SONG OF THE DAY
“I Shall Be Released” by The Band (Music From Big Pink, Capitol Records, 1968). Written by Bob Dylan.
INTERESTING FACTS (a la wikipedia)
– “I Shall Be Released” is a 1967 song written by Bob Dylan.
– The Band played it on their debut album, Music from Big Pink (1968), with Richard Manuel singing lead vocals, and Rick Danko and Levon Helm harmonizing in the chorus.
– A legendary performance of the song was performed near the end of The Band’s farewell concert, The Last Waltz, in which all the night’s performers (with the exception of Muddy Waters) plus Ringo Starr and Ronnie Wood graced the same stage.
– Dylan recorded two primary versions. The first is the Basement Tapes initial recording, recorded in 1967 and released on Bootleg Series 1-3 in 1991. Dylan recorded the song a second time in 1971, releasing this new recording on Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits Vol. II.
– In 1969, the Jamaican harmony group The Heptones covered “I Shall Be Released” as a Reggae tune in 1969 for Studio One and then later on in 1976 at Lee “Scratch” Perry’s Black Ark studio and label for the album Party Time.
– Clinton Heylin writes in his book Revolution In The Air: “Prisons of the body and the mind seem to have preyed on Dylan’s mind throughout his time spent with the boys on retainer. Among the songs recorded at early basement sessions were covers of “Folsom Prison Blues†and “The Banks of the Royal Canal†(the latter is particularly affecting), both songs written—metaphorically—from inside prison walls. Dylan then takes a leaf from Johnny Cash by writing his own prison song, “I Shall Be Released.†He is characteristically careful not to confuse simplicity of construction with a commensurate simplicity of meaning. The release that he is singing about is not from mere prison bars but rather from the cage of physical existence.”
– “I Shall Be Released” has been covered many times by many different artists. It has been recorded by Joan Baez, Peter, Paul and Mary, Tremeloes, Bette Midler, The Box Tops, The Byrds, Rick Nelson, Melissa Etheridge, Coheed and Cambria, Nina Simone, Paul Weller, Jerry Garcia Band, Sting, The Deftones, The Hollies, OK Go, Big Mama Thornton, The Flying Burrito Brothers and Jack Johnson.
– Jeff Buckley, Jerry Garcia Band, Martha Wainwright, Wilco, Fleet Foxes, Jack Johnson, Joe Cocker, Ben Harper, U2, Mama Cass Elliot, Mary Travers, Joni Mitchell, The Who, Neil Young, Eddie Vedder and Chrissie Hynde have all performed the song live.
– The Beatles performed it as an unreleased part of the Get Back/Let It Be sessions.
– Music from Big Pink features their best-known song, “The Weight”.
– The music was composed partly in ‘Big Pink’, a house shared by Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, and Garth Hudson in West Saugerties, in upstate New York. The album itself was recorded in studios in New York and Los Angeles in 1968. “Big Pink” is a pink house in West Saugerties, New York located at 56 Parnassus Lane (formerly 2188 Stoll Road). The house was newly built when Rick Danko, who was collaborating with Bob Dylan at the time, found it as a rental. It was to this house that Bob Dylan would eventually retreat to write songs and play them and try others, in its large basement.
– In 1998, Don & Sue LaSala purchased the house and maintain the house as a private residence and keep the creative tradition alive by creating music in the basement with friends from the Woodstock area and beyond.
– The album followed the band’s backing of Bob Dylan on his 1966 tour (as The Hawks) and time spent together in upstate New York recording material that was officially released in 1975 as The Basement Tapes, also with Dylan.
– The initial critical reception to the album was positive, though sales were slim; Al Kooper’s rave review of the LP in Rolling Stone helped to draw public attention to it. The fact that Bob Dylan co-wrote three songs on the album also attracted attention to the album.
– In 2003, the album was ranked #34 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
– Eric Clapton cites the album’s roots rock style as what convinced him to quit Cream, and pursue the styles of Blind Faith, Delaney and Bonnie, Derek and the Dominos and his debut album.
– George Harrison was also impressed by the album’s musicianship and sense of camaraderie.