Bob Dylan: Artist’s Choice - The Music That Matters to Him
(Hear Music/Starbucks Entertainment)
“Billie Mae fell in love with Joe the Barista
In another life he was a Sandinista
Five bucks for a grande Joe was how he fleeced ya
But at ten-twenty-nine she was back in line
Beggin’ him to fill her cuuuup”
— from “The Ballad of Billie Mae Starbuck (Cup o’Joe)” early, rare, nonexistent outtake from the 1973 Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid sessions
Pulitzer Prize winner Bob Dylan’s relationship with java stretches back 50 years, to his early days on the Dinkytown, Minnesota coffeehouse circuit. His bottomless refills have included pass-the-hat gigs in the coffee shops of Greenwich Village, his exotic, oft-covered Desire track “One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below)" and his 2006 “Coffee” episode of Theme Time Radio Hour. Now comes Bob Dylan: Artist’s Choice - Music That Matters To Him, a CD produced by Starbucks's Hear Music label for exclusive sale at their quaint, sparse mom-and-pop coffee shoppes.
The Artist's Choice series follows a simple concept: A well-known musician invites you to spend an hour with their record collection. Previous “hosts” include the Rolling Stones, Johnny Cash, Yo Yo Ma, Emmylou Harris and Elvis Costello.
If you have heard Theme Time on XM (you can find episodes for download here) you know that Dylan's record collection includes pretty much everything. Artist's Choice follows suit, touching upon jump blues, delta blues, bluegrass, reggae, Ethiopian pop, gypsy jazz, torch ballads, world music, rockabilly, Tejano, girl group and big-band.
Dylan's choices, like Dylan himself, seem to come from some alternate, superior universe. Some tracks are so good, you wonder how you've lived so long without them. What kind of earthly purgatory do we live in, for example, where one is forced to hear Starship’s godawful “We Built This City” 847 times without hearing Red Prysock’s joyous "Hand Clappin’" even once?
Dylan offers his commentary on each song as well. The first song, a ferocious blues from the early 60s called “Do Unto Others” by Pee Wee Crayton, begins with the same ferocious lick as the Beatles “Revolution.” As Dylan says in the liner notes: “I bet that John Lennon heard this record at a party once and probably didn’t even know who did it, but that guitar just stuck in his head.”
“Do Unto Others” is just the first of 16 gems you’ll find on Bob Dylan: Artist’s Choice. Pick one up the next time you're headin' to the valley below.
Herewith, some real eye-openers: two choice cuts from Artist's Choice, terrific versions of “One More Cup of Coffee” by Bob and the White Stripes, plus a ska-tastic early Bob Marley Track that may have served as inspiration.
Red Prysock: "Hand Clappin’" Bob Dylan: Artist's Choice
Pee Wee Crayton: “Do Unto Others” Bob Dylan: Artist's Choice
Bob Dylan: “One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below)" Live 1975: The Rolling Thunder Revue
The White Stripes: “One More Cup of Coffee.” The White Stripes
Bob Marley: “One More Cup of Coffee,” Songs of Freedom
3 comments:
There's also Bob's own Coffee show, aired on his XM Theme Time series (Season 1)
Summary from http://www.thebobdylanfanclub.com
The Singers and The Songs
The Ink Spots – Java Jive this song is on pretty much any Ink Spots collection around. Which you choose depends on how much Ink Spots you want.
Jerry Irby – One Cup of Coffee and a Cigarette – “…one of those guys who went from hillbilly to rockabilly” probably best known in the version by Glen Glenn, this is on "Jerry Irby" on the Collectibles label.
Frank Sinatra – The Coffee Song is on the album "Ring A Ding Ding"
Squeeze – Black Coffee In Bed – “A lot of people compared songwriters Chris Difford and Glen Tilbrook to Lennon and McCartney…but they were much younger.” is on their "Greatest Hits" .
Otis Redding – Cigarettes and Coffee is on the great man's "The Soul Album" .
