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John Wesley Harding by Bob Dylan (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: John Wesley Harding
  • Artist name: Bob Dylan
  • Year: 1967
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Columbia Records
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Who owned it: my father
  • Buy it on Amazon: $11.95

John Wesley Harding by Bob Dylan

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve probably only listened to John Wesley Harding around 10 times in my life: it wasn’t one of the records that my parents played a lot, wasn’t on the radio, and wasn’t one of the Dylan records that I liked enough to put into my regular playlist rotation around 15 years ago. His other records that I’ve reviewed are:

And also:

What I expected

Country rock, folk rock.

What it was actually like

First of all, there’s a lot of harmonica on this record – like, more harmonica than I’m accustomed to hearing. And all the songs had a remarkably consistent sound that was acoustic and tight, with very little adventurousness of the sort that Dylan has done frequently throughout his career.

Several of them in fact, sounded like they could have been one song, or different parts of one song, or maybe just multiple songs played as if they were all one song: John Wesley Harding (the song), As I Went Out One Morning, I Am a Lonesome Hobo.

Then there were a few that sounded very similar, except with a somewhat slower tempo: Dear Landlord, I Pity the Poor Immigrant, I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine (I’m going to venture a guess that Dylan was referring to Augustine of Hippo, not Augustine of Canterbury, but does he even know that these were different people?).

And Drifter’s Escape sounded like the same song, only a bit faster.

The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest was more conversational than the rest, and was incongruously upbeat – I thought it would never end!

The Wicked Messenger also had a different vocal style that was sort of louder, more negative or harsh or accusatory sounding, and different instrumentation with a much more prominent bass line. This was one in which the harmonica really detracted.

Another song that I thought really wasn’t helped by the harmonica was Down Along the Cove, which kind of had a bit of a soul sound, with some country style guitar twang, and was almost kind of dancey. And I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight had even more of a country sound than that.

I’ve left All Along the Watchtower to last because I’m such a fan of it, and because I already wrote, when reviewing Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2:

All Along the Watchtower was probably the high point for me; I listen to the Hendrix version a lot (and I think it will come up imminently in a review, as I noticed that album on the shelf), so hearing Dylan’s totally-different-and-almost-as-good take was very cool.

By the end of this record, I wanted to yank Dylan’s harmonica out of his hands and smash it with a hammer. I also think this is a solid and strong record, and would have been a lot of artists’ best and best known record of their careers, but I still stand by my decision to exclude it from my routine Dylan listening, though do I think I’ll listen to it more often.

Grade

4/5: would listen again

Disraeli Gears by Cream (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Disraeli Gears
  • Group name: Cream
  • Year: 1967
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: ATCO
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Who owned it: my father
  • Buy it on Amazon: $11.01

Disraeli Gears by Cream

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

Cream was very big on classic rock radio when I used to listen to the radio a lot, in the second half of the 1990s, and I’ve been a fan ever since then.

What I expected

Psychedelic rock, blues rock, hard rock.

What it was actually like

This is another record that’s incredibly difficult to review because I’m already so familiar with it, from listening to it a lot because it’s great, but one thing I didn’t recall was how thin the vocals were across some of these songs, though I did recall the incredible musicianship of all three members of Cream.

It’s not easy to pick a place to highlight that musicianship, but Sunshine of Your Love has one of the most memorable riffs in all of rock music, dark and threatening. How is it even a love song? It’s got to be the coldest sunshine on earth.

On that note, World of Pain feels numbing rather than painful, and Dance the Night Away doesn’t exactly strike me as a dance song, while Tales of Brave Ulysses explicitly mentions “the colors of the sea,” but somehow doesn’t mention that Ulysses’ sea is “wine-dark”? What a missed opportunity.

On that subject, I think We’re Going Wrong is probably a lyrical and vocal low point of the record, and that they should have taken the time to think through the song carefully, or just made it an instrumental. I would have been happy with it as an instrumental, I think, and they could have done like on SWLABR by making the electric guitar sing as a vocalist itself.

I loved the bluesiest songs on Disraeli Gears – Take It Back, which really stands out for its harmonica; Blue Condition; and Outside Woman Blues, which is only good until it gets to the guitar solo that blows it up – but really this record is about psychedelic rock, and starting it with Strange Brew just sends an incredibly powerful message about everything that’s about to arrive. I wouldn’t have objected if they’d named the whole record after Strange Brew.

Mother’s Lament, naturally, is the only track that I’d be happy to skip, and it just reminds me of “Faul’s granny shit” from a 1968-1970 Beatles record.

