A Simple Twist of Fate fails to deliver on promise

Simple Twist of Fate: Bob Dylan and the Making of Blood on the Tracks, by Andy Gill and Kevin Odegard

By Stephen Pate – Sometimes you’ll read a book twice on purpose when you want to learn the contents. Other times you pick a book up and only realize around the second chapter you’ve read it before.

This was my second read of “A Simple Twist of Fate: Bob Dylan and the Making of Blood on the Tracks” by Andy Gill and Kevin Odegard. A slight book at 212 pages, it didn’t seem like a waste of time to read again and it wasn’t; however the original annoyances returned almost immediately.

While interesting as a history of how Bob Dylan recorded “Blood on the Tracks“, it relies too much in the amateur criticism of the authors and the sour grapes reminiscences of the musicians, engineers and producers, especially Odegard a guitarist on some of the songs.

“Blood on the Tracks” was Bob Dylan’s 1974 come-back album that has been called his greatest, at least for wearing a broken heart on one’s sleeve. See Rolling Stone review.

Dylan is both a romantic and a cynic. Many early fans are in love with the snarling sarcasm of “Like A Rolling Stone” and his poetic flights in “Visions of Johanna”. They tend to pass negative judgments on other periods and recordings but almost everyone agrees “Blood the Tracks” is a classic Dylan work.

It produced the snarling “Idiot Wind” and the fan favourite “Tangled Up In Blue.”

Personally, I’m willing to give Dylan the wide latitude earned by a great artist. Some of his work is obviously more successful than other parts; however, I tend to appreciate it all as part of Dylan’s ouevre.

A book about one recording seems like a slight job. The story is: Bob’s marriage is on the rocks and he creates one great album that expresses his inner angst with poetic skill that clicks with his audience.

Dylan had taken the later part of the 60’s off to raise a family, creating laid back material that became “John Wesley Harding “, “Nashville Skyline” and “Planet Waves“.

Fans were writing Dylan off as a has-been of the 60’s. By early ’74 Dylan’s bucolic life at Woodstock had turned boring and he was looking for the rock and roll thrill again.

In the fall of 1974, Dylan was coming off the Before the Flood tour with the Band, a come-back for Dylan and the Band. For a critical comment on that double album, see Michael Bailey’s column in All About Jazz and the various fan comments at Amazon.com

The story of the book is how Dylan recorded “Blood on the Tracks” in New York City with Eric Weissberg, Deliverance and famous producer Phil Ramone . Phil Ramone was the hit maker producer for artists such as Quincy Jones, Peter Paul and Mary, Dionne Warwick and the Band. Eric Weissberg, a multi-instrumentalist. had recently become famous for the “Dueling Banjos” theme from the movie “Deliverance”.

Listening to the tapes, Dylan decided he could do it better. Over Christmas Dylan recorded the music again in Minneapolis with a pick up band of local musicians. The released album contains 5 songs from the NYC sessions and 5 from Minneapolis.

Initially only Dylanologists knew the difference since the album cover and credits have never changed from the Weissberg and Ramone credits.

All of the album re-prints contain the error in credits and the authors go on at great length to interview the musicians, disgruntled and otherwise on the omission. The point could have been made in less than 10% of the space devoted to the topic.

Of more interest would have been a careful dissection of the songs, the various versions that are in official release and on bootlegs. Most Dylan collectors already have both versions. I would have been interested in reading about the Blood on the Tracks SACD DSD release which changes the sound dynamic in a big way.

Some of the material is original since no other participant in the Minneapolis sessions has written extensively on the recording. We get a good idea of Dylan’s difficult recording process where he strives for spontaneity over perfection.

However, the book fails to deliver on the promise of the story behind “Blood on the Tracks”. We get some of the negative and positive personal stories but not enough about the music itself.

The book probably represents the decades long grudge of author Kevin Odegard who was a session guitarist on the Minneapolis sessions and didn’t get any recognition. With the book and the Internet, Odegard has listed himself as appearing in five different versions of the album, which seems presumptuous to me.

See Bob Dylan: The Recording Sessions, 1960-1994, Clinton Heylin, ST. Martin’s Press for a more objective and succinct discussion of this and every Bob Dylan recording up to 1994. Oddly, Heylin misspells Odegard’s name as “Ken” not Kevin.

Worth picking up used for less than $10 under Bob Dylan gossip and some musicology books.