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Times They Are A-Changin’: Bob Dylan Offering $600 18 CD Set of Bootlegs, Outtakes

Roger Friedman
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Times They Are A-Changin’: Bob Dylan Offering $600 18 CD Set of Bootlegs, Outtakes

Bob Dylan is not stupid. The poet laureate of rock sees gold in his archives. Now he’s releasing– through Columbia Records– a $600, 18 CD collection of bootlegs and outtakes from his three greatest albums: “Bringing it All Back Home.” “Blonde on Blonde,” and “Highway 61 Revisited.” They’re saying only 5000 copies are available, but if it takes off, who knows?

“The Cutting Edge” will come in all kinds of formats. There’s a 6CD set for $150. There are smaller versions, too, and they come as LPs, CDs, digital downloads. Maybe they even come as 78s.

An entire CD is devoted to 20 different takes of “Like a Rolling Stone,” Dylan’s masterpiece track from 1965.

“Normal” Dylan fans who don’t have a room devoted to him will probably be interested in the 2 CD set. That track list is as follows.

PS There’s an exciting all new edition of DA Pennebaker’s landmark film “Don’t Look Back,” also coming this fall on Blu Ray as part of the Criterion Collection.

DISC 1
1. Love Minus Zero/No Limit – Take 2 (1/13/1965) acoustic
2. I’ll Keep It with Mine – Take 1 (1/13/1965) piano demo
3. Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream – Take 2 (1/13/1965) solo acoustic
4. She Belongs to Me – Take 1 (1/13/1965) solo acoustic
5. Subterranean Homesick Blues – Take 1 (1/14/1965) alternate take
6. Outlaw Blues – Take 2 (1/13/1965) alternate take
7. On the Road Again – Take 4 (1/14/1965) alternate take
8. Farewell, Angelina – Take 1 (1/13/1965) solo acoustic
9. If You Gotta Go, Go Now – Take 2 (1/15/1965) alternate take
10. You Don’t Have to Do That – Take 1 (1/13/1965) solo acoustic
11. California – Take 1 (1/13/1965) solo acoustic
12. Mr. Tambourine Man – Take 3 (1/15/1965) with band, incomplete
13. It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry – Take 8 (6/15/1965) alternate take
14. Like a Rolling Stone – Take 5 (6/15/1965) rehearsal
15. Like a Rolling Stone – Take 11 (6/16/1965) alternate take
16. Sitting on a Barbed Wire Fence – Take 2 (6/15/1965) unreleased take
17. Medicine Sunday – Take 1 (10/5/1965) early version of Temporary Like Achilles
18. Desolation Row – Take 2 (8/4/1965) piano demo
19. Desolation Row – Take 1 (8/4/1965) alternate take

DISC 2
1. Tombstone Blues – Take 1 (7/29/1965) alternate take
2. Positively 4th Street – Take 5 (7/29/1965) alternate take
3. Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window – Take 1 (7/30/1965) alternate take
4. Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues – Take 3 (8/2/1965) rehearsal
5. Highway 61 Revisited – Take 3 (8/2/1965) alternate take
6. Queen Jane Approximately – Take 5 (8/2/1965) alternate take
7. Visions of Johanna – Take 5 (11/30/1965) rehearsal
8. She’s Your Lover Now – Take 6 (1/21/1966) rehearsal
9. Lunatic Princess – Take 1 (1/27/1966)
10. Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat – Take 8 (2/14/1966) alternate take
11. One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later) – Take 19 (1/25/1966) alternate take
12. Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again – Take 13 (2/17/1966) alternate take
13. Absolutely Sweet Marie – Take 1 (3/7/1966) alternate take
14. Just Like a Woman – Take 4 (3/8/1966) alternate take
15. Pledging My Time – Take 1 (3/8/1966) alternate take
16. I Want You – Take 4 (3/10/1966) alternate take
17. Highway 61 Revisited – Take 7 (8/2/1965) false start

(Listen) Sam Smith Couldn’t Work the Word “Spectre” Into His James Bond Theme Song

