Shadows in the Night
| Shadows in the Night | ||||
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| Studio album by Bob Dylan | ||||
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Publication |
January 30, 2015 |
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| Label (s) | Columbia Records | |||
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Format (s) |
CD |
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Title (number) |
10 |
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running time |
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| occupation |
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Jack Frost (Dylan's pen name) |
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Shadows in the Night is Bob Dylan's 36th studio album , which was released in early 2015 as the successor to Tempest from 2012. In contrast to the previous studio albums, Shadows of the Night focused exclusively on third-party interpretations from the repertoire of another well-known artist - Frank Sinatra . Despite Dylan's unexpected swings to the repertoire of the Great American Songbook and the crooner style of the 1950s, as well as the relatively short playing time, the album received almost consistently good reviews.
Content and background
After the release of the critically acclaimed 2012 album Tempest , Dylan's record company, Sony subsidiary Columbia Records , focused primarily on maintaining the backlist repertoire. In 2014 there were two releases, an expanded edition of the Basement Tapes in box format with a total of 138 tracks and a larger compilation with third-party recordings of Dylan texts. Dylan's enthusiasm for the crooner repertoire of the 1940s to 1960s had already become apparent on the occasion of his radio shows for the Sirius satellite radio station . The decision for an album with titles from the repertoire of the Great American Songbook was generally seen as a surprise, or as a typical Dylan peculiarity, to thwart expectations placed in him again and again.
Regarding the recording itself, Dylan opted for a small accompanying combo. Core musicians were his long-time tour companions Tony Garnier ( bass ), Charlie Sexton and Stu Kimball on guitars , George G. Receli as percussionist and Donnie Herron on pedal steel guitar . As a clearly present foreground instrument, the pedal steel replaced the opulent orchestral accompaniments , which are often typical for recordings of this type of repertoire. A brass section with additional musicians was only used for three titles : the trumpeters Daniel Fornero and Larry G. Hall, the trombonists Alan Kaplan, Andrew Martin and Francisco Torres, and the French horn instrumentalists Dylan Hart and Joseph Meyer. In terms of location and sound, Dylan closely followed the original Frank Sinatra recordings. The recording location was the legendary Capitol Studio B in Hollywood . According to Dylan, the following restrictions applied to the recording itself: no overdubs , no vocal booths, no headphones and no separate single-track recordings.
Another detail of the recording sessions was the fixed production cycles: Monday to Friday was recorded, the weekend was free. In terms of song selection, Dylan learned how to play Sinatra's classical phase as a crooner and songbook interpreter in the 1950s. He recorded a total of 23 pieces with his studio combo; ten of them are included on Shadows in the Night . The repertoire of the album consists mainly of lesser known Sinatra recordings. Only Autumn Leaves and the Frankie Laine hit That Lucky Old Sun were well known.
The pieces themselves were almost without exception slow, solemn ballads - musical titles, film titles and other classics, in which Sinatra only appeared as one interpreter of many. Although there were no well-known Sinatra tracks on the album, all of the pieces were often interpreted songbook classics with a variety of different recordings. I'm a Fool to Want You - the only song on the record that Sinatra had also co-written, was interpreted by Peggy Lee , Billie Holiday , Shirley Bassey , Tony Bennett , the pop musician Elvis Costello and the jazz musicians Chet Baker and among others Donald Byrd . Of The Night We Called It a Day had, among others, Doris Day , Chris Connor and Diana Krall sang cover versions. Autumn Leaves is a chanson by Joseph Kosma , the English text of which is from Johnny Mercer . The song was part of the repertoire of Edith Piaf and Serge Gainsbourg as well as that of the US first interpreter Jo Stafford and numerous jazz greats.
With Why Try to Change Me Now and Where Are You? there are also two titles with a reputable Broadway past. The same goes for Some Enchanted Evening and What'll I Do . Some Enchanted Evening, a well-known piece by the composer duo Oscar Hammerstein and Richard Rodgers , comes from the musical South Pacific . Performers have included Perry Como , Bing Crosby and the opera - Tenor Giorgio Tozzi . What'll I Do, a piece by Irving Berlin from 1923 for his fourth Music Box - Revue , was part of the repertoire of many artists - such as Pat Boone , Julie London , Pink Martini , Nancy Sinatra , Lou Rawls , Art Garfunkel and Georgia Gibbs . Likewise Full Moon and Empty Arms and That Lucky Old Sun; The former has been recorded by Erroll Garner , Sarah Vaughan , Caterina Valente and the Platters , the latter by Frankie Laine, Vaughn Monroe and his orchestra, Sam Cooke , the Velvets , Aretha Franklin , Willie Nelson , Ray Charles , Karel Gott , Johnny Cash and others the Jerry Garcia Band .
