us to editing songs (c Quadrophenia) and Dave Marsh and Peter Knobler who edited Crawdaddy. He invited me to represent my generation, one of three, in an upcoming theme issue, with the other two writers being Studs Terkel and Muhammad Ali. I'm convinced all the august company got me into college despite an uneven pass-fail grade record. Tom also turned me on to The Byrds for which I will be forever grateful, as well as pre hit Peter Frampton, Thunderclap Newman and a bunch of other cool stuff. And he was at the very first They Might Be Giants gig in LA at the Club Lingerie (I'd stay at his house) in Studio City and was very supportive despite it being far removed from what his new life as LA's premier hair metal producer was about. I remember being at his place in Studio City when the LA Guns sent over a celebratory gift 911 coupe when their record went platinum:multi platinum something. He was on top of the world.
But I also remember c1982 when The Meat Puppets who I managed wanted him to produce what become their only gold record Too High to Die. We knew it had a hit (Backwater) but the label didn't believe it and grudgingly said he could produce it on spec; no money upfront. We were very embarrassed and saddened. Grunge had arrived and he was out and it all seemed so unfair. Ultimately Paul Leary - w the endorsement of Kurt Cobain, whose enthusiasm for the Pups helped turn the label around - got the gig and it was also fine album in the end.
I also had Tom give a speech at Columbia to a group of students and alumni about reinventing himself after his life in rock's fast lane. It was brilliant and left many, myself included, w tears between the smiles and laughs.
No one was, is or ever will be perfect, but Tom Werman has rocked my world.
___________________________________
Subject: Re: The Warren Miller Documentary
In flatland Chicago everyone would dread the onslaught of winter but the one bright spot was dressing up in our new neon ski jackets to watch Warren's films. We knew our people - those so desperate for snow and a slope that we would fly out to Copper or A basin for Thanksgiving, even with one lift open.
Years later I had tea with Warren in Montana and we discussed our shared love for the other magical place in his life, Orcas Island. He had recently broken his back skiing and he was in a lot of pain. Moreover you could tell he was realizing this was the big one, the thing that would make it almost impossible to ski like he had before.
We'd always see him on the slopes because he was such a big man. He was the ski ambassador for the Yellowstone Club, which for a long time was a haven for Midwestern powder junkies like us, with a portable trailer for a lodge, before it went bust and then became a celebrity haunt for Justin Timberlake, Cindy Crawford and Russian oligarchs with ski bunny prossies. He didn't fit in that new version of the club and was sincerely embarrassed about it. Hence the discussion about his other pure love for the water in Washington State. Nevertheless, he was a gentleman and very discrete and welcoming to everyone, despite his fame. He urged me to go to those special places in my life while I still could, and I often revisit that gentle conversation over tea. I do miss his sweet humor and the simplicity of getting amped for the season with him.
Johanna
___________________________________
Subject: Re: L.A. Locks Down
Date: November 28, 2020 at 11:07:26 AM PST
Bob,
I have a NEW perspective. I live in Bedford in Westchester where it seems everyone is a Millionaire or Billionaire.
I'm not. I worked for twenty years at Lehman Brothers wher I made a lot and spent a lot. It was Ok because between the 401K and ESEP plans, I always had a fallback.
Lehman went bankrupt and unlike Bear Stearns and AIG, I guess it wasn't too big to fail.
I went into the Music Business and despite being a self admitted Music Business wannabe, I succeeded in the tween pop Business and built a boy band called Dream Street, (Signed by Flom- Malls to Madison Square Garden- Beatlemania albeit with cult like numbers....before it imploded)
I wrote and produced a Movie Musical called Drama Drama and after screening and signing with Endeavor Content and a Hot Shot Forbes 30 under 30 Agent, complete with the promise of a Netflix Original Deal- NOTHING..
And with 2 college age kids and NO INCOME, I survived until the Virus raged on.
At 61, having worked for myself for 22 years, and still shopping my movie- I needed a job -not a career- (not that anyone was offering).
One of my Film Investors owns a very large Candy Distributorship. He offered me a job on the night shift (5:00 PM to 5:00 AM) 5 days a week.
I work with amazing latin guys. They are fast, strong and grateful to have a job.
I kvetch and drink Black Iced Coffee for 12 hours 5 nights a week.
What's my point? We in the warehouse are ALL going to get Covid. It seems unavoidable, Prior to working there, I would glare if someone in the Socially Distanced Bagel Store or Whole Foods let their mask slip below their nose.
In the warehouse, masks are often, falling or removed including my own.
The business is considered an essential business and will stay open.
The job might kill me, but I need the money. Most of my co-workers are 25-30.
My point is this is how Covid spreads and this is how it's become hard to contain and this is a world that I guarantee none of the Bedford women in their Lulu Lemon wearing Designer Masks knows exits.
I feel fine today. God willing I'll dodge this bullet.
Regards,
Brian Lukow
___________________________________
From: David Stopps
Subject: #ILoveLive Campaign for UK stage crew - Mark Knopfler, Nick Cave, Radiohead, Pete Townshend, Elbow participating
Hi Bob
I'm organising an #ILoveLive Stagehand Crowdfunder Prize Draw campaign to raise money for stage crew here in the UK
Here's how it's going: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/i-love-live
It's going amazingly well. Mark Knopfler is miles out-front but Elbow, Nick Cave, Eric Clapton and Liam Gallagher are moving on up. Radiohead launched today at 1.00pm and are flying.
Each band has their own prize draw and tickets are £5 each. It ends on 17 Dec and all proceeds go to helping UK stage crew. Some of the prizes are amazing
Tomorrow we launch with Pete Townshend who has put up his gold Fender Strat that he used at Wembley Stadium last year.
Surprises are 2 Glastonbury Tickets which have attracted over £20,000 and Marillion who you may not know. They're a prog band from where I live (Aylesbury in the UK) and operate completely under the radar. They have an astonishingly enthusiastic, devoted and generous worldwide fanbase. You never hear them on the radio but boy do they look after their fans.
Love peace and live music
David (Tom Bailey manager)
P.S. Don't know if you're keeping an eye on this but it's fascinating. Nick Cave & Warren Ellis stepped up a gear yesterday and went past Radiohead and 2 Glastonbury tickets.
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/i-love-live
I can't believe that the biggest bands in the world are competing with 2 Glastonbury Tickets….but hey it works for us.
Pete Townshend is moving up steadily. He went past Nile Rodgers this morning.
It's a test of which artists are in touch with their fans and which aren't.
We just went past the quarter of a million pounds mark….and Mark Knopfler went past £50K on his own.
___________________________________
From: Steve Stewart
Subject: Re: Dylan Sells
HI Bob -
This is really a question of long term vs. short term gain. Song rights are an uncorrelated asset class that is seeing a "resurgence" in value due to Merck and the big banks lining up to finance his company and the other music acquirers.
We started Vezt (www.vezt.co) to give artists the ability to hold on to their rights, while monetizing them on a fractional basis at a RETAIL level - from their fans. Basically, crowdfunded publishing.
Streaming is still in its nascent stage - sure there's penetration in most first world countries (with the exception of Japan - the world's second largest music market, where physical is still 83% of music sales), but plenty of growth potential in second and third world countries where billions live and love music, too. Ten years from now, not only will artists be paid more per stream, there will be 10X more streams, as new platforms and micro-licensing opportunities continue to expand.
Merck will make his money back and much, much more. His formula is genius - take the cream of the crop. Where other publishers have huge overhead and have catalogs where most songs are not generating huge revenue, Merck cherry-picked the best songs and has (so far) kept overhead down, focused on "managing" songs, rather then just sitting back and collecting. Remember, buying at a 15 multiple means he will break even on the purchase in 15 years if the income remains the same as it is at the point he purchases. If income goes up, that breakeven timeframe gets smaller.
It's hard to turn down hundreds of millions of dollars - Brendan O'Brien (who produced 5 records for Stone Temple Pilots when I managed them) was the biggest catalog Merck acquired - for a minute. Something like 1,400 songs - most of the big hits from the 1990's. He sold, as did some of the biggest artists, writers and producers over the last 40 years. Were they right? Only time will tell.
I've run across many artists and writers who have sold their catalogs for what seemed like a windfall at the time - and every single one of them regrets it...
-Steve Stewart
CEO Vezt
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Monday, 7 December 2020
Why He's Bob Dylan
https://spoti.fi/3qAYCFF
1
"And if my thought dreams could be seen
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine"
I guess it's hard to transport your mind back to the mid-sixties, especially if you didn't live through them. The world was both bigger and smaller. Everybody didn't have the possibility of reaching everybody, but those who got inside the corral, who played and won, had much greater impact than anyone today, for there was less competition for attention. Furthermore, there were fewer scenes, fewer niches, fewer verticals. You couldn't just go on Reddit and find a sliced and diced thread that appeals directly to you, and just those who feel the same way, very few in all.
And in the sixties, you were either on the bus or off the bus. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, immediately read Tom Wolfe's "Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test." It's not about appearances, it's who you are on the inside. You couldn't fake it with Ken Kesey. The trappings were not sufficient, who were you REALLY? And when the sixties started, there were beatniks. Today, beatniks are seen as Maynard G. Krebs. Then again, most people today have no idea what a beatnik is, they may have never even heard the word, kinda like "keen"...for a moment there it was a descriptor bigger than "cool," but I haven't heard anybody use it that way in eons.
So, do you know how much inner strength it takes to go against the path prescribed from birth by Jewish parents? To drop out of college and go your own way? That was not de rigueur when Bob Dylan came of age. And he went to New York City to find like-minded people, before most of America even knew what Greenwich Village was. And he revered Woody Guthrie and ended up jumping off the platform Guthrie established but for a long time only insiders knew him. They might have known his songs, via the efforts of his manager, Albert Grossman, who got his other clients, Peter, Paul & Mary, to cover "Blowin' In The Wind," but Bob really didn't get traction until "Like a Rolling Stone" in '65. And this was a big deal, because the song was six minutes long and Bob had anything but a traditional radio-friendly voice.
Times have changed. To make it on Top Forty radio way back when, you used to have to have a classically great vocalist. That's not Bob Dylan. And in the wake of the Beatles, you had to write your own songs. Today we've got two-dimensional voices with no writing chops on TV competition shows, none of which break through beyond this show, and zillions of less than stellar vocalists all over AAA and Active Rock radio while those not even featured keep complaining they deserve more attention when they wouldn't have even gotten to play way back when.
So, just getting Dylan on the radio was a really big thing. Sure, he wrote the song, but credit Columbia with pushing it over the top.
But Dylan had already been around for years! As a folkie.
If I hear one more person tell me about Dylan going electric at Newport, my head will explode...well, maybe you'd like to see that. First and foremost, at the time MOST PEOPLE DIDN'T KNOW! It was not like today, where if anything meaningful happens we all know it instantly, the only way you might know about Newport was by reading it in the newspaper, a newspaper most in the scene didn't bother to read at all, at least not religiously. So, it's all in hindsight. What you had was an insular folkie scene which wanted no change, which resented the Beatles, the same way today's aged rockers hate streaming, as if by complaining they can hold back the future. But that's impossible.
