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14/10/2004 New book - Like the Night (Revisited): Bob Dylan and the road to the Manchester Free Trade Hall
Like The Night (Revisited), the updated study of Bob Dylan's live art in 1965/66, focussing on the "Judas!" concert, documents a pivotal time in popular music. It's an absorbing book, and will be welcomed by most Dylan admirers. Five things I like about it: 1. It covers Dylan's art in depth at a key phase in his development, exploring the May 1966 Manchester gig and its precursors - the 1965 shows, from Newport onwards, and the rest of the 1966 tour. The Judas! gig by itself wouldn't warrant a whole book, but this is really a study of Dylan in a dynamic year, set in the context of the popular music of the period. And it's an engaging tale, told with insight. The section analysing the contemporary British music scene is particularly impressive. The recording of the Manchester show (officially released as Live 1966 by Columbia/Legacy in 1998) captures Dylan's explosive creativity - a torrent of challenging literary ballads and searingly intelligent rock songs, employing both acoustic and electric arrangements. But, contrary to conventional wisdom, mid-1966 was not a turning point for Dylan. Far from it. The ghost of Woody Guthrie had long been vanquished: fleeing the liberal-left folkie milieu, Dylan had plugged in the guitars, and invented rock music - evident from two albums and two hit singles, all massively popular in 1965. Even August 1964's album, Another Side Of Bob Dylan, though still acoustic, had him distancing himself from folk/protest material. 2. The research that underpins the work. 3. Author C. P. Lee's intimate knowledge of the Dylan catalogue. You wouldn't want to be facing Lee in a Zim quiz. He's dead right in pinpointing 'Like A Rolling Stone' and 'Visions Of Johanna' as works of "true genius". 'Visions Of Johanna', especially in live versions from this period, places Dylan at the very pinnacle of the Western musical canon: it occupies the same space as Mozart's 'Exsultate Jubilate' and Bach's 'B Minor Mass'. 4. Lee's sheer chutzpah. In the first instance, he was a fan who attended a rock concert. The gig was recorded and extensively bootlegged, to become obligatory listening for Bob devotees round the world. Curiosity and persistence led Lee to discover the true source of the bootleg (generally assumed until the mid-'90s to come from London's Royal Albert Hall) and then to reinvent himself as a successful author. Rave on, that man: may he stay forever young. 5. The lovely photos (take a bow, Mark Makin), and nice design.
1. The central assumption that the Free Trade Hall recording is important partly because of the audience. Hardly. It's important because it's the most engaging rock concert performance ever captured on disc. The MFTH audience interaction is superficially interesting, but not nearly as noteworthy as the era-defining music being played on the stage. The "Judas!" episode, in particular, has always been an overblown, trivial distraction, getting in the way of a peerless performance artist at the peak of his powers. Allocating only half the book to the Manchester gig was a sensible editorial decision, but using much of that half to focus on the audience and the venue seems to this reviewer like a misjudgment. 2. The blow-by-blow, track-by-track account of the music played at the MFTH gig. There's some perceptive background on the songs performed, but Lee doesn't really manage to evoke the feel of the gig - the concert review isn't the best writing in the book. (To be fair to the author, writing about music is difficult; some regard it as pointless - wasn't it Frank Zappa who likened it to "dancing about architecture"?) 3. Technical shortcomings - spelling and grammatical errors, and too many cliches and solecisms. They're unacceptable in any book discussing one of the most gifted writers in English since Shakespeare, aimed at an audience which includes many literate readers who revel in Bob Dylan's art precisely because he's a wordsmith with few equals. Dylan's 1965/66 live shows were landmarks in a shimmering 40 year career (and counting). The memento, Columbia/Legacy's Live 1966, is a must-have album in any self-respecting rock collection. Like The Night (Revisited) is a handy companion.
Gerry Smith
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