News
New Bob Dylan album, featuring vocals and liner notes by Johnny Cash
April 9, 1969: It's been almost 18 months since Bob Dylan released his last album of new material, John Wesley Harding. Today the 28 year old released his ninth album, Nashville Skyline.
Nashville Skyline sees Dylan sharing vocal duties for the first time on a studio album, with the opening track featuring Johnny Cash. Cash also contributed a poem, Of Bob Dylan for the albums liner notes (read below). The Cash/Dylan vocal pairing apparently came about in February as both Cash and Dylan were recording at Columbia Studios in Nashville. The two spent a couple of days in the studio together recording a range of originals and covers. Only a duet of Dylan's "Girl From The North Country" made it onto the album.
Listen below to one of the session outtakes, Johnny Cash's "I Guess Things Happen That Way."
Dylan fans will once again have to adjust to a new Bob Dylan voice on Nashville Skyline as he sings in a crooning baritone voice which he attributes to having recently quit smoking. His voice here is in stark contrast to the last time we heard him with The Band at the Woody Guthrie Tribute Concert held in New York in January last year. Listen to his performance of Guthrie's "Grand Coulee Dam" below.
For anyone hoping to catch Bob Dylan live, there are rumors circling of a festival being organized to take place this summer in Dylan's new hometown of Woodstock, NY. We will keep you updated as plans for the festival unfold.
Dylan will also be performing at The Grand Ole Opry on May 1st for the Johnny Cash Show.
Listen below to Nashville Skyline in full via Spotify.
Nashville Skyline:
Side One
1. Girl from the North Country (duet with Johnny Cash)
2. Nashville Skyline Rag
3. To Be Alone with You
4. I Threw It All Away
5. Peggy Day
Side Two
1. Lay Lady Lay
2. One More Night
3. Tell Me That It Isn't True
4. Country Pie
5. Tonight I'll Be Staying Here with You
Of Bob Dylan: by Johnny Cash
There are those who do not imitate,
Who cannot imitate
But then there are those who emulate
At times, to expand further the light
Of an original glow.
Knowing that to imitate the living
Is mockery
And to imitate the dead
Is robbery
There are those
Who are beings complete unto themselves
Whole, undaunted,-a source
As leaves of grass, as stars
As mountains, alike, alike, alike,
Yet unalike
Each is complete and contained
And as each unalike star shines
Each ray of light is forever gone
To leave way for a new ray
And a new ray, as from a fountain
Complete unto itself, full, flowing
So are some souls like stars
And their words, works and songs
Like strong, quick flashes of light
From a brilliant, erupting cone.
So where are your mountains
To match some men?
This man can rhyme the tick of time
The edge of pain, the what of sane
And comprehend the good in men, the bad in men
Can feel the hate of fight, the love of right
And the creep of blight at the speed of light
The pain of dawn, the gone of gone
The end of friend, the end of end
By math of trend
What grip to hold what he is told
How long to hold, how strong to hold
How much to hold of what is told.
And Know
The yield of rend; the break of bend
The scar of mend
I'm proud to say that I know it,
Here-in is a hell of a poet.
And lots of other things
And lots of other things.
Johnny Cash
Watch below, Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash playing "I Still Miss Someone" backstage at Dylan's concert in Wales, 1966.