Northernheads New Releases vol. 1 (2021)

Before you slag Taylor Swift the real star on this alternate version of HAIM's "Gasoline" is the drum beat that middle sister Danielle lays down binding the song together. It was Swift's agency that took HAIM to another level, but they are by no means a 'girl group'. For our money HAIM is pound for pound the best new pop group of the past decade bar none. Women In Music Part III, which landed near the top of many year end lists, only cemented that stature. Swift lends her star making machinery taking lead vocals on "Gasoline" (although the original is still largely better). On "3 A.M.", a song almost ruined by a skit of a late night booty call voicemail (inspired by Andre 3000's The Love Below), oldest sister Este Haim is joined by Thundercat also on the bass (thankfully minus the skit) highlighting the silkiness of the groove.

El Michels Affair is the name that American producer and multi-instrumentalist Leon Michels releases his music under. Michels, whose releases are often defined by a crisp boom bap live drum sound, is best known for his work with various members of the Wu-Tang Clan. After performing live with Raekwon at a concert, the group began working with other members of the group releasing instrumental versions of their classics and solo work on 2009's Enter the 37th Chamber then 2016's Return to the 37th Chamber. Michels is also a frequent collaborator with Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys and has recorded for artists such as Lana Del Rey, Dr. John and Action Bronson. On "Ala Vida" from the forthcoming album Yeti Season (coming out March 26 via Michel’s label Big Crown) you hear all the hallmarks of the El Michels Affair sound.

Michels is a founding member of The Menahan Street Band which features musicians from Antibalas, El Michels Affair, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings and the Budos Band. The group was founded by Thomas Brenneck while living in an apartment on Menahan St. in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bushwick. Their debut album, Make the Road by Walking, was released in 2008. Various songs from Make the Road by Walking have been sampled by hip hop artists including Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, Kid Cudi and 50 Cent. Menahan Street Band's new single "Devil's Respite" is textbook sample ready material produced by Brenneck in the collective’s own Diamond Mine Studios in Long Island City, NY. The instrumental appears on the just released album The Exciting Sounds of Menahan Street Band (out February 26 on Daptone Records).

Montreal electronic phenom KAYTRANADA new release "Caution" debuted on the Chinese intelligence gathering platform TikTok as part of their Black History Month celebration. KAYTRANADA's release was for users (presumably highly sexualized children) to blend into their videos only later being uploaded more broadly to streaming platforms. TikTok also commissioned a cover of the 1971 gospel standard “Like A Ship” by Leon Bridges which premiered alongside the KAYTRANADA track.

There have been so many post humous releases attributed to J Dilla born James Yancey that there's good reason to be skeptical. "Anthem" (featuring Frank 'n Dank) isn't a particularly well known Jay Dee track from the 2013 double single Anthem/Tracks with instrumentals, a capella and Dilla's original mix ready for the club. Ric Mayes "Anthem" remix is that strangest of things, adding virtually nothing to the original- if anything taking away far too much. For some reason he's buried Frank 'n Dank's vocals in the mix making them sound murky (unless that was intentional). Similarly he's backgrounded the best non-quantized MPC drum rhythms of Dilla's on the original as well as a sort of snake charmer sounding flute sample. The choices are so odd it's worth listening to the original alongside it for comparison because it's unclear how he managed to so royally fuck up the original track.

Last week Freddie Gibbs, the rapper from the Jackson 5's hometown of Gary, Indiana, released a cover of Gil-Scot Heron and Brian Jackson's (no relation) 1974 track "Winter in America". Gibbs version of the song, which was produced by Leon Michels co-owner of Diamond Mine studios (El Michels Affair and The Menahan Street Band), appears on his newly released EP Black History Always/ Music for the Movement Vol. 2, which also includes contributions from Tobe Nwigwe (“Wake Up Everybody”), Tinashe (“I’m Every Woman”) , Brent Faiyaz (“Eden”), and Infinity Song (“Undefeated”). But Gibbs surprised fans when also this past week he released a deluxe version of his landmark 2014 collaboration with Madlib titled Piñata. The extended version runs nearly four hours long and is divided into five different parts. The first section is made up of Piñata’s original 17 tracks, which included appearances by Danny Brown, Raekwon, Earl Sweatshirt, Mac Miller, BJ the Chicago Kid, and others. Part two features loose tracks and their instrumentals, such as Gibbs’ “Cocaine Parties”—a take on Kanye West’s 2016 track “No More Parties in LA.” The third section is instrumentals of Piñata songs, the fourth and fifth sections are Alex Goose remixes and their instrumentals, respectively.

DRAM (which stands for Does Real Ass Music), born Shelley Marshaun Massenburg-Smith, made a splash with his debut album Big Baby DRAM including the massive single "Broccoli" featuring Lil Yachty. After the follow-up the 2018 EP That's a Girls Name the artist went awol. Shelley announced his return via Twitter recently saying after the flurry of attention he "took some time to focus on my health, voice, and growth—focus on me.” Now the artist returns with his new single "Exposure" under a new moniker the easy-to-remember FKA Shelley DRAM. By whatever name "Exposure" is textbook DRAM who has a really singular super positive R&B voice that leans away from the ebulient humour that's characterized his earlier releases.

"Unpleasant Breakfast" and "Heavy Covenant" (the lead single) play back to back at the midpoint on the group's new release Open Door Policy (produced by Josh Kaufman who worked with singer/lyricist Craig Finn on his solo album We All Want The Same Things and is a member of Bonnie Light Horsemen who had one of the best albums of last year).  Open Door Policy is textbook Hold Steady with lyrics in "Unpleasant Breakfast" about "twisted sheets on the trundle bed/ and the anti-psychosis meds/ made you feel all marooned" suitable to any of their albums. That particular track though has a bit of a funked up groove that almost eludes to electronic music that's not totally indicative of the band's sound over all (although that's certainly one influence, think "Most People Are DJs"). "Heavy Covenant" is more your straight ahead Hold Steady anthem in the vein of 2006's Boys and Girls In America (which if you want to feel old was 15 years ago). "Heavy Covenant" opens with the the lines "with the wine glass on the microwave/ and the ashtray in the kitchenette", reminding the listener, the clever kids in the Hold Steady audience, of Finn's hero poet William Carlos William's central dictum "no ideas but in things". The things, the wine glass, the ashtray are inextricable from the themes represented in the song themselves, much of which is pretty standard Hold Steady fare. The protagonist is Finn's idea of a modern day Willie Loman from Death of a Salesman, only his character stays over an extra night to score some party stuff: “I sell software made for offices/ It increases their efficiency/ Hospitals and local governments/ It’s a pretty heavy covenant.”

