Still nothing clinched for an event in Toronto, though there's now a strong possibility of staging my talk/one-man show 'The A-Z of Bob Dylan' at the studio theatre of the Toronto Centre for the Arts in North York. If there's anyone out there reading this who knows Toronto, your thoughts & comments would be really useful asap as to how reasonable this venue is for access from the city centre. This would be for the evening of Tuesday, September 12. The studio theatre here seats 200.
The other North American dates now fixed for me to do are:
Wed Aug 30, 7pm: Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland OH
talk: ‘Bob Dylan & the History of Rock’n’Roll’
One Key Plaza
751 Erieside Ave
Cleveland, Ohio 44114
tel: 216-515-8426
Thurs Aug 31, 7pm: Magers & Quinn, Minneapolis MN
talk: ‘The A-Z of Bob Dylan’
3038 Hennepin Avenue South
Minneapolis MN 55408
tel: 612-822-4611
Sat Sept 02, 5pm: Kleinert/James Arts Center, Woodstock, NY
talk: ‘The A-Z of Bob Dylan’
Kleinert/James Arts Center
34 Tinker Street
Woodstock, NY 12498
tel: 845-679-8000
Tues Sept 05, 6.30pm: The New School, NY NY
talk: ‘Bob Dylan & the Poetry of the Blues’
The New School
66 West 12th Street (between 5th & 6th Ave) NYC
Main Building, Room 519
contact details see below
Thurs Sept 07, 8pm: University of Texas, Austin TX
talk: ‘Bob Dylan & the Poetry of the Blues’
Music Recital Hall MRH 2.608
tel: 512-471-7764
Fri Sept 08, 7pm: Booksmith Bookstore, San Francisco
talk: ‘The A-Z of Bob Dylan’
1644 Haight Street
San Francisco
California 94117
tel: 415-863-8688 or 1-800-493-7323
Sat Sept 09, 7.30pm Black Oak Books
talk: ‘The A-Z of Bob Dylan’
1491 Shattuck Avenue
Berkeley CA 94709
tel: 510-486-0698
Sun Sept 10, 7.30pm: Powells’ Book Store, Portland OR
talk: ‘The A-Z of Bob Dylan’
1005 West Burnside
Portland OR 97209
tel: 503-228-4651 or 1-800-878-7323
These events are mostly free, though capacity is limited. For the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame event, anyone interested should reserve places by e-mailing edu@rockhall.org or phoning 216.515.8426. For the NYC event, please book by e-mail to dylan@continuum-books.com. For all other events, please contact the individual venue.
Any chance on you coming to speak in Liverpool again Michael? Your talk on BD and the poetry of the blues went down a storm last time and it would be great to hear one of your other talks here. I remember being astounded when I heard between 'Automobile Blues' and 'Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat' back to back. Fantastic stuff!
ReplyDeleteDear Anonymous
ReplyDeleteThanks for your enthusiastic comments. I remember that Bluecoat Arts Centre evening well. It was great for me to have, after all those years, a chance to speak in the city I had looked to throughout my childhood and adolescence - the place where I saw beat groups in the Cavern and pop stars at the Empire... and where I saw Bob Dylan live for the first time at the Odeon Cinema ("2.45pm The Sound of Music, 7pm Bob Dylan"!)
To answer your question, yes, I hope to be able to organise a tour of UK dates nearer the end of the year, and would love to include Merseyside again.
On another topic, slightly.
ReplyDeleteWas just reading your excellent discussion of the song "Blind Willie McTell' in the Encyclopedia - and wondered where the Irish traditional song 'Lock Hospital' (covered by Christy Moore on his album 'Prosperous') fits in in the genealogy of that song.
Not sure whether it or "St. James' Infirmary' is the older song...
Speaking of Joe Heaney, there is a very interesting interview with him at this site, which is very interesting on the workings of the 'folk process' (for want of a better word:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/heaney2.htm
Heaney is also interesting because he annoyed Irish folk music purists by drawing songs from all over the place.
I think, with Dylan, he is one of the greatest interpreters of folk songs who ever lived. Unlike Shane McGowan, I would also say that his respect for the words (or, perhaps, more accurately, the 'mood' of a song) was exemplary.
To back up my earlier point about Joe Heaney, here is a quote from his interview with Ewan McColl:
ReplyDeleteJH: Well, I'll tell you the truth - when I get to learn a song I want to find out something about it, just in case, well just in case, anybody would ask me the history of the song. I don't think … a song is no good to me unless I know the story about it.
EM: Where do you get the stories from? Do you read them up or what?
JH: No. I'll be quite frank with you, I didn't read it. I got it from the people I got the song from, because I never got them songs out of a book or anything.
EM: So they all knew all the facts about them too?
JH: They did. Because, as I told you before, before they ask you to sing - they never ask you at home to sing a song, they say 'say a song' - and you tell the story first and then you sing the song. But without a story, the song is useless.
Michael
ReplyDeleteanother slight Joe Heaney - Dylan connection here. This is Heaney's version of Eileen Aroon, which Bob performed in concert on a number of occasions (most notably perhaps in Dublin in 1989):
http://www.joeheaney.org/default.asp?contentID=819
After that concert, according to Sean Wilentz, Bob spoke with Liam Clancy (who got a number of his songs from Heaney) about his sadness at the fact that 'his audiences, even in Dublin, no longer knew the wonderful old songs'.