So, Dylan pivoted. At least that's what they call it in tech-speak.
2
So a year ago I did a podcast with legendary DJ Pete Tong. We talked about his big payday over the millennium. I asked Pete if he could make that same money today. And Pete said...ONLY IF I REINVENT MYSELF!
That has stuck with me ever since. Your audience wants you to remain who you are. Fans abhor change. They'll castigate any efforts deviating from the norm. They want you set in amber. And then you're no longer an artist, but a jukebox. Bob Dylan decided to break the norm, to reinvent himself, and that's why he's continued to exist, to be important all these years later, because he's not afraid to take chances, to do it differently. Furthermore, he's doing it his way and he doesn't really care what you think. Well, at his Musicares speech a few years back one of the astounding elements of this highlight of the year, definitely the best acceptance speech in the history of the music business, was that he'd been paying attention! But prior to this night, he never bit back. After "Don't Look Back" he didn't even bother. As a matter of fact, Dylan, to this day, is the king of obfuscation. You can't trust a thing he says, he's making his own myth, in an era where everybody is a tool of the machine, vomiting up every detail as grist for the mill. Bob seemingly exists OUTSIDE the system. He CONFOUNDS critics. Live he switches from guitar to piano, he completely rearranges songs to the point of incomprehensibility. Some people like him in principle, others hate him in principle and if you dare to analyze, you're stuck in the middle with almost no one. Dylan is like our political system, you either love him or hate him. And that is unfortunate, but that is today.
David Bowie reinvented himself into a long career. And, of course, Madonna has done this too. But it's too risky for most artists.
So the folk scene is burgeoning. And Bob ends up the spokesman. But whenever you ask him for advice, he always says you know as well as he does, he doesn't have the answers. How Dylan had this insight at such a young age is astonishing. The truth is we're all equal, we all have insights, and this leads me to "Dear Landlord," from his 1967 comeback album "John Wesley Harding":
"Now, each of us has his own special gift
And you know this was meant to be true
And if you don't underestimate me
I won't underestimate you"
The talk was always about "All Along the Watchtower," and ultimately Hendrix's cover. But the (Small) Faces did an incredible cover of "Wicked Messenger" and Joe Cocker covered "Dear Landlord" and this ultimately proves that the artists were paying attention, today it's all about data, but you cannot measure this kind of impact, the kind that penetrates souls.
And in '67, when his old pal/keyboardist Al Kooper was employing a big band, i.e. Blood, Sweat & Tears, to make his music come alive, "John Wesley Harding" was simple.
Then "Nashville Skyline" was country, suddenly Bob was a crooner, a compatriot of Johnny Cash when most of his fans abhorred the Nashville sound, and then for the first time Bob failed, with "Self-Portrait."
3
And four months later, Dylan came back with "New Morning." He was gonna show us, that he still had it, he had no time to waste, forget schedules, he was gonna do it HIS way.
That's where I came in. "New Morning" was the first Dylan album I bought. Sure, I knew his material, at least the "hits," you couldn't avoid them, but you had to own an album to go deep.
And "New Morning" got good reviews but it promptly fell out of the public discussion. It was out of time, it didn't fit the airwaves. And at this late date, it's seen as minor, yet it was anything but.
"Build me a cabin in Utah
Marry me a wife, catch rainbow trout
Have a bunch of kids who call me 'Pa'
That must be what it's all about
That must be what it's all about"
And it is. Dylan was way ahead of the curve. Once again, he pivoted from the public to the personal, telling us fame was overrated, that family was where it was at.
And Bob played "Alias" in "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid," a third-rate flick that wasn't all bad, it did feature Slim Pickens and Harry Dean Stanton, but we went to see it and had no idea that "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" would become a classic, at the time it was seen as a movie throwaway!
And Bob tried throughout his career to make palatable movies, and he never succeeded, but if you can do one thing great, you're a legend. Everybody believes they can do more, but the truth is almost nobody can.
But then Dylan made a deal with David Geffen and went on the road and... This is important, before I get into a discussion of "Before the Flood," Dylan ultimately beat Geffen. Dylan never signed the contract and he went back to Columbia. Then again, that's the legend and Geffen might see it differently, but after that one always wondered if jumping ship was ever prudent, after all your original label had your catalog...
So, in preparation for the "Before the Flood" tour, I went back and bought all the albums that came before. And contrary to conventional wisdom, I found 1965's "Bringing It All Back Home" to be my favorite, it's still my favorite.
The '62 debut was the blueprint, most people couldn't see who he'd become, but the label stuck with him and it ended up getting '63's "Freewheelin'," with "Blowin' in the Wind" and "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right," both made famous by the aforementioned Peter, Paul & Mary. Management is everything, you can't make it without a great manager, and Albert Grossman was the best of his era.
1964's "The Times They Are a-Changin'"...the title track never goes out of style.
Dylan's other '64 album, "Another Side," which no one ever references, no one ever talks about, contained "All I Really Want to Do," "My Back Pages" and "It Ain't Me Babe," all of which were made into big hits by other artists, that's how most people became aware of the cat.
1965's "Highway 61 Revisited" had "Like a Rolling Stone," and was seen as the best Dylan album until its double LP follow-up, 1966's "Blonde on Blonde," widely considered to be his best work, but in between "Another Side" and "Highway 61" came 1965's "Bringing It All Back Home."
4
Today "Subterranean Homesick Blues" is a classic. It wasn't back then. Actually, "Don't Look Back" made the song a classic, most people didn't see the movie back then, but the flick has had a long afterlife.
And what you get to see in the film is the inanity of the press. I hate to tell you this, but the press ALMOST ALWAYS GETS IT WRONG! At least when it comes to music. The writers are either not familiar with the scene or are second or third-rate scribes. Dylan gets so frustrated he does end up writing "Ballad of a Thin Man," but he refused to play the game thereafter. As time went by he seemed to exist outside the public relations paradigm. You couldn't get an interview, or he made up answers, he became an enigma, and the writers disappeared while Dylan's stature only grew greater.
Actually, that's one of the great lines from "Absolutely Sweet Marie" off "Blonde on Blonde":
"But to live outside the law, you must be honest"
If you can't understand this line, you're off the bus. The truth is if you go your own way, you cannot compromise, you can't make mistakes, the machine and the audience won't support you. But if you're always honest, you can get away with doing anything, kind of like Neil Young, he's never compromised his values.
And "Bringing It All Back Home" has "Maggie's Farm." And "She Belongs to Me." And "Mr. Tambourine Man." And "Gates of Eden." But it also contains Dylan's masterpiece, his best work in my mind, at least my absolute favorite, because of the truth contained, "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding," from which the initial lines at the top of this screed are excised.
Most people heard "It's Alright, Ma" first on the "Easy Rider" soundtrack, via the Roger McGuinn version. "It's Alright, Ma" is classic Dylan, in that it was not a hit single, but it has survived the sands of time via its excellence, like so many similar non-hit parade Dylan tracks.
And the reason "It's Alright Ma" is so great, is because although it's singular, it was also universal, or at least after its release. As in listeners were affected by the song, society changed, people started to question authority. I'm not talking about conspiracy theories, but the supposed bedrock of our nation:
"For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Do what they do just to be
Nothing more than something they invest in"
Bingo! Are you an automaton, or do you think for yourself and forge your own path? That was the question in the sixties, and most young people ended up on Dylan's side.
"While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society's pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he's in"
This applies as much today. Everybody's telling you to be like them, to conform, if you do it your way you're going to be lambasted.
"Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn't talk it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony"
Should women control their own bodies? Is sex dirty? Is the system right? And now we all know it comes down to money. And propaganda...hell, look at Trump. But back then, the young 'uns never would have fallen for it.
"While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer's pride, security
It blows their minds most bitterly
For them that think death's honesty
Won't fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes must get lonely"
No one gets out of here alive. You bloviate as if it counts, and then you die and it's all irrelevant. All the politicians, the business heroes...they're so powerful and then they're not, they're forgotten.
"Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to"
A rejection of the system as opposed to a buying in, which is the ethos of the upper middle class/highly-educated caste of today.
5
The rest you might know. Or maybe not, maybe you're just that young.
So after the ultimately disappointing "Planet Waves" for Geffen, which did contain "Forever Young," but it ultimately took Howard Cosell's usage of the song as a sports metaphor to make it part of the public consciousness, and "Before the Flood," in 1975 Dylan released "Blood on the Tracks."
Essentially no one comes back, reaches the height of their previous work, never mind employing a different formula. "Blood on the Tracks" was personal. And just before its release, Dylan recut it with friends in Minneapolis and if you've heard the original version, you know it was the correct decision. Dylan went by instinct. Most times he cut it and that was it. He wasn't as insane about it as Frank Sinatra, but Dylan knew that the performance was all about capturing lightning in a bottle. It didn't have to be right, it just had to capture the zeitgeist. All true artists know this, and they can tell the difference. Yet, to a great degree once people make it they spend endless time in the studio, eviscerating all the life from a recording in an effort to make it "perfect."
And then Dylan went Christian. And although he ultimately rejected that, "Slow Train Coming," produced by Barry Beckett and Jerry Wexler, was one of his best albums ever. Come on, listen to "Man Gave Names to All the Animals" and "When You Gonna Wake Up," never mind the famous title track. And let's also not forget the contributions of Mark Knopfler and his Dire Straits bandmate, Pick Withers.
But as good as "Slow Train Coming" was, its follow-up, "Saved," was nearly that bad.
And then Dylan's output thereafter has been hit and miss. But he stays in the game, and sometimes connects, whether it be "I and I" from 1983's "Infidels" or...2000's "Things Have Changed," from the soundtrack to "The Wonder Boys."
I read the book, and the film was better. And as soon as you heard Dylan singing you realized he had hit the note once again, created something just as great as his classics, yet years later...you know it when you hear it and I did, and ultimately so did others. Do you know how rare that is?
And then Bob went on the endless tour, long before his contemporaries were forced on the road for long periods as a result of the lack of recording income as a result of Napster/the internet, and he did it his way, as stated above.
So...
6
Today it's announced that Bob Dylan has sold his songs to Universal and the scuttlebutt is all about the penumbra. Dylan has been reduced to one dimension. There are those criticizing him online as worthless, others referencing his whiskey and commercials...the songs, the music itself, is barely mentioned, the focus is on the money, whereas the focus was never on the money at the beginning, you just couldn't make that much in music. It was only after the Beatles broke and Peter Grant insisted on 90% of the concert gross that artists really became rich, but nowhere near as rich as today. Sure, Dylan likes money, but what has that got to do with the MUSIC!
But that's today, where everybody's got an opinion and feels entitled to post it online and argue about it. It makes them feel good about themselves, however detached and uninformed their opinion might be. Hell, Dylan needs to write a song about this. My inbox is full of authoritative misinformation. And sure, I know more of the inner workings of Dylan's life than the people on the street, but his camp is famously tight-lipped so I'm focusing on the business deal and the music itself. The deal is detached from the music, it doesn't affect the songs whatsoever. And with the focus on the money the music is left behind, when that's where the focus must lie.