"Hall of Death" is the second track released from Bonnie Prince Billy and Matt Sweeney's forthcoming album Superwolves (a follow up to 2005's Superwolf).  Sweeney is likely best known as a member of Chavez and the supergroup Zwan, composed of Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlin, lead singer/guitarist and drummer of The Smashing Pumpkins, bassist Paz Lenchantin, of A Perfect Circle, and guitarist David Pajo of Papa M and Slint. As a session musician and engineer Sweeney is known for his work with Johnny Cash, "Cowboy" Jack Clement, Iggy Pop, Adele and Run The Jewels. In recent years his work on Sturgill Simpson's breakout album A Sailor’s Guide To Earth is of particular and historic note. Sweeney and Oldham's collaboration extends back to 2005 when they released the 5 song EP I Gave You under the moniker Bonny Sweeney. Then again in 2011 they put out another couple singles "Must Be Blind" backed by "Life in Muscle".  In 2020 the duo again collaborated on two singles "Make Worry For Me" and "You'll Get Eaten, Too". "Hall of Death" was co-written with Ahmadou Madassane and features another Tuareg guitar phenom Mdou Moctar, electric bassist Mike Coltun, and drummer Souleyman Ibrahim. The real standouts on the track, which ends up sounding like a psychedelic sub Saharan sea shanty when Oldham is through with it, aren't however Oldham and Sweeney it's the prolific guitar work of Madassane and Madou Moctar which bring the track to life.

"I Want To Go To The Beach", from Iggy Pop's 2009 experiment Préliminaires, is just one of a slew of recent covers that Bill Callahan and Will Oldham have been putting out together. The track features Cooper Craine (a member of Chicago bands like Bitchin’ Bajas and CAVE). The cover follows Hank Williams Jr's 1979 song "O.D.’d in Denver", Yusuf / Cat Stevens’ 1967 song “Blackness of the Night" and their deceased friend David Berman (Silver Jews) song "The Wild Kindness" (from 1998's American Water) sung in harmony with his wife and former bandmate Cassie Berman.

Craig Finn's "Eventually I Made It To Sioux City" off of 2021's All These Perfect Crosses, which first received a limited release through Record Store Day, is a collection of outtakes, demos, and acoustic reworkings from his three previous solo records. As with 2019's I Need A New War the lyricist expands his cast of characters, to include for instance Ulysses S. Grant on "Grant At Galena", rather than dig into the horde of characters who populate his song cycles in the Hold Steady. “I guess I felt...that visiting them for a song at a time might be more interesting than putting them through a number of phases,” said Finn after the release of 2019’s I Need a New War. On Finn's solo output there's less if any of the stabbing syllabic, sing along hooks that HS fans adore. Still, absent the guitar twang the lyrics to "Eventually I Made It To Sioux City" with a different instrumental backing could easily be a Hold Steady song: "He said that I should call you at this number/ He said that he'd make sure you knew my name/ He said let him know you're new in town/ And you could really use a friend right now/ Tell him that you want to come and hang".

Ignorance, the new release by The Weather Station (Tamara Lindeman), represents a stark departure sonically for the artist who has become associated with the stand and deliver solo acoustic folk vernacular. Consciously struggling with environmental guilt, including from her own resource intensive occupation, Lindeman broke with the past and hired a group of musicians from Toronto's jazz scene crafting slick sonics that scarcely resemble her prior work. As a lyricist Lindeman is a fascinating creator whose lyrics on the page more closely resemble prose or short stories, causing her songs to rarely follow the ABBA or AABA song structure. It's hard not to draw a parallel between the almost quasi-naive sentiment in Joni Mitchell's Big Yellow Cab, ironically an artist whose penumbra has often engulfed Lindeman's own light. "Parking Lot" seems particularly apt today as residents in Toronto's East York recently went viral with their pleas to save a parking lot "the hub and heart of their community" from being turned into housing for the homeless. Of the song Lindeman has said:

"'Parking Lot' is my strange gentle disco song about a humble encounter with a bird and being tired and being in love, and being heartbroken in ways I didn't quite yet understand. I don't fully know how everything connects in this song other than it obviously does. I wanted to make the recording very passionate and beautiful while also being very muscular while also being very gentle, and so I did."

The Who's "Pictures of Lily", like nearly all of their material, was written by guitarist and primary songwriter Pete Townshend for inclusion on the 1971 album Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy, a compilation of previously released singles. In a May, 1967 interview with NME, Townshend actually coined the term "power pop" to describe the song.  The song is ostensibly about the singer's lamentating about his inability to sleep. In order to sooth him his father gives him a picture of the song's titular hero Lily, who may be an old Vaudeville star Lily Bayliss, or Lillie Langrie an old music hall star and mistress of Edward VI. After feeling better and drifting off to sleep the son wants to meet the person in the photo, asking his father for an introduction. His father informs him, sadly, that "Lily" has, in fact, been dead since 1929. Initially, the singer laments, but before long turns back to his fantasy. Townshend has been quoted as having written the song as "merely a ditty about masturbation and the importance of it to a young man." The song was first played live in 1966, and they continued to play it on tour until 1968. It returned to make a one-off appearance at a show in Passaic, New Jersey on 11 September 1979, where singer Daltrey forgot the lyrics and they went straight to Free's "All Right Now". During the period that the song was recorded, in 1967, Kit Lambert, the band's first "real" manager, according to Townshend, mixed the song. He filmed the band recording the song, showing the four bandmates performing, with Keith Moon being recruited for the high notes in the song (even though Pete Townshend can be heard telling Keith he "keeps jumping on John's part", however, other live video footage shows John Entwistle, the band's bassist harmonizing and playing the French Horn). Daltrey has said the French horn solo was an attempt to emulate a World War I klaxon warning siren, as the Lily girl was a World War I-era pinup. This version of "Pictures of Lily" (Pete Townshend Demo) is from The Who's forthcoming new Super Deluxe Edition of The Who Sell Out which features 112 tracks, 46 of which are unreleased. The Who Sell Out was originally planned by Townshend, Lambert and Chris Stamp as a loose concept album including jingles and commercials linking the songs stylised as a pirate radio broadcast. The concept was born out of necessity as their label and management wanted a new album and Townshend felt that he didn’t have enough songs. The original plan was actually to sell advertising space on the album but instead the band opted for writing their own jingles paying tribute to pirate radio stations and to parody an increasingly consumerist society. The sleeve features four advertising images, taken by the renowned photographer David Montgomery, of each band member Odorono deodorant (Pete Townshend), Medac spot cream (Keith Moon), Charles Atlas (John Entwistle) and Roger Daltrey & Heinz baked beans. The story goes that Roger Daltrey caught pneumonia from sitting in the cold beans for too long.

Is Fats Domino's November, 18, 1956 performance of "Blueberry Hill" on the Ed Sullivan Show the greatest 1:38 seconds of televised music ever? Yes. Recently released as a single the historical moment now exists as an audio document as well. 