Curtis Gordon – Caffeine and Nicotine “He had a sound that was kind of like a mix of honky tonk and western swing but with a freer, looser, more vibrant singin style.” features on a Bear Family CD "Play The Music Louder".
Lefty Frizzell – Cigarettes and Coffee Blues this song appears on several Lefty collections, eg, "Look What Thoughts Will Do", "20 Golden Hits", or "That's The Way Life Goes". Unfortunately, none of these contain the other Lefty song featured in TTRH (in the divorce edition). That only seems to be on an expensive Bear Family set "Life's Like Poetry" although I haven't searched through every disc on-line.
Sam Lightnin' Hopkins – Coffee Blues “Another name for manic depression is the blues…” yet another song with more than one recording, the first version is on an inexpensive 4-CD JSP set called "All The Classics 1946-1951". A later version is on an Ace CD compiling two Prestige/Bluesville albums, "Blues In My Bottle/Walking This Road By Myself".
Scatman Crothers – Keep That Coffee Hot can be found on "I Want To Rock 'N' Roll" .
The Larks – Coffee, Cigarettes and Tears is available on a Collectibles 2-CD set collecting the groups recordings for Apollo, but is just as easily found on yet another low price 4-CD Proper set "The Dawn Of Doo Wop" .
Bobby Darin (Robert Walden Cassotto) – Black Coffee may be found on, eg, "Mack The Knife: The Best Of Bobby Darin Vol. 2" in the Atlantic + Atco Masters series .
Sexmith and Kerr (Ron Sexmith, Don Kerr) – Raindrops In My Coffee is on the album "Destination Unknown".
Blur – Coffee and TV “You know, at one time coffee was believed to be the drink of the devil. When Pope Vincent III heard about this, he decided to taste the drink before banning it. In fact, he enjoyed coffee so much he wound up baptizing it, stating ‘Coffee is so delicious it would be a pity to let the infidels have exclusive use of it. I also feel that way about coffee. And about TV. And about Blur…” is on their album "13", or might possibly be found on a s/h CD single.
Ella Mae Morse – Forty Cups of Coffee turns up on many collections of her work. The one I have is "The Very Best Of Ella Mae Morse" on the Collectibles label.
Glen Miller Orchestra – Let's Have Another Cup of Coffee not an especially well known Miller piece. My main aim here was to find a cheap-ish disc which also contained the other (much easier to find) item played on Theme Time Radio Hour, Pennsylvania 6-5000, as a little Glenn Miller goes a fair distance for me (sorry to all his fans). Eventually I did succeed, and the set is called "Golden Greats". It's a 3-CD collection on Disky
The Places
Lake Monona
Madison , WI
Moultrie , GA
Nashville , TN
Los Angeles
The Commercials
Maxwell House
Folgers
The Movies and Musicals
Coffee and Cigarettes (Voices of Tom Waits and Iggy Pop)
The Wild Bunch
Face The Music
Other Singers and Players
Billy Kenny
Charlie Fuqua
Deke Watson
Hoppy Jones
The Brown Dots
Juan Valdez
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand – on the perfect cup of coffee: Black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love.
Johnny Jenkins and the Pine Toppers
Steve Cropper
Marty Robbins
Abbot and Costello
Flat and Scruggs
Sonny and Cher
Pope Vincent III
Voltaire
Irving Berlin
Other Songs
Secret Heart
The Record Labels
Campo Records
Reprise
Stax Records
The Poets
Henry Ward Beecher
The Guests
Billy Vera
Waldon Robert passato
Thanks for the info - I did make a mention of the Coffee episode of TTRH at the beginning of the post, but your rundown is fantastic. CHeers.
We can't start a new country till we'ins get new DNA
orrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
as wee bit of moi's parody of
"The Times They Are A-Changing"
goes
Pretend you're a sweet Christain
Pretend you're a hurt Jew
Pretend you're a Buddhist
or Satanist too
at end you ain't nothin' but DNA goo..."
Stay on groovin' safari,
Tor
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