Bob Dylan has never been a friend of long and groveling studio hours and eternal retakes. His principle seems to have always been that "if we don't make it in three takes, we don't make it at all." With the 1992 album "Good as I Been to You" he took this principle to the extreme. Alone, armed with only harmonica, guitar and a bunch of old folk songs, he stepped into the studio and did the whole album in a single take. The result was one of his best albums in many years. "World Gone Wrong" from 1993 repeats the same formula, another ten obscure and forgotten folk songs.
If "World Gone Wrong" was also recorded in one take, I do not know, but I wouldn't be surprised. Anyone looking for technical perfection better look elsewhere, he slips with his fingers on the guitar and misses plenty of notes. The production is very rough and the guitar sometimes jars and burrs in the speakers. But there is also a seldom intimacy that is not common in today's music climate.
Around the turn of the century thousands of songs that were sung on street corners and around campfires in the American South were circulating. They were about mythical figures like Tom Dooley, John Henry, Railroad Bill, Frankie & Albert and Stack A Lee. Figures whose life and times were constantly changed depending on who sang and what moral they wanted to convey. Historians have found real models to most of these American myths. All but Stack A Lee.
According to legend, someone named Billy has spat in Stack A Lee's hat. An angered Stack A Lee picks up a gun, and Billy asks Stack A Lee not to kill him since he has a wife and children to support. Stack A Lee kills him anyway and then it's up to the singer to determine Stack A Lee's continuing fate. During the twenties it was performed by a number of artists, including Frank Hutchinson's version from 1927, which is probably the most famous.
Later, the story of Stack A Lee was told by Lloyd Price, Sonny Boy Williamson, the Isley Brothers and many more. Even The Clash based virtually the entire "London Calling" on the myth of Stack A Lee. He changes shape, sometimes he's black, sometimes he's white. Sometimes he dies and meets the devil, sometimes he ends up in prison and is released for good behavior.
Along with "Good As I've Been to You", "World Gone Wrong" was perhaps Dylan's most passionate recording since the "Blood on the Tracks" period in the middle of seventies. There are of course exceptions; the Daniel Lanois produced "Oh Mercy" is quite spirited. And even with it's weaknesses, you can't accuse his Gospel-inspired "Saved" from 1980 of being apathetic.
What a wonderful little masterpiece "World Gone Wrong" is. Naked and stripped down. A continuation of the classic folk songs from the previous album, but even more refined and with greater presence. In some places, it feels like an echo of the early 60s pre-electric Dylan - an older and more rugged Dylan sure, but in this genre that is definitely not a disadvantage. This is archaeological perfection and deserves to be mentioned among Dylan's greatest masterpieces.
Oh, and congrats to the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature, Zimmy.
— SteemSwede