Just to complete the picture, here is Heaney singing the Irish version of the song:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.joeheaney.org/default.asp?contentID=816
Just to add that there is discussion of both the Irish & English versions of "Eileen Aroon" & their place in Heaney's repertoire in Sean Williams and Lillis O'Laoire's book, Bright Star of the West, 120-27.
ReplyDeleteHave been trying to track down Bob's version of it, but no luck so far.
Heaney also recorded the Irish version of 'Eileen Aroon' on his Gael-Linn , album (issued under the Irish version of his name, Seosamh O'hEanai, O Mo Dhuchas (From My Tradition).
ReplyDeleteby the way, two connections between Handel & Bob:
1. According to legend, Handel heard it sung when he was in Ireland and he said he would have traded all his own work to have written the tune of "Eileen Aroon."
2. Both men have set the same piece of text from the Bible, Handel in "The Trumpet Shall Sound' in The Messiah and Bob with "Ye Shall be Changed' released first on Biograph (I think).
Michael
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments - Heaney is such a great singer that i think he deserves a far wider audience.
He was around the folk scene in England & the US, but not really of it, as his relationship to the songs he sang was very different from that of the 'revivalists'.
By the way, thought this post from Tom Russell ( a very good songwriter himself) might interest you:
http://russelltom.blogspot.com/2011/01/mesabi-series-of-dreams-13.html
Michael
ReplyDeleteThought this fascinating exchange between Joe Heaney, Ewan McColl and Peggy Seeger might interest you:
PS: [You never seem to] sing a song the same way twice.
JH: You're quite right, I don't.
PS: Now, when you're trying to mix, when you're approaching a line, and you know that at a certain point you're going to decorate, do you ever see the shape of the decoration in your mind?
JH: I do. I see exactly what I am going to do with it before I reach it. I know exactly what I'm going to do and each time I try to do it better.
PS: You never make a mistake when you're decorating?
JH: Well, not in my own mind I don't. Maybe other people see it, but I don't because I think its something that you can't make a mistake at, because everybody decorates different. Everybody does their own decoration whereas I don't do the same way twice, I know that. I could sing a song for you now ten times tonight and each time I'd be different. But I'll know exactly what I'm going to do before I reach it.
(Break)
EM: [Do you ever] do the first verse very simply with very few decorations and thereafter on the verses which follow …
JH: Yes. I try to introduce it as clear as I can and after that, you know, I do it my own way. But I try to introduce it first as simple as I can, especially with somebody who doesn't know the song.
EM: When you listen to another singer, what do you listen for?
JH: Well the style first of all. Not the voice almost, it's the style he has, the singer. And I compare that to my own then.
EM: Suppose you were to hear a singer singing in a completely different idiom, even in a different language. Do you think you could recognise the folk singer from the non folk singer?
JH: I could.
EM: Even in a different language.
JH: I could. Even in Russian as I saw the other day when I was talking to a Russian scientist out in Richmond. I could still feel it was there, this more or less the same thing, although I couldn't understand a word he was saying, I knew right away. I even heard the Indians in Edinburgh and I could feel a similarity between them and the songs we have at home, although I couldn't understand a word of it. The same thing, the way was there, the style was there.
Rest of Heaney's comments:
ReplyDeleteEM: … the meaning [of the word nyahh], oh I don't know in some places, this is the meaning that people like the McPeakes give to the word - tone of voice.
JH: Oh that's completely wrong. The nyahh means, you see, if you listen to a Gaelic song you see nearly at the start of every word nyahh. You know what I mean. It's not in the song at all, there is no such thing in the song. You just put that in yourself.
EM: This is not just true of Gaelic songs - what I mean is, it's true of other types of songs.
JH: Not alone of Gaelic songs, even of English songs.
EM: English singers like Harry Cox. When Harry Cox sings The Cruel Ship's Captain, he sings 'mmnnn; a boy to me was bound apprentice'. 29. BBC recording, no 21480, made by Peter Kennedy on 09/10/53. A later recording of Harry Cox singing this song can be heard on Voice of the People Volume 2; We've Received orders to Sail. TOPIC TSCD 662. Roud 835. (FM)29
(At this point various recordings of folksongs were played, including a recording of an Azerbaijani singer play Sound Clipand Ó hÉanaí was asked to compare them with his own tradition. He rejects the first one.) (Sound clip - Azerbaijani singer.)
EM: This is another traditional singer. (tries to play a recording - Joe interrupts).
PS: Put another one on.
JH: How can I better explain it. There's something in the tone and the way it's put over that tells you it's original, that it's very … it's the way it's sung because that is terrible like a caoineadh 30. 'Caoineadh' that the old women sing at home. Its like the song you asked me to learn for this Radio Ballad. There's something about it, you see, that I know it's the real genuine stuff. I wish I could explain it better, but I can't.
