The well-known stereo mix of this music has a very peculiar early-Beatles-style mix, with a really extreme and unnatural stereo split-up of the instruments. Now, I'm not such a mono purist that I can't enjoy the modestly 'stereo' mixes of solo and near-solo records like The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan; and I have no problem with the odd-in-places-but-they're-learning stereo mix of A Hard Day's Night, for example. But when I first bought this album, at the height of my first phase of Dylan-obsession in the mid-to-late 70s, I was not only puzzled by the mix, but I was vaguely aware that albums from 1968 didn't usually still have this sort of 'silly' stereo. (I know some people would use that term for stuff like Axis Bold as Love; but I love psychedelic stereo effects done for good reason!) While the sound of this reissue doesn't make the words “mind-blowingly gorgeous” spring to mind, it is quite serviceable, and stays out of the way of the music. Speaking of which…
I'm not going to treat this as “one of those classics that everbody knows,” as MF occasionally does with things like Tommy or the Beatles. The reason is that a surprising number of Dylan-fan friends of mine who aren't out-and-out fanatics don't know this record, or they own it and never play it. That's understandable: this isn't a wild rocker like Blonde On Blonde and Highway 61, nor is it an album of beautiful acoustic balladry like Freewheelin' or, later, Blood on the Tracks. This is sparse, very stripped-down acoustic rock, brown, dusty and unadorned as the picture on the cover. (George Harrison famously gave praise to drummer Kenny Buttrey back in the day, and then said it must've been a months-long bitch to record and mix, to get that wonderful simplicity. Buttrey replied, “About six hours total,” blowing George's mind.) There aren't many actual choruses, there's no electric guitar, few obvious hooks. But it is riveting when you're in the right mood: there's something timeless and Biblical here, in a much subtler way than on the later gospel albums. There's out-and-out weirdness, the strange lyrics upfront that are hyper-audible for the first time since they got really strange; and in that sense the songs share something with the marvelous “Basement Tapes,” recorded the year before but not released until years later. But the basement tapes are FRIENDLY-weird. They sound a bit like an extension of the mad party occurring in “Rainy Day Women” from Blonde On Blonde where the madness brings a laugh. Here it brings a shiver.
It just did so to me on song #5, “The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest,” the only long piece on the album, and one that lopes along with a strange, un-funky, mid-tempo bounce; kind of like “We Know Funk And We Defy It,” as some of The Band's stuff does. This seems like the right place to comment on drummer Buttrey and bassist Charlie McCoy, who helped Dylan create the hip, versatile grooves for Blonde on Blonde and who are equally facile and ingenious filling around Dylan's front-man-with-a-rhythm-guitar anchor on “JWH.” (I started to add the word “acoustic” to “rhythm;” then I reminded myself that it wasn't necessary since “rhythm” guitar isn't necessarily electric; and then I began to wish that Dylan HAD slipped in a little electric on a song or two, such as the brisk little rocker “Drifter's Escape” that was just playing. Ah, but that would've ripped the “sonic concept” asunder.
Ah, but said monotone “sonic concept” is one of the reasons people don't discover this album quite as readily in 2005… and Dylan, remember, was in part reacting to Sgt. Pepper… and i>Pet Sounds and Are You Experienced?. And in that context, it must've made quite an impact with its understatement. I wasn't there… any comments, Fremer?)
Said front man's got a harmonica too, as usual, and here in these sparse surroundings more than ever, one wishes someone had convinced him to run it through a small tube amp, a Fender Champ or a Princeton, and then maybe slap on a little tube reverb. Everybody from Little Walter to Mick Jagger knew that was how to record it; but we get Bob's harp in all its shrill glory. I know we're all sort of used to it this way, but honestly… for any rock or blues harp work, but ESPECIALLY for Dylan's manic intensity and often-uncertain pitch on the instrument, a little lovely musical fog would've really been great. More exciting, less grating. I know, how dare I… but it's true!
So, McCoy and Buttrey. McCoy's bass work would constitute overplaying in many more conventional rock-band settings, but here it's great. It's busy in a good way; and more in the Entwistle than the McCartney way, in that he mostly sort of outlines the chord structures, and provides a solid moving platform for Dylan's vocals.
On “As I Went Out One Morning,” though, he gets riffy, and indulges himself in some delightful lead bass. And Buttrey's drums are crisp, lively and workmanlike. When you listen closely, they're actually not as simple as they sound: he's doing a lot, dancing on his snare and bouncing with his foot, but again, it's so darn disciplined that it never juts out. It's that veteran pro thing. The thing is, the guy can go nuts: listen to “Absolutely Sweet Marie” from Blonde… where the ass-kicking Motown beat in the straight parts yields here and there to orgasmic Keith Moon explosions just when you thought he couldn't top himself. It's different on this album; and again, probably appropriately so.