There's a long and noble musical habit of taking old songs and breathing new life into them. Indeed, many acts today thrive on sprinkling covers into their live sets and audiences appear to love them too.
But what about songs that never made it beyond the printed page? Or songs that were merely scraps of lyrics written by an artist and then either discarded or lost in the mists of time? A new album puts this type of song revival firmly in the spotlight. Elvis Costello, Marcus Mumford (Mumford & Sons) and Jim James (My Morning Jacket) have teamed up with legendary producer T Bone Burnett to produce an album full of Bob Dylan songs that never saw the light of day. In the hands of lesser artists, this might simply end up being a barrel-scraping exercise, but I must admit that I am almost convinced of its worthiness.
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| The New Basement Tapes - Elvis Costello (Centre) and producer T Bone Burnett (hands in air) |
The songs - or rather, the lyrics - were amongst the horde of material that Dylan put together back in 1967 whilst he was working and living with The Band in various upstate New York locations. The quality and range of the creative output was astounding, although it wasn't until 1975 that a number of the finished songs saw the light of day on an official release, The Basement Tapes. A few had been subject to bootleg attention, but what seems now to be the case is that there were a good number of songs that didn't progress beyond the draft-lyric stage. It is these scraps of paper that have been given fresh life with new music and production by Burnett, Costello and company. The album - Lost On the River: The New Basement Tapes - features twenty tracks, many with typically idiosyncratic Dylan titles:
- 'Down on the Bottom'
- 'Married to My Hack'
- 'Kansas City'
- 'Spanish Mary'
- 'Liberty Street'
- 'Nothing to It'
- 'Golden Tom – Silver Judas'
- 'When I Get My Hands on You'
- 'Duncan and Jimmy'
- 'Florida Key'
- 'Hidee Hidee Ho #11'
- 'Lost On The River #12'
- 'Stranger'
- 'Card Shark'
- 'Quick Like A Flash'
- 'Hidee Hidee Ho #16'
- 'Diamond Ring'
- 'The Whistle Is Blowing'
- 'Six Months in Kansas City (Liberty Street)'
- 'Lost on the River #20'
The whole project has taken some years to come together and such has been the cachet attached to the work that Johnny Depp and documentary film-maker Sam Jones have also got involved. A short "making of film" accompanies the album and the whole package is set for release in November no doubt in anticipation of the lucrative festive market.
Listen: The New Basement Tapes - Nothing To It
Listen: The New Basement Tapes - Nothing To It
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| Mermaid Avenue - New music to old lyrics by Woody Guthrie |
But, such work is far from unknown and two other notable projects include a loose connection to Bob Dylan. Firstly, back in 1998, Billy Bragg teamed up with US indie band Wilco to breathe life into some unheard lyrics written by Woody Guthrie prior to his death in 1967. Guthrie - of course - was a huge influence on Bob Dylan and such was the interest in the Bragg/Wilco album (Mermaid Avenue) that a second set of songs was released a couple of years later. No less a publication than American Songwriter magazine said at the time "The Mermaid Avenue project is essential for showing that Woody Guthrie could illuminate what was going on inside of him as well as he could detail the plight of his fellow man."
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| Woody Guthrie - 1950s |
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| Thea Gilmore: New music to unheard Sandy Denny lyrics |
The second - and very interesting work was produced as recently as 2011 by singer-songwriter Thea Gilmore. She had been a great fan of the much-missed Sandy Denny, a wonderful artist who with Fairport Convention and later as a solo performer brought something distinctive and unique to the craft of songwriting. She died at just 31 back in 1978 and in recent years, her estate discovered a sheaf of hand-written song-lyrics. They believed they were deserving of a wider audience and made contract with Gilmore to provide music to match the lyrics. Gilmore even wrote one of her own songs in the style of the rest and it stands up very well indeed. The resultant album - Don't Stop Singing - proved to be both critically well received and popular. An extensive tour followed and there was much TV and radio coverage - including a televised live concert. And the Dylan connection? Sandy Denny was an adept performer of many of his songs - and particularly a couple which appeared on the original Basement Tapes release in 1975.
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| Sandy Denny (1947-1978) Influential singer-songwriter - only in recent years truly getting the recognition that she deserves. |
So, there is a "life after death" for unheard songs and I'd recommend these three releases as being worthy of your attention.
Alan Dorey
20th August 2014
Cool! Thank you for a great article :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Beca - makes it all worth while :)
DeleteThis is a great subject Alan and not one often discussed. I am sure there are thousands of them out there. I have actually a discussion in my friend’s kitchen over coffee about this very topic. He has loads that are unfinished or he’s never found the right moment/place for them. Sometimes pieces get resurrected and find their way into new songs while others remain in a folder, or notebook, diary or in his amazingly fruitful and creative head. These are the one’s I’d love to get a peek at someday. Thanks for making us think about the 'forgotten ones'.
ReplyDeleteThanks Debb - I might even dig into this some more in future to see what other examples come to light. Hope your friend gets some inspiration from those early pieces!
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