It's a reasonable question to ask how much a listener modestly interested in The Band will get out of the 50th anniversary reissue of their third album Stage Fright. Rather than simply remixing or remastering the album, Robbie Robertson has made a somewhat gutsy decision to completely revisit the album by changing the order which the tracks appear in.  The album, which emulates The Band's live show, came at a difficult juncture for the group as members Levon Helm, Rick Danko and Richard Manuel became mired in alcoholism and heroin addiction. Robertson took some slack for the merited decision to include some still photos of Levon on the nod from smack sleeping it off during the Stage Fright sessions which was recorded by Todd Rundgren (an odd choice) on a small vintage play house stage in Woodstock, New York. Apparently the track order was upended by a decision to put Levon's songwriting contribution "Strawberry Wine" and Manuel's "Sleeping" as the first two tracks in order to encourage them as song writers. The Band was out on their historic Festival Express tour, crossing Canada by train with everyone from the Grateful Dead, Buddy Guy and Janis Joplin, while the album was being mixed- something they'd been intimately involved with previously. On the re-release of the album Robertson, apparently going with the running list they originally intended, kicks off with the one two punch of "W.S. Walcott Medicine Show" and "The Shape I'm In" then side B ends with "Sleeping" seeming like a premonition of Manuel's death by suicide in 1986. Most of side B has ended up on side A and vice versa to good effect.  You'd have to be a real audiophile to notice the difference between Bob Clearmountain's remixes and Rundgren's own, but the alternate mixes of "Sleeping" and "Strawberry Wine" (which crackles like a front porch ditty with a suitably hoarse throated Levon giving the song a totally different sentiment) are noteworthy. The best part of the collection is the complete concert from Royal Albert Hall, London England in 1971, the sort of high quality bootleg that would have previously only been available to bootleggers and live concert trading devotees, from which this version of the seminal "King Harvest" was pulled. Probably the best songs or those from Calgary Hotel Recordings 1970 including two versions of a new song "Get Up Jake" which Robbie is taking the band members through. "Get Up Jake", a song which hasn't been butchered by constant radio airplay, would get a live airing on the famous New Years residence at the Academy of Music in 1971. The version of "Get Up Jake" which appears on Rock of Ages is from the December 30th show. Here in this hotel recording you hear that rarest of things: Robbie Robertson's voice. In actuality there are very few songs by The Band where Robbie sings lead vocals, or vocals at all, "To Kingdom Come" is one, and not even on the final version of this song. 

Bonnie Prince Billy and Matt Sweeney collaborate on Superwolves

As exciting as it is that Bonnie 'Prince' Billy (the musical pseudonym of Will Oldham) and Matt Sweeney have completed a follow-up to their 2005 collaboration Superwolf entitled Superwolves (out April 30 digitally and June 18 physically via Drag City), arguably the real stars of the lead track "Hall of Death" are the Tuareg musicians who play on it. "Hall of Death" was co-written with Ahmadou Madassane and features guitar phenom Mdou Moctar, electric bassist Mike Coltun, and drummer Souleyman Ibrahim. The track's release follows the November preview of the album's lead track "Make Worry For Me" which features Pete Townsend (not Pete Townshend) on drums and Mike Rojas on keys.

"Hall of Death", which ends up sounding like some sort of psychedelic sub Saharan sea shanty once Will Oldham's laid down his vocals, is really distinguished by the improvised lead guitar work of Mdou Moctar which gives the song much of its relevance and structure. Sweeney, a celebrated guitarist, composer, sound engineer and producer known for his work with Johnny Cash, "Cowboy" Jack Clement, Iggy Pop, Adele and Run The Jewels, knows how to choose and get the best out of the musicians he works with. In recent years his work on Sturgill Simpson's breakout album A Sailor’s Guide To Earth (and The Butcher Shoppe Sessions) is of particular and historic note. 

Outside of this host of production credits Sweeney is likely best known as a member of Chavez and the supergroup Zwan, composed of Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlin, lead singer/guitarist and drummer of The Smashing Pumpkins, bassist Paz Lenchantin, of A Perfect Circle, and guitarist David Pajo of Papa M and Slint. Sweeney and Oldham's collaboration extends back to 2005 when they released the 5 song EP I Gave You under the moniker Bonny Sweeney. Then again in 2011 they put out another couple singles "Must Be Blind" backed by "Life in Muscle".  In 2020 the duo again collaborated on two singles "Make Worry For Me" and "You'll Get Eaten, Too". 

Ahmoudou Madassane, oddly, or fittingly, is a bit like a Saharan version of Sweeney himself. The musician, writer and actor recently composed the instrumental score to a film Zerzura, described as "the first ever Saharan acid Western, telling the story of a nomad’s search for a magic city of gold,".  It sounds like exactly the sort of thing that Oldham, Sweeney or their known collaborators like Bill Callahan might cook up themselves. Musically Madassane is known for crossing boundaries and pushing the limits of the Saharan Tuareg guitar tradition, evoking the desert journey on his free form, often psychedelic improvisations.

Ahmadou Madassane is a prolific backing musician in a number of groups including for Mdou Moctar, Les Filles de Illighadad, and here for Superwolves contributing rhythm electric guitar. The surging lead guitar which largely defines "Hall of Death" sonically is played by Mdou Moctar (also M.dou Mouktar), the stage name of Mahamadou Soulemeymane another Tuareg songwriter, known for playing on a left handed stratocastor, one of the first musicians to perform modern electronic adaptations of traditional Tuareg folk guitar music. His unconventional interpretations of Tuareg guitar quickly pushed him to the forefront of a crowded scene. 

Mdou Moctar is a singular and fiercely creative figure in his own right, having first come to prominence through African cellphone mp3 trading. He later reached a broad global audience with the release of his music on the compilation Music from Saharan Cellphones: Volume 1 compilation. Mdou Moctar has the starring role in the 2015 film Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai, which literally translates as "Rain the Color of Blue with a Little Red In It". It tells the story of a musician from Agadez, who struggles with competing artists, a difficult home life, romantic problems and his own internal strife. Transforming the Tuareg nomadic narrative the protagonist rides around the desert on a purple motorcycle.  The film is an homage to Prince's Purple Rain and Jimmy Cliff's The Harder They Come; and is influenced by Moi, un noir, Jean Rouch, Italian neorealism and poverty row films. 

Sweeney and Oldham's decision to work with the Tuareg virtuosos was well considered with Sweeney noting: “I love the challenge to write melodies for Will to sing. Struggle with that challenge too. Knowing that Will’s voice will elevate the melody makes me reach higher and dig deeper for the tune. Makes me want to match it with a guitar part that holds his voice like a chalice holds wine (or blood, or whatever is needed to live the best life). I also love singing harmonies and responses to this voice of his.​”

In a statement Oldham said "the chemistry comes from lives, lived separately, in which music is crucial sustenance".  The one-time devotee of R. Kelly continued saying “we listen with gratitude and awe, knowing that we belong in there. We construct our dream selves with the faith that these selves will have their chance at life. We know what we are capable of doing and just need each other’s support to bring the imagined languages to life." The pair started recording the album five years ago but their first studio session only took place a year ago at Strange Weather studio in Brooklyn (the mixing of which Sweeney supervised), then a second session at the Butcher Shoppe in Nashville (which Oldham oversaw the mixing for).

