14 | Rolling Stone | RollingStoneAus.com September, 2017
R& R
is even exceedingly rare
footageofDylanintherecordingstudio:
anhourandahalfofagrinning,bearded
Dylan working on 1970’s New Morning
tracks, including “The Man in Me”, and an-
other 90 minutes of him tracking Infidels
in 1983. Another hour of previously un-
heard of 16mm film captures Dylan hang-
ing out with the Band (and Tiny Tim) dur-
ing the Basement Tapes era; at one point,
they’re playing cards.
Rolling Stone was allowed to sift
through about 15 boxes from the collec-
tion, each one packed with revelations.
One folder included the complete contents
ofDylan’swalletfrom1966,alongwith
Otis Redding’s business card and an ad-
dress book featuring Lenny Bruce’s contact
informationaswellasscrawledlyrics.
Anotherboxwasfulloflyricsfrom- The manuscripts reveal that “Just
Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” was originally
called “Just Like Juarez”, and that at one
point “Ballad of a Thin Man” began with
the line “You walk into the room with your
hatchet in your hand”. The back of a draft
of “Subterranean Homesick Blues” con-
tains the beginning of a never-released
love song for Mavis Staples, whom Dylan
famously proposed to in 1963. “Down in
Chicago there lives a queen,” he wrote.
“She sings the blues, if you know what I
mean/Ah, Mavis/I dream she’s singing in
my sleep/But worse, I wake up thinking
that I’m in church.”
Lyricsheetsfromthe1960sthroughthe
1980saretypewritten,andrecentonesare
mostly handwritten in tiny letters on un-
lined typing paper. A lyric sheet for 2001’s
“High Water” shows meticulous craft work
in pencil and blue ink, with endless varia-
tions and revisions.
It will take years for Dylan scholarship
to catch up with the materials in the ar-
chives, which may well change the way
the world perceives him and his art. “It’s
very easy to imagine complete books being
written about each of his albums,” says
Polito. “The material is clearly here.”DYLAN ARCHIVES
A
ustralian alt-country mainstay shane nichol-
son composed tenth studio (and sixth solo) outing Love
and Blood at the bottom of a tinnie anchored on the
Hawkesbury River during a series of solo fishing trips
last year. “It was less about the place itself, and more about the
isolation,” Nicholson explains. “The fishing was just arbitrary!” A
typically expansive show of alt-country, indie-pop and Americana
songcraft, Love and Blood tails a hectic year behind the produc-
er’s desk for Nicholson – who signed on as staff producer for Uni-
versal’s Lost Highway Australia imprint in 2014. Kick-starting
his career with Brisbane’s Pretty Violet Stain, Nicholson gradu-
ated from the fertile late-Nineties alt-rock scene with 2002 solo
debut It’s a Movie. Nine albums later, Nicholson is an immov-
able fixture of the local alt-country scene. Produced by good mate
Matt Fell (John Williamson), Love and Blood couples Nicholson’s
trademark unruffled confessional style with some textured new
inclusions – including the bold New Orleans brass of “God’s Own
Army”. “I’m always looking for a point of interest,” Nicholson ex-
plains. “I’m also not trying to reinvent the wheel. When you’re
starting out, every album seems to define you. But the advantage
of continually making records is that, by the time you get to num-
ber 10 – I really didn’t think about it that much.” GARETH HIPWELLShane Nicholson Reels ’Em In
FISHERMAN’S BLUES
Nicholson’s new
album is his 10th.[Cont. from 12]