Description
Bob Dylan – Dylan & The Dead (LP)
Dylan & The Dead – Bob Dylan (Columbia OC 45056) Bob Dylan live, with the Grateful Dead backing him from the July, 1987 shows (“Joey” and “Slow Train” are from Foxboro; “I Want You” is from Oakland; “Queen Jane
Approximately” is from Eugene; the rest are from Anaheim). Mixed and edited by John Cutler at the Dead’s studio. Released on January 31, 1988. Also on CD as GDCD 4104.
Label: CBS – CBS 463381 1
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: Europe
Released: 1989
Barcode: 5 099746 338114
Rights Society: BIEM/STEMRA
Label Code: LC 0149
Cover Artwork – Rick Griffin
Tracklist:
A1 Slow Train 4:54
A2 I Want You 3:59
A3 Gotta Serve Somebody 5:42
A4 Queen Jane Approximately 6:30
B1 Joey 9:10
B2 All Along The Watchtower 6:17
B3 Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door 6:35
Mixed At – Club Front
Pressed By – CBS, Haarlem – 01-463381-20
Distributed By – CBS Records
Credits:
Bass Guitar – Phil Lesh
Guitar – Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia
Keyboards – Brent Mydland
Percussion – Mickey Hart
Drums – Bill Kreutzmann
Vocals – Bob Dylan
Notes:
Recorded Live July 1987 / Mixed at Club Front, San Rafael, California November 1988.
(P) 1989 CBS Records Inc. / Made in Holland
Vinyl and Cover in very fine condition. With original inner sleeve.
Reviews:
nr. 1 Part of their return to full strenght was to play a series of concerts with Bob Dylan, of which this is the recorded result. When the “writer” and the “hippies” meet on stage the two pieces fit together perfectly! Dylan returns to BLONDE ON BLONDE swagger while the DeaD give him the best backing sound he’s had since The Band were behind him. Old chestnuts such as QUEEN JANE and WATCHTOWER take on a revived vitality and a lungful of fresh clean air, the former featuring a totally breathtaking guitar solo from Garcia. Equally impressive, but less energetic, is the combination’s reworking of KNOCKIN’ ON HEAVEN’S DOOR which, while retaining all the strength of the original, sounds also like some long lost treasure that never quite made it to the Dead’s AMERICAN BEAUTY album. Lushly played and perfectly paced is the perfect ending to what, after all, sounds like a perfect match. “There is nothing like a Dead and Dylan concert!” will have to be the new clarion call for Deadheads after this. rating: 8 EDWIN POUNCEY, New Musical Express, FEB. 11, 1989
nr. 2 This live album with the Grateful Dead had one advantage over a Grateful Dead concert: it was three hours shorter. The question is: what the hell is Dylan doing? Simply the worst album ever. More, more, shouted the Deadheads; less, less, pleaded heartbroken Dylan fans. VOX, april ’91
nr. 3 …In fact, despite the presence of the DeaD, the album is all too typical late eighties Dylan album, fascinating for the expectations it raises and frustating in the ways it keeps missing the mark. Yet there’s evidence that Dylan and the DeaD had a good thing going, intermittently anyway. The Dead’s elastic rhythms are well suited to the shuffle beat of Dylan’s ’79 sermonettes SLOW TRAIN and GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY. Dylan’s spit ‘n snarl vocals notwithstanding, both songs have an unexpected warmth that recalls TRUCKIN’ more than fire and brimstone. The subtle propulsion of the drummers, combined with the agitated guitar chatter between Garcia and Weir, gives a good boot in the rear to WATCHTOWER – and to Dylan, who sings with surprising animation. Instead of other tour highlights, like BABY BLUE and MEMPHIS BLUES, we get an awkward QUEEN JANE and a sour reading of I WANT YOU. The Dylan-Dead tour was a historic collaboration certainly worth recording for posterity. DYLAN & THE DEAD though, makes you wonder what the fuss was about. You really had to be there. * * DAVID FRICKE, ROLLING STONE
nr. 3 As backing band the DeaD don’t roll as Dylan flows, and if Dylan gets knocked out of his vocal stride-as he does here on every song-they only force him further into the grimpen mire of lost words and hopeless misdirection, from whence there is no return. It happens on the opening track, SLOW TRAIN, which begins promisingly but has Dylan lapsing into incoherence halfway through, while the DeaD truck on regardless. I WANT YOU and GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY are little more than a series of meandering mumbles decorated with pretty, pointless guitar, while the other songs fare little better. * JOHN BAULDIE, Q no. 30, March 1989
nr. 4 You often relate an album to the time when it was released. 1989 was a good year for me, and I usually ended the day listening to Dylan and the Dead fumbling their way through seven of Bob’s best. For all its sloppiness, it’s such an endearing record. The band sound so innocent – like they’ve never heard the songs or played together before. This gives songs such as SLOW TRAIN COMING and GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY a more human and natural groove than they had on the over-produced originals. Sometimes it makes me feel edgy and restless…which I like. ADAM NORSWORTHY, JOURNALISM STUDENT, Q, DEC 1991
nr. 5 Leave it to Dylan, for whom unpredictability has long been a lifestyle, to release in the same year both his worst album in a decade and his most vital record since Blood on the Tracks (DESIRE). Even as a concert souvenir, DYLAN & THE DEAD is a drag, a seven track selection of predictable material and mostly indifferent performances from the 1987 stadium tour by the psychedelic-protest tag team of Dylan and the Grateful Dead. Dylan sound particularly tired and sour in QUEEN JANE and I WANT YOU. And JOEY, his epic ballad about the late gangster Joey Gallo,has not improved with age since it first appeared on DESIRE. DAVID FRICKE, ROLLING STONE, DEC. 1989
nr. 6 Dylan is Bob, the influential singer-songwriter who’s resurfaced as the brains of the Travelling Wilburys; the DeaD are Grateful, not just because charismatic guitarist-antileader Jerry Garcia survived an offstage coma – they’re rich men, and they sound it. Like Dylan, Garcia plays hardest and works most playfully when somebody pokes him a little – Ornette Coleman, say. But unlike Ornette Coleman, Dylan’s not forever young, and what he makes of his catalogue here is exactly what he’s been making of it for years – money. rating: C- ROBERT CRISTGAU
nr. 7 Zeven overbekende liedjes, in een soms breed uitgesponnen, maar voor het grootste deel weinig geinspireerde live uitvoering. OOR
nr. 8 One can better ask a Deadhead for a concert tape. It’s not a bad album, but not good enough for BoB Dylan fans, and not good enough for Dead fans. The Dead were already familiar wit a lot of these songs, but they can’t put their own trademark in it, like they do when they play these songs without backing Bob Dylan. The one exception is KNOCKING ON HEAVEN’s DOOR where the two styles merge perfectly together. * * ERIK SCHOTHANS, July 1992
nr. 9 One wonders at the wisdom of whoever sanctioned the release of this album, which is the aural equivalent of seeing a lover dying of cancer. This dirge was slightly redeemed by the delicate but stately KNOCKING ON A HEAVEN’S DOOR. PAUL HAMILTON, VOX, januari 1991
