Ruler of the Shadow Kingdom
On Bob Dylan's Streaming Concert
I’ve just returned from Tulsa, where I presented a paper at the World of Bob Dylan Conference on June 1. The panel was called “Dylan’s Early Influences,” and my talk was on Bob Dylan and Elvis Presley based on an essay for the journal Rock Music Studies about “Another Self-Portrait (1969-1971)” from the Sony Music “bootleg” series. My co-presenters were Robert Russell (Bob also acted as host) on Dylan and the Stanley Brothers, and Jim Windolf, an editor at the New York Times, on “Bob Dylan and the Beatles: Disciples of Little Richard.” Jim is writing a book about Dylan and the Beatles, which should be a major contribution to pop culture scholarship when it is published.
I will write about the conference, Tulsa, hotel life, the Bob Dylan Center, and more when I get my bearings: I’m not usually a “wake up at 5 am for a 7:25 am flight” kind of guy, which is what this morning was about. Hello, nap! The Tulsa airport was busier than I thought it would be at 6 am, because a very large group or groups, were flying to Israel, known in Oklahoma as “the Holy Land.” But over the weekend, Sony released the music of Dylan’s 2021 streaming movie/concert Shadow Kingdom. I wrote about it here, when I had about one-third as many readers/subscribers than I do now. So kicking off the third year of Critical Conditions, here is the original review of the streaming show. Also, you should all know that the Substack team has given me my name back, so the url is now simply waynerobins.substack.com. Let your friends know, and thanks for reading and supporting my work the last two years. WR
============
So many interesting things about Bob Dylan's 50 minute, smoky black and white pay per view concert on the Veeps, a streaming site for ticketed live music events. (I watched on my desktop computer and its external speakers.) The audio version was released June 2, 2023, in vinyl, CD, and streaming formats. The 50-minute movie is set to be released for rental and digital download tomorrow (June 6).
The subtitle is The Early Songs of Bob Dylan, or rather 13 of them. And not that early: We're not talking about "Talking Bear Mountain Blues." This should be a relief to the contingent of people who have gone to Dylan concerts in recent decades and have complained that he did not play enough familiar songs from his catalog, or arranged them in familiar ways so that they could be readily identified.
All were beautifully rendered, although Dylan seemed to struggle some with "Wicked Messenger," on which he left the comfort zone he's found in his centered phrasing, the melody requiring him to push his voice harder, perhaps, than he wanted to go. It is the only song in which the musicians seemed as loud as the front-and-center singing.
There was no drummer, and the musicians were not from Dylan's Never-Ending Tour touring band. The credited musicians are Buck Meek, the guitarist from the band Big Thief; guitarist Alex Burke; upright bassist Janie Cowen; Joshua Crumbly; and Shazal Ismailly on accordion. All the musicians were masked and anonymous because of Covid, and in the smoke, it was hard to see who was playing what. Odd factoid: web pages for Crumbly, Ismailly, and Cowen all list bass as their primary instrument.
The setting is supposed to be "the Bon Bon Club in Marseilles," which of course is some kind of joke. The setting looks like a Minnesota hunting lodge, a very small one; it's actually a Santa Monica soundstage. The audience of 15 (credited as "club members") sit and smoke cigarettes, but 15 people chain-smoking could not create the smoky atmospherics that offer grayscale to the black and white photography, so think smoke effects. The clock does not move; it is fixed at around 10:12. You think you are in the wee wee hours of the morning in some French boite in the 1930s, with all the men wearing fedoras, except for one guy, perhaps the Latino actor Raul Cardona, who gets up to dance during "Pledging My Time," a slow dance blues that eventually most of the audience joins, as if it was Johnny Ace's "Pledging My Love," in 1954 in a midwestern roadhouse.
There is tinsel above the stage and some meager Christmas decorations. Someone lifts the blinds and it seems like late afternoon, trees in a forest.
The stage in such a small place is right in your face, and the viewer, via the camera, has rarely been so close to Dylan. And yet so far. The spotlight shines mostly on the top of his Dylan's head, on his hair, so you can rarely make out his features, or facial expressions. (A tenth row seat at the Beacon Theater in November 2019 seemed like having binoculars, by comparison.) Even when Dylan steps closer to the tables from the bandstand during "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" (it is the first time we see any men in the club) his expressions are elusive. Or perhaps, like a magician's card trick, the sight of the male patrons distract your attention from Dylan.