Bob Dylan himself emphasized on the occasion of the publication of Shadows in the Night that it was not about simple cover versions , but about real reinterpretations. The singer even explicitly distanced himself from the term "cover". Dylan said of his project that it was a privilege for him to make this album. He had wanted to implement something like this for a long time. However, he has not yet dared to transform arrangements for a large orchestra into pieces for a five-piece band. Compared to Sinatra, he deliberately placed himself in the second row. Sinatra, according to Dylan, is no match - neither he nor anyone else. In an interview for the members ' magazine of the US Seniors' Association , he admitted that he recorded the album for reasons of reminiscence - as a tribute to the music of his childhood and youth. He described the variety of music during his childhood with the following words: “Late at night, stations came in that played precursor music to rock 'n' roll , Jimmy Reed perhaps. There seemed to be a station in Chicago that specialized in hillbilly music, and Nashville might have a scrap of the Grand Ole Opry on the airwaves. In any case, I still heard Hank Williams during his lifetime. And then the Staple Singers , 'Uncloudy Day', man ... "
Also in promoting the album, Dylan and Columbia focused on the retirees represented by the association . 50,000 of the 35 million readers of the association's AARP Bulletin received Shadows in the Night as a free supplement to the Bulletin.
Reception and criticism
Critics and listeners received the album mostly with goodwill. On the US website metacritic.com , Shadows in the Night received a Metascore score of 82 (out of 100); the user score was 7.1. Anglo-Saxon media rated the idiosyncratic form of the Sinatra adaptation largely as successful. In his review of Allmusic , Thomas Erlewine particularly emphasized the independent processing of the song material. Dylan's voice, according to Erlewine, shows signs of wear. However, he knows how to optimally use this effect. In sum, the album is a testimony that proves how much Dylan recognizes himself in these old songs. The Guardian music critic Alexis Pedridis characterized the project as a risk that had succeeded. Many artists, according to Pedridis, switched to the repertoire of the Great American Songbook only for bridging purposes. In Shadows in the Night, on the other hand, the adaptation of the old song material seems to be from one piece.
Even German-speaking media rated Dylan Sinatra album mostly positive. Similar to other Dylan studio albums, almost all major magazines, weekly and daily newspapers published a review of the album in addition to the usual pop music periodicals, with the individual reviews placing different accents. Among other things, Dylan's predilection not to meet well-known expectations was highlighted. Andreas Borcholte, for example, drew a parallel in the Spiegel to Dylan's late sixties album Self Portrait . Similar to then, Dylan voluntarily leaned back to normal this time. Borcholte: “Today Dylan is an even bigger icon than then, if not sacrosanct for a long time. So he places himself in the shadow of the one who stands on an even higher pedestal. So Sinatra, of course. Unlike Elvis Presley , the third member of the group of great pop innovators, he never covered a Dylan song. "
Rüdiger Dannemann drew a similar parallel in the weekly newspaper Freitag . Dannemann compared Shadows in the Night with the Nashville Skyline and highlighted on the one hand Dylan's departure from folk , rock and Americana , on the other hand the differences between Dylan and Sinatra: “Why not Woody Guthrie , Phil Ochs or Blind Willie McTell ? On his 36th album, Bob Dylan unexpectedly approaches Frank Sinatra with respect. Two worlds meet: here the singer of the protest with the voice of a 'coyote in the barbed wire', who can sound just as vicious and beautiful about the lords of war as about romantic love. There the singing and acting entertainer with whiskey and cigarette, 'The Voice' with a penchant for perfection. "
Maik Brüggemeier also highlighted the gap between the interpreter and the selected song material in the German edition of Rolling Stone . Brüggemeier: “Sinatra and Dylan - an interesting constellation. Two immigrant children who became American archetypes, the star and the hobo , the crooner and the songwriter, both tricksters, players, song-and-dance men; one voice, the other ventriloquist of the American song and, under different circumstances, two of the greatest singers of the 20th century. ”Conclusion of the meeting:“ Dylan removes the make-up and evening dresses from the songs , shows them naked, vulnerable in the light of the blue hour and in the beauty of their age. "
Other reviews pointed out that Shadows in the Night is an album that is explicitly aimed at the older generation . In his album description on WDR 2, Oliver Rustemeyer used a visual language that made strong reference to paintings by Edward Hopper . A rating with a similar direction could be read in the weekly magazine Focus . Another aspect highlighted by several album reviews was the careful instrumentation with a small combo and Dylan's vocals. Ulrich Rüdenauer in the daily newspaper : "Not only does Dylan sing as if he had had his vocal cords planed off a bit and treated with chalk, he sometimes whispers almost gently, even if it is sometimes rather wobbly with drawn out tones." Jacqueline Krause-Blouin judged similarly in the music magazine Spex and reviewer Sylvia Staude in the Frankfurter Rundschau . Krause-Blouin positively emphasized the economical musical accompaniment and the use of a pedal steel guitar as a supporting instrument. FR reviewer Staude praised the clear, distinct intonation and asked provocatively: "Did he suddenly learn to sing?"
