Bob Dylan and the intolerance to the Eighties

In the network’s surprise appears on a bootleg of a disk completely unreleased, recorded in 1985 by the american artist. After The Empire (Unreleased Album Recorded May/October 1985), sound quality very good, is composed of fifteen pieces where they are azzannati ancient loves rockabilly, blues, Rolling Stones, gospel. The review.

That years outback which were for Bob Dylan, those of the hedonism of the Reagan-iano, the 80s: he played with the image of rockstar tires and criticism when he could, very often, the slaughtered – and with the public in the middle of the two poles does not know what to do, whether to stay by her, or whether to trust the “experts”. In the mid of the decade of thaw, Dylan gives to prints, Empire Burlesque (1985), a disc that is still to discuss, not so much for the quality of the songs, that between an Emotionally Yours, and a Tight Connection To My Heart (Has Anybody Seen My Love?) remains pretty high, but for the clear concession to the sampled sounds, pumped synth and hi-tec in the period. Put well as that, it seems, to console him pasticciò not a little, it is said without the knowledge of the producer Arthur Baker – as did a couple of years before with Mark Knopfler era Infidels (1983). Well, did you know that even Empire Burlesque was released, and Bob is put already at work for a new album remained unreleased up to today? In the middle of summer 2016 arrives After The Empire (Unreleased Album Recorded May/October 1985), twelve pieces plus three alternate takes never heard before – for all those fans of the matter of Dylan-iana a real bolt from the blue.

The notes that we were able to collect are rather fragmentary. After The Empire seems to have been recorded in a period that goes from spring to the autumn of 1985 at Cherokee Studios in Hollywood, California, and the only musicians confident in the session are bassist Vito San Filippo (years the first part of Tower of Power), drummer Raymond Lee Pounds (already in the service of Stevie Wonder and a plethora of other lap black music of the Seventies/Eighties) and to the voices of the Queens of Rhythm, Carolyn Dennis (future wife of Dylan), madelyn has Quebec and Elisecia Wright – although long listening you hear a pianist and a guitarist in addition to many of the songs, that we’d be prepared to bet are the Heartbreakers Benmont Tench and Mike Campbell, as to which we we repair the areas of the sacred by evoking the benefit of the doubt.

But having said all that, Bob Dylan meet in the After The Empire? The net impression is that the artist is the prey of the total reaction compared to the preciousness productive of Infidels and Empire Burlesque – is a Dylan dispassionately rock & roll, in the sense that it plays to take a bite out of ancient loves rockabilly, blues, Rolling Stones, gospel. Of course, it’s all very rough-cut, as they say in technical jargon, but in the different steps of the bootleg, which also has a sound quality very good, it catches, without doubt, the virtues of different pieces – which, however, does not seem to have been used or recycled, also in terms of ideas, in the albums. In essence, After The Empire is born and dies in those middle months of 1985. Moments of thickness we can catch different Baby Coming Back From The Dead, long rockabilly of over eight minutes with a Dylan who pulls out the claws – Nothing Here Worth Dying For, beautiful gospel, dirt, Stones – Bring It Home To Me, a little bit the original song and a bit not seen that the echo of the famous piece of Sam Cooke is also evident if Bob harden all over with a shot of rock and shoots a text of his own – up to Find Me, sketch the rock and roll easy-as easy as pleasant. In a few words, the recording is as if it was a gym where Bob Dylan jotted down sketches, ideas and attempts – therefore, take them for such, which here and there make a great first impression.