Roger Friedman
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(Listen) Sam Smith Couldn’t Work the Word “Spectre” Into His James Bond Theme Song

Maybe it’s me. I really wanted to love Sam Smith’s theme song from the James Bond movie “Spectre.” But couldn’t Smith work the title in anywhere in his song “The Writing’s on the Wall.” His melodramatic and kind of wan theme doesn’t mention ‘spectre’ once. It’s one word! It sounds like he’s singing the theme from a movie called “Writing’s on the Wall.” Most great Bond songs at least have the movie’s title somewhere in the song– “Nobody Does it Better” fit in “The spy who loved me” perfectly, for example.

Didn’t Smith like the word “Spectre”? He didn’t have to rhyme it, he could have had the “spectre of”– something.

Maybe we’ve been spoiled by Adele. But Smith’s song perhaps should have been more upbeat and less like a sequel to the “Skyfall” song. Plenty of Bond songs have rocked or at least rolled, from Paul McCartney’s “Live and Let Die” to Shirley Bassey’s “Goldfinger.” Again, the Smith song feels melo-dramatic, not actually dramatic. Pulses will not be racing as the movie starts following this introduction.

But Smith has his fans. And he has a falsetto. He’s the first male singer to tackle Bond in years, but keeps this light, and a little weepy. Maybe “Writing’s on the Wall” will grow on me. But I do wish the theme from “Spectre” made me feel like a spectre of something, a foreboding, over the proceedings.

You can hear it on Spotify here:

https://player.spotify.com/album/50bQvrNAFsAaIbqCcfD7FT

 

Pop Music: Prince A Fatality with “HitNRun,” Gaga Ignores “Hunting Ground” Song, One Direction Hits “Infinity”

Roger Friedman
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Pop Music: Prince A Fatality with “HitNRun,” Gaga Ignores “Hunting Ground” Song, One Direction Hits “Infinity”

Not sure what’s going on, why or wherefore…

Prince has struck out with his strangely released “HitNRun.” It’s number 13 on the iTunes R&B albums chart. It’s nowhere on the top 100. Prince put the album on Jay Z’s Tidal HiFi streaming service, which few have or know about. Then he put it on iTunes for downloading, but  no one’s really working it. The album will be remembered as an actual hit and run. Couldn’t he have just released it normally through Warner Music?

Lady Gaga has managed to ignore “Till It Happens to You” so that it’s doing nothing in the U.S. On the UK charts, the song from the documentary “The Hunting Ground ” is number 75. Great song. Why doesn’t Gaga go out and promote it, talk about it, the whole deal? This is a real potential Oscar nominee for Best Song. Go download it from iTunes. Proceeds go to charity.

One Direction is number 1 with their single “Infinity.” They knocked off Justin Bieber, who’s fallen to number 4 on iTunes. Elsewhere he’s around 8 or 9. One Direction’s new album is number 2 on iTunes as a pre-order for November 13th.

Sam Smith’s James Bond theme from “Spectre” imminent tonight…

John Kerry’s Producer Daughter Slips Subliminal Democratic Message into New Julianne Moore Movie

Roger Friedman
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John Kerry’s Producer Daughter Slips Subliminal Democratic Message into New Julianne Moore Movie

Listen closely when you’re watching Rebecca Miller’s wonderful new comedy, “Maggie’s Plan.” The film was just bought by Sony Pictures Classics, and hopefully will get a release this year. Julianne Moore would be a cinch for Best Supporting Actress, and Greta Gerwig is terrific. Ethan Hawke is even better than he was in “Boyhood.”

But is there a subliminal Democratic message? One of the producers is Alexandra Kerry, daughter of Secretary of State John Kerry. And one of the (very minor) characters is named Debbie Wasserman, as in DNC Chairwoman and Florida Congress-person Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. It’s no coincidence. Characters in movies aren’t named Debbie Wasserman by chance.

Does Wasserman even know she’s been named a character?

