Frank-Sinatra-Forum » Neues Album: Bob Dylan covert Sinatra!

Hallo,

für alle Interessierten ein paar Ausschnitte aus Dylans einzigem Interview zum Album (ich habe mal die für Euch vielleicht interessanten Passagen zu Sinatra und zum "Great American Songbook" ausgewählt):

AARP Exclusive:

Bob Dylan Does the American Standards His Way

We are here to talk about Shadows in the Night, an album of 10 beloved songs from the 1920s to the 1960s. These are not his compositions — they are part of what is often called the Great American Songbook: familiar standards like “Autumn Leaves,” “That Lucky Old Sun” and “Some Enchanted Evening,” along with others, like 1957’s hymnlike “Stay With Me,” that are a bit obscure. In his 36th studio album, Dylan leads a five-piece band including two guitars, bass and pedal steel, and occasional horns, in austere and beautiful arrangements that were recorded live. It is a quiet, moody record with “no heavy drums and no piano,” he says more than once.

Q: Why did you make this record now?

A: Now is the right time. I’ve been thinking about it ever since I heard Willie [Nelson]’s Stardust record in the late 1970s. All through the years, I’ve heard these songs being recorded by other people and I’ve always wanted to do that. And I wondered if anybody else saw it the way I did.

Q: It’s going to be some-thing of a surprise to your traditional fans, don’t you think?

A: Well, they shouldn’t be surprised. There’s a lot of types of songs I’ve sung over the years, and they definitely have heard me sing standards before.

Q: You are very respectful of these melodies — more than you are of your own songs when you perform.

A: I love these songs, and I’m not going to bring any disrespect to them. To trash those songs would be sacrilegious. And we’ve all heard those songs being trashed, and we’re used to it. In some kind of ways you want to right the wrong.

Q: I noticed that Frank Sinatra recorded every one of these songs. Was he on your mind?

A: When you start doing these songs, Frank’s got to be on your mind. Because he is the mountain. That’s the mountain you have to climb, even if you only get part of the way there. And it’s hard to find a song he did not do. He’d be the guy you got to check with. People talk about Frank all the time. He had this ability to get inside of the song in a sort of a conversational way. Frank sang to you — not at you. I never wanted to be a singer that sings at somebody. I’ve always wanted to sing to somebody. I myself never bought any Frank Sinatra records back then. But you’d hear him anyway — in a car or a jukebox. Certainly nobody worshipped Sinatra in the ’60s like they did in the ’40s. But he never went away — all those other things that we thought were here to stay, they did go away. But he never did.

Q: Do you think of this album as risky? These songs have fans who will say you can’t touch Frank’s version.

A: Risky? Like walking across a field laced with land mines? Or working in a poison gas factory? There’s nothing risky about making records. Comparing me with Frank Sinatra? You must be joking. To be mentioned in the same breath as him must be some sort of high compliment. As far as touching him goes, nobody touches him. Not me or anyone else.

Q: So what do you think Frank would make of this album?

A: I think first of all he’d be amazed I did these songs with a five-piece band. I think he’d be proud in a certain way.

Q: Are the songs on this album laid down in the order you would like people to listen to them? Or do you care whether Apple sells them one by one?

A: The business end of the record — it’s none of my business. I sure hope it sells, and I would like people to listen to it. But the way people listen to music has changed, and I hope they get a chance to hear all the songs in one way or another. But! I did record those songs, believe it or not, in that same order that you hear them. We would usually get one song done in three hours. There’s no mixing. That’s just the way it sounded. No dials, nothing enhanced, nothing — that’s it. It’s been done wrong too many other times. I wanted to do it rightly.

Q: You wrote once that a great performer transmits emotion via alchemy. “I’m not feeling this,” you’re saying. “What I’m doing is I’m putting it across.” Is that right?

A: You’re right, but you don’t want to overstate that. It’s different than being an actor, where you call up sources from your own experience that you can apply to whatever Shakespeare drama you’re in. An actor is pretending to be somebody, but a singer isn’t. He’s not hiding behind anything. So a song like “I’m a Fool to Want You” — I know that song. I can sing that song. I’ve felt every word in that song. I mean, I know that song. It’s like I wrote it. It’s easier for me to sing that song than it is to sing “Won’t you come see me, Queen Jane.” At one time that wouldn’t have been so. But now it is. Because “Queen Jane” might be a little bit outdated. But this song is not outdated. It has to do with human emotion. There’s nothing contrived in these songs. There’s not one false word in any of them. They’re eternal.

Q: Do you wish you wrote them?

A: In a way I’m glad I didn’t write any of them. I’m good with songs that I haven’t written, if I like them. I already know how the song goes, so I have more freedom with it.

Q: These songs will have a different audience than they originally had. Do you feel like a musical archaeologist?

A: No. I just like these songs and feel I can connect with them. I would hope people will connect the same way that I do. It would be presumptuous to think these songs are going to find some new audience. The people who first heard these songs are not with us anymore. Besides, when I look out from the stage, I see something different than maybe other performers do.

Q: What are you seeing from the stage?

A: I see a guy dressed up in a suit and tie next to a guy in blue jeans. I see another guy in a sport coat next to another guy wearing a T-shirt. I see women sometimes in evening gowns, and I see punky-looking girls. I can see that there’s a difference in character, and it has nothing to do with age. I went to an Elton John show; there must have been at least three generations of people there. But they were all the same. Even the little kids. They looked just like their grandparents. It was strange. People make a fuss about how many generations follow a certain type of performer. But what does it matter if all the generations are the same?

Q: So we at AARP represent people who are 50 and older. The magazine reaches 35 million readers.

A: Well, a lot of those readers are going to like this record. If it was up to me, I’d give you the records for nothing and you give them to every [reader of your] magazine.

Q: These songs conjure a kind of romantic love that is nearly antique, because there’s no longer much resistance in romance. That sweet, painful pining of the ’40s and ’50s doesn’t exist anymore. Do you think these songs will fall on younger ears as corny?

A: You tell me. I don’t know why they would, but what’s the word “corny” mean exactly? These songs are songs of great virtue. That’s what they are. People’s lives today are filled with vice and the trappings of it. Ambition, greed and selfishness all have to do with vice. Sooner or later, you have to see through it or you don’t survive. We don’t see the people that vice destroys. We just see the glamour of it — everywhere we look, from billboard signs to movies, to newspapers, to magazines. We see the destruction of human life. These songs are anything but that.

A Man of Strong Opinions: Bob Dylan shares his thoughts on great artists and icons

Frank Sinatra

“There is no more Frank. There wasn’t before him or isn’t after. And he never went away. All those other things that we thought were here to stay, they did go away. But he never did.”

Nancy Sinatra

“Nancy is head and shoulders above most of these girl singers today. And where’d she get that? Well, she’s Frank’s daughter, right?”

Irving Berlin

“There’s only one guy that I know who did it all, and that was Irving Berlin. This guy was a flat-out genius.”

Johnny Mercer

“I love all of his stuff. “Jeepers Creepers.” “Lazy Bones.” “Blues in the Night.” If he was around now, I’d give him some of my instrumental tapes. See what he could do with them. But they might be beneath him.”

The American Songbook (collage of George Gershwin/Duke Ellington/Cole Porter)

“These songs were written by people who went out of fashion years ago. I’m probably someone who helped put them out of fashion. But what they did is a lost art form. Just like da Vinci and Renoir and van Gogh. Nobody paints like that anymore either. But it can’t be wrong to try.”

Mehr: http://www.aarp.org/entertainment/style-...p-magazine.html

Viele Grüße

Christian