Excerpt from Daniel Mark Epsteins The Ballad of Bob Dylan-- Dylan had started the sessions at Oxnard, [Jim] Dickinson recalled. It was a trio, the way [Daniel] Lanois wanted to do it, obviously. Then some Columbia executives heard Not Dark Yet and got excited, smelling the money. The management had heard over the phone a version from Oxnard with Dylan singing in a higher register, and this quick and spare guitar stuff that Lanois was playing, and it had stuck in somebodys head. So in late January, during the final days of the session, when the suits had not yet heard what they were longing to hear, they began throwing their weight around. I mean, Dickinson recalled, with dismay, they actually talked to Bob Dylan about getting on the radio - which I found really hard to sit in the same room and listen to. They had designated that Not Dark Yet would be the emphasis song. We were supposed to come back in with a smaller, trimmed-down rhythm section, just seven of us, and recut it, right? Because they had heard this earlier version and they were trying to get Dylan to push it up to this higher register. On Monday night, January 27, everyone gathered for the last session: Dylan, Lanois, Baxter, Robillard, Britt, Cashdollar, Garnier, Meyers, Dickinson, Keltner, and Blade. They always started after sundown because Dylan wanted slow tempos throughout the album, uncommonly slow, and it is naturally easier for a real player to maintain such a tempo when the biological clock is set for nighttime. The song on the docket was Not Dark Yet and Lanois had set up the studio simply, with a minimum of microphones, booms, wiring, derricks, and other paraphernalia. Dylan was facing a semicircle of chairs where the musicians could come and go. He was looking somewhat the worse for wear, and the tension between him and Lanois was mounting. We do the song and they keep changing keys, Dickinson recalled. Daniel said, Bob, will you try it in another key? Nobody will say this thing about putting his voice up, right? What the management really wanted was for Dylan to sing the song in a higher, brighter register. So we did it in three or four different keys. One of the amazing things I found out about Bob on this session was just how good a guitarist he is, how fluidly he could change keys without using a capo. He was an old folk guy - I figured he used a capo. Not at all. He could play a song in E flat, just on folk guitar, never used a capo. Lanois and the others in the booth still were not hearing what they wanted to hear. Dylan obviously could sing the song well in half a dozen keys without hitting higher notes. We changed keys and changed keys... And finally Dylan was just obviously pissed off. Well, Dylan called out. We did it in E flat. And we did it in B flat. And you know what? If you aint got it now, you aint getting it. And so Lanois and Mark Howard called Tony Garnier into the sound booth for a conference while Bob Dylan lit a cigarette. Of Dylans band members, Garnier is first mate. Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1955, he is the grandson of the bandleader who taught Louis Armstrong his scales at the New Orleans Colored Waifs Home for Boys; now Garnier has been traveling with Dylan for twenty years. Lanois and the others explained to Tony Garnier what they wanted. He came out real sheepishly, and he says to Dylan, Do you remember when you were doing it before [back in Oxnard], you were singing it in a higher register? Thats what they want, he says, glancing back at Lanois. Do you think we can do it that way? And at that point, Bob Dylan lost his cool. Tony, he asked his bass player. How many times you heard me sing? And Tony shrugged and said he didnt know. Well? You heard me sing a thousand times? Yeah. You heard me sing two thousand times? Yeah, I guess so. You ever heard me sing it the same way twice? There was dead silence in the room. Nobody stirred. Tony Garnier confirmed that he had never heard Dylan sing it the same way twice. And then, just loud enough for everyone to hear him, Dylan said: You know, if I had taken some peoples advice, I might have had more of a career. That was the last word and the end of the sessions for Time Out of Mind. ~Daniel Mark Epstein, The Ballad of Bob Dylan
Posted on: Fri, 25 Jul 2014 21:47:13 +0000