{"id":40719,"date":"2008-01-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-28T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/live-at-the-gaslight-1962\/"},"modified":"2008-01-28T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-01-28T00:00:00","slug":"live-at-the-gaslight-1962","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/live-at-the-gaslight-1962\/","title":{"rendered":"Live At The Gaslight 1962"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in 1962, the Gaslight caf\u00e9 was the premier folk venue in the bohemian MacDougal Street<\/st1:address><\/st1:street> area of New York<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>\u2019s Greenwich Village<\/st1:place>. The venue had secured its credentials as the preeminent meeting place for the emerging folk crowd a few years earlier when Beat Generation poets like Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso regularly performed poetry readings there. The Gaslight was no \u201cpass the hat for tips\u201d style joint but an elite folk club where only the best of Greenwich Village<\/st1:place>\u2019s folk singers could hope to perform. The young Bob Dylan would play at the venue a number of times during his early years as a Greenwich Village<\/st1:place> folkie, often using it as a place to try out new compositions in front of an audience.<\/p>\n

The material featured on Live At The Gaslight 1962<\/i> was recorded after the release of Dylan\u2019s eponymously titled debut album but before his breakthrough, The Freewheelin\u2019 Bob Dylan<\/i>, and primarily consists of traditional folk and blues songs. Having said that, the album does feature three early performances of Dylan originals in “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” and “John Brown.” The first two songs would later appear on Dylan’s second album, but the anti-war ballad “John Brown” would remain unreleased until Dylan\u2019s \u201cMTV Unplugged\u201d album appeared in 1995.<\/p>\n

The version of \u201cDon\u2019t Think Twice, It\u2019s All Right\u201d here is an embryonic rendition, strummed instead of finger-picked, with its half-formed lyric containing some noticeable differences to the officially released studio version. Other highlights include “Barbara Allen” and Dylan’s own adaptation of Brownie McGhee and Leroy Carr’s “Rocks And Gravel.” Hardcore Dylan fans will find it fascinating to hear Dylan performing \u201cRocks And Gravel\u201d from this era, since it was originally slated to appear on The Freewheelin\u2019 Bob Dylan<\/i>, even turning up on early test pressings of the LP. Here Dylan teases and caresses the song\u2019s melody, stretching out its long, sorrowful notes to such protracted lengths that it almost feels as if they might snap.<\/p>\n

Another standout moment on the album is the song \u201cMoonshiner,\u201d in which the 21-year-old Dylan sings from the perspective of a drunken old man at the end of his life. It\u2019s a powerful and utterly convincing rendition, soaked with the liquor stained authenticity that the song demands. Interestingly, in the liner notes of his second album Dylan states that he \u201cain’t that good yet. I don’t carry myself yet the way that Big Joe Williams, Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly and Lightnin’ Hopkins<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> have carried themselves. I hope to be able to someday, but they’re older people.\u201d I have to say, based on the evidence presented here in his masterful rendition of \u201cMoonshiner,\u201d that I beg to differ.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Live At The Gaslight 1962<\/i> is a real delight for Dylan fans. We get to hear Dylan on the verge of greatness, alone on stage with just an acoustic guitar and his own inimitable voice (strangely, there\u2019s no harmonica playing on the album at all.) What makes these performances all the more important for Dylanologists is that they represent the last time for many years that Dylan would be captured publicly performing non-original folk and blues songs.<\/p>\n

The sound quality on the album is pretty reasonable, too, having been recorded on a reel-to-reel tape machine connected to the house PA system. It\u2019s not quite up to recording studio standards of course but it\u2019s still highly listenable. Ultimately, this album may not be an ideal purchase for newcomers to Dylan\u2019s music but Live At The Gaslight 1962<\/i> is essential for any serious fan wanting to know more about Bob Dylan the folk song interpreter and performer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":29181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5866],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-40719","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-bob-dylan","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/63"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40719"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40719"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}