In one of those signs of the times Sweeney had a lucrative if not entirely creatively profitable collaboration with Nashville's David Ferguson on a five track collaboration for the video game Red Dead Redemption 2: The Housebuilding EP (released February 12). The title track of the EP, "The Housebuilding Song", had been a fan favourite of gamers since it's inclusion in the game in 2018.

This is just one of a handful of new releases for the ever fecund Bonnie Prince Billy who had a busy 2020 with another album length collaboration with Three Queens in Mourning entitled Hello Joy, as well as his own full length I Made A Place. Sweeney is also featured on Oldham and Bill Callahan’s cover of Hank William, Jr.’s 1979 track ‘O.D.’d in Denver’.

In a statement, Sweeney said, “One of the many beautiful things about the original ‘O.D.’d in Denver’ is the contrast between Hank Williams, Jr.’s effortless carefree vocal and the song’s bleak desperate words.” He added, “Hank’s version’s narrator thinks he’s gotten over his night in Denver—I wanted this WillBilly track to feel like we’re catching our singer deep in the fear spiral.” 

This past October Bill Callahan and Oldham also recruited Chicago musician and fellow Drag City records artist AZITA last year for a cover of Yusuf / Cat Stevens’ 1967 song “Blackness of the Night.”

Then last month Callahan and Oldham collaborated again on the release of a cover of Iggy Pop's "I Want To Go To The Beach" (from his 2009 experiment Préliminaires) with Cooper Craine ( a member of Chicago bands like Bitchin’ Bajas and CAVE). 

The duo also worked on a version of their late friend David Berman’s Silver Jews song “The Wild Kindness,” singing in harmony with Berman’s widow and former bandmate Cassie Berman.

Bahamas Live To Tape Episode #1 #2 #3

Afie Jurvanen, the Sad Hunk himself, took his musical moniker Bahamas from an Eric Wreck song "Whole Wild World" typically attributed to the singer/guitar slinger himself. Once Afie got a hold of the song, which appears as the final track of his breakout album 2009's Pink Strat, it was scarcely recognizable from the original now rendered with, what we know today as, "the Bahamas sound". The song contains the lyrics:

When I was a young boy

My mama said to me

There's only one girl in the world for you

And she probably lives in Tahiti

I'd go the whole wide world

I'd go the whole wide world just to find her

Or maybe she's in the Bahamas

Where the Caribbean Sea is blue

Weeping in a tropical moonlit night

Because nobody's told her 'bout you

Jurvanen, who taught himself to play guitar while growing up in the rural hamlet of Barrie, Ontario, once filled in on a few gigs for Jason Collett then shortly thereafter his group Paso Mino became his backing band. The drummer from that band, Rob Drake, along with his friends from The 6ixty8ights, namely Mike O'Brien and Carlin Nicholson, went on to form Zeus who also backed Collett. 

When Paso Mino went their separate ways Jurvanen had the greatest success touring the world with Leslie Feist on what amounted to her three year international tour de force promoting 2001's Let It Die. In early 2006, Feist moved to Paris, where she recorded her followup The Reminder at LaFrette Studios, a residential recording studio in a 19th century mansion with 6 bedrooms and equipped with a Neve A 646 console, joined by Gonzales, Mocky, Jamie Lidell, and Renaud Letang, as well as the members of her touring band Bryden Baird, Jesse Baird, Julian Brown of Apostle of Hustle, and Afie Jurvanen.

By 2009 it was Afie who was taking centre stage internationally with 2009's Pink Strat wherein he introduced the world to "the Bahamas sound", it's a matter of small debate exactly what that sound is. When it came to finding players to play on the album he drew from his immediate circle of musical hombres, members of the Ill Eagle family. O'Brien and Nicholson were producing records as Zeus, for the Golden Dogs and others out of their studio of the same name at the time.

Dave Azzolini, an unsung Canadian legend who fronted various line-ups of the Golden Dogs (which over the years included Neil Quin from Zeus), was pulled in on Pink Strat as a sort of not-so-elder statesmen. Feist herself appeared as well. He also pulled in a solid bass player Darcy Yates, who would later tour with him. Greg Millson, from the Great Lakes Swimmers, was on drums.

Jurvanen recorded his first two albums at his then-girlfriend's house north of Toronto with the help of Robbie Lackritz, his former roommate. Afie refers to him as his engineer, manager and "best buddy." Nicholson is also  credited with additional recording on the first record. Lackritz at the time was Feist's road manager; now he's both hers and Afie's manager. Pink Strat amounted to a good musical hang which Lackritz ably captured like lightning in a bottle.

Despite, or indeed because of, it's homey four track basement recording quality, Jurvanen managed to craft such a complete statement that he realized he was clearly onto something. Displaying an innate sense for melody, Jurvanen's incredibly tasteful guitar playing, in particular his tone, drew the attention of Jack Johnson who released the record and subsequent releases on his Brushfire Records label. 

2012's Barchords stayed in the vein of the first release defined, largely, by its breeziness.  Jurvanen has said the choice of the name Bahamas, a country he by point of fact has never visited, was because people seem to like it when you “pick something weird” to go by, like Bon Iver did. By 2014 he'd tired of the title and tried a rebrand with the album Bahamas Is Afie (it didn't stick). 

Despite his acclaim Jurvanen was due for reinvention; he risked going stale otherwise. Jurvanen had been particularly moved by the surprise release of D'Angelo's long anticipated album Black Messiah which had been gestating for over a decade. Credited to D'Angelo and the Vanguard: drummer Questlove, bassist Pino Palladino, guitarist Isaiah Sharkey, and horn player Roy Hargrove. On one of the album's standout tracks, "Sugah Daddy" with Q-Tip and Foster, the rhythm section is Palladino and legendary R&B session drummer James Gadson.

Many know Pino Palladino from his work touring with The Who, recording with Nine Inch Nails, and, fittingly, as a member the John Mayer Trio. Gadson, who played with the original line-up of the seminal Charles Wright's Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band, has worked with everyone from Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, the Jackson 5, Bill Withers, Teddy Pendergrass even Justin Timberlake.

When asked by the Globe & Mail how did you get these guys, D'Angelo's rhythm section, to work for you? Jurvanen's characteristic dead pan response was matter of factly: "You email them." (He left out you pay them, what their worth, but that's fine too.) 

For Bahamas fourth LP, 2018's Earthtones, Jurvanen sought them out due to that album and wrote much of Earthtones with these particular collaborators in mind. The sudden decision by D'Angelo to release Black Messiah, albeit pressured by Questlove, was because of what was happening with the Black Lives Matter movement, "young black men and women are getting killed for nothing" he said. Jurvanen ruminated on those meditations and in turn reflected on his own white privilege lyrically.