Sure, Dylan has occasionally whiffed. But he's not afraid to play, he's not afraid to do something for fear it might tarnish his image.
Also, Dylan knows the game and refuses to play it, he's an original. Once upon a time the biggest stars were originals, but the influx of the money in the seventies and eighties had people pulling back the reins, they didn't want to put their cash flow in jeopardy.
And you might think Dylan has a bad voice. I'm not gonna argue with you, you're entitled to your opinion, I'm not going to say you don't understand, that his vocals are great, or great for his material, all I'm going to do is implore you to listen to the music, because it's all there. The myth-making, the scuttlebutt, is superseded by the songs and the recordings, that's what will remain. Bob Dylan has been doing it for sixty years, no one has ever counted him out, all true musos are always gonna check out his new work, he's at the pinnacle of the classic rock artists on this, you never know when he'll surprise you.
And it's always a surprise. Most recently with "Murder Most Foul." An almost seventeen minute track about the Kennedy assassination? And it may not have much repeatability, but one listen is more impactful than almost everything on the hit parade, it's got gravitas without beating you over the head with its importance. Today people play it straight up the middle, Dylan's viewpoint was always skewed, and made you think about the subject.
There is so much to dive into.
I know, I know, everybody talks about 1998's release of the Albert Hall concert from 1966, and that package, "Bootleg Series, Vol. 4," deserves your attention, but not as much as "The Bootleg Volume 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964 - Concert at Philharmonic Hall."
'64. Sure the Beatles had broken, but there were not endless arena and stadium shows, most people in America hadn't even heard of Philharmonic Hall, which was rebranded Avery Fisher Hall and now sports David Geffen's name. But when you listen to this double album, you'll yearn to have been alive in that era, to have been at that gig, because Dylan is making it up as he goes, he hits the stage naked, with no accompaniment, you can see him at work, he even forgets some of the words of "It's Alright, Ma."
Playing without a net. That's what Dylan did with 1975/6's "Rolling Thunder Review." One and done, no one else has equaled it. And the ultimate movie featured Sharon Stone as a pivotal character, as if Kanye West had impacted Ronald Reagan, albeit a bit less obvious as a joke in Stone's case. Dylan's always bobbing and weaving. He has stayed forever young, aging all the while. He is not trying to be young and hip, he's just being himself, going his own way. Dylan is a beacon, the Beatles knew it, many of your heroes knew it, and you can either get on the train or be left out of the loop. The slow train has finally arrived, it's at the station, are you willing to get on? We all did back then, and no one sees Dylan's work as nostalgia, it was vital, and it still is today. How many other artists can you say that about?
Is he imperfect?
Yes.
Has he made mistakes?
Yes.
Have all his decisions been admirable?
No.
But Bob Dylan keeps on keepin' on, never resting on his laurels, constantly pushing the envelope, his music will remain long after the scuttlebutt fades away.
He not busy being born is truly dying...how many others have written bedrock aphorisms of society?
I rest my case.
1
"And if my thought dreams could be seen
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine"
I guess it's hard to transport your mind back to the mid-sixties, especially if you didn't live through them. The world was both bigger and smaller. Everybody didn't have the possibility of reaching everybody, but those who got inside the corral, who played and won, had much greater impact than anyone today, for there was less competition for attention. Furthermore, there were fewer scenes, fewer niches, fewer verticals. You couldn't just go on Reddit and find a sliced and diced thread that appeals directly to you, and just those who feel the same way, very few in all.
And in the sixties, you were either on the bus or off the bus. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, immediately read Tom Wolfe's "Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test." It's not about appearances, it's who you are on the inside. You couldn't fake it with Ken Kesey. The trappings were not sufficient, who were you REALLY? And when the sixties started, there were beatniks. Today, beatniks are seen as Maynard G. Krebs. Then again, most people today have no idea what a beatnik is, they may have never even heard the word, kinda like "keen"...for a moment there it was a descriptor bigger than "cool," but I haven't heard anybody use it that way in eons.
So, do you know how much inner strength it takes to go against the path prescribed from birth by Jewish parents? To drop out of college and go your own way? That was not de rigueur when Bob Dylan came of age. And he went to New York City to find like-minded people, before most of America even knew what Greenwich Village was. And he revered Woody Guthrie and ended up jumping off the platform Guthrie established but for a long time only insiders knew him. They might have known his songs, via the efforts of his manager, Albert Grossman, who got his other clients, Peter, Paul & Mary, to cover "Blowin' In The Wind," but Bob really didn't get traction until "Like a Rolling Stone" in '65. And this was a big deal, because the song was six minutes long and Bob had anything but a traditional radio-friendly voice.
Times have changed. To make it on Top Forty radio way back when, you used to have to have a classically great vocalist. That's not Bob Dylan. And in the wake of the Beatles, you had to write your own songs. Today we've got two-dimensional voices with no writing chops on TV competition shows, none of which break through beyond this show, and zillions of less than stellar vocalists all over AAA and Active Rock radio while those not even featured keep complaining they deserve more attention when they wouldn't have even gotten to play way back when.
So, just getting Dylan on the radio was a really big thing. Sure, he wrote the song, but credit Columbia with pushing it over the top.
But Dylan had already been around for years! As a folkie.
If I hear one more person tell me about Dylan going electric at Newport, my head will explode...well, maybe you'd like to see that. First and foremost, at the time MOST PEOPLE DIDN'T KNOW! It was not like today, where if anything meaningful happens we all know it instantly, the only way you might know about Newport was by reading it in the newspaper, a newspaper most in the scene didn't bother to read at all, at least not religiously. So, it's all in hindsight. What you had was an insular folkie scene which wanted no change, which resented the Beatles, the same way today's aged rockers hate streaming, as if by complaining they can hold back the future. But that's impossible.
So, Dylan pivoted. At least that's what they call it in tech-speak.
2
So a year ago I did a podcast with legendary DJ Pete Tong. We talked about his big payday over the millennium. I asked Pete if he could make that same money today. And Pete said...ONLY IF I REINVENT MYSELF!
That has stuck with me ever since. Your audience wants you to remain who you are. Fans abhor change. They'll castigate any efforts deviating from the norm. They want you set in amber. And then you're no longer an artist, but a jukebox. Bob Dylan decided to break the norm, to reinvent himself, and that's why he's continued to exist, to be important all these years later, because he's not afraid to take chances, to do it differently. Furthermore, he's doing it his way and he doesn't really care what you think. Well, at his Musicares speech a few years back one of the astounding elements of this highlight of the year, definitely the best acceptance speech in the history of the music business, was that he'd been paying attention! But prior to this night, he never bit back. After "Don't Look Back" he didn't even bother. As a matter of fact, Dylan, to this day, is the king of obfuscation. You can't trust a thing he says, he's making his own myth, in an era where everybody is a tool of the machine, vomiting up every detail as grist for the mill. Bob seemingly exists OUTSIDE the system. He CONFOUNDS critics. Live he switches from guitar to piano, he completely rearranges songs to the point of incomprehensibility. Some people like him in principle, others hate him in principle and if you dare to analyze, you're stuck in the middle with almost no one. Dylan is like our political system, you either love him or hate him. And that is unfortunate, but that is today.
David Bowie reinvented himself into a long career. And, of course, Madonna has done this too. But it's too risky for most artists.
So the folk scene is burgeoning. And Bob ends up the spokesman. But whenever you ask him for advice, he always says you know as well as he does, he doesn't have the answers. How Dylan had this insight at such a young age is astonishing. The truth is we're all equal, we all have insights, and this leads me to "Dear Landlord," from his 1967 comeback album "John Wesley Harding":
"Now, each of us has his own special gift
And you know this was meant to be true
And if you don't underestimate me
I won't underestimate you"
The talk was always about "All Along the Watchtower," and ultimately Hendrix's cover. But the (Small) Faces did an incredible cover of "Wicked Messenger" and Joe Cocker covered "Dear Landlord" and this ultimately proves that the artists were paying attention, today it's all about data, but you cannot measure this kind of impact, the kind that penetrates souls.
And in '67, when his old pal/keyboardist Al Kooper was employing a big band, i.e. Blood, Sweat & Tears, to make his music come alive, "John Wesley Harding" was simple.
Then "Nashville Skyline" was country, suddenly Bob was a crooner, a compatriot of Johnny Cash when most of his fans abhorred the Nashville sound, and then for the first time Bob failed, with "Self-Portrait."
3
And four months later, Dylan came back with "New Morning." He was gonna show us, that he still had it, he had no time to waste, forget schedules, he was gonna do it HIS way.
That's where I came in. "New Morning" was the first Dylan album I bought. Sure, I knew his material, at least the "hits," you couldn't avoid them, but you had to own an album to go deep.
And "New Morning" got good reviews but it promptly fell out of the public discussion. It was out of time, it didn't fit the airwaves. And at this late date, it's seen as minor, yet it was anything but.
"Build me a cabin in Utah
Marry me a wife, catch rainbow trout
Have a bunch of kids who call me 'Pa'
That must be what it's all about
That must be what it's all about"
And it is. Dylan was way ahead of the curve. Once again, he pivoted from the public to the personal, telling us fame was overrated, that family was where it was at.
And Bob played "Alias" in "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid," a third-rate flick that wasn't all bad, it did feature Slim Pickens and Harry Dean Stanton, but we went to see it and had no idea that "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" would become a classic, at the time it was seen as a movie throwaway!
And Bob tried throughout his career to make palatable movies, and he never succeeded, but if you can do one thing great, you're a legend. Everybody believes they can do more, but the truth is almost nobody can.
But then Dylan made a deal with David Geffen and went on the road and... This is important, before I get into a discussion of "Before the Flood," Dylan ultimately beat Geffen. Dylan never signed the contract and he went back to Columbia. Then again, that's the legend and Geffen might see it differently, but after that one always wondered if jumping ship was ever prudent, after all your original label had your catalog...
So, in preparation for the "Before the Flood" tour, I went back and bought all the albums that came before. And contrary to conventional wisdom, I found 1965's "Bringing It All Back Home" to be my favorite, it's still my favorite.
The '62 debut was the blueprint, most people couldn't see who he'd become, but the label stuck with him and it ended up getting '63's "Freewheelin'," with "Blowin' in the Wind" and "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right," both made famous by the aforementioned Peter, Paul & Mary. Management is everything, you can't make it without a great manager, and Albert Grossman was the best of his era.
1964's "The Times They Are a-Changin'"...the title track never goes out of style.
Dylan's other '64 album, "Another Side," which no one ever references, no one ever talks about, contained "All I Really Want to Do," "My Back Pages" and "It Ain't Me Babe," all of which were made into big hits by other artists, that's how most people became aware of the cat.
1965's "Highway 61 Revisited" had "Like a Rolling Stone," and was seen as the best Dylan album until its double LP follow-up, 1966's "Blonde on Blonde," widely considered to be his best work, but in between "Another Side" and "Highway 61" came 1965's "Bringing It All Back Home."