“Maggie’s Plan” is written and directed by Rebecca Miller based on a short story by Karen Rinaldi. Miller, of course, directed “Personal Velocity” and “The Ballad of Jack and Rose,” which starred husband Daniel Day Lewis. She’s the daughter of the late, great American playwright Arthur Miller. She’s hit her stride with this film, which was beloved in Toronto two weeks ago and played like gangbusters.

What you need to know: Greta Gerwig is Maggie, who planned on having a baby solo until meets John (Hawke). They have an affair that ends his marriage to Julianne Moore (hilarious with a German accent). Only, after she has the baby, Maggie realizes maybe John isn’t all he’s cracked up to be, and she wants to give him back. That’s her plan. Bill Hader and Maya Rudolph (whose husband Paul Thomas Anderson directed DDL to acclaim in “There Will Be Blood”). Rachael Horovitz is the producer who shepherded the film along to completion.

I don’t know what Sony’s plan is yet for “Maggie’s Plan” but I do hope they don’t wait too long. This is one smart comedy, up there with Nora Ephron or Nancy Meyers or Nicole Holofcener’s best work.

PS It probably won’t happen, but Julianne Moore could be up for Best Supporting in this film and lead actress in “Freeheld.” She’s that good in everything. But of course, she just won the Oscar in “Still Alice.”

 

Adele: New Album, Called “25,” Set for November 20th– A Week After Bieber, One Direction

Roger Friedman
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Adele: New Album, Called “25,” Set for November 20th– A Week After Bieber, One Direction

Adele’s long awaited third album, “25,” is scheduled for November 20th. It’s made the release list on hitsdailydouble.com without any other fanfare.

That will make almost four years since her second album, “21.”

“25” will come a week after a teeny bopper war between One Direction and Justin Bieber. That means those two acts have a week to make their cases before Adele’s sales avalanche occurs.

More to come…

Listen to the outstanding new single from the great Gladys Knight

Gladys Knight Takes the Midnight Train to Hip with Outstanding New Single “Just a Little” (Listen)

Roger Friedman
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Gladys Knight Takes the Midnight Train to Hip with Outstanding New Single “Just a Little” (Listen)

Gladys Knight is back, with a vengeance. I’ve already seen the video for her new single “Just a Little,” due October 5th. The audio single is released on Friday. You can hear it right here. If I Heart Music and I Heart Radio really love music, they’ll start spinning this without any fuss. The song is written and produced by Kanye West associate Symbolyc “S1” and Gladys’s protege Avhere. Gladys’s husband William McDowell is quarterbacking the whole deal. Buy this single on Friday. You can pre-order it everywhere now.


Video By Singersroom.com

Recalling Yogi Berra, Gone at 90: It Ain’t Over til It’s Over, And Now It’s Over

Roger Friedman
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Recalling Yogi Berra, Gone at 90: It Ain’t Over til It’s Over, And Now It’s Over

April 28, 2006: Yogi Berra and his wife, Carmen, came to a pre-screening cocktail for the documentary “Toots,” about the famed restaurateur Toots Shor .

Shor’s granddaughter, Kristi Jacobson made the film, and her producers had invited a select few to join them before the movie was shown as part of the Tribeca Film Festival.

And so to The Beekman Pub, a hidden gem in existence since the mid-1950s, came Walter Cronkite, with his lady friend Joanna Simon; Andy Rooney, baseball legend Yogi Berra and wife Carmen, Kathie Lee and Frank Gifford, famed sportswriter Maury Allen, movie producer David Brown and wife Helen Gurley Brown, and longtime Toots Shor and 21 Club greeter Harry Lavin, who for 27 years was the most powerful man in New York.

Almost all of these people are gone now, with the exceptions of Kathie Lee, Joanna Simon. Harry Lavin retired from “21” last February.

I did talk to Yogi, of course, who was in fine form.

Here is part of what I wrote, a little goodbye to Yogi and to Frank Gifford:

Yogi Berra, who just turned 81, told me he’ll be at Yankee Stadium today and tries to make one game per series at home stands.

“But it interferes with my golf,” he said. “I love my golf.”

