Still On The Tracks

Okay, a bit more on A Simple Twist Of Fate. The strength of the book lies in its evocation of the work of the session players on Blood On The Tracks. If nothing else it makes it clear how musically gifted these guys were, and how they bought something of themselves to Dylan's work. But the problem is that the book is first and foremost about Dylan's work and it doesn't really say anything new. It's interesting to be made aware of the extraordinary trouble Dylan goes to, and causes for others, in order to create edgy, improvisational situations in the recording studio, presumably to infuse his work with a sense of spontaneity, evoking the danger and on-the-spot creativity of live performance, but anyone who's read just one or two of the better known books on the shelves prior to the publication of A Simple Twist Of Fate would be perfectly aware of this, and Paul Williams, for one, deals with this aspect of the work in more detail and with greater conviction.

Unfortunately Messers Gill & Odegard take it for granted that Blood On The Tracks is a masterpiece and give the most perfunctory treatment to dealing with its music and lyrics head-on. They do some justice to Tangled Up In Blue, but barely touch the surface of great songs like You're Going To Make Me Lonesome When You Go - possibly the best crafted lyric on the album - and they don't bother to try and convince the reader as to why they consider Lily, Rosemary And The Jack of Hearts an integral part of the song suite and, indeed, a good song at all. (I think it's awful - not even close in stature to the great story songs on Desire.) An examination of the unevenness of even Dylan's finest work never seems to strike them as a viable approach to the album since they've convinced themselves it's a 'classic' in every sense, and give a lot of tiresome critics' lists at the end of the text to 'prove' it.

Another weakly journalistic part of the book is the filling out of the historical context of the album in terms of both the musical background and international political developments. This is risibly thin. I was there and it didn't feel like that at all.

But enough of carping. Maybe in expecting more I was being unfair. But having said that, the other 'musical' book I read over the weekend, Ashley Kahn's Kind Of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece delivered in considerably more depth, and I need yet another entry to do it at least some justice, and to consider why books on jazz are generally more satisfying than those related purely to rock So more soon.