4
Today "Subterranean Homesick Blues" is a classic. It wasn't back then. Actually, "Don't Look Back" made the song a classic, most people didn't see the movie back then, but the flick has had a long afterlife.
And what you get to see in the film is the inanity of the press. I hate to tell you this, but the press ALMOST ALWAYS GETS IT WRONG! At least when it comes to music. The writers are either not familiar with the scene or are second or third-rate scribes. Dylan gets so frustrated he does end up writing "Ballad of a Thin Man," but he refused to play the game thereafter. As time went by he seemed to exist outside the public relations paradigm. You couldn't get an interview, or he made up answers, he became an enigma, and the writers disappeared while Dylan's stature only grew greater.
Actually, that's one of the great lines from "Absolutely Sweet Marie" off "Blonde on Blonde":
"But to live outside the law, you must be honest"
If you can't understand this line, you're off the bus. The truth is if you go your own way, you cannot compromise, you can't make mistakes, the machine and the audience won't support you. But if you're always honest, you can get away with doing anything, kind of like Neil Young, he's never compromised his values.
And "Bringing It All Back Home" has "Maggie's Farm." And "She Belongs to Me." And "Mr. Tambourine Man." And "Gates of Eden." But it also contains Dylan's masterpiece, his best work in my mind, at least my absolute favorite, because of the truth contained, "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding," from which the initial lines at the top of this screed are excised.
Most people heard "It's Alright, Ma" first on the "Easy Rider" soundtrack, via the Roger McGuinn version. "It's Alright, Ma" is classic Dylan, in that it was not a hit single, but it has survived the sands of time via its excellence, like so many similar non-hit parade Dylan tracks.
And the reason "It's Alright Ma" is so great, is because although it's singular, it was also universal, or at least after its release. As in listeners were affected by the song, society changed, people started to question authority. I'm not talking about conspiracy theories, but the supposed bedrock of our nation:
"For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Do what they do just to be
Nothing more than something they invest in"
Bingo! Are you an automaton, or do you think for yourself and forge your own path? That was the question in the sixties, and most young people ended up on Dylan's side.
"While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society's pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he's in"
This applies as much today. Everybody's telling you to be like them, to conform, if you do it your way you're going to be lambasted.
"Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn't talk it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony"
Should women control their own bodies? Is sex dirty? Is the system right? And now we all know it comes down to money. And propaganda...hell, look at Trump. But back then, the young 'uns never would have fallen for it.
"While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer's pride, security
It blows their minds most bitterly
For them that think death's honesty
Won't fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes must get lonely"
No one gets out of here alive. You bloviate as if it counts, and then you die and it's all irrelevant. All the politicians, the business heroes...they're so powerful and then they're not, they're forgotten.
"Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to"
A rejection of the system as opposed to a buying in, which is the ethos of the upper middle class/highly-educated caste of today.
5
The rest you might know. Or maybe not, maybe you're just that young.
So after the ultimately disappointing "Planet Waves" for Geffen, which did contain "Forever Young," but it ultimately took Howard Cosell's usage of the song as a sports metaphor to make it part of the public consciousness, and "Before the Flood," in 1975 Dylan released "Blood on the Tracks."
Essentially no one comes back, reaches the height of their previous work, never mind employing a different formula. "Blood on the Tracks" was personal. And just before its release, Dylan recut it with friends in Minneapolis and if you've heard the original version, you know it was the correct decision. Dylan went by instinct. Most times he cut it and that was it. He wasn't as insane about it as Frank Sinatra, but Dylan knew that the performance was all about capturing lightning in a bottle. It didn't have to be right, it just had to capture the zeitgeist. All true artists know this, and they can tell the difference. Yet, to a great degree once people make it they spend endless time in the studio, eviscerating all the life from a recording in an effort to make it "perfect."
And then Dylan went Christian. And although he ultimately rejected that, "Slow Train Coming," produced by Barry Beckett and Jerry Wexler, was one of his best albums ever. Come on, listen to "Man Gave Names to All the Animals" and "When You Gonna Wake Up," never mind the famous title track. And let's also not forget the contributions of Mark Knopfler and his Dire Straits bandmate, Pick Withers.
But as good as "Slow Train Coming" was, its follow-up, "Saved," was nearly that bad.
And then Dylan's output thereafter has been hit and miss. But he stays in the game, and sometimes connects, whether it be "I and I" from 1983's "Infidels" or...2000's "Things Have Changed," from the soundtrack to "The Wonder Boys."
I read the book, and the film was better. And as soon as you heard Dylan singing you realized he had hit the note once again, created something just as great as his classics, yet years later...you know it when you hear it and I did, and ultimately so did others. Do you know how rare that is?
And then Bob went on the endless tour, long before his contemporaries were forced on the road for long periods as a result of the lack of recording income as a result of Napster/the internet, and he did it his way, as stated above.
So...
6
Today it's announced that Bob Dylan has sold his songs to Universal and the scuttlebutt is all about the penumbra. Dylan has been reduced to one dimension. There are those criticizing him online as worthless, others referencing his whiskey and commercials...the songs, the music itself, is barely mentioned, the focus is on the money, whereas the focus was never on the money at the beginning, you just couldn't make that much in music. It was only after the Beatles broke and Peter Grant insisted on 90% of the concert gross that artists really became rich, but nowhere near as rich as today. Sure, Dylan likes money, but what has that got to do with the MUSIC!
But that's today, where everybody's got an opinion and feels entitled to post it online and argue about it. It makes them feel good about themselves, however detached and uninformed their opinion might be. Hell, Dylan needs to write a song about this. My inbox is full of authoritative misinformation. And sure, I know more of the inner workings of Dylan's life than the people on the street, but his camp is famously tight-lipped so I'm focusing on the business deal and the music itself. The deal is detached from the music, it doesn't affect the songs whatsoever. And with the focus on the money the music is left behind, when that's where the focus must lie.
Sure, Dylan has occasionally whiffed. But he's not afraid to play, he's not afraid to do something for fear it might tarnish his image.
Also, Dylan knows the game and refuses to play it, he's an original. Once upon a time the biggest stars were originals, but the influx of the money in the seventies and eighties had people pulling back the reins, they didn't want to put their cash flow in jeopardy.
And you might think Dylan has a bad voice. I'm not gonna argue with you, you're entitled to your opinion, I'm not going to say you don't understand, that his vocals are great, or great for his material, all I'm going to do is implore you to listen to the music, because it's all there. The myth-making, the scuttlebutt, is superseded by the songs and the recordings, that's what will remain. Bob Dylan has been doing it for sixty years, no one has ever counted him out, all true musos are always gonna check out his new work, he's at the pinnacle of the classic rock artists on this, you never know when he'll surprise you.
And it's always a surprise. Most recently with "Murder Most Foul." An almost seventeen minute track about the Kennedy assassination? And it may not have much repeatability, but one listen is more impactful than almost everything on the hit parade, it's got gravitas without beating you over the head with its importance. Today people play it straight up the middle, Dylan's viewpoint was always skewed, and made you think about the subject.
There is so much to dive into.
I know, I know, everybody talks about 1998's release of the Albert Hall concert from 1966, and that package, "Bootleg Series, Vol. 4," deserves your attention, but not as much as "The Bootleg Volume 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964 - Concert at Philharmonic Hall."
'64. Sure the Beatles had broken, but there were not endless arena and stadium shows, most people in America hadn't even heard of Philharmonic Hall, which was rebranded Avery Fisher Hall and now sports David Geffen's name. But when you listen to this double album, you'll yearn to have been alive in that era, to have been at that gig, because Dylan is making it up as he goes, he hits the stage naked, with no accompaniment, you can see him at work, he even forgets some of the words of "It's Alright, Ma."
Playing without a net. That's what Dylan did with 1975/6's "Rolling Thunder Review." One and done, no one else has equaled it. And the ultimate movie featured Sharon Stone as a pivotal character, as if Kanye West had impacted Ronald Reagan, albeit a bit less obvious as a joke in Stone's case. Dylan's always bobbing and weaving. He has stayed forever young, aging all the while. He is not trying to be young and hip, he's just being himself, going his own way. Dylan is a beacon, the Beatles knew it, many of your heroes knew it, and you can either get on the train or be left out of the loop. The slow train has finally arrived, it's at the station, are you willing to get on? We all did back then, and no one sees Dylan's work as nostalgia, it was vital, and it still is today. How many other artists can you say that about?
Is he imperfect?
Yes.
Has he made mistakes?
Yes.
Have all his decisions been admirable?
No.
But Bob Dylan keeps on keepin' on, never resting on his laurels, constantly pushing the envelope, his music will remain long after the scuttlebutt fades away.
He not busy being born is truly dying...how many others have written bedrock aphorisms of society?
I rest my case.
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Re-I Got You Babe
... on Ready Steady Go with the lovely Cathy McGowan as Cher and Brian Jones as Sonny.
Then everyone as either one.
Good Fun!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=ltymJxL_fdg
antgimel
__________________________________
Bob: I was Sonny & Cher's first agent. I signed them to William Morris when I was just a baby agent. All my colleagues told me not to do it, except Harvey Kresky, who later became their manager. We had heard 'I GotYou Babe.' I was a TV agent and my accounts were scale television and game shows. This made Shindig my show.
One day The Rolling Stones were on the stage singing Satisfaction, and I was watching from the wings. Then an anomaly occurred, the three hundred kids in the audience were ignoring the Stones and calling to someone in the wings in front of me. It was Sonny Bono, I had never seen nor heard of him, but the kids loved him.
Making a long story very short, We signed them to the Morris Office. A month later they had 5 singles in the Billboard top 100. Now what happened in that month is an even better story.
Sonny was a really smart, really nice guy and Cher was even sweeter. Hartmann
John Hartmann
__________________________________
Sonny, one of my dearest friends. He and his wife Susie and I were skiing at Heavenly the day my Mom passed away. He fell that day and tore the ligaments in his right hand. Every time we went skiing he tore or broke or sprained something. Salvatore Philip Bone was a horrible skier and that's how he met his demise. But he was a lovely, caring, loving man. RIP Sonny Bono.
Val Garay
__________________________________
That record saved Atlantic Records. The company was for sale. Their sale to ABC for a paltry $3 million fell apart because the label couldn't warrant they had paid all their royalties. Wexler was playing footsie with Leiber and Stoller over a merger (to Ahmet's horror) because their Red Bird Records was hotter than Atlantic by a mile. Ahmet bought the master for $5000 over the phone without ever having heard it and "I Got You Babe" became the biggest hit in Atlantic history, not just No. 1 in this country but a worldwide smash the company had never seen before.
Joel Selvin
__________________________________
And in one of the more incredible stats of 1965, the Billboard number one song of the year, which, by the way, only got to number two but was the first American artist to sell a million copies of a single since the beginning of the British Invasion, was Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs "Wooly Bully"!
It stayed in the top 5 for 2 months.
Side note. I once asked Bill Graham what was the worst act to ever play the Fillmore West. His response:
By far, Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs.