Yogi’s memories of Toots Shor’s?

“Lots of sports players all the time,” he said with a grin. “I went there with Mickey, Billy and Whitey. DiMag” — that’s what he called Joltin’ Joe. “Those were the days.”

Boy, were they ever! His favorite celebrity he ever met there? Marilyn Monroe, maybe? Nope. “Jackie Gleason.”

And as long as we’re on the subject, did he really say all those famous Yogi-isms, like “It ain’t over ’til it’s over,” and “It’s déjà vu, all over again”?

“My wife tells me I keep saying them now,” he laughed. And grinned. Yogi has the widest grin I’ve ever seen. “I don’t hear it.”

And here’s something weird: Yogi got introduced to Cronkite. If their paths met before, neither one recalled. Joanna Simon said, “Walter, it’s Yogi Berra.” Cronkite shook his hand. “How did that baseball thing work out for you?” he asked. Yogi laughed.

Frank Gifford, looking especially well, approached Cronkite. “It’s Frank Gifford,” Simon said. (Explanation for this announcing: Cronkite, who has all his marbles at nearly 90, is stone deaf. Getting his attention takes a minute.) Gifford extended his hand to Cronkite, who cracked, “Whatever happened to Frank Gifford?”

In fact, the Giffords made a date with Cronkite and Simon to meet up with them on Martha’s Vineyard this summer. Then the Browns, who are up there in the age department, shouted to Cronkite, “See you Sunday!” They were on their way to another event.

Cronkite looked worried. Most of the guests had left for the screening. “We’d better go,” he said, “or they’ll start without us.”

Fat chance.

 

(Listen) One Direction Atones for Sins with Yom Kippur Release “Infinity”

Roger Friedman
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(Listen) One Direction Atones for Sins with Yom Kippur Release “Infinity”

Happy Yom Kippur! One Direction atones for its sins with “Infinity,” a new single released just as we shut down for the next day. You can hear it on Spotify.

Their new album, and possibly last, is called “Made in the AM.” Release date is November 13th. They’re going head to head with little Justin Bieber, whose new album also launches that day.

What will happen? Teens’ heads will burst. The two biggest teenybopper acts on the same day! Everyone duck! Parents, get out the hankies. And the cash.

The end of the world is coming. And it’s a Friday the 13th.  Our lucky day. Don’t drag me down, boys!

 

Nora Ephron Documentary Made by Her Son Curiously Omits Husband and Youngest Son

Paula Schwartz
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Nora Ephron Documentary Made by Her Son Curiously Omits Husband and Youngest Son

“Everything Is Copy” is Jacob Bernstein’s entertaining and loving remembrance and tribute to his late, famous mother Nora Ephron. (He co-directed with Nick Hooker.) The title refers to a comment by Nora’s screenwriter mother, Phoebe Wolkind, who told her daughter, “Everything was copy.” On Phoebe’s deathbed – she died of drink – she commanded Nora, “You’re a reporter. Take notes.”

(Phoebe and husband Henry Ephron wrote many classic movies, including “Desk Set” starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, 1957.)

Nora and her mother – as well as Nora’s three sisters, all writers – believed everything that happened to you was material that could be turned into stories, essays, books, films. In other words it was all fair game to mine for material. And this way you controlled the narrative.

The great gift of the documentary, which is by no means a hagiography, is to once again hear Ephron’s words, witty and wise, in her voice. “When you slip on a banana peel, people laugh at you; but when you tell people you slipped on a banana peel, it’s your laugh,” which comes from her anthology “I Feel Bad About My Neck” and which is voiced by Ephron in the documentary. “So you become the hero rather than the victim of the joke.” Always be the heroine, never the victim was her empowering mantra.

The biggest surprise of the documentary is that we don’t hear from Ephron’s husband of 25 years Nick Pileggi. Her youngest sister, Amy, is interviewed briefly, but younger son Max is not interviewed in the film. Perhaps for them her death in June 2012 at age 72 is still too close but it would have been illuminating and terrific to hear from Pileggi especially, whose absence in the film is conspicuous.

