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Joan Osborne — Songs Of Bob Dylan (Sept. 1st, 2017)

Joan Osborne — Songs Of Bob Dylan (Sept. 1st, 2017)

      Joan Osborne — Songs Of Bob Dylan (Sept. 1st, 2017)  Joan Osborne — Songs Of Bob Dylan (Sept. 1st, 2017)★≡≡★≡→      Její zájem o kulturu, historii a societu Brooklynu má na její hudbu velký vliv. Také vyjádřila obdiv k americké poezii, obzvláště k dílu Walta Whitmana, který dle její citace má velkou inspiraci pro její psaní písní. Toto je její 13. album celkově a 9. studiové. Zatím největšího úspěchu však dosáhl její debut Relish (#9 US Billboard 200, #5 CAN, #5 UK Albums (OCC), #5 Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders), #6 SWE (Sverigetopplistan)) a se kterým získala Triple Platinum (July 16, 1996) dle RIAA. Nové album coververzí Boba Dylana obsahuje 13 písní z 11~ti studiových alb. Je zde pár dobře propracovaných verzí..., ovšem většina vyznívá jako cvičení v pohodlí, ne vydrilované kousky s obnovenou energií. Pokud však nemám být kritický, Osborne vrhá nové světlo na starý materiál, odhaluje některé zřídkakdy slyšené Dylanovy drahokamy a znovu dokazuje, jak flexibilní a silná jeho práce zůstává. High Water (for Charley Patton), Dark Eyes a Tangled Up In Blue v jejím podání jsou jedny z nejlepších coververzí Dylana vůbec. Na piedestál však stavím její verzi Highway 61 Revisited. Když si uvědomíme skutečnost, že toto album je v hierarchii Dylanových desek na vrcholu jeho síly, plující na inspiraci a adrenalinu, že není lepší písničkářsky~rockové album, tím spíše. Joan o této verzi říká: “Udělali jsme docela a radikálně odlišnou verzi. Vložili jsme tam jistý druh téměř temného arabského tempa a některé instrumentace vyvolávají jakousi atmosféru Středního východu, která písni dodává na naléhavosti. Dylan má v originálu více bluesové atmosféry. Je to pomocí biblické imaginace, kterou píseň používá, ale s uvedením kontextu do kultury, která je od reálná v té oblasti, v níž se tyto věci vyskytovaly v Bibli. Snažíme se držet texty beze změn a ponechat původní jasnost poezie jako skutečného průvodce. Pokud jí ponecháš věrnost a máš~li nějakou svobodu v práci s melodií, je to v pořádku.”Fotka uživatele Ben Tais Amundssen. Ring Them Bells:
★≡≡★≡→    “We try to bring up songs people are not as familiar with as well. There’s a beautiful song called 'Ring Them Bells' off the Oh Mercy record — a gorgeous, gorgeous song. I think the last time I performed it was at a benefit in 2002 for the families of firefighters who lost their lives in the 9/11 tragedy. Something about this song seemed to really talk about that loss but was a way to share a strength going forward. There hasn’t been another moment in our national life since then that it was as appropriate to bring it back as the moment we’re in right now. It’s really striking a chord with me; sometimes it’s hard to get through performing it without busting out crying.’
Birth name: Joan Elisabeth Osborne
Born: July 8, 1962 in Anchorage, KY
Location:  Brooklyn, New York, NY, U.S.