John French
__________________________________
The absolute best cover of the song (of many) for me was watching post-Ziggy Bowie duet with Marianne Faithfull (who was wearing a nun's habit and huge wimple…open at the back, as I clearly remember - she looked utterly fabulous) at the Marquee Club in London, 1973. Fan Club only audience, and not packed by any means. Utter magic - although I missed Woody Woodmansey. Recorded for American TV. A very special thing, and everybody in the room knew it. I floated home afterwards.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OX2nelvhIE
Hugo Burnham
__________________________________
I always liked Sonny & Cher, especially "I Got You Babe" and "Baby Don't Go." And I liked Sonny's solo "Laugh At Me," even have the album. And I have the "Ringo I Love You" novelty single, well sung by Cher under the name Bonnie Joe Mason, co-written by Phil Spector with Anders & Poncia, possibly produced by Phil or maybe actually Sonny. Sonny was all over the place back then, doing anything and everything to be in the music biz: songwriting, playing on sessions, producing, plugging records. Whatever it took to make it in the music business. And then he met Cher, and he recognized that diamond in the rough, and without him, who knows what might have never happened. She put in the hours also, singing on any project and for anyone who let her. Together, what they created was real, not artifice.
Toby Mamis
__________________________________
I saw a lot of Cher during her marriage to Gregg Allman and I remember the swarms of National Inquirer reporters and photogs who followed them constantly. I had to hire a security guy which we had never done previously. She was always very kind and generous and she came to Gregg's funeral. I don't think Gregg ever stopped loving her. A funny aside... when "Ramblin' Man" made it to to #2 on the Billboard singles chart, Cher was at #1! (I think I am remembering that correctly).
Willie Perkins
P.S. I looked it up. Cher's "Halfbreed" was #1 when ABB's "Ramblin Man" was #2.
__________________________________
At 13 years old, I saw Sonny and Cher sing (no doubt lip sync) "I Got You Babe" on tv via The Lloyd Thaxton Show. Yep, Sonny was wearing that fur vest and I remember thinking Cher was really nice looking! And yes, I know every word and sing along every time I hear the song.
Rob Evans
__________________________________
When I was 12, I'd drop in at the Sunset Blvd office of managers Greene & Stone. "Are Sonny and Cher here?" They always seemed to be; it was a cool hang. One day, coming home from guitar lessons, a white car pulled over on Selma. It was Sonny- he asked about the guitar and encouraged me to keep with the lessons. It was so special to be recognized by this warm and sweet man. Unfortunately, my guitar playing began and ended with a sorry "Tom Dooley."
Mike Minky
__________________________________
Bill Murray will forever be linked because of "Groundhog Day"
Marc Platt, Los Angeles
__________________________________
There's the power of pop MELODY, which Sonny was skilled at, having witnessed the masters first hand work, he was a good student obviously
And Sonny could write and arrangement. There is a symphonic feel that was both on-the-way-out yet still contemporary
Then they juxtapose Cher's musical voice with Sonny's off register answers and for some odd reason the combination is enchanting, not overpowering, not maudlin.
Dennis Pelowski
__________________________________
Fall in love, then listen to I GOT YOU BABE.
It takes on a whole other dimension... especially in he midst of a pandemic.
Suzanne "Ponyta" Nuttall
Toronto, Canada
__________________________________
If you are of a certain age there are a handful of songs you know from the opening licks that you will stop what you are doing and listen all the way through. House of the Rising Sun by the Animals. And yeah, I Got You Babe. The oboe gets your attention but it's the performance that's holds you to the end, that and the expression of a need you won't truly understand until much later in life, the need for a companion to share the ups and downs and to be there all the way until the final act, holding your hand. In the time of Covid-19 when people are forced to die alone that simple image assumes even more poignancy.
George Laugelli
__________________________________
Just a true great great song.. words, chorus, melody, performers.. im not sure there are many people that don't know a line or two from it. There was something truly special about their partnership. But, this song was and is the best example of how great a simple 2-3 min song can be.
Chris Anderson
__________________________________
Time is a lot kinder to their songs than some of their contemporaries. Baby Don't Go (with that chromatic harp) and You Better Sit Down Kids (which may have been solo Cher) are my two faves.
Dave Murray
__________________________________
songs of all time with I Got You Babe!!! That song defined love (and like) in a relationship better that any. Funny but I also think of Bon Jovi's Living On A Prayer as another generation's follow up. Once again, the musicianship provided by the Wrecking Crew made I Got You Babe stand out so distinctively on the radio and while Cher carries and belts it, Sonny also did his best vocal job on that song as well. Not gonna lie, I have been known to belt it out with various friends in a karaoke bar or three over the years __.
Keep hitting those buttons pal and stay healthy!!
Tommy Nast
__________________________________
Name another duo where the one was elected to Congress and the other was an Oscar winning actress.
Tom Rooney
__________________________________
Wow! I think only a gifted writer such as you could succeed at giving a counter culture authenticity to Sonny and Cher and their top 40 anthem "I got you babe". Sonny was a self indulgent promoter . A less offensive version of Trump. He took Louie Prima and Keely Smith's popular act from the 50s wrapped it in PG rated hippie attire and offered a safer version of the scary counter culture to a mass audience, and struck it rich. Cher was the talent and the star, Sonny ended up right where he belonged amidst his grifterpeers in the Republican Party.
alan segal san diego
__________________________________
I loved the way she would look at him, sometimes with pure love and sometimes
with a look of laughter, derision, or disbelief.
Van Easton
__________________________________
"I got you Babe" is the song that Bill Murray wakes to each morning in the movie "Groundhog Day".
Timeless song.
-Sonny (yes, that is my name) in Phoenix
__________________________________
Played that song 100 times on the jukebox at Mancinis Pizza. I was 11. Trying "Baby Don't Go". It's my fav. Thanks for the pleasant reminder of those carefree days! Richard King
__________________________________
Also: that gorgeous oboe!
Steve Lindstrom
__________________________________
My fave Sonny song, "Needles And Pins".
Chris Mancini
__________________________________
Hey Bob,
Maybe you'll like this version.
Ari Posner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YWnLFw1K3A
__________________________________
It's been the alarm on my phone for years via ground hog day.
Johnny Lloyd Rollins
__________________________________
I Got You Babe is a great song. It was the oboe that put it over the top. The oboe was the hook.
My sister is ten years older than me. We used to sing the song together. Of course, she sang Sonny's lines and I sang Cher's.
Steve Monk
__________________________________
Every teenage 'couple' at the time had a song that was theirs. For my first serious teenage girlfriend and I, it was I Got You Babe.
Maybe that's why it went to number one --- all of us teen couples?
R. Lowenstein
__________________________________
i know where you're coming from. even the carpenters (THE CARPENTERS!) sound good in retrospect, though we wouldn't be caught dead admitting it at the time.
rsands9
__________________________________
In the early 70s when Imus was still an AM DJ in NY, I remember him playing it. After the end, with the fade of I got you babe being repeated several times, he said "Sounds like a disease". I think of that every time I hear it. hahaha
Kevin Kiley
__________________________________
The Sonny & Cher original is a nice enough time capsule piece. How often do you hear an oboe in a pop song? It does, though, tend to smack of hippie commercialization. It might even be the first instance of it.
When I listen to it now, I think of how they always ended their variety show with it.
Give me the frenetic Etta James version any day.
Kind Regards,
John Jordan
__________________________________
I Got You Babe/Best Version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWTgJdvdGo8
Al Kooper
__________________________________
I Got You Babe is a classic example of the cover being better than the original. Even though the drums are programmed, the UB40 version with Chrissie Hynde has soul - Sonny and Cher's version is all bubblegum and tinsel. The Beatles' Twist and Shout, Judy Collins' Both Sides Now, Hendrix's All Along The Watchtower, and James Taylor's You've Got A Friend are other great examples.
I'd love to read your take on covers being the definitive version. Aretha's version of Bridge Over Troubled Water, maybe? Hard to say - the original is so great as well.
Cheers,
Andy Dayes
__________________________________
As a preadolescent boy watching on TV, I'm seeing this dorky guy and he has CHER. To this day, I think flat abs are very sexy and I suspect that it's somehow tied to those early images of Cher on TV. So hell yes, I loved that song. "I Got You Babe" was a first fantasy that I didn't even understand in the moment but it would prove to be unforgettable. As I recall, Gregg Allman was equally stricken.
I could never break down a song the way that you can but for me, this song was number one for a reason and Cher's belly button was probably the reason. LOL
Mark McLaughlin
__________________________________
I like the UB40/Chrissie Hynde version.
I was just a kid when that came out and hated it!
Rodney Rowland
__________________________________
Growing up with the Sonny & Cher show, well it was a big deal in our house. We'd all watch it together, my stepdad would comment on Cher's outfits. Mom would roll her eyes. We thought Sonny was a loser, but we liked him anyway. We had this TV antennae on a pole by the side of the house that would move when the wind blew and one of the kids had to go out and turn it to get a decent signal. Dad in his recliner directing the turning operation and one of us stuck outside while the show was on trying to get it just right. Hold it! No, back a little. Too far. Back. OK. Then back inside and by then a commercial was on. Reading your piece brought all that back to me, and I can't help but smile about it.
Jim Warren
__________________________________
By 1965, my Aunt had given me a couple Chubby Checkers albums, and my Grandmother had gifted me a Beatles single, but the first record I ever bought with my own money was "I Got You Babe." You're right - it was everywhere -- and I wanted to own it. That high oboe, or whatever it was, going "dah dah, dah dah, dah dah..." was the ultimate earworm. I was also happy to play the flip side,"It's Gonna Rain," over and over again. What I remember when I saw them on TV was that Cher was pretty and they dressed "young." It didn't register at all that Sonny was that much older than Cher -- they looked like a couple in love.
Everyone had a soft-spot for "I Got You Babe" -- Bowie performed it with Marianne Faithfull in 1973 for the 1980 Floor Show -- him wearing red PVC and black ostrich plumes, and her sporting the Flying Nun's wimple, and a habit with no arms and nothing on underneath. (I bought the bootleg of that, and it's NOT one I play much!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OX2nelvhIE
Even Joey Ramone & Holly Beth Vincent (of Holly & The Italians) put out their single of it in 1982.
And even though you didn't watch it, Sonny & Cher closed their TV show each week with a bit of their signature song.
I'm glad you finally came around and re-experienced it.
Here's a clip of Sonny & Cher performing "I Got You Babe" on Top Of The Pops. This time, Cher's wearing the fur vest. It takes me back to '65. And I still have the single.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JxIw58lkHQ
Mark Helfrich
__________________________________
I was sixteen and came down from Liverpool to stay with a friend in London for the weekend.
Walking around London we saw two very exotic looking people coming down the steps of a hotel. They were being escorted by large fit-looking gentleman in slick dark electric blue Italian suits, white shirts black ties. I thought the exotics must be a prince and princess from some South American country although I was fairly sure that most South American countries did not have princes and princesses. They were too clean for Rock and Roll. To exotic and cool for show biz. The suits got the couple into an awaiting black limo, checking out roof tops in this quiet London street as they did so in a similar way that Trump would be gotten into a car outside a hotel in downtown Los Angeles. The said couple were wafted off into the sun-streamed afternoon.
