Project 1- Workshop Draft

Workshop Draft

            [1] When talking about a place, it is easy to get caught up in geogr1aphical properties.  When asked “Where are you from?” many people list the name of their town and how many minutes it is to the nearest city.  They mention nothing about the culture of the people or the history that makes their town unique, rather they boil it down to a driving time. But a place is more complex, it is not a set of coordinates or a zip code, it is a collection of traditions and a cultural history.  A place is defined by the shared folklore and practices that the residents hold dear and choose to perpetuate, whether they are a set of religious beliefs, a scary children’s story, or a genre of music.  In Kansas City, Missouri, one of these defining factors is the blues, specifically the Kansas City blues, and the defining history associated with them that has shaped their modern day city.   When the The New Basement Tapes released their album, Lost on the River, they used lyrics written and locked away for years by Bob Dylan and critics began compare the album with Dylan’s previous work.  What they fail to look at is a rather surprising aspect of the album, the way it connects with and comments on the Kansas City region.  It is known that Lost on the River has obvious connections to Dylan, but it also connects to the history and culture of Kansas City, and using the technique of critical regionalism it can be seen that this album is a testament to the culture of Kansas . [2,3]

In order to look through the scope of critical regionalism, a definition of region must first be reached.  As Douglas Powell remarks, “a region is not a thing so much as a cultural history and ongoing rhetorical and poetic construction,” (Powell 6).  In other words, the cultural history of a place must be researched and examined in order to allocate something as a region.  Once that region is defined, the concept of regionalism must also be given attention.  Regionalism is a way of creating art that refers to and utilizes the history and culture of the region it is created for.  It is more advanced than creating something familiar, it should invoke feeling of home while simultaneously remaining modern. [4]

While “the blues” may seem like a ubiquitous genre, there are several nuances that very specifically distinguish those that hail from Kansas City.   Deciphering these are important, as Allison Calder says, “One of the things that neoliberalism seeks to do is to iron out nuance, to insist that the world is the same for everybody. Specific places introduce nuance because of their unique make up” (Calder1).  Kansas City blues are characterized by an unpolished sound that is derived from the nightlife history of the KC.  When musicians played jazz clubs night after night they would not bother to bring sheet music, rather playing songs from their heads with semi-consistent riffs that were passed down through the history of Kansas City (Schoenberg).  It is this spontaneity and freeness in the music that is culturally significant to KC; this spontaneity would not happen in a place like NYC where the blues are a more sophisticated and calculated art form.  The KC blues are not complicated symphonies, although the songs often lasted longer! [5]  The structures are simple and it is often considered a precursor to Rock and Roll due to the strong presence of electric guitars that were not present in Chicago’s Blues.  This is the form that The New Basement Tapes attempt to modernize and pay homage to in their album Lost on the River.

A good place to start examining this connection is the third song on the album, appropriately named “Kansas City’.  It has a feeling to it like it was recorded in a basement of a club and the overall product does not seem “too perfect”, like much of today’s music. Even though T-Bone Burnett (the producer) could have easily turned out 20 polished and flawless songs, he left the recordings slightly rough, and doing this adds to the quality of the album, much like hearing a song live in a club rather than a three-time remastered version.   “I’m going back to Kansas City” is a line that is repeated throughout the song, and people have speculated that this was Dylan’s attempt to say that he is going to step away from the craziness of his rise to fame and take it easy.  This is exactly what he did, using Kansas City as a metaphor for his secluded home in Woodstock, NY.  But why did he choose Kansas City?  He did this because throughout history, especially during the great depression, Kansas City has been a mecca of creative energy, a place where music evolved and musicians flocked much like hopeful actors to Hollywood. Buck O’Neil, a Negro League baseball player put it best when he said “The sky was the limit, anything you were big enough to do and could afford, you did it. You could do it in Kansas City,” (Schoenberg).  It is interesting that Dylan did not ultimately record this song because it allowed The New Basement Tapes to move forward and create their own modern version of what they interpret the Kansas City blues to be. Ultimately, the song has a laid back drive and sedated energy that modernizes the blues style.  Thus we see evidence that critical regionalism succeeds in analyzing Kansas City using Lost on the River.

An often overlooked part of an album is the different ways musicians write and record songs.  [6] In the case of Lost on the River, their process is historically rooted in the blue’s tradition of Kansas City .  Once Burnett acquired Bob Dylan’s lyrics, he brought together a group of uniquely talented musicians, none of whom had worked together before, to the recording studio. He let the artists collaborate in a room and through this open ended process, they are were to produce an album of modern blues hits, one that harkens back to the culture of the KC region.  Aside from the previously mentioned style aspects of KC blues, the most specific facet of the Kansas City blues were the all night jam sessions that would happen in clubs around the city every night.  The process used to record Lost on the River, mimics this in a new way.  Instead of a dimly lit jazz club at three o’clock in the morning, the New Basement Tape’s jam sessions were held in a recording studio with the only guide being a set of lyrics. This is why almost every song is very simple stylistically.  For example, “When I Get My Hands On You” features only a slow drum beat, a repeating plucked riff and a singer.  Similar to the pure jazz freedom experienced in late night jams, Lost on The River has a very free and unique sound to it, derived from the jam sessions that it mimics.  Just as soloists would play over the same chords for minutes on end, and much like the same song could last for hours due to the different interpretations of the musicians, Taylor Goldstein, one of the musicians on the album said “I thought we would all show each other our different versions of the same songs with the same lyrics and then we would all pick certain versions to chase down” (Jones).  While it does reference those early morning club scenes, the album still sounds modern, due to the fact that it was recorded in a professional studio, and this falls in line with critical regionalism, a modern piece of art that has roots in a region’s culture [7].

