New Morning, the piano album
There was a period where I thought that "sure gonna be wet tonight on Main Street" was one of the greatest lines he ever wrote.
There’s a number of musical styles on New Morning, but what makes this album different, first is that it's Dylan's piano album. And his playing sets the tone for the music, whether that’s the tension in Time Passes Slowly or his beautiful solo passage on Sign On The Window. Thematically the lyrics pick up where Nashville Skyline left off, except he's singing in a new, mellower version of his old voice.
The history of this album is somewhat interesting as it was originally supposed to be recorded with the Byrds (version #2 of the band with Clarence White), but that didn't happen. It would've been completely different, that's for sure. I interviewed Al Kooper in the ‘90s and he told me that he was actually the producer, though Bob "I just let the tapes roll Johnston" gets the credit.
It's obvious the album could have gone in a number of different directions. Hearing The rocked up Time Passes Slowly is interesting as is the demo Went To See the Gypsy on Bootleg Series 8 and I like those old folk songs and remember when people sang them like Tell Old Bill and Little Brown. But ultimately I think Bob made all the right choices in the album that came out.
Three Angels is a funny song especially with the line, "the dogs and pigeons fly
up and they flutter around." Also another joke in that song is the line “10th Avenue Bus goin' West.” Assuming (which I do) that the location is NYC where Dylan lived at the time, 10th Avenue runs north and south not east and west, so was the bus going around the block to turn around again. I also like Father of Night because it has that kind of spooky Bob thing to it, and I like spooky Bob. In my opinion it’s one of the best uses of backing singers on that album. If Dogs Run Free, I always took it as a joke, kind of a hip poetry and jazz kind of thing in some ancient long gone village pub.
Sign on the Window is absolutely my favorite New Morning song. There was a period where I thought that "sure gonna be wet tonight on Main Street" was one of the greatest lines he ever wrote. On the little interlude following the bridge, where Bob is playing solo piano, there’s an instrument that joins in the duet. For years I though it was Al Kooper on organ, but my friend Trev thought it wass a wind instrument. I asked Al, and he said: “It’s two wind instruments, an ocarina and a piccolo.” and that they are “playing what the organ played originally.” Kooper told me that he “scored it for those
instruments and took the original organ track out when I mixed it.” He then told me that he also “recorded a full string section and a harp, but Bob didn’t like it and kept just the center section of the overdubs.”
1st New Morning overdub session, produced by Bob Johnston.
1. New Morning
2. Sign On The Window
Studio E. Columbia Recording Studios. New York City, 13 July 1970
1 - Al Kooper (organ), Charles Calello, Emanuel Green, Lewis Del Gatto, Alan Rubin, Alan Raph, Paul Faulise, Ray Alonge (strings).
2 - Al Kooper (organ), Charles Calello, Emanuel Green, Paul Gershman, Peter Buenconsiglio, Joseph Malin, Henri Aubert, Peter Dimitriades, Alfred Brown, George Marge, Emanuel Vardi, Kermit Moore, Gloria Agostini, George Ricci, (strings).
One amazing thing about the Bootleg Series releases in general, but also this one [The Bootleg Series Vol. 10: Another Self Portrait (1969–1971)] is that it shows his process, all the different things he [Dylan] tried out before he arrived at what he arrived at.
While I like the album [New Morning] a lot, something about it doesn't necessarily ring true, it's sort of like a marker or a signpost on the way back to something else. There seems to be something boiling beneath the surface of all that happiness.
Ultimately, it was a transitional album — a very long transition from the indefinable whatever of Self Portrait, which I always thought was a good album to eat corn flakes to, that continued with Planet Waves, where he really started getting back into it. The transition was fulfilled with Blood on the Tracks.