Although the positive reviews clearly outweighed it, Shadows in the Night also got some worse ones. Karl Bruckmaier in the Süddeutsche Zeitung found that Dylan obviously believed that when he intoned Sinatra songs “(...) with his broken old man's voice and the band played a kind of Western version of this urban mood music without drums and piano , that he would make these songs his own can do. ”Buckmeier's conclusion: The Great American Songbook can withstand Dylan's versions undamaged. The weekly magazine Stern presented Shadows in the Night as an intermediate step before the next masterpiece - possibly even as a nasty misstep that can only be cured by consuming the previous album Tempest several times . The world came to a diametrically opposite conclusion . Dylan, according to reviewer Michael Pilz, simply had the courage to record an album all by himself.
Track list
- I'm a Fool to Want You - 4:51 ( Frank Sinatra , Jack Wolf, Joel Herron)
- The Night We Called It a Day - 3:24 ( Matt Dennis , Tom Adair)
- Stay with Me - 2:56 ( Jerome Moross , Carolyn Leigh)
- Autumn Leaves - 3:02 ( Joseph Kosma , Jacques Prévert (French), Johnny Mercer (English))
- Why Try to Change Me Now - 3:38 ( Cy Coleman , Joseph McCarthy )
- Some Enchanted Evening - 3:28 ( Oscar Hammerstein II , Richard Rodgers )
- Full Moon and Empty Arms - 3:26 (Buddy Kaye, Ted Mossman, Sergei Rachmaninoff )
- Where are you? - 3:37 ( Harold Adamson , Jimmy McHugh )
- What'll I Do - 3:21 ( Irving Berlin )
- That Lucky Old Sun - 3:39 (Haven Gillespie, Beasley Smith)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Bob Dylan commemorates Frank Sinatra: Cover album Shadows in the Night will be released in January 2015 , Musikexpress, accessed on February 8, 2015
- ↑ a b c Bob Dylan covers Sinatra: The sandpaper sings , Andreas Borcholte, Spiegel Online , January 30, 0215
- ↑ a b c Bob Dylan sings Sinatra songs , Sylvia Staude, Frankfurter Rundschau , February 2, 2015
- ↑ a b Sinatra album by Bob Dylan: Let fat men be around me , Christoph Dallach, Spiegel Online, January 16, 2015
- ↑ a b Lard baked goods from childhood , Karl Bruckmeier, Süddeutsche Zeitung , January 30, 2015
- ↑ a b Bob Dylan - Shadows in the Night ( Memento from February 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), Oliver Rustemeyer, WDR 2 , January 30, 2015
- ↑ Shadows in the Night - Bob Dylan , metacritic.com, accessed February 8, 2015
- ↑ Bob Dylan - Shadows in the Night , Thomas Erlewine, Allmusic.com, accessed February 8, 2015.
- ↑ Bob Dylan: Shadows in the Night review - an unalloyed pleasure , Alexis Pedridis, The Guardian , January 29, 2015 (Eng.)
- ^ The coyote wears a tuxedo , Rüdiger Dannemann, Friday , February 6, 2015
- ↑ Bob's bluest hour: Bob Dylan - Shadows in the Night , Maik Brüggemeyer, Rolling Stone , January 30, 2015
- ↑ The Secret Crooner: Bob Dylan Sings Frank Sinatra , Focus , January 31, 2015
- ↑ New album by Bob Dylan: The non-singer shows respect , Ulrich Rüdenauer, daily newspaper, January 29, 2015
- ↑ Bob Dylan - Shadows in the Night ( Memento from February 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), Jacqueline Krause-Blouin, Spex, January 29, 2015
- ↑ New album "Shadows of The Night": Bob Dylan pays Sinatra the honor , Werner Herpell, stern.de, January 29, 2015
- ↑ New album: If you have fans like Bob Dylan, you don't need enemies , Michael Pilz, Die Welt , January 30, 2015