That night we went to the Marquee to see The Spencer Davis Group. We then realised that as part of the deal was that we had to stand through a one hour 'Live from the Marquee' Radio London radio show. It was hosted by DJ Pete Murray. Several act just did one number each. I can only remember two of them. One, a girl duo, was called 'The Two of US'. The other act closed the show. Our South American prince and princess came onto the stage. It was Sonny and Cher. It was the first I had heard of them. They sang I got You Babe (to track!). It was the first time I had heard the song too. I don't know if it had been released yet. This was a promo visit. They had some pizzaz - Cher more than Sonny but it seemed like it was probably going to be a catchy, slightly cheesy one-hit wonder if it was ever going to be a hit. It had the best chance of the Radio London's offerings that night.
With our hour of penance watching floor managers hold up huge boards with 'Applause' written on them out of the way, the gig we had come to see was allowed to proceed. The support was The Mark Leeman Five, a very good band with Brian 'Blinky' Davison on drums before joining the Nice. Sadly Mark Leeman subsequently died in a car crash. A great warm-up for a great Spencer Davis Group set. When we thought all was done, various members of the Mark Leeman five came back on stage to jam with the Spencer Davis Group. This allowed Steve Winwood to move from guitar to keyboards, harmonica and vocals with always someone available to cover the instrument he had just vacated. The jam session really began to pick up pace with renditions of R&B classics (R&B in the old sense). A number of musos had turned up to see Spencer Davis that night and started to join in the jam for a number or two. They included Eric Clapton, Erick Burdon and Chris Barber (trombone). They greatest jam session that I have ever, ever witnessed. Who M.D.'ed this and held it all wonderfully together? Seventeen year-old Steve Winwood.
What a night. All stated off with the curious and quirky appearance of a totally unknown Sonny & Cher.
Mike Lowe
__________________________________
My big brother, seven years older, had this record. He moved out shortly after my mom remarried and he and my stepfather didn't get along. Bill was just eighteen. He didn't take his records right away.
I was just turning eleven and my friend Renee and I played these records everyday after school in my empty apartment. Beatles, Stones, Animals, Yardbirds, Them.
We'd finagled our moms to buy us those white leather go-go boots, and we'd dance until we fell down on the carpet, panting and sweaty. Roll Over Beethoven!
We were entranced by the Sonny & Cher record though, playing it over and over. Yep, the idea of having a forever best friend who understood you and was there for you, no matter what, even if you owned next to nothing?
Their hair and clothes signaled they were different from the rest of the pop acts. The liner notes and photos on the back of the record proved it. They had headshots of their crew. They all looked like latter day beatniks, as did Sonny & Cher except S & C were so polished, camera ready. These grainy B&B images showed real beatniks who were scruffy, unsmiling, dead serious about - whatever they were about! Being the essential peeps behind the scenes of S&C, their real friends. S&C supposedly wrote the notes under each one. A woman with probably one name was basically described as "not having worn shoes for the past year, and probably won't this year" and I never forgot that. Actually embraced barefooted style as much as I could get away from it because it seemed this woman had higher principles, that what mattered most to her was beyond surface appearances. They planted the seed for my future hippie self.
Yep, that wall of sound made that song pop, that carnival my, pied piper organ sound, and I recall Val telling me about hanging around the Phil's studio then, watching Sonny create his future. Who knew he'd become a congressman and die running into a tree on skis, and Cher would live on to rescue the loneliest elephant in the world during a pandemic? Life is scary and also pretty outrageous.
Melissa Ward
__________________________________
You got it right except for a few things ~ I can remember all the girls at school trying their best to look like Cher ~ Cutting bangs and ironing the curls out of their hair ~ The school jocks got those girls first ~ The rest of us were stuck with the left overs ~
You don't as far as I'm concern give enough credit to Sonny for the lessons learned from working with Phil Spector because he took those lesson and formulated it into the Sonny & Cher sound and took it all to the bank ~
Also I don't know how Sonny did it but some how back in 1967 he got ABC Motion Pictures ( they made all those horrible Surf movies ) to produce a movie for them called "Good Times" just as all their star power was fading ~
They were never my cup of tea back in the day but they did manage to fall from grace as I remember it seems that back when everyone was smoking pot and taking LSD they came out against drugs ~ I remember thats when they looked like our elders and not one of us ~
In all actuality they did manage to have the last laugh in the 70s with there TV show ~ They made a lot of money and were once again America's little darling ~
RS ~
__________________________________
Now go back and give Cher's (solo) version of All I Really Want To Do another shot. You won't be sorry.
I'm a Gen X'r. Grew up with the 70's Cher,.. the one that invented that Eddie Vedder affectation that was so big with all the late era grungers.
Not a peak in her creative journey,... but when I discovered teenage 60's Cher when I was a teenager myself in the mid 80's,... boy was that a revelation.
I guess she was imitating Sonny, which as you will see listening to All I Really Want To Do, she was able to sing both the male and female parts by herself. But man did she take her mentors idea and go somewhere entirely of her own. Somewhere tough and ballsy and totally female, empowered teenage female. That's probably what I fell in love with when I was a teenage boy in the era of Debby G and Tiffany. Both fine in their own right but not in the same league.
Steve McDonald
__________________________________
For those too young to remember this pre-FM era could have a Stones song, followed by Frank Sinatra's STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT, to the Dave Clark Five, to We Five, to the Temptations, to Sonny and Cher......
Look at those Top 40 lists from that time. You would think you'd be sharing the radio with your parents.
It's a mix tape before mix tape.
Tom Rooney
__________________________________
haha. Bob, I saw them sing it at my first concert. my dad dropped me and two friends off for the WOR FM Birthday party at the Village Theatre which became Fillmore East. they may have been first, we didn't go to see them. The Doors headlined and closed, blew the roof off and my mind. here's some of the line up I remember:
Sonny and Cher
Janis Ian
The Blues Project
The Chambers Brothers
Richie Havens
The Doors
i googled the dj's,
Jim Lounsbury
Johnny Michaels
Scott Muni
Murray The K
Rosko
Owen
__________________________________
glad you finally got this one bob!
Peter Noone
Then everyone as either one.
Good Fun!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=ltymJxL_fdg
antgimel
__________________________________
Bob: I was Sonny & Cher's first agent. I signed them to William Morris when I was just a baby agent. All my colleagues told me not to do it, except Harvey Kresky, who later became their manager. We had heard 'I GotYou Babe.' I was a TV agent and my accounts were scale television and game shows. This made Shindig my show.
One day The Rolling Stones were on the stage singing Satisfaction, and I was watching from the wings. Then an anomaly occurred, the three hundred kids in the audience were ignoring the Stones and calling to someone in the wings in front of me. It was Sonny Bono, I had never seen nor heard of him, but the kids loved him.
Making a long story very short, We signed them to the Morris Office. A month later they had 5 singles in the Billboard top 100. Now what happened in that month is an even better story.
Sonny was a really smart, really nice guy and Cher was even sweeter. Hartmann
John Hartmann
__________________________________
Sonny, one of my dearest friends. He and his wife Susie and I were skiing at Heavenly the day my Mom passed away. He fell that day and tore the ligaments in his right hand. Every time we went skiing he tore or broke or sprained something. Salvatore Philip Bone was a horrible skier and that's how he met his demise. But he was a lovely, caring, loving man. RIP Sonny Bono.
Val Garay
__________________________________
That record saved Atlantic Records. The company was for sale. Their sale to ABC for a paltry $3 million fell apart because the label couldn't warrant they had paid all their royalties. Wexler was playing footsie with Leiber and Stoller over a merger (to Ahmet's horror) because their Red Bird Records was hotter than Atlantic by a mile. Ahmet bought the master for $5000 over the phone without ever having heard it and "I Got You Babe" became the biggest hit in Atlantic history, not just No. 1 in this country but a worldwide smash the company had never seen before.
Joel Selvin
__________________________________
And in one of the more incredible stats of 1965, the Billboard number one song of the year, which, by the way, only got to number two but was the first American artist to sell a million copies of a single since the beginning of the British Invasion, was Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs "Wooly Bully"!
It stayed in the top 5 for 2 months.
Side note. I once asked Bill Graham what was the worst act to ever play the Fillmore West. His response:
By far, Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs.
John French
__________________________________
The absolute best cover of the song (of many) for me was watching post-Ziggy Bowie duet with Marianne Faithfull (who was wearing a nun's habit and huge wimple…open at the back, as I clearly remember - she looked utterly fabulous) at the Marquee Club in London, 1973. Fan Club only audience, and not packed by any means. Utter magic - although I missed Woody Woodmansey. Recorded for American TV. A very special thing, and everybody in the room knew it. I floated home afterwards.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OX2nelvhIE
Hugo Burnham
__________________________________
I always liked Sonny & Cher, especially "I Got You Babe" and "Baby Don't Go." And I liked Sonny's solo "Laugh At Me," even have the album. And I have the "Ringo I Love You" novelty single, well sung by Cher under the name Bonnie Joe Mason, co-written by Phil Spector with Anders & Poncia, possibly produced by Phil or maybe actually Sonny. Sonny was all over the place back then, doing anything and everything to be in the music biz: songwriting, playing on sessions, producing, plugging records. Whatever it took to make it in the music business. And then he met Cher, and he recognized that diamond in the rough, and without him, who knows what might have never happened. She put in the hours also, singing on any project and for anyone who let her. Together, what they created was real, not artifice.
Toby Mamis
__________________________________
I saw a lot of Cher during her marriage to Gregg Allman and I remember the swarms of National Inquirer reporters and photogs who followed them constantly. I had to hire a security guy which we had never done previously. She was always very kind and generous and she came to Gregg's funeral. I don't think Gregg ever stopped loving her. A funny aside... when "Ramblin' Man" made it to to #2 on the Billboard singles chart, Cher was at #1! (I think I am remembering that correctly).
Willie Perkins
P.S. I looked it up. Cher's "Halfbreed" was #1 when ABB's "Ramblin Man" was #2.
__________________________________
At 13 years old, I saw Sonny and Cher sing (no doubt lip sync) "I Got You Babe" on tv via The Lloyd Thaxton Show. Yep, Sonny was wearing that fur vest and I remember thinking Cher was really nice looking! And yes, I know every word and sing along every time I hear the song.
Rob Evans
__________________________________
When I was 12, I'd drop in at the Sunset Blvd office of managers Greene & Stone. "Are Sonny and Cher here?" They always seemed to be; it was a cool hang. One day, coming home from guitar lessons, a white car pulled over on Selma. It was Sonny- he asked about the guitar and encouraged me to keep with the lessons. It was so special to be recognized by this warm and sweet man. Unfortunately, my guitar playing began and ended with a sorry "Tom Dooley."
Mike Minky
__________________________________
Bill Murray will forever be linked because of "Groundhog Day"
Marc Platt, Los Angeles
__________________________________
There's the power of pop MELODY, which Sonny was skilled at, having witnessed the masters first hand work, he was a good student obviously
And Sonny could write and arrangement. There is a symphonic feel that was both on-the-way-out yet still contemporary
Then they juxtapose Cher's musical voice with Sonny's off register answers and for some odd reason the combination is enchanting, not overpowering, not maudlin.