Grade

5/5: love it

Songs for Beginners by Graham Nash (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Songs for Beginners
  • Artist name: Graham Nash
  • Year: 1971
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Atlantic Records
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Distinguishing characteristics:
    • “Jean Edelen” written on both sides of LP
    • “G” written on top left of album, indicating that my father owned it (my mother’s copy is missing)
  • Buy it on Amazon: $15.89

Songs for Beginners by Graham Nash

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve heard of Songs for Beginners, but don’t think I’ve ever listened to it. Other Nash records that I’ve reviewed are:

I believe there will also be at least one Hollies record coming up in the next several months, and possibly more than one.

What I expected

Folk rock.

What it was actually like

I was a little worried that Songs for Beginners was going to be similar to, if not quite as bad as, Stephen Stills 2, but it wasn’t, and in fact I thought it was pretty decent!

There were some boring songs on it – Wounded Bird and Simple Man, for example – and Sleep Song sounded like its name. Those were easily offset, however, by Man in the Mirror and Chicago, either or both of which would have sounded right at home on a CSN record of the same era.

There’s Only One weirdly reminded me of the Netflix documentary Searching for Sugar Man about the American musician named Sixto Rodriguez who became famous in South Africa without his knowledge (and I mean that as a compliment).

Several of Nash’s songs sounded a bit more musically edgy than I might have expected, like Military Madness, which had somewhat adventurous vocals and a wah-wah pedal that I liked; and Better Days, which had an interesting, moody sound, with lots going on, and which at different points felt maybe like a Beatles song (that probably would not have made the cut for inclusion on a Beatles record); and I Used to Be a King, which had a tiny bit of a country sound, and which was less boring by the end than I thought it would be at the beginning.

The only truly bad song on this record was Be Yourself. I thought at first that it would be a Bob Dylan parody, but actually it was a parody of itself whose chorus consisted of a group of people singing:

Be yourself
Be yourself
Be yourself

And then at the end of the song, it was repeated with variations, including:

Free yourself

and:

See yourself

So lame.

We Can Change the World also was subpar, making me think of We Are The World, which I’ll probably be skewering some time around late November or early December, assuming I stick to one record per day until then[1].

Overall, Songs for Beginnings was really well put together, and while I’m confident saying now that Nash’s work was far better than Stills’, it was hardly on par with Neil Young’s at the same time (and I don’t think I’ve listened to David Crosby’s).

Grade

4/5: would listen again

References

Ace by Bob Weir (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

Ace by Bob Weir

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

It was surprisingly difficult to figure out what this even was. Neither of my parents had any memory of a record called “Ace,” and since that’s the only word on the front of the album, I started by trying to locate a band with that name, which does exist and was recording records in the appropriate time period – but no amount of search engining could identify this specific Ace record.

Finally I started reading the fine print on the back, and saw references to “Robert ‘Ace’ Weir,” ie. Bob Weir, from the Grateful Dead.

Needless to say, I’m more or less familiar with Bob Weir, but not with “Ace,” his nickname and solo project.

What I expected

Cosmic American music.

What it was actually like

This was basically a Grateful Dead record, though I only recognized one song, Playing in the Band, which I mentioned that I loved when I listened to Skull Fuck a few months ago. This was a version I’d never heard before that was pretty similar to what I had heard in the past for the most part, with just some slightly different instrumentation and vocals, until a pretty good extended jam towards the end.

Greatest Story Ever Told was also great, while Walk in the Sunshine, which was very bluesy, could have been good, but was lacking some energy. Similarly, I liked the blues style piano and the guitar solo on One More Saturday Night, but the vocals were very 1980s sounding.

Mexicali Blues immediately made me think of someone that I once knew from Mexicali (and/or its sister city Calexico) and was more of a country song that had maybe a slight Oompa Loompa music sound to it, but it was entertaining and I liked the tempo and the excellent guitar.

Grade

4/5: would listen again

Blue by Joni Mitchell (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Blue
  • Artist name: Joni Mitchell
  • Year: 1971
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Reprise Records
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Who owned it: my mother
  • Buy it on Amazon: $79.98

Blue by Joni Mitchell

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve never listened to Joni Mitchell’s Blue, which is definitely not to be confused with Kind of Blue, but I understand that it was an important record in its day.

I have listened to Clouds (1969) in July, and Miles of Aisles (1974) in June, and rated both 3/5 stars.

What I expected

Folk, singer-songwriter.

What it was actually like

Joni Mitchell is a great singer with a wonderful voice, and every time I listen to one of her records, I think that I’m going to be super impressed and really enjoy it, but I also forget every time that she doesn’t actually write or sing any good songs, and mostly her music exists to show the world how pretty her voice is.

The worst songs on this record were the ones that were heaviest on piano.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me