Genre: Pop Rock, Alternative, Folk Blues Rock, Singer~Songwriter
Album release: Sept. 1st, 2017
Record Label: Womanly Hips
Duration:     52:43
Tracks:
01. Tangled Up In Blue     5:43
02. Rainy Day Women #12 & #35     4:05
03. Buckets of Rain     3:55
04. Highway 61 Revisited     4:19
05. Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)     4:21
06. Tryin’ to Get To Heaven     4:26
07. Spanish Harlem Incident     2:56                                                                                                                                                     
08. Dark Eyes     4:02
09. High Water (for Charley Patton)      3:53
10. You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go     4:12
11. Masters Of War     4:23
12. You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere     3:15
13. Ring Them Bells     3:13
From the album:
•’•   Tangled Up In Blue (Album: Blood on the Tracks, January 20, 1975) 
•’•   Rainy Day Women #12 & #35 (Album: Blonde on Blonde, May 16, 1966) 
•’•   Buckets of Rain (Album: Blood on the Tracks, January 20, 1975)
•’•   Highway 61 Revisited (Album: Highway 61 Revisited, August 30, 1965)
•’•   Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn) (Album: Self Portrait, June 8, 1970)
•’•   Tryin’ to Get To Heaven (Album: Time Out of Mind, September 30, 1997)
•’•   Spanish Harlem Incident (Album: Another Side of Bob Dylan, August 8, 1964)
•’•   Dark Eyes (Album: Empire Burlesque, June 10, 1985)
•’•   High Water (for Charley Patton) (Album: Love and Theft, September 11, 2001)
•’•   You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go (Album: Blood on the Tracks, January 20, 1975)
•’•   Masters Of War (Album: The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, May 27, 1963)
•’•   You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere (Album: The Basement Tapes, June 26, 1975)
•’•   Ring Them Bells (Album: Oh Mercy, September 18, 1989)Fotka uživatele Ben Tais Amundssen.                                                                     © Credit: Jeff Fasano
Credits:
•’•   For this album, Osborne and a host of guest contributors, “felt free to play with the songs’ arrangements, a process that was also enabled by the virtuosity of Osborne’s collaborators, guitarist Jack Petruzzelli (Patti Smith, The Fab Faux) and keyboardist Keith Cotton (Idina Menzel, Chris Cornell), who performed with her at Café Carlyle, and with whom she co~produced the album.”Fotka uživatele Ben Tais Amundssen.Review
Jude Rogers, Thursday 31 August 2017 19.45 BST / Score: **
Joan Osborne: Songs of Bob Dylan review — easy~listening covers with flashes of inspiration.
’•’   Into the quiet days of late summer comes a one~hit wonder tackling a colossus. But fair play to Joan Osborne — women taking on Dylan’s music have previously worked wonders. Nina Simone smoothed Just Like a Woman’s creases of misogyny into a moving meditation on vulnerability, while Adele transformed Make You Feel My Love’s croaky sweetness into a planet~swallowing power ballad. Osborne’s take on Dylan is straighter and plainer, though, primed for windows wound down on the highway, with a side dollop of Memphis soul. Most famous for her 1995 God~bothering smash hit One of Us, she’s best here stripping down tunes: Highway 61 Revisited loses its whistle~led hijinks to get nicely gutsy and mournful, while on a rootsy yomp through the often execrable Rainy Day Women 12 & 35 Osborne sounds like Chrissie Hynde. Many other covers here, however, feel like exercises in easy comforts, not drills in renewed energy.   •’•   https://www.theguardian.com/Fotka uživatele Ben Tais Amundssen.Review
Bob Doerschuk, Special for USA TODAY Published 1:21 p.m. ET Aug. 30, 2017 |
’•’   Unlike almost everything in today’s popular music and in the great standards of years past, the songs of Bob Dylan can be savored in multiple ways. The finest among them are elusive and accessible, puzzling and informative, all at the same time.
’•’   None of this intimidates Joan Osborne. In fact, that’s why she dedicates her new album entirely to his works. More than a tribute to his legacy, Songs Of Bob Dylan, releasing Sept. 1, also captures Osborne at her best as a vocal interpreter. Much of this stems from the insight she’s gained into his intentions as a writer.
’•’   “One of the great lessons of Dylan’s writing is that his songs are obviously about something or someone very specific to him,” says Osborne, 55. “And yet he uses this poetic language that allows it to be about many other things. This makes them all the more powerful because you want the listener, even more than the singer, to take in that story in a way that means something to them.”
’•’   This repertoire has fascinated Osborne since her earliest years. She drew from it onstage in Greenwich Village nightclubs and bars after moving east from her home state of Kentucky. As her reputation spread nationally in the wake of her hit single One of Us, Dylan himself took note. And in 1998, he sent her an unexpected invitation to join him on a duet version of his elegiac Chimes Of Freedom, to be featured on the 1999 NBC mini~series The ‘60s.  
’•’   “We recorded on the same microphone,” she recalls. “My face was literally inches from his face. We did Chimes Of Freedom three times. Each one was very different from the others. Because Dylan has this very restless intelligence, he can change his approach very quickly from one moment to the next. So I had to really lock onto his phrasing and basically stare at his lips so that I could match what he was doing with my harmony. It was actually a positive thing for me because I had to concentrate fully, so I didn’t have any mental energy left over to be like, ‘Oh, my God, I’m on the microphone with Bob Dylan!’”
’•’   The decision to tackle this project stems from Osborne’s two~week residencies in 2016 and 2017 at New York’s Cafe Carlyle, each one featuring Dylan’s songs exclusively. For those engagements, she fashioned many of them into personal statements that honored his spontaneity as well as his writing. Many of these turn up on Songs Of Bob Dylan, including Rainy Day Women #12 & #35 transformed into dreamy shuffle and Ring Them Bells as a cascade of piano chords, tumbling like a carillon sounding the hour.