Dennis Pelowski
__________________________________
Fall in love, then listen to I GOT YOU BABE.
It takes on a whole other dimension... especially in he midst of a pandemic.
Suzanne "Ponyta" Nuttall
Toronto, Canada
__________________________________
If you are of a certain age there are a handful of songs you know from the opening licks that you will stop what you are doing and listen all the way through. House of the Rising Sun by the Animals. And yeah, I Got You Babe. The oboe gets your attention but it's the performance that's holds you to the end, that and the expression of a need you won't truly understand until much later in life, the need for a companion to share the ups and downs and to be there all the way until the final act, holding your hand. In the time of Covid-19 when people are forced to die alone that simple image assumes even more poignancy.
George Laugelli
__________________________________
Just a true great great song.. words, chorus, melody, performers.. im not sure there are many people that don't know a line or two from it. There was something truly special about their partnership. But, this song was and is the best example of how great a simple 2-3 min song can be.
Chris Anderson
__________________________________
Time is a lot kinder to their songs than some of their contemporaries. Baby Don't Go (with that chromatic harp) and You Better Sit Down Kids (which may have been solo Cher) are my two faves.
Dave Murray
__________________________________
songs of all time with I Got You Babe!!! That song defined love (and like) in a relationship better that any. Funny but I also think of Bon Jovi's Living On A Prayer as another generation's follow up. Once again, the musicianship provided by the Wrecking Crew made I Got You Babe stand out so distinctively on the radio and while Cher carries and belts it, Sonny also did his best vocal job on that song as well. Not gonna lie, I have been known to belt it out with various friends in a karaoke bar or three over the years __.
Keep hitting those buttons pal and stay healthy!!
Tommy Nast
__________________________________
Name another duo where the one was elected to Congress and the other was an Oscar winning actress.
Tom Rooney
__________________________________
Wow! I think only a gifted writer such as you could succeed at giving a counter culture authenticity to Sonny and Cher and their top 40 anthem "I got you babe". Sonny was a self indulgent promoter . A less offensive version of Trump. He took Louie Prima and Keely Smith's popular act from the 50s wrapped it in PG rated hippie attire and offered a safer version of the scary counter culture to a mass audience, and struck it rich. Cher was the talent and the star, Sonny ended up right where he belonged amidst his grifterpeers in the Republican Party.
alan segal san diego
__________________________________
I loved the way she would look at him, sometimes with pure love and sometimes
with a look of laughter, derision, or disbelief.
Van Easton
__________________________________
"I got you Babe" is the song that Bill Murray wakes to each morning in the movie "Groundhog Day".
Timeless song.
-Sonny (yes, that is my name) in Phoenix
__________________________________
Played that song 100 times on the jukebox at Mancinis Pizza. I was 11. Trying "Baby Don't Go". It's my fav. Thanks for the pleasant reminder of those carefree days! Richard King
__________________________________
Also: that gorgeous oboe!
Steve Lindstrom
__________________________________
My fave Sonny song, "Needles And Pins".
Chris Mancini
__________________________________
Hey Bob,
Maybe you'll like this version.
Ari Posner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YWnLFw1K3A
__________________________________
It's been the alarm on my phone for years via ground hog day.
Johnny Lloyd Rollins
__________________________________
I Got You Babe is a great song. It was the oboe that put it over the top. The oboe was the hook.
My sister is ten years older than me. We used to sing the song together. Of course, she sang Sonny's lines and I sang Cher's.
Steve Monk
__________________________________
Every teenage 'couple' at the time had a song that was theirs. For my first serious teenage girlfriend and I, it was I Got You Babe.
Maybe that's why it went to number one --- all of us teen couples?
R. Lowenstein
__________________________________
i know where you're coming from. even the carpenters (THE CARPENTERS!) sound good in retrospect, though we wouldn't be caught dead admitting it at the time.
rsands9
__________________________________
In the early 70s when Imus was still an AM DJ in NY, I remember him playing it. After the end, with the fade of I got you babe being repeated several times, he said "Sounds like a disease". I think of that every time I hear it. hahaha
Kevin Kiley
__________________________________
The Sonny & Cher original is a nice enough time capsule piece. How often do you hear an oboe in a pop song? It does, though, tend to smack of hippie commercialization. It might even be the first instance of it.
When I listen to it now, I think of how they always ended their variety show with it.
Give me the frenetic Etta James version any day.
Kind Regards,
John Jordan
__________________________________
I Got You Babe/Best Version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWTgJdvdGo8
Al Kooper
__________________________________
I Got You Babe is a classic example of the cover being better than the original. Even though the drums are programmed, the UB40 version with Chrissie Hynde has soul - Sonny and Cher's version is all bubblegum and tinsel. The Beatles' Twist and Shout, Judy Collins' Both Sides Now, Hendrix's All Along The Watchtower, and James Taylor's You've Got A Friend are other great examples.
I'd love to read your take on covers being the definitive version. Aretha's version of Bridge Over Troubled Water, maybe? Hard to say - the original is so great as well.
Cheers,
Andy Dayes
__________________________________
As a preadolescent boy watching on TV, I'm seeing this dorky guy and he has CHER. To this day, I think flat abs are very sexy and I suspect that it's somehow tied to those early images of Cher on TV. So hell yes, I loved that song. "I Got You Babe" was a first fantasy that I didn't even understand in the moment but it would prove to be unforgettable. As I recall, Gregg Allman was equally stricken.
I could never break down a song the way that you can but for me, this song was number one for a reason and Cher's belly button was probably the reason. LOL
Mark McLaughlin
__________________________________
I like the UB40/Chrissie Hynde version.
I was just a kid when that came out and hated it!
Rodney Rowland
__________________________________
Growing up with the Sonny & Cher show, well it was a big deal in our house. We'd all watch it together, my stepdad would comment on Cher's outfits. Mom would roll her eyes. We thought Sonny was a loser, but we liked him anyway. We had this TV antennae on a pole by the side of the house that would move when the wind blew and one of the kids had to go out and turn it to get a decent signal. Dad in his recliner directing the turning operation and one of us stuck outside while the show was on trying to get it just right. Hold it! No, back a little. Too far. Back. OK. Then back inside and by then a commercial was on. Reading your piece brought all that back to me, and I can't help but smile about it.
Jim Warren
__________________________________
By 1965, my Aunt had given me a couple Chubby Checkers albums, and my Grandmother had gifted me a Beatles single, but the first record I ever bought with my own money was "I Got You Babe." You're right - it was everywhere -- and I wanted to own it. That high oboe, or whatever it was, going "dah dah, dah dah, dah dah..." was the ultimate earworm. I was also happy to play the flip side,"It's Gonna Rain," over and over again. What I remember when I saw them on TV was that Cher was pretty and they dressed "young." It didn't register at all that Sonny was that much older than Cher -- they looked like a couple in love.
Everyone had a soft-spot for "I Got You Babe" -- Bowie performed it with Marianne Faithfull in 1973 for the 1980 Floor Show -- him wearing red PVC and black ostrich plumes, and her sporting the Flying Nun's wimple, and a habit with no arms and nothing on underneath. (I bought the bootleg of that, and it's NOT one I play much!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OX2nelvhIE
Even Joey Ramone & Holly Beth Vincent (of Holly & The Italians) put out their single of it in 1982.
And even though you didn't watch it, Sonny & Cher closed their TV show each week with a bit of their signature song.
I'm glad you finally came around and re-experienced it.
Here's a clip of Sonny & Cher performing "I Got You Babe" on Top Of The Pops. This time, Cher's wearing the fur vest. It takes me back to '65. And I still have the single.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JxIw58lkHQ
Mark Helfrich
__________________________________
I was sixteen and came down from Liverpool to stay with a friend in London for the weekend.
Walking around London we saw two very exotic looking people coming down the steps of a hotel. They were being escorted by large fit-looking gentleman in slick dark electric blue Italian suits, white shirts black ties. I thought the exotics must be a prince and princess from some South American country although I was fairly sure that most South American countries did not have princes and princesses. They were too clean for Rock and Roll. To exotic and cool for show biz. The suits got the couple into an awaiting black limo, checking out roof tops in this quiet London street as they did so in a similar way that Trump would be gotten into a car outside a hotel in downtown Los Angeles. The said couple were wafted off into the sun-streamed afternoon.
That night we went to the Marquee to see The Spencer Davis Group. We then realised that as part of the deal was that we had to stand through a one hour 'Live from the Marquee' Radio London radio show. It was hosted by DJ Pete Murray. Several act just did one number each. I can only remember two of them. One, a girl duo, was called 'The Two of US'. The other act closed the show. Our South American prince and princess came onto the stage. It was Sonny and Cher. It was the first I had heard of them. They sang I got You Babe (to track!). It was the first time I had heard the song too. I don't know if it had been released yet. This was a promo visit. They had some pizzaz - Cher more than Sonny but it seemed like it was probably going to be a catchy, slightly cheesy one-hit wonder if it was ever going to be a hit. It had the best chance of the Radio London's offerings that night.
With our hour of penance watching floor managers hold up huge boards with 'Applause' written on them out of the way, the gig we had come to see was allowed to proceed. The support was The Mark Leeman Five, a very good band with Brian 'Blinky' Davison on drums before joining the Nice. Sadly Mark Leeman subsequently died in a car crash. A great warm-up for a great Spencer Davis Group set. When we thought all was done, various members of the Mark Leeman five came back on stage to jam with the Spencer Davis Group. This allowed Steve Winwood to move from guitar to keyboards, harmonica and vocals with always someone available to cover the instrument he had just vacated. The jam session really began to pick up pace with renditions of R&B classics (R&B in the old sense). A number of musos had turned up to see Spencer Davis that night and started to join in the jam for a number or two. They included Eric Clapton, Erick Burdon and Chris Barber (trombone). They greatest jam session that I have ever, ever witnessed. Who M.D.'ed this and held it all wonderfully together? Seventeen year-old Steve Winwood.
What a night. All stated off with the curious and quirky appearance of a totally unknown Sonny & Cher.
Mike Lowe
__________________________________
My big brother, seven years older, had this record. He moved out shortly after my mom remarried and he and my stepfather didn't get along. Bill was just eighteen. He didn't take his records right away.
I was just turning eleven and my friend Renee and I played these records everyday after school in my empty apartment. Beatles, Stones, Animals, Yardbirds, Them.
We'd finagled our moms to buy us those white leather go-go boots, and we'd dance until we fell down on the carpet, panting and sweaty. Roll Over Beethoven!
We were entranced by the Sonny & Cher record though, playing it over and over. Yep, the idea of having a forever best friend who understood you and was there for you, no matter what, even if you owned next to nothing?