The director is Israeli-born Alma Har'El, who directed the 2019 film Honey Boy, written by and starring Shia LaBeouf. She also made the 2011 documentary Bombay Beach, about a poor community living at the edge of the Salton Sea, now dead fish and desert, in California. There are three Dylan songs on that soundtrack; the rest are by the alt-rock band Beirut. Har'El has a feel for his moods and his music; I can't think of anyone who would have done this better. It's a Dylan concert, but Har'El remains vivid as the auteur.
Song by song: And by the way, the titles are shown before each song, but sometimes they are partial: "Queen Jane" instead of "Queen Jane Approximately." I have no idea. Sometimes I'll go with the partial title too, to save bytes.
"When I Paint My Masterpiece": straightforward, with Dylan seeming to enjoy the zing of the line: "Newspaper men eating candy/had to be held back by the police."
"Most Likely You Go Your Way": Dylan is not yet playing guitar. He's not even using it as a prop, as he will do later, channeling Elvis. Shadow Kingdom features Dylan the singer, evoking Frank Sinatra as he uses his fists, hand gestures, clutches his lapels as he emphasizes the words, "I'm gonna let you pass."
"Queen Jane Approximately." Dylan sings many of the songs, including this one, facing stage right, the rest of the band to his left. The performance is rueful, reflective. It was like that 55 years ago; why not now? Again, Sinatra-like, Dylan points with his left finger. It's all about the phrasing, impeccable, irresistible. Then he pulls out his harmonica to remind us all he really is Bob Dylan. When it was over, I sat in front of my computer and reflexively started to clap, even while I was taking notes.
"I'll Be Your Baby Tonight": The band riff that kicks this off is Roy Head's "Treat Her Right." Here there are two women flanking Dylan. One brushes something invisible from his shoulder; otherwise, they both gaze forward, rarely looking at him.
"Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues": Ask me what my favorite Dylan song. Go ahead, ask. It used to depend on my mood. Now it's settled, in my mind. This song: "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues." This is the rare performance in which Dylan does the song almost exactly like the record, not considering instrumentation. For many years I made up my own mind-movies to this song. The line "I started out on Burgundy" allowed me to pretend it took place in New Orleans, on the street pronounced Burr-gun-dee, one of the more residential streets of the French Quarter. The mental movie does not make sense with the rest of the lyric, but that's okay: I'm not there. BTW, in the never-ending discussions about best versions of Dylan songs, you have to include Nina Simone's version of "Tom Thumb's Blues," and you maybe think she's singing about New Orleans. I mean, why would there be a "Rue Morgue Avenue" in Juarez?
"Tombstone Blues": This is pretty astonishing. The musical accompaniment is so minimal that it's nearly absent; it only exists to keep Dylan's recitation of the lyrics paced properly. Christopher Ricks, the Shakespeare scholar who wrote Dylan's Visions of Sin (2004), a strictly literary analysis of the work, would love this. Dylan performs it as a soliloquy: Like Othello or Lear, intoning: "the geometry of innocent flesh on the bone..."
"To Be Alone With You." More fuel for my Bob Dylan/Elvis Presley obsession. We're about halfway through, and Dylan holds a guitar for the first time. He may play a few notes, the way a guitar was a prop for Elvis in a movie: And if I heard it right, when Dylan seems to improvise the line, "Did I kill somebody," you can place it: a lamentation from Jailhouse Rock.
"What Was It You Wanted?": As doomed and haunted as Sinatra's "One for My Baby (And One More for the Road) " as lonely and smoky and as dramatic a musical moment as there is in the film.
"Forever Young": The great outlier of Dylan's repertory, though you might not agree. It's so universal. My problem with it: If it made me cry with nostalgia when I was 24 for the life I should have led, what kind of breakdown would I have when I heard it when I had reached a certain age? Not to worry. What was once sentimental is now inspirational; a benediction. "May your song always be sung." I can now accept this blessing.
In fact, the emotions carried over during "Pledging My Time," and "Wicked Messenger." I enjoyed thinking about the tinsel overhanging the stage as people danced to "Watching the River Flow."
"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue": A little bit more musical accompaniment, but leaning again more to soliloquy. Like the late 1950s Gaslight or San Remo, beatniks reciting poetry. A hat has been upside down on a table near the stage since the show began. Now that Shadow Kingdom is over, please pass the hat, and be generous with your contributions for this fine band.
=========