Musically the collaboration had the effect of bolstering Jurvanen's laid-back blue eyed soul vibes with a deeper roiling funk groove. Jurvanen went down to L.A. and recorded 9 or 10 songs with Palladino and Gadson finding a deep pocket. You can hear this pocket playing on a song like "No Wrong", which, fasicinatingly was recorded at a later session in the Czech Republic with Bahamas touring drummer Jason Tait formerly of The Weakerthans. In the end what you're hearing is Tait playing what has been described as Gadson's "signature less-is-more approach to a masterly slow groove". This ended up being true for many of the songs on the album as Afie pleasantly observed himself:

"You can't really tell who played what, you know the songs just kind of meld together really nicely"

Drummer Don Kerr who used to play drums with Canada's legendary Rheostatics, and now tours with founder Dave Bidini's group Bidiniband, also plays on the record. To tour the album Jurvanen brought Darcy Yates  back into the fold to deliver the pulsating underbelly that Palladino had crafted on record; a task he was ably up to. Yates is a popular Canadian workhorse on the Fender Bass whose primarily associated with being a member of Fred Eaglesmith's backing band The Flathead Noodlers  (also known as The Smokin' Losers and The Flying Squirrels). Yates has also recorded with Doug Paisley, Kathleen Edwards, Great Lake Swimmers and many others.

The other musician who is always on stage with Jurvanen, central to his sound is another innately musical creature, Felicity Williams, whose instrument is the Shure SM58 microhopone. Her backing vocals are by now central to the Bahamas sound. The daughter of two parents who played in bar bands in the 70's and 80's, Williams sang in her  school’s chamber and jazz choirs as well as the Baptist church every Sunday. She later studied jazz and graduated from York’s music program in 2006. She then studied eastern and western music including at the Banff Centre in 2007. Williams, who is associated with groups including Bernice and The Road To Avonlea Choir, also plays duet shows with Toronto based free jazz guitarist Justin Haynes.

You would think most of the tasty guitar lines on Earthtones come from Jurvanen himself, many however are by another phenomenal guitar talent on the record Christine Bougie on the Fender guitar who also toured the record. Bougie is known primarily for her guitar and lap steel prowess and touring in support of Amy Milan (of Stars and Broken Social Scene) but has flown under the radar for years appearing on well over 30 recordings including her own instrumental album 2012's Hearts and Galaxies. That sonically adventurous release is reminiscent of the cosmic Americana of multi-instrumentalist William Tyler.  The appeal to Jurvanen of a player like Bougie is self-evident ,she straddles a similar line to his; between roots and jazz; between easy listening and sonic experimentation. 

Bougie and Williams are unparalleled musicians, so it's important not to gender their preternatural contributions. But it may be, if less self-consciously, that as a bandleader it is important for Jurvanen to have women in the group in the imprimatur of Sly and the Family Stone and Prince after him. In this light it's not unfair to compare Bougie and Williams to The Revolution's Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman, who have been prescribed as the artists "musical shadows".

With 2020's Sad Hunk, Afie Jurvanen, now sporting a fine walrus moustache, a young family at home in Nova Scotia, seems to have embraced the role of being a dad who makes dad jokes and plays dad rock. From that genre he's been compared at times to Randy Newman, largely for his penchant for humour, but his songs scarcely resemble Newman's complex character based songs. Boz Scaggs is a better fit. The Globe & Mail put it well “Taylor Swift digs Afie Jurvanen, but the cool kids do not.”

Perhaps struggling a bit to tap into the wellspring of creativity which fueled his previous releases Jurvanen brought one of his longest standing musical brohemes, Mike O'Brien, back into the fold. Although his band, Zeus, had by now achieved a fair measure of critical acclaim they had nevertheless failed to launch and their 2014 album, the appropriately titled Classic Zeus,  looked like it might have been their last. It may have been that their straight ahead version of rock 'n' roll just wasn't niche enough for the music press. Still,there's a pretty reasonable argument to be made that Zeus, a multiple songwriter group with unerring musical chops and peerless harmonies, are about as close to a modern day version of The Band as you'll find in contemporary Canada (although they also closely resemble The Eagles in the Joe Walsh era).

Jurvanen was joined again by Don Kerr, on drums, and Christine Bougie, on guitar, on Sad Hunk. A new player he brought into the fold was from Canada's west coast, Sam Weber who put out a solo record Everything Comes True on Sonic Unyon in 2019. Weber's material definitely has a Jackson Browne quality, which likely ebbed with Jurvanen's onsetting middle age malaise.

Jurvanen bemoans that he finds himself on so many "Chill" playlists, as much as he does purport to in fact be a "chill guy". Still, for lack of cool cachet, those playlists have driven Jurvanen's music to 2.2 million listeners on Spotify monthly. To put that figure in context, Bahamas' stream easily outnumbers those of underground-press darlings the War on Drugs (2 million average listeners), Father John Misty (1.8 million), St. Vincent (1.4 million), Kurt Vile (1.2 million) and the Broken Social Scene themselves (800,000).

Over the years, in addition to working with Canadian legends like Jason Collett and Leslie Feist (both at one time or another members of the Broken Social Scene), Jurvanen has, by now,  worked with The Lumineers, Howie Beck, City and Colour and another singular musical figure from rural Ontario Tamara Lindeman (who records as The Weather Station).

Now, as a way to slog through quarantine, Jurvanen decided to expand his idea of playing with his dream backing bands, by recording his songs remotely with musicians around the globe. Live To Tape shows Afie peforming largely solo backed by various rhythm sections and singers he reveres or has played alongside over the years. Each pre-recorded installment of Live To Tape will be recorded remotely from his home base of Halifax, Nova Scotia with musicians in locales including Nashville, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Perth and Toronto. 

The premiere episode featured Jason Isbell's backing band The 400 Unit, a group which once included his wife Amanda Shires, like Isbell himself whose father was a legendary Muscle Shoals player, everyone is primarily from that part of Alabama.

Live to Tape Episode 1 features:

Afie Jurvanen - guitar, vocals

Sadler Vaden - guitar

Jimbo Hart - bass

Derry DeBorja - keyboards

Chad Gamble - drums

Dan Knobler - guitar, music director

Afie Jurvanen and his 400 Unit banged out his originals "I Got You Babe", "Little Record Girl", "Trick To Being Happy" (from 2020's Sad Hunk). "Up With The Jones" (which was aired on CBS This Morning Saturday as well) had a great flair with Sadler Vaden taking Jurvanen's trademark electric guitar lines. "All The Time" was an even bigger kick with Vaden now playing the lead from Bahamas breezy anthem on pedal steel.

While the collaboration was well made interestingly it was episode 2 with the little known The Teskey Brothers from Melbourne, Australia that seemed to be an even better fit.

Live to Tape Episode 2 features:

Afie Jurvanen - guitar, vocals

Josh Teskey - vocals, rhythm guitar

Sam Teskey - vocals,  guitar

Brendon Love - vocals, bass guitar

Liam Gough - vocals, drums

The Teskey Brothers, who Jurvanen must have connected with on a tour down under, have released two albums, Half Mile Harvest (2017) and Run Home Slow (2019). Afie's set with The Teskey Brothers kicked off with "Can't Complain" containing the line "I can't complain make my livin' with my brain/ I make something new for all of you from some old refrain".  "Own Alone" from Earthtones had a real peppy Vulfpeck vibe suited to the Aussies. The group have great harmony vocals in particular rhythm guitarist Josh Teskey in particular. "No Depression", "Trick To Being Happy" and "Way With Words" all delivered thanks largely to the back end, Josh's lead vocals and his brother Sam's refined lead guitar. Their set closed out with a Teskey original "I Get Up".