’•’   Just one track, Masters Of War, pushed Osborne to focus on the literal rather than figurative qualities of the lyric. There’s nothing obscure about its scorn for war profiteers, a message that was well understood in the 1960s and relevant to current events as well.
’•’   “The thing that connected with me is the line in the first verse: ‘I want you to know I can see through your mask,’ ” she says. “That’s very direct, this concept of speaking truth to power, not just saying it in a general way but addressing it directly to a person. As a mother, the verse about fearing to bring children in the world also resonates with me. This is a frightening time to be alive. And it’s this kind of moment when our great artists and poets are most needed. We need songs like this more than ever to crystallize our passion and to express what we’re feeling.”  •’•    https://www.usatoday.com/
Also:
Written By Hal Horowitz // August 28, 2017 / Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
•’•    https://americansongwriter.com/2017/08/joan-osborne-songs-bob-dylan/
Interview
by Rebecca Milzoff
•’•    http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/rock/7708969/joan-osborne-bob-dylan-cabaret-show-cafe-carlyle-interviewFotka uživatele Ben Tais Amundssen.                                                                                            © Photo credit: Jeff Fasano, Billboard
JOAN OSBORNE // SONGS OF BOB DYLAN
’•’   On Songs of Bob Dylan, Joan Osborne unleashes her sizable gifts as a vocalist and interpreter upon The Bard’s celebrated canon. With performances honed by the time Osborne spent polishing them during “Joan Osborne Sings The Songs Of Bob Dylan” —  two critically acclaimed two~week residencies she performed at New York City’s Café Carlyle in March 2016 and 2017, the seven~time Grammy~nominated, multi~platinum~selling singer and songwriter, whom The New York Times has called “a fiercely intelligent, no~nonsense singer,” winds her supple, soulful voice around Dylan’s poetic, evocative lyrics, etching gleaming new facets in them along the way.
’•’   “I try not to do a straight~up imitation of what someone else has done,” Osborne says. “Like if you’re going to sing an Otis Redding song, you’re never going to out~Otis him so you shouldn’t even try. So I always try to find some unique way into the song, and also to pick songs where the intersection between the song and my voice hits some kind of sweet spot. It was a joy being able to sing these brilliant lyrics. It’s like an actor being given a great part. You are just so excited to say these lines because they're so powerful that it lifts you up above yourself.”Fotka uživatele Ben Tais Amundssen.
’•’   The album spans Dylan’s beloved standards from the ‘60s and ‘70s (“Masters of War,” “Highway 61 Revisited,” “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35,” “Buckets of Rain,” “Tangled Up In Blue”) to some of Osborne’s favorites from his later albums, including “Dark Eyes” (from 1985’s Empire Burlesque), “Ring Them Bells” (from 1989’s Oh Mercy), “Tryin’ To Get To Heaven” (from 1997’s Time Out of Mind), and “High Water” (from 2001’s Love and Theft). “His versions are legendary and I’m not trying to improve on them,” Osborne says. “I’m just trying to sing beautiful songs and let people hear them. It’s about trying to give a different shade of meaning to something that's already great. I happen to think Dylan is a great singer, but I will never, in a million years, sound like him, which almost made it easier.”
’•’   Unconstrained by any notion of trying to imitate or surpass Dylan, Osborne felt free to play with the songs’ arrangements, a process that was also enabled by the virtuosity and versatility of Osborne’s collaborators, guitarist Jack Petruzzelli (Patti Smith, The Fab Faux) and keyboardist Keith Cotton (Idina Menzel, Chris Cornell), who performed with her at Café Carlyle, and with whom she co~produced the album. “They bring this wealth of skills to the table,” she says. “Any crazy idea we came up with, they could do. So it was wonderful to have that level of musicianship at my fingertips.” Half the songs were recorded with the trio and the other half feature a full band.
’•’   In Osborne and her musicians’ hands, Dylan’s songs take on varied new shapes. His rollicking, bluesy classic “Highway 61 Revisited” gets a propulsive, radical makeover with a Middle Eastern vibe inspired by the song’s biblical imagery. The raucous, brass~band driven “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” (featuring the famous line “Everybody must get stoned”) is reinvented with a smoky, slinky late~night jazz~club feel that puts an entirely fresh spin on the song. “It allowed me to take a lyric that I think has been interpreted as very jokey and about just getting wasted and reframe it in a way where it has a bit of a different meaning,” she says. “Quinn the Eskimo (Mighty Quinn),” a song popularized by Manfred Mann, is subtly rearranged to bring out the gospel flavor, endowing it with a celebratory air that fully suits the song. “We’ve been opening our show with it and it’s just a wonderful ‘joyful noise’ sort of moment,” Osborne says.
