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🦋 Bob's Mix

I bought a record at Starbucks! I feel so dirty! But listen, it's a really good record: Bob Dylan, Music That Matters to Me -- a mix of tracks Bob has put together as representative of what he's listening to these days. (In the excellent liner notes, he says, "Some people have favorite songs, but I have songs of the minute -- songs that I'm listening to right now. And if you ask me about one of those songs a year from now, I might not even remember who did it, but at the moment it's everything to me.... I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.")

The track list is just great. I think I've only ever heard 5 or fewer of the 16 tracks previously -- and many of the performers I had never heard of before today -- there is blues, country, reggae, Hawai'ian, jazz and more. And what really makes the record -- what makes me happy to have it and want to listen to it as a record, rather than as a collection of songs, is Dylan's commentary. The liner notes are a small booklet, with one long paragraph for each song, and they are frankly much better writing than I have oherwise seen from Dylan's pen. The way they are written gives you a sense you're listening to him speak, and he's in a really good, congenial mood, grinning and saying "Now listen to this one, it's gonna blow your mind!"

Listening to the first song, "Do Unto Others", is funny because the opening riff is exactly the same as "Back in the USSR" -- Dylan says he thinks John Lennon probably heard the recording at a party sometime and forgot about it -- Ellen asked Sylvia if she knew what the lyric "they say, do unto others/ what you would have them do unto you" means; Sylvia nodded and said, in a bored-little-girl tone, "Yeah, what goes around comes around...."

Full track listing below the fold, mainly because I could not find it online anywhere.

1. Pee Wee Crayton, "Do Unto Others"
2. Clancy Eccles, "Don't Brag, Don't Boast"
3. Stanley Bros., "The Fields Have Turned Brown"
4. Gus Viseur, "Flambée Montalbanaise"
5. Red Prysock, "Hand Clappin'"
6. Sol Ho'opi'i, "I Like You"
7. Ray Price, "I'll Be There (If You Ever Want Me)"
8. Stuff Smith, "I'se A Muggin' (Part 2)"
9. Charley Jordan, "Keep It Clean"
10. Junior Welles, "Little By Little (I'm Losing You)"
11. Patty and the Emblems, "Mixed-Up, Shook-up Girl"
12. Gétatchèw Kassa, "Tezeta (Fast)"
13. Flaco Jiménez, "Victimas del Huracán Beulah"
14. Wanda Jackson, "I Gotta Know"
15. Billy Holiday, "I Hear Music"
16. Junior Parker, "Pretty Baby"

posted evening of Wednesday, March 26th, 2008
➳ More posts about Mix tapes
➳ More posts about Music
➳ More posts about Bob Dylan
➳ More posts about Sylvia

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