EM: Nobody's found a way of explaining it yet, Joe. Nobody has. I want to play you something else, just one other thing to see …
(Plays a record of Joan Baez)
JH: Well, I'll tell you one thing, she hasn't got what I'm trying to explain. I can't explain to you why, but it's not there. I mean she's singing, whether she's too serious or to my ear she's singing it so straight that nothing I've been looking for is there. Nothing like the others.
This is the final part of Heaney's comments.
ReplyDeleteAt this point various recordings of folksongs were played, including a recording of an Azerbaijani singer play Sound Clipand Ó hÉanaí was asked to compare them with his own tradition. He rejects the first one.) (Sound clip - Azerbaijani singer.)
EM: This is another traditional singer. (tries to play a recording - Joe interrupts).
PS: Put another one on.
JH: How can I better explain it. There's something in the tone and the way it's put over that tells you it's original, that it's very … it's the way it's sung because that is terrible like a caoineadh 30. 'Caoineadh' = Lament and refers to the practice of singing laments for the dead, which was once widespread in Ireland. (FM)30 that the old women sing at home. Its like the song you asked me to learn for this Radio Ballad. There's something about it, you see, that I know it's the real genuine stuff. I wish I could explain it better, but I can't.
EM: Nobody's found a way of explaining it yet, Joe. Nobody has. I want to play you something else, just one other thing to see …
(Plays a record of Joan Baez)
JH: Well, I'll tell you one thing, she hasn't got what I'm trying to explain. I can't explain to you why, but it's not there. I mean she's singing, whether she's too serious or to my ear she's singing it so straight that nothing I've been looking for is there. Nothing like the others.
EM: Even though you can't understand the language [of the other singers].
JH: Even though I can't understand the other ones at all, I know they have. I know definitely, I heard, they have got what I would know, the person who has it, the first line is enough. In fact, the first few words, the start of a song, you know whether they have it or not.
EM: Joe, when you listen to those other singers, those Indians and Azerbaijan people, are you moved by it?
JH: Well I feel like I'm listening to something from home.
EM: So you are moved by it?
JH: I am. I really am.
EM: It makes you feel better?
JH: It makes me feel at home.
EM: And this doesn't, this last piece, the Joan Baez.
JH: No, not one bit. I might be wrong, but that's my opinion.
(Plays several records of American singers including The Carter Family (Wabash Cannonball play Sound Clipplay Sound Clipand Little Moses) and Blind Willie Johnson (John the Revelator) (Sound clips - The Carter Family, Wabash Cannonball [left]. Blind Willie Johnson, John the Revelator [right])
PS: Honestly, what do you make of it?
JH: That's very hard. I liked the girl 32. Presumably Sarah or Maybelle Carter. (FM)32 That's very hard. Honestly, it's very hard for me to judge that now.
EM: That's a Negro called Blind Willie Johnson.
JH: I think it's nearer, much nearer that the other one.
EM: That is true Negro style - this man is a street singer, was a street singer, he's dead now. Blind Willie Johnson.
At the risk of becoming a bore, another slight Dylan? Joe Heaney connection here.
ReplyDeleteIn his later years, Heaney regularly sang a song called "I wish I had some one to love me" as a sing-along song for his audiences in the USA.
The song, it appears, was a variant of the earlier song "The Prisoners Song",the lyric of which ran:
IOh I wish I had someone to love me
Someone to call me her own,
Oh I wish I had someone to live with
For I'm tired of living alone.
Oh please meet me tonight in the moonlight
Please meet me tonight all alone
For I have a sad story to tell you
It's a story that's never been told.
I'll be carried to the new jail tomorrow
Leavin' my poor darlin' alone
With the cold prison bars all around me
And my head on a pillow of stone
Now I have a grand ship on the ocean
All mounted with silver and gold
And before my poor darling would suffer.
Oh that ship would be anchored and sold.
Now if I had wings like an angel
Over these prison walls I would fly.
And I'd fly to the arms of my poor darling
And there I'd be willing to die.
This song has been seen by some people as a probable source for Dylan's song 'Moonlight' on Love and Theft'. it may also derive, in part at least, from much earlier Scottish and Irish songs.
You can hear Heaney's version of "I wish I had someone to love me' here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.joeheaney.org/default.asp?contentID=898
Ironically, it turns out that the 'Prisoner's Song' itself is actually based on an earlier song by the Irish songwriter, J. A Wade.
ReplyDeleteIts called "Meet me in the Moonlight':
Meet me in the Moonlight
And then I will tell you a tale,
Must be told by the moonlight alone,
In the grove at the end of the vale.
You must promise to come--for I said,
I would show the night flowers their queen--
Nay, turn not away thy sweet head,
'Tis the loveliest ever was seen--
Oh! meet me by moonlight alone.
Daylight may do for the gay,
The thoughtless, the heartless, the free,
But there's something about the moon's ray,
That is sweeter to you and to me.
Oh! remember--be sure to be there,
For though dearly a moonlight I prize,
I care not for all in the air,
If I want the sweet light of your eyes.
So meet me by moonlight alone.
For completion's sake, here is Joe Heaney's version of 'The Parting Glass":
ReplyDeletehttp://www.joeheaney.org/default.asp?contentID=984