’•’   On “Ring Them Bells,” Osborne retains the spiritual overtones of the original, though the song takes on new resonance given today’s political climate. “Oh Mercy is such a touchstone album for me,” she says. “I sang ‘Ring Them Bells’ at a couple of benefits for firefighters’ families right after 9/11 and, in that context, it was apparent how a song like that has the power to grab people’s emotions when we’re facing huge challenges. We’re living in a moment like that now, where there’s a lot of uncertainty and fear about what’s happening in the world. So it feels like the time to bring out a song like this. I’d say the same thing about ‘Masters of War.’ We need to hear the most powerful, political songs. We need to hear our great writers and poets talking about these times.”
’•’   Making Songs of Bob Dylan sprung from an idea Osborne had been toying with for some years: to record a series of Songbook albums, akin to Ella Fitzgerald’s eight~album series where the jazz singer interpreted the songs of Cole Porter, Harold Arlen, and others classic American Songbook writers. “I always thought it would be really interesting to update that idea and do something similar myself,” she says. So when she received the call from Café Carlyle, an intimate Upper East Side institution known for headlining performances by legendary interpretive singers like Judy Collins and the late Bobby Short, Osborne thought it might be the perfect venue to test it out. “I chose to start with Bob Dylan because of his stature as a writer,” she says. “And also because he has so many incredible songs. I’d never run out of ideas for different tunes to try.”
’•’   “Joan Osborne Sings The Songs Of Bob Dylan” was a smashing success with both fans and critics, who called it “magic,” and praised her as having “a style and wisdom that is all her own, which allows you to hear each of these brilliant songs as if for the first time.” The New York Times noted that “at every point in the evening, you had a sense of Ms. Osborne as an artist who knew exactly what she was doing.” Of course Osborne is no stranger to interpreting songs in a wide variety of genres. In addition to releasing a string of studio albums featuring her frank, expressive original songwriting (the 3x~platinum, 6~time Grammy~nominated Relish, Righteous Love, Pretty Little Stranger, Little Wild One, and Love and Hate), Osborne has also made three albums of soul, R&B, and blues covers (How Sweet It Is, Breakfast In Bed, which also features originals, and the Grammy~nominated Bring It On Home). AllMusic has called her “the most gifted vocalist of her generation and a singer who understands the nuance of phrase, time, and elocution.”
’•’   The Kentucky native famously got her start performing her own songs in New York City’s downtown rock clubs, around the time that she began to rediscover Dylan’s work with Oh Mercy. “When you’re playing in the nightclub scene in Greenwich Village, his trail is everywhere, and not just because he played in the same places, but because people still perform his music every night. He’s part of the American musical education you get, whether you’re learning about him in some music conservatory or by playing in bars five nights a week. During those years I started to become more familiar with his music. And at the point when I was starting to arrange my own stuff and make my own recordings, hearing records like ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ or ‘Highway 61 Revisited,’ I thought, ‘Wow, that just has such an immediacy and freshness. How did he do that?’ It’s interesting to dig into it from that aspect, when music is your livelihood.”
’•’   In 2003, Osborne joined the surviving members of The Grateful Dead and had the chance to sing with Dylan, their co~headliner. “We performed ‘Tears of Rage,’ a song Dylan co~wrote with Richard Manuel,” Osborne says. “He came up to me after the show and said, ‘You know, I never liked that second verse, but I rewrote it. What do you think of these lyrics?’ And he read me the alternate lyrics that he’d apparently just written on this scrap of paper. I was so flabbergasted that Bob Dylan is standing there, we’re both sweaty from performing on this hot summer day in Indiana, and he’s asking me what I think of his lyric changes for this classic song. And all I could do was just say, ‘Oh yeah, that sounds good. I can hear that.’”
’•’   And what does Osborne think Dylan himself would think of her album? “Well, I would hope that he wouldn’t get pissed at me,” she says with a laugh. “I don’t think so. I mean, why write a song? He just released his third album of standards, so he must understand that a song desires to be sung, no matter who wrote it. It continues to live only if people sing it.”
Website: http://www.joanosborne.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/joan_osborne
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joanosbornemusicFotka uživatele Ben Tais Amundssen.’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’•’

Joan Osborne — Songs Of Bob Dylan (Sept. 1st, 2017)

ALBUM COVERS XI.