Live To Tape episode 3 was hotly anticipated with Bahamas pulling in the big guns in the form of Bob Glaub, a top drawer session bass player, and Russell Kunkel a drummer and producer from the same echelon. Bahamas Music only describes the pair as “two prolific musicians that have been featured on 100's of legendary recordings” which is an accurate enough assessment.

Jurvanen is probably most closely familiar with their shared tenure backing Jackson Browne whose work bears a strong resemblance to the Bahamas sound which vacillates slightly more towards the sunny side of the street. Together Glaub and Kunkel have also worked with Warren Zevon, Linda Ronstadt and various members of Crosby, Stills & Nash. Kunkel was the studio and touring drummer for Crosby & Nash in the 1970’s, and has played on all four of their studio albums.

Glaub started his career in 1973 playing for Indigenous guitar legend Jesse Ed Davis' record Keep me Comin', which led him to work on records of artists such as Arlo Guthrie, Booker T. Jones, Dave Mason, Rod Stewart, Leo Sayer, Carly Simon, Robby Krieger and Steve Miller Band. In 1978 Glaub joined Jackson Browne's band leaving in 1989.  In 1980 Glaub joined Linda Ronstadt’s band with whom he played until 2000.

In the following years he played on records by Gladys Knight, Katy Moffatt, Dusty Springfield, Jim Morrison, Bonnie Raitt, Nicolette Larson, Cher, Kiki Dee, Jennifer Warnes, Rita Coolidge, Donna Summer, Eric Carmen, Gordon Lightfoot, Karla Bonoff, Eddie Money, Peter Cetera, Stevie Nicks and the Bee Gees. Over the years Glaub has played with serious luminaries including Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, John Fogerty, John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Jerry Lee Lewis, Stevie Nicks and Journey.

Kunkel, a drummer and producer, has worked with a similar stata of A level talent including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Stevie Nicks, Glenn Frey, Harry Chapin, James Taylor, Joe Walsh, Steve Winwood, Jimmy Buffett, Bob Seger, Stephen Stills, Carly Simon, Rita Coolidge, Neil Diamond, Dan Fogelberg, Art Garfunkel, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Carole King, Lyle Lovett, Reba McEntire and still others himself.

Jurvanen/Glaub/Kunkel's set featured "Not Cool Anymore" and "Half Your Love" from this past year's Sad Hunk. Glaub comments before "Half Your Love" that "this one has no rhythm or band under it so we can just sort of do our thing right?" Kunkel right away slips into a pocket with a little shuffle pattern. You can hear a bit of back and forth after the track between Robbie Lackritz, best known as a recording engineer at first, now Bahamas and Feist's manager and co-producer, and the players as to how they liked the last cut to which there was no response as they scratched their heads. "Turn Back Time" which follows, also from Sad Hunk, works musically but lyrically it can be a bit of a head scratcher hearing Jurvanen, whose clearly doing alright for himself, singing about how "I'm not thinking about the distant past if I'm trying to make first and last".

Glaub and Kunkel were joined in studio by Sam Weber. The musicians are likely familiar with one another through Tyler Chester who produced the record and has also done work with Jackson Browne as a session musician himself. Glaub also recorded on Everything Comes True as did a really strong contingent of L.A. based session players.

Countless musicians have been able to figure out how to work remotely, recording fine albums or recording performances for TV or the internet, but watching the Live To Tape series gives you a sense of how actually difficult it is to build a musical rapport over cellphones on speaker phone. Before "Be My Witness", which Jurvanen plays on the pink strat itself, they quickly hatch out how to work the drum pattern with Afie calling out cues over the phone. 

Nearing the end of their set with "Never Again" from Barchords the ensemble has really locked into an uncommon bond with Felicity Williams and Robin Dann on backing vocals elevating the whole affair. One thing that Williams, a jazz musician who plays in progressive contexts, personally works on is using her voice more freely to improvise outside of standard vocal conventions. You hear that at the end of this live rendition where Williams, if given the chance could extemporize considerably. By the time they get around to the set closer "Summer Time", from Bahamas Is Afie, which is particularly well suited to this rhythm section, hence the selection, you would think the ensemble had been playing together 100 dates a year. 

Future episodes will include Bahamas teaming with Wylie Gelber and Griffin Goldsmith of Dawes; and Gus Seyffert (Beck, Adele) and Joey Waronker (REM, Atoms for Peace) featuring Lucius. Jurvanen also has a session in the can with The Secret Sisters and famed Nashville studio musicians guitarist Russ Pahl, bassist Dave Roe and drummer Gene Chrisman. 

Bob Dylan's Never Ending Tour (1988-present)

On June 7th, 1988, Bob Dylan kicked off his so-called Never Ending Tour at the Concord Pavillion in Concord, California.  That night in Concord, Dylan played "You're A Big Girl Now" and "Gates of Eden" for the first time live since 1978; "You Gotta Serve Somebody" for the first time live since 1981; and "Boots of Spanish Leather" astonishingly for the first time since 1963. According to Swedish researcher Olof Björner, Dylan played his 2,000th show of the Never Ending Tour on October 16, 2007, in Dayton, Ohio.  He played his 3,000th show of the Never Ending Tour on April 19, 2019, in Innsbruck, Austria. Having by now circumnavigated the globe many times over, Bob Dylan and his band encored at Olympiahalle with "Blowin' In The Wind" and a wistful "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry".

In 1986, Dylan played 60 dates, including 13 in Australia, 2 in New Zealand and 4 in Japan, on the True Confessions Tour featuring Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Both Dylan and Petty took a break after this tour before returning to the road in June to perform a 41 date tour of the United States and Canada.

In July of 1987 he did 6 dates in large stadiums featuring the Grateful Dead with each concert beginning with a lengthy set by the Grateful Dead of their own material (sometime broken into a first and second set, per the Dead's own practice), followed by a roughly 90-minute set of the Dead acting as Dylan's backup band.

Then again that fall of 1987 Dylan played another 30 dates featuring Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on the Temple In Flames tour. This would prove to be the last time Dylan toured with Petty and the last tour before the beginning of the "Never Ending Tour". Dylan and Petty would, though, briefly reunite in Holmdel, New Jersey in the summer of 2003 as well as throughout their work with the supergroup the The Travelling Wilburys.

The name itself, though commonplace by now, is more than a bit of a misnomer. It's not even something Dylan set about to name a single one of his tours in the first place. The tour's name was cemented in an interview by journalist Adrian Deevoy with Dylan in Q Magazine (December, 1989, no. 39). But when the critic Michael Gray went back and listened to Deevoy's interview tape, he pointed out (in The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia) that though Deevoy's article put the phrase into Dylan's mouth, in fact the label came from Deevoy in the following exchange:

AD: "Tell me about this live thing. You've gone straight into this tour again — one tour virtually straight into the next one."

