Bob Dylan's "Street Legal" - Classic or Dud?

oh yea that is so great

it's like he's backed by the Saturday Night Live band n that clip

you know what this is reminding me of is not so much "Death of a Ladies' Man" as Lou Reed's "Take No Prisoners", or maybe "Rock n Roll Heart". the old lyricism is there but so are the saxophones, the r&b backup singers, the air of exhaustion. basically it sounds like the late 70s boomer experience.

is Senor typically cited as the standout track cuz it sure feels like it

that's really the only one that became a live standard post 78...

even that has this terrible saxphone line. Feel like this was the dawn of the classic saxophones-in-everything era of pop music

changing of the guards i always thought was the standout, at least its the one that made it on the greatest hits vol iii selecton

like 1978 was the year the saxophonists union finally got their big contract

xp

Springsteen / E-Street Band influence?

dylan denied it at the time, but it can't have hurt that broooce was doing so well at the time w/ clemons

Did Lou ever dare deny it?

having never been able to stomach Springsteen that would never have occurred to me but the E Street Band as ground zero makes sense. Probably where Lou got the idea too (altho Rock and Roll Heart is two years earlier than Street Legal)

xp

i'm sure lou denied it. but he also said "springsteen's alright" (grudgingly!) on take no prisoners...

...and Bruce cameos on "Street Hassle"

that was lou influencing bruce, not the other way around. "c'mere bruce, i'm going to influence you!"

ok gettin to the end here - lol has anyone sampled the opening of Where Are You Tonight yet

Well, isn't that the blatant "Like a Rolling Stone" rip off?

"Senor" isn't bad and I saw him do a ripping version in '05 but it's like a parody of a Dylan song.

I remember my mom looking at the album cover after I bought it in the early '80s and remarking, "What a sexy photo." I was slightly grossed out.

Well, I think when I saw him in Birmingham in the late 70s, it was on a long, maybe international tour, maybe to promote this album? Whole thing was very metamorphic, judging by concert reviews and pix: started out with this Hot August Night Neil Diamond look---they had some of the same people, like same lawyer and management, I think, of course Neil was in The Last Waltz, Robertson produced Beautiful Noise---and reportedly was using scripted stage patter, like, "Well, as my friend Jerry Garcia says, I must be getting down the road." Then (at campus paper ect) starting getting pix where he's in sort of Blonde On Blonde cover mode, only tailored, and some times with eyeliner etc like his Rolling Thunder look, total effect getting toward Prince--though some on campus swore he had all the signs of going toward **transexualism** (transgender)---he certainly seemed to be going some kind Period of Transition (toward the Lord, for instance, but we didn't know that til Slow Train Coming, soon enough).

And when he finally got to B'ham, came out in this Cisco Kid outfit (which I later saw him wear in every show of a VHS collection at a record show; there's plenty of documentation of this era somewhere), with dirty white tennis shows and the side of his poodle coiffure flattened, like he just got up, and no makeup. He and the chorus were the only constants up front, but he had different subsets of musos upstage, and people he'd call out from the wings as well. I've heard of Ornette Coleman and Doug Sahm doing this too, and for the same reason: to shift styles at will. None of it sounded like the original studio versions either: the gospel singers got all of "Rainy Day Women," a flute player accompanied Dyl's finger-picking (and voice, in good tuneful shape) on "Blowing In The Wind," proto-speed metal big band got "Masters of War," kind of a rockabilly bluegrass "Tombstone Blues," "Senor" (or was it "Silvio"?) between mariachi and Gil Evans.

Actually some of the versions weren't *that* different from the originals, he just brought selected elements way forward and dropped others, like mixing with live players (tempted to say "on the fly," but most of these rearrangements sounded fairly polished).

haha, would've loved to see one of those shows... those semi-scripted monologues he'd do were great.
I was riding on a train one time from Durango, Mexico to San Diego. I fell asleep once and I woke up and the train was parked outside Monterey. I was a little bit groggy, so I stared into the window which was a like a long mirror. An I saw about one family get off the train. About 17 or 18 kids, I saw them get off the train, and I saw this old man step up to the train. Anyway, in the mirror he looked, all he was wearing was a blanket. Must have been about 150 years old at least. Anyway, he came up the aisle and he sat down next to me on the other side of the aisle. And finally I just couldn't stand it anymore, I just had to turn and look at him. I looked at him, I could see that both his eyes were on fire, were burning, and his nostrils had smoke coming out. I figured this was the man I wanted to talk to.

^^^into "Senor"

ok I spent some time with this and this is ... not good. Senor is hardly the only parody-of-his-former-self type song on here, so much of it feels disconnected and aimless, especially lyrically. I wonder if he was trying to return to his mid-60s stream-of-consciousness style and just couldn't do it, there are so many non-sequiturs here, lines and images that seems strung together for no particular reason, and with plenty of groaners in among the decent ideas (ugh New Pony). The big 70s rock band is stiff as hell and there's saxophone and r&b backing vocals all over the place where they shouldn't be - it's hard not to hear this as a response to Springsteen now that he's been mentioned. There are hints that seem to presage Slow Train Coming, which is a far superior record, but not much to grab onto here imo.

it's too bad New Pony's lyrics are so godawful I kinda like the skeevy groove of the music

i kind of love that the backup singers have to sing bizarro/awkward things in changing of the guards -- "RENEGADE PRIESTS!"

