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$19.99 CD
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VARIOUS ARTISTS
How Many Roads: Black America Sings Bob Dylan
(Ace)
 "Like a Rolling Stone" Major Harris
"Just Like a Woman" Nina Simone
To claim the Black Community (does such a thang even exist anymo'?) possesses a deep, abiding love affair with Bob Dylan -- or at least his oeuvre -- is quite an exaggeration; that's doing it a bit, erm, brown. Still, curiosity prompted a few spins of the recent compilation How Many Roads: Black America Sings Bob Dylan for, as a young Negress, a) I was always giddy that Dylan worked with my late, great hero, producer Tom Wilson, b) he really would have been the bomb if he'd gone on to wed Miz Mavis Staples, c) I do in fact love the Tulsa-tastic "The Ballad of Hollis Brown" Leon Russell cut with brothers/brothas Charles, Robert, and Ronnie Wilson (later of "Burn Rubber" fame), and d) I tend to fondly gaze back to the early period of Dylan's career when he often sang with kin of mine "for the Cause." Truly, this collection is rather a warm, fuzzy artifact of a long vanished time when the earnestness of the folk boom could fleetingly render Mr. Zimmerman from Minnesota as Brotha Bob and this -- coupled with the ideals of the Civil Rights Movement -- was sufficient power to make his songs resonate across the color line. Or, if you prefer: once was the times that prescient record men urged their colored artists / said artists were savvy enough to catch the '60s Dylan wave in order to cross over and aim for relevance in a turbulent time of America gone mad. Todd Haynes performed a darn good conjure with his cinematic paean I'm Not There, but failed to probe this key aspect of Negro identification -- yes, yes casting youngblood to channel him as "Woody"/prole came close -- within his Visions of Dylan.
Nowadays, the "Community" and our music oftener than not suffers from the subsequent 40 years of redrawn cultural boundaries -- and there's still that pesky problem that "Brotha" Bob jes' cain't sang. Fortunately, for ears raised on (southern) soul values, this disc opens with a wonderful O.V. Wright take on what may be blackfolks' favorite (most apt for internal standard status) Dylan tune, "Blowin' in the Wind," outstripping lil Stevie Wonder's cover. And, early in the shuffle when Marion Williams gets sanctified on "I Pity the Poor Immigrant," Church beckons and it's sho'nuff glorious. I 'fess to enjoying track 10, "Mr. Tambourine Man," for I was raised on Con-Funk-Shun not the Byrds -- but though the brers don't fake the Funk (nor does Miz Patti LaBelle's '77, hopscotch-ready "Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine"), my beloved Gene Clark was certainly missing! The recordings span till the early '90s, yet the mid-'60s through early-'70s ones are the bulk and (unsurprisingly) fare better, perhaps because the undertaking requires that elusive quality I have tried to allude to.
Oddly, for all Dylan's dreaming of Alicia Keys, nothing of her tackling his catalog is unearthed, hmmm. While none of Richie Havens' magnificent Dylan interpretations are included here, the ones that do achieve this most skillfully and poignantly are: Major Harris' "Like a Rolling Stone," Bobby Womack's "All Along the Watchtower" (if more gutbucket than Jimi's famous supernova), The Man Booker T. Jones' "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," and, fittingly, the Staples Singers' downright country and haunting "Masters of War." My People, my People may never be checkin' for Dylan down on the corner in perpetuity, but they would not be remiss in makin' some babies to our master Ron Isley so sweetly crooning "Lay Lady Lay." [KCH]
Order CD by Texting "omcdvarioushow" to 767825 |
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