There are no big revelations about Nora’s life for anyone who followed her work or was familiar with her movies. Although maybe for the first time you hear Carl Bernstein on “Heartburn” and the effects of the film on him, where he was turned from a Watergate hero to “a goat” as someone says in the film. “The divorce between my parents went on for years and like many celebrity break ups had less to do with heartbreak than a mutual obsession with reputation. They fought over custody and child support and the movie adaptation of ‘Heartburn.’ For my mother ‘Heartburn’ was her central act of resilience, for my father it was steeped in revenge,” says Jacob Bernstein in the film.

“No question about it, I didn’t want that movie made,” Bernstein tells his son in the film. A condition for the divorce, to which Mike Nichols, who directed the film version of Nora’s book, was that Bernstein was awarded joint custody of Jacob and his brother Max and that nowhere in the film was the father to be portrayed as anything but “a loving and caring” father. Nora agreed. Mike Nichols was a signatory on the divorce papers. “It was the craziest divorce ever,” Bernstein said.

An emotional highlight in the film is when Bernstein confesses to Jacob that he was worried how the film might affect how his son regarded him and Jacob admits, “For a while it did.” Bernstein replies, “That was really interesting… for a while it did.” It seems like a spontaneous moment in the film and that this was a discussion they were having for the first time.

Early in the film as Jacob is interviewing his aunt Delia, she asks her nephew if he thought Nora would be happy that he’s made this documentary. “It was her philosophy in a certain way,” he replies.

Yet only Nora’s family members and closest knew that she had a blood disorder for the last six years of her life. When her friends were called by Jacob only a few days before her death and told of her condition they were shocked.

Jacob muses in the film, “For decades, my mother put her private life front and center. Writing about her feelings of physical inadequacy, the indignities of aging and the break up of her marriage to my father, but at the end of her life she chose to stay silent about the blood disorder that killed her. Why after being so open about everything else did she chose not to address the most significant crisis of her life?”

This was a story she couldn’t control someone suggests. And she was a control freak Delia says.

Close friends like Meryl Streep had no idea Ephron was sick and felt “ambushed” by news of her death. The various theories for why Ephron never wrote about her illness are bounced around, including that she was concerned how news of her infirmity would affect her career and opportunities to direct films, but nothing conclusive or satisfying is concluded. Nora never said why she chose not to tell she was sick. Even in the final month of her life, as she was dying in the hospital, she worked on scripts, including with her sister Delia, with whom she often collaborated.

Liz Smith, who knew Ephron well, weights in why Nora didn’t tell friends she was so ill. “She did it because she was a control freak.”

Celebrities and notable people who appear in the film to talk about Nora and read from her essays, include film agent Bryan Lourd, Richard Cohen, Bob Balaban, Barry Diller, David Remnick, Marie Brenner, Gay Talese, Steven Spielberg, Carl Bernstein, David Greenberg, Amy Pascal, Rob Reiner, Rita Wilson, Tom Hanks, Lena Dunham, Barbara Walters and the late Mike Nichols.

This is not a sentimental look at Nora Ephron, who could be bitchy and brusque and always hilarious, wise and witty. She softened after her marriage to Pileggi. “My mom was kind and she was generous,” Jacob says in the film. “She was also stern and unfailing honest and the combination of those things made people seek her approval. It’s very powerful to be someone who’s both loved and feared.”

“Everything Is Copy” is an HBO Documentary Film release schedule for next spring.

Viola Davis: “The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity”

Roger Friedman
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Viola Davis: “The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity”

I first met Viola Davis when she appeared briefly, but memorably, in “Antwone Fisher.” She appeared briefly, but memorably, in “Doubt.” Despite two Tony awards, Davis didn’t have the big, leading roles available to her that would put her over the top. It’s only now, because of Shonda Rhimes and “How to Get Away with Murder,” that this amazing actress and woman and role model has broken through. One day she will have an Oscar. Or two. Here is her speech from Sunday night. I am so proud of her.

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