BD: "Oh, it's all the same tour."

AD: "It's the Never Ending Tour?"

BD: (unenthusiastically) "Yeah, yeah".

Dylan has himself been dismissive of the Never Ending Tour tag. In the sleeve notes to his album World Gone Wrong (1993), Dylan wrote:

"Don't be bewildered by the Never Ending Tour chatter. There was a Never Ending Tour but it ended in 1991 with the departure of guitarist G. E. Smith. That one's long gone but there have been many others since then: "The Money Never Runs Out Tour" (Fall of 1991) "Southern Sympathizer Tour" (Early 1992) "Why Do You Look At Me So Strangely Tour" (European Tour 1992) "The One Sad Cry Of Pity Tour" (Australia & West Coast American Tour 1992) "Outburst Of Consciousness Tour" (1992) "Don't Let Your Deal Go Down Tour" (1993) and others, too many to mention each with their own character & design."

In a 2009 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Dylan went on further in questioning  the validity of the term Never Ending Tour, saying:

"Critics should know there is no such thing as forever. Does anybody call Henry Ford a Never Ending Car Builder? Anybody ever say that Duke Ellington was on a Never Ending Bandstand Tour? These days, people are lucky to have a job. Any job. So critics might be uncomfortable with my working so much. Anybody with a trade can work as long as they want. A carpenter, an electrician. They don't necessarily need to retire."

Love it or leave it, it's the name that has stuck. Despite some very rocky patches, including one disastrous show in Germany in 1991 that cast a long shadow, Dylan throughout the nineties and aughts eventually drew himself into rare form both live and on record. The low water mark came in a particularly disastrous rendition of “New Morning” from his June 19th, 1991 gig in Stuttgart. It stretches for seven minutes, although much of it is just the band vamping, with someone on piano clomping out child-like chords, until Dylan kicks in at the 4:30 mark with incomprehensible muttering that sounds vaguely like the words to the song.

Performances like Stuttgart, though there are countless others, some of which fans have rightly described as "traumatizing", generated a toxic buzz that has surrounded Dylan's live show even to this day in some quarters. But in the span of two short years Dylan crested to a particularly high tide when he did a short stand of shows in November of 1993 at New York's Supper Club, by all accounts a stunning achievement and arguably a career highlight. 

Excellent bootleg recordings of two of Dylan's four club dates were released as (And It Ain’t) In The Seats Of A Supper Club on the Liberator label. Although they are called soundboard releases, they sound more like professionally mixed multi-track recordings that arguably sound better than many official releases. Dylan's band has had, of course, a considerable amount of churn over the years but you can hear the musical lock between several constants, including his longtime bass player Tony Garnier, guitarist John "J.J." Jackson, Bucky Baxter on pedal steel and drummer Winston Watson.

The Supper Club shows really are masterful and the musicianship is nearly unparalleled, particularly as captured in a small intimate room. The set from November 16th has the first live version of his arrangement of the traditional tune “Blood In My Eyes” which was released on World Gone Wrong. It also marked the debut of acoustic “unplugged” versions of “Absolutely Sweet Marie,” “Lay Lady Lay,” “Queen Jane Approximately,” “Tight Connection To My Heart,” “Disease Of Conceit,” and a particularly fine “I Want You.” 

The setlist places emphasis on the album World Gone Wrong which had been released three weeks prior. “Tight Connection To My Heart”, from 1985's Empire Burlesque, is a definite highlight. Stripped of the mid eighties production, this unplugged arrangement displayed the song’s pristine beauty. Purists bemoan that it hasn't been performed since. “Ring Them Bells” from Oh Mercy is likewise beautiful. The set ends with “Forever Young” in the same arrangement he would employ two nights later on Late Night With David Letterman. On the 17th his set included a debut of the traditional "Jack-A-Roe" (which many people know through the Dead) and an "I Shall Be Released" show closer.

That early nineties line-up was particularly popular amongst devotees. Gigs from 1995 and 1996 continue to be favorites in the Dylan bootleg community. Guitarist John “J.J.” Jackson was a common link in that period during his six years with the band between 1991-1997. As was drummer Winston Watson who played 400 shows in his five year tenure. 

Dylan's longest-running sideman, sometimes characterized as his "musical director", is bass player Tony Garnier. He was a long-time sideman for David Johansen in his Buster Poindexter persona, and was also briefly a member of the Saturday Night Live house band. Before joining Dylan's Never Ending Tour Band in 1989, Garnier added bass tracks to films by Jim Jarmusch, most notably the film Down by Law, which stars Roberto Benigni, Tom Waits and John Lurie, which was filmed in Louisiana. Garnier has strong musical ties to the downtown New York Jazz scene, by way of Marc Ribot and Lurie's group The Lounge Lizards. He's also recorded with Tom Waits, Loudon Wainwright III and Paul Simon

What really elevated Bob Dylan's Never Ending Tour band to the next level, though, was when Garnier introduced guitarist Larry Campbell into the fold. Campbell, who replaced Jackson, would go on to be a member of the band from March 31, 1997 until November 21, 2004. Campbell expanded the role to multi-instrumentalist, playing instruments such as cittern, violin/fiddle, pedal steel guitar, lap steel guitar, mandolin, banjo, and slide guitar. His passion and enthusiasm is credited with elevating Dylan personally and his live shows to a new level. A great way to put it would be to say that Larry Campbell did for Dylan and his band what Bruce Hornsby did for Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead.

Dylan has attributed much of the versatility of his live shows to the talent of his backing band, with whom he recorded each of his 21st Century studio albums: Time Out Of Mind (1997); Love and Theft (2001); Modern Times (2006); Together Through Life (2009); Christmas in the Heart (2009); Tempest (2012); Shadows in the Night (2015); Fallen Angels (2016); Triplicate (2017) and Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020).

In March of 1997 Dylan kicked off the year by recording Time Out of Mind at Criteria Studios in Miami, Florida. His 30th studio album was released as a single CD as well as a double studio album on vinyl, his first since Self Portrait in 1970. For many fans and critics, the album marked Dylan's artistic comeback after he appeared to struggle with his musical identity throughout the 1980's; he had not released any original material for seven years, since Under the Red Sky in 1990. Time Out of Mind is now hailed as one of Dylan's best albums, and it went on to win three Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year in 1998. 

The album has an atmospheric sound, the work of producer (and past Dylan collaborator) Daniel Lanois, whose innovative work with carefully placed microphones and strategic mixing was detailed by Dylan in his memoir, Chronicles: Volume One. Although Dylan has spoken positively of Lanois' production style, he expressed dissatisfaction with the sound of Time Out of Mind. Dylan has self-produced his subsequent albums.