― tylerw, Thursday, May 7, 2015 2:26 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

without collapsing into laughter

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, May 7, 2015 2:28 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

one of my <3 Nick Cave moments is when he cracks up his backup singers on "Hiding All Away" when they try to follow his ridic phrasing of some line and they leave it on the track

haha yeah, that is great. i bet nick cave likes street legal.

& i probably had a pretty similar reaction to street legal as shakey did when i first heard it. but i guess i keep coming back to it as an interesting/bizarre failure.

that's a terrible clip! The horns, Dylan's stepping on the backup singers' lines, the hair.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, May 7, 2015 2:17 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's a tremendous clip! The horns, Dylan's stepping on the backup singers' lines, the hair.

― tylerw, Thursday, May 7, 2015 2:25 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha both of you OTM i'm loving this

who plays lead on that clip? all i see is a blonde blur

billy cross is his name... i think that's all i know about him. Billy Cross!

he sounds like an interesting guy!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Cross

In 2010 published a book of his memoirs "Så langt så godt – et liv med rock"

as songs about Legionaire's disease go, "Legionaire's Disease" by the Delta Cross Band is pretty good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdmQD_fNPUM

If you think "New Pony" is bad, the bit in "Is Your Love in Vain is worse:

can you cook
can you sew
can understand mah PAAAIIIIINNNN

great sentence
In 1979 he recorded the album No Overdubs with the Danish Blues/rock band Delta Blues Band

"New Pony" is half the reason I pull this record out, y'all are crazy. Not for any of the same reasons I pull out Highway 61 or Blood on the Tracks but it's cool.

why do dylan records from mid-late 70s through 90s /sound/ so awful? like, who was producing/mastering his records? some of the worst-sounding major-label records of all time, IMO.

haha yeah, that is great. i bet nick cave likes street legal.

― tylerw, Monday, May 11, 2015 3:05 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"New Pony" (which is awesome btw) feels very proto-Grinderman to me, even some of Dylan's phrasing I think Nick lifted.

Great record! LEGAL HASSLE!!

And speaking of the back-up singers on ""No Time to Think" every time they get to the "huuuu-mility!!" line I want them to sing "Hu-midity!!!"

Not sure of the exact source on this but from a Will Oldham fan site:

Nick Cave and Will Oldham met at Lollapalooza 1994 and talked about music. Will recalls: "We then regularly played "New Pony" from Bob Dylan's Street-Legal album. The pattern of Jack The Ripper from Cave's Henry's Dream is based on that of "New Pony", and he has some other songs which borrow extensively from "Street-Legal". Cave apparently saw one of our shows, came to me later on and said "Street-Legal" was his favorite Dylan album. To which I said: `I Know` [Will grins]"

why do dylan records from mid-late 70s through 90s /sound/ so awful? like, who was producing/mastering his records? some of the worst-sounding major-label records of all time, IMO.

― he quipped with heat (amateurist), Tuesday, May 12, 2015 12:19 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

agree w/ this except for 'slow train coming' i think that album sounds amazing

Great record! LEGAL HASSLE!!

― chr1sb3singer, Tuesday, May 12, 2015 7:46 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha Legal Hassle: The Tribute Band That Only Plays Songs off Street Legal and Street Hassle needs to happen. Tyler, all you need to do is relocate your family and life Minneapolis, let us know the timeframe on that.

We can also do a mash-up of "Junior Dad" & "Tempest" for the encore

LULU & the Legal Hassles: A Tribue To Street Legal, Street Hassle, and LULU

"a tribute band so specific only the people actually in the band would want to see it - 4 1/2 stars" - Rolling Stone Magazine

"The greatest disappointment. 10.0" - The ghost of Lou Reed.

can my yoko ono tribute band (Three Virgins) open

As long as you have a draw of 6 people or less, then yes

why do dylan records from mid-late 70s through 90s /sound/ so awful? like, who was producing/mastering his records? some of the worst-sounding major-label records of all time, IMO.

― he quipped with heat (amateurist), Tuesday, May 12, 2015 12:19 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

agree w/ this except for 'slow train coming' i think that album sounds amazing

― marcos, Tuesday, May 12, 2015 8:45 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well, jerry wexler produced that one, and yeah, it sounds pretty good. but the rest of 'em from the late 70s/80s... ugh.

Infidels sounds great! No complaints about its sound, which is crisp, shaped, and considered. It's the songs that suck.

Yeah. I certainly don't have an audiophile record player (even when it's working), but the last time I heard Empire Burlesque, most of it sounded still sounded good fine (Arthur Bell produced; "Disco Dylan," some snarked---ha, if only). Also Under A Red Sky, the two solo covers albums, and most everything since (though I haven't heard Oh Mercy or the Sinatra album).