Their hair and clothes signaled they were different from the rest of the pop acts. The liner notes and photos on the back of the record proved it. They had headshots of their crew. They all looked like latter day beatniks, as did Sonny & Cher except S & C were so polished, camera ready. These grainy B&B images showed real beatniks who were scruffy, unsmiling, dead serious about - whatever they were about! Being the essential peeps behind the scenes of S&C, their real friends. S&C supposedly wrote the notes under each one. A woman with probably one name was basically described as "not having worn shoes for the past year, and probably won't this year" and I never forgot that. Actually embraced barefooted style as much as I could get away from it because it seemed this woman had higher principles, that what mattered most to her was beyond surface appearances. They planted the seed for my future hippie self.
Yep, that wall of sound made that song pop, that carnival my, pied piper organ sound, and I recall Val telling me about hanging around the Phil's studio then, watching Sonny create his future. Who knew he'd become a congressman and die running into a tree on skis, and Cher would live on to rescue the loneliest elephant in the world during a pandemic? Life is scary and also pretty outrageous.
Melissa Ward
__________________________________
You got it right except for a few things ~ I can remember all the girls at school trying their best to look like Cher ~ Cutting bangs and ironing the curls out of their hair ~ The school jocks got those girls first ~ The rest of us were stuck with the left overs ~
You don't as far as I'm concern give enough credit to Sonny for the lessons learned from working with Phil Spector because he took those lesson and formulated it into the Sonny & Cher sound and took it all to the bank ~
Also I don't know how Sonny did it but some how back in 1967 he got ABC Motion Pictures ( they made all those horrible Surf movies ) to produce a movie for them called "Good Times" just as all their star power was fading ~
They were never my cup of tea back in the day but they did manage to fall from grace as I remember it seems that back when everyone was smoking pot and taking LSD they came out against drugs ~ I remember thats when they looked like our elders and not one of us ~
In all actuality they did manage to have the last laugh in the 70s with there TV show ~ They made a lot of money and were once again America's little darling ~
RS ~
__________________________________
Now go back and give Cher's (solo) version of All I Really Want To Do another shot. You won't be sorry.
I'm a Gen X'r. Grew up with the 70's Cher,.. the one that invented that Eddie Vedder affectation that was so big with all the late era grungers.
Not a peak in her creative journey,... but when I discovered teenage 60's Cher when I was a teenager myself in the mid 80's,... boy was that a revelation.
I guess she was imitating Sonny, which as you will see listening to All I Really Want To Do, she was able to sing both the male and female parts by herself. But man did she take her mentors idea and go somewhere entirely of her own. Somewhere tough and ballsy and totally female, empowered teenage female. That's probably what I fell in love with when I was a teenage boy in the era of Debby G and Tiffany. Both fine in their own right but not in the same league.
Steve McDonald
__________________________________
For those too young to remember this pre-FM era could have a Stones song, followed by Frank Sinatra's STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT, to the Dave Clark Five, to We Five, to the Temptations, to Sonny and Cher......
Look at those Top 40 lists from that time. You would think you'd be sharing the radio with your parents.
It's a mix tape before mix tape.
Tom Rooney
__________________________________
haha. Bob, I saw them sing it at my first concert. my dad dropped me and two friends off for the WOR FM Birthday party at the Village Theatre which became Fillmore East. they may have been first, we didn't go to see them. The Doors headlined and closed, blew the roof off and my mind. here's some of the line up I remember:
Sonny and Cher
Janis Ian
The Blues Project
The Chambers Brothers
Richie Havens
The Doors
i googled the dj's,
Jim Lounsbury
Johnny Michaels
Scott Muni
Murray The K
Rosko
Owen
__________________________________
glad you finally got this one bob!
Peter Noone
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Dylan Sells
I don't believe in selling your songs.
We are in a once in a lifetime era, where songs are valued higher than they ever have been before as a result of the recognition of the value of said songs, especially as companies have realized digital/internet provides more avenues of exploitation and more money than previously believed, and there are ever fewer independent catalogs available.
Credit Merck. He rounded up a ton of money and wants it all, he wants to buy your catalog outright, lock stock and barrel. Merck wasn't the first to pay big bucks, but the first to insist he was taking it all. Sure, there's a theoretical back end, but the odds of it paying are extremely low, that's why Merck is paying such extremely high prices.
And then you've got Larry Mestel and Primary Wave. But he's selling a different paradigm, he's not only going to buy your catalog, he's gonna work it. That's part of the Stevie Nicks deal. In an era where traditional labels give up on marketing you if you don't have hits, even though they own the tracks and are collecting streaming revenue, showing the power of ownership, you want to boost said revenue and participate. Mestel has product managers, Primary Wave is a marketing juggernaut, illustrating once again the changes the internet has wrought on the business. There are more opportunities, and innovative companies, but the media, and to a great degree the major labels, only focus on the Spotify Top 50 and big numbers and the public has a skewed vision of what the music business is all about.
Maybe if you have no heirs. Stevie Nicks has neither a spouse nor progeny. So she gets the value of her catalog instantly, now, while she is still alive. She's not going to live another thirty years, she could live much less than that, so now she has the ability to utilize all that cash while she's still breathing.
But what are you going to do with the cash?
Business is littered with people who got huge payouts and then blew the cash. All of it. It's very easy to do. Hell, you can spend ten million in a day, if not more. Did you see that guy who started Pizza Hut blew through all the cash from its sale? That's a common story. Whereas if they drip the money out on a regular basis, which is the essence of music publishing, you've got the equivalent of an insurance policy.
And odds are the younger generations are nowhere near as good with money as you were. Can you say "Edgar Bronfman, Jr?," never mind his two sisters who supported Keith Raniere and NXIVM? Music publishing is essentially a trust for your heirs, to ensure that they don't blow through everything you created overnight.
Meanwhile, selling is antithetical to all the territory taken by artists in the late sixties and seventies. Ownership of your publishing was a BREAKTHROUGH! Not having it cross-collateralized against recording revenue was a breakthrough. As for the value of copyrights... Peter Grant sold out Led Zeppelin's record royalties and then the rights became a gold mine. Same deal with Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis Presley. Doesn't anybody look at history?
As for exploitation, you can always make a deal with a publisher to do this, usually at de minimis rates. And publishing royalties are historically more transparent than recording royalties, you should get paid, what you've earned or close to it.
In a perfect world artists would own all their rights, and just license them. But too many acts are uninformed, never mind having brief careers, and the percentage partners see a gold mine today, which otherwise they may never get, i.e. Peter Grant and Colonel Tom Parker. But these publishing sales are moving the ball in the wrong direction.
Paul McCartney tries to recapture the rights to the Beatles songs and is undercut by Michael Jackson. The value of those songs keeps going up. And McCartney has put a huge chunk of his earnings into music publishing. Wouldn't others wake up and follow his lead?
But we are not living in the sixties and seventies anymore. Music doesn't represent the same thing, sure, music is everywhere, but it's not the soul of the culture like it once was. As for the sale of today's acts' publishing in the future? So far, almost no one has created a catalog that compares to that of the titans of yore.
This is the marshmallow test. This is Wimpy and the burger. Can you resist today's chunk for more riches tomorrow?
As for value... So far, historically, music publishing catalogs keep going up. Fewer are available and revenues for publishing keep ascending.
How many people can resist the cash dangled?
Dylan selling is disappointing.
P.S. Copyrights will expire when Disney is willing to let Mickey Mouse go into the public domain. A songwriter may have little political capital, but the Mouse House has plenty. It's looking like copyright is forever.
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We are in a once in a lifetime era, where songs are valued higher than they ever have been before as a result of the recognition of the value of said songs, especially as companies have realized digital/internet provides more avenues of exploitation and more money than previously believed, and there are ever fewer independent catalogs available.
Credit Merck. He rounded up a ton of money and wants it all, he wants to buy your catalog outright, lock stock and barrel. Merck wasn't the first to pay big bucks, but the first to insist he was taking it all. Sure, there's a theoretical back end, but the odds of it paying are extremely low, that's why Merck is paying such extremely high prices.
And then you've got Larry Mestel and Primary Wave. But he's selling a different paradigm, he's not only going to buy your catalog, he's gonna work it. That's part of the Stevie Nicks deal. In an era where traditional labels give up on marketing you if you don't have hits, even though they own the tracks and are collecting streaming revenue, showing the power of ownership, you want to boost said revenue and participate. Mestel has product managers, Primary Wave is a marketing juggernaut, illustrating once again the changes the internet has wrought on the business. There are more opportunities, and innovative companies, but the media, and to a great degree the major labels, only focus on the Spotify Top 50 and big numbers and the public has a skewed vision of what the music business is all about.
Maybe if you have no heirs. Stevie Nicks has neither a spouse nor progeny. So she gets the value of her catalog instantly, now, while she is still alive. She's not going to live another thirty years, she could live much less than that, so now she has the ability to utilize all that cash while she's still breathing.
But what are you going to do with the cash?
Business is littered with people who got huge payouts and then blew the cash. All of it. It's very easy to do. Hell, you can spend ten million in a day, if not more. Did you see that guy who started Pizza Hut blew through all the cash from its sale? That's a common story. Whereas if they drip the money out on a regular basis, which is the essence of music publishing, you've got the equivalent of an insurance policy.
And odds are the younger generations are nowhere near as good with money as you were. Can you say "Edgar Bronfman, Jr?," never mind his two sisters who supported Keith Raniere and NXIVM? Music publishing is essentially a trust for your heirs, to ensure that they don't blow through everything you created overnight.
Meanwhile, selling is antithetical to all the territory taken by artists in the late sixties and seventies. Ownership of your publishing was a BREAKTHROUGH! Not having it cross-collateralized against recording revenue was a breakthrough. As for the value of copyrights... Peter Grant sold out Led Zeppelin's record royalties and then the rights became a gold mine. Same deal with Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis Presley. Doesn't anybody look at history?
As for exploitation, you can always make a deal with a publisher to do this, usually at de minimis rates. And publishing royalties are historically more transparent than recording royalties, you should get paid, what you've earned or close to it.
In a perfect world artists would own all their rights, and just license them. But too many acts are uninformed, never mind having brief careers, and the percentage partners see a gold mine today, which otherwise they may never get, i.e. Peter Grant and Colonel Tom Parker. But these publishing sales are moving the ball in the wrong direction.
Paul McCartney tries to recapture the rights to the Beatles songs and is undercut by Michael Jackson. The value of those songs keeps going up. And McCartney has put a huge chunk of his earnings into music publishing. Wouldn't others wake up and follow his lead?
But we are not living in the sixties and seventies anymore. Music doesn't represent the same thing, sure, music is everywhere, but it's not the soul of the culture like it once was. As for the sale of today's acts' publishing in the future? So far, almost no one has created a catalog that compares to that of the titans of yore.
This is the marshmallow test. This is Wimpy and the burger. Can you resist today's chunk for more riches tomorrow?
As for value... So far, historically, music publishing catalogs keep going up. Fewer are available and revenues for publishing keep ascending.
How many people can resist the cash dangled?
Dylan selling is disappointing.
P.S. Copyrights will expire when Disney is willing to let Mickey Mouse go into the public domain. A songwriter may have little political capital, but the Mouse House has plenty. It's looking like copyright is forever.
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