While it had been marketed as the third in a conceptual trilogy, beginning in 1997 with Time Out of Mind, Dylan himself rebuffed the notion. In an interview with Rolling Stone, he stated that he "would think more of Love and Theft as the beginning of a trilogy, if there's going to be a trilogy". But Dylan was hospitalized in June 1997 with the chest infection histoplasmosis, forcing him to cancel a European tour, fearing publicly that he’d be “seeing Elvis soon.” By October he was back on stage though, just as glowing reviews for Time Out of Mind were pouring in and songs like “Love Sick,” “Cold Irons Bound,” and “Can’t Wait” were finally ready to be presented live. It all added up to the most positive buzz around Dylan since the Rolling Thunder Revue over 20 years earlier.

Time Out of Mind featured players from the touring band, including drummer Winston Watson, Bucky Baxter on pedal steel (who toured from 1992–1999) and guitarist Duke Robillard who had, by then, also joined on guitar. But Rolling Stone reported that Robillard seemed to have parted ways with Bob Dylan, just three months after the blues guitarist joined his touring band. (Robillard posted on Facebook “For sale: Bob Dylan CD and record collection, slightly used.” He later wrote, “I will be selling a lot of guitars and amps soon. I’ll keep you posted.”)

It's highly unusual for a musician to depart Dylan’s band midway through a tour. Robillard only played at 27 Dylan shows, but that isn’t even the record for shortest tenure in Dylan’s backing band. Former Fleetwood Mac guitarist Billy Burnette joined the group in February of 2003, and he left after an 11-show tour of Australia and New Zealand.

In keeping with Dylan's expanded group of collaborators, both Lanois' go-to drummer Brian Blade played drums on Time Out Of Mind as did Jim Keltner who has been described on occasion as "the leading session drummer in America". Keltner had already played drums on both albums released by the 1980's supergroup The Traveling Wilburys, playing under the pseudonym "Buster Sidebury".

Dylan capped off 1997 by booking a series of clubs in Atlanta, Washington, D.C., New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago before wrapping up with a five-night stand in Los Angeles at the El Rey Theatre that featured Beck, Jewel, Sheryl Crow, and Willie Nelson rotating as his opening act. The El Rey seats just 900 people and tickets were extremely hard to come by, although bootleggers still managed to capture tickets every single night.

The best one is the penultimate show at the El Rey on December 19th, 1997. This is an audience tape, but the bootlegger was clearly a pro and the sound is excellent. Many bootleg aficionados argue that great audience tapes are superior to soundboard recordings since they capture the ambiance of the room. This recording is strong evidence in their favor.

In addition to standard fare like confident opener "Maggie's Farm", the El Rey setlist includes rare gems like "Silvio", a song whose lyrics were written by Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter and set to music by Dylan for a muddled collaborative record 1988's Down In The Groove. The Rastafarian influenced "I and I" from 1983's Infidels also makes an appearence in the set.

It’s an explosive show from the opening chords of “Maggie’s Farm” to the final notes of “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35,” but the highlights are a blistering “Highway 61 Revisited” and "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" with Sheryl Crow on guitar and vocals, a rare take on the Desire deep cut “Joey,” and a haunting “Cold Irons Bound.” The show also includes a mid-show acoustic set of "Oh Babe It Ain't No Lie", "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" from Bringing It All Back Home and "Tangled Up In Blue".

A show from February 9, 2002 at Philips Arena, Atlanta, Georgia, which circulated for years under the name Got A Line on You, is particularly revered amongst fans. It was reportedly sourced to an Assisted Listening Device connected straight to the soundboard, which explains why the sound quality is absolutely perfect. Simply put, it sounds just about as good as any official live album.

The immaculate sounding concert opens with the Ralph Stanley number "I Am The Man, Thomas" sounding like something right out of O, Brother Where Art Thou? The set which leaned towards Love and Theft material, including "Floater (Too Much To Ask), "Summer Days", and "Sugar Baby" also featured "My Back Pages", "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)", "Lay Lady Lay" and a stunning "It Ain't Me Babe" as well as deep cuts like "Drifter's Escape" from John Wesley Harding and "Masters of War" from The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan

The show captured Dylan and the Never Ending Tour band during a peak era. This was just five months after Love and Theft hit stores and the new songs infused the show with incredible energy and purpose. Rolling Stone described Charlie Sexton and Larry Campbell as "two of the best guitarists he’s ever played with, and he gave them a lot of freedom to stretch out and even harmonize with him on the vocals."

There's been a fair bit of musical chairs in the guitar department over the years. Larry Campbell's amenable departure in 2004 opened the door for Denny Freeman on guitar and slide guitar (from 2005-2009) and Stu Kimball (from 2004-2018) who has played 1,323 shows alongside Dylan- the longest of any guitarist. Sexton first played guitar from 1999-2002 replacing Denny Freeman. Between the years 2003-2004, Tommy Morrongiello, a technician on the tour, would frequently play guitar with Dylan & his Never Ending Tour band. 

Initially Sexton was replaced by Duke Robillard for the first half of 2013, before returning on July 3, 2013. Sexton was then himself also replaced for seven concerts by Canadian blues guitarist Colin Linden, including one at Toronto's Molson Ampitheatre, which apparently didn't stick either, returning once again on July 26, 2013. The final year of the Sexton/Campbell era was on the Never Ending Tour was 2002. And, although Sexton returned to the band in 2009 after a seven-year absence, they’ve never managed to recreate the magic of this period, despite some incredible shows in 2018 and 2019.  

Dylan's album, Modern Times was recorded with Dylan's then touring band, including Freeman, Tony Garnier, Stu Kimball, and George G Receli who joined on drums (from 2001-2019) plus multi-instrumentalist Donnie Herron. Dylan produced the album under the name "Jack Frost". During a 2006 interview with Rolling Stone, Dylan spoke about his then current band:

"This is the best band I've ever been in, I've ever had, man for man. When you play with guys a hundred times a year, you know what you can and can't do, what they're good at, whether you want 'em there. It takes a long time to find a band of individual players. Most bands are gangs. Whether it's a metal group or pop rock, whatever, you get that gang mentality. But for those of us who went back further, gangs were the mob. The gang was not what anybody aspired to. On this record (Modern Times) I didn't have anybody to teach. I got guys now in my band, they can whip up anything, they surprise even me."

Dylan's newest guitarist, Bob Britt, was invited by Leon Russell to audition as a young man and spent a decade playing with the elder statesmen. Britt, who also recorded on Time Out Of Mind, does constant session work and has toured with The Dixie Chicks and John Fogerty. In 2011, Delbert McClinton enlisted Britt to play guitar in his band, which then lead to him becoming his music director, co-writer and co-producer of gigs.

Currently, Bob Dylan's band consists of the following members:

Bob Dylan — vocals, piano, harmonica, guitar

Donnie Herron — pedal steel, lap steel, electric mandolin, banjo, violin

Charlie Sexton — lead guitar

Tony Garnier — bass guitar

Matt Chamberlain — drums, percussion

Bob Britt — guitar