Another facet of the Kansas City region is the competition that jazz artists faced when they came to Kansas City, enticed by the unique jam sessions and fertile ground that existed there.  [8] When some newcomers arrived in Kansas City they were lost, not really able to fit into this new world of blues that existed there.   As Claude Williams put it, “Kansas City was different from all other places because we’d be jamming all night. And [if] you come up here … playing the wrong thing, we’d straighten you out” (Schoenberg).  This “straightening out” was not an easy process and it is the theme of the 19th track, “Six Months in Kansas City (Liberty Street).”  The lyrics follow a man who descends on the streets from “the old religion” but who “possessed no magic skill.”  This can refer to a new artist trying to make it, who has a musical background yet is nothing special when compared to others who know the style better than him.  The chorus relays the hardships of a starving artist, “Can’t find no room and board…cause a man to rob and steal…are you ready to admit defeat”.  This hardship is an interesting aspect of the cultural history in Kansas City, because it can be extrapolated to other features of the region.  If there is one thing that the residents of Kansas City hold with more reverence than the blues, it is KC barbeque.  The people of Kansas City consider themselves hard working folk and they prefer their BBQ to be robust and hearty.  They take pride in it because they consider it to be working man food. Thus the tone of this song (which is emotional and unrestrained) and its lyrics feel at home in the context of Kansas City and the album once again comments on and modernizes the region.

The set of lyrics from that song are one of the few that were recorded twice in two completely different styles.  The 5th track of Lost on the River, “Liberty Street,” use the same lyrics in a completely different style.  While the 19th track has influences of Gospel and blues and throws the vocals to every member in the band, the 5th track is a piano ballad featuring only a singer and background harmonies.  Having this song twice emphasizes two things, the first being that its message and story about Kansas City is powerful and pertinent to the album.  The second thing it emphasizes is the broad range of style that can be used to represent Kansas City.  By straying slightly away from the classic KC blues sound, they bring the sound into a modern capacity. By emphasizing tangential sounds, Lost on the River avoids romantic regionalism and stands as a distinct piece of regional culture.

However, as much as this album does say about Kansas City, Dylan’s influence cannot be ignored .  While Dylan played frequent show in KC, he is not known to be a local, and his ideas about the region could be considered coming in from the outside.  For some, this inauthentic knowledge of a region can discredit someone from creating a truly a regional piece.  Another argument against the critical regionalism analysis of this album are the intents of those who made this album.  As the name of the band suggests, The New Basement Tapes are trying to create something that stands up with Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes, which are a wide collection of songs that Dylan recorded while secluded in his Woodstock home.  Lost on the River certainly draws influence from the sound of these recordings, yet these recordings were also in the blues style.  Because Dylan had written these lyrics about Kansas City and his songs from that period were blues-rock, there is good reason to believe that he drew influence directly from Kansas City.  Thus, by looking at the album in the context of critical regionalism, there is good evidence justify interpretation as a piece of regional art [9] .

When the New Basement Tapes first met at the recording studio there existed only a box of scribbled musings from one of the greatest musicians in modern recollection.  They set out to create a new vision that deviates and stands out from the breadth of Bob Dylan’s work, and what they created was a new testament for the rich culture of Kansas City.  Lost on the River takes the night-long jam session that became the cornerstone of KC blues and transforms it into a collaborative and immersive process that results in an impressively unique album.  The New Basement Tapes take their guitars and mandolins and electrify them in a modern attempt to bring renewed energy to the streets of Kansas City.  Dylan’s lyrics poetically describe the hardships of a musician trying to make it in KC and reinforce the hardworking values of people that live there.  Through critical regionalism Lost on the River finds its home right on the banks of the Missouri in Kansas  .[10,11,12]

Comments

  1.  No title? How about Renewing Dylan’s Regionalism in The New Basement Tapes
  2. The starting position is that Lost on the River is solely connected to Bob Dylan, which is revised to include the connection to Kansas City
  3. Lost on the River represents the unique culture of Kansas City
  4. maybe use this paragraph to explain why this classifies Kansas City as a region?
  5. This kinda ruins the flow because it seems a little too much “fun facts for kids” style
  6. The way the song was recorded harkens back to old Kansas City traditions
  7. The evidence used is mainly local qualifications of Kansas City culture and descriptions of the songs and lyrics. Maybe you could include more of the actual lyrics instead of describing/interpreting them outright?
  8. this is a little bit confusing. I understand what you’re trying to communicate based on context but it’s not as clear as the rest of the paragraph
  9. I really like this paragraph and I think it contributes a lot to your discussion. If you decided to further develop any idea within your paper, as the reader, I would be interested in further discussion of the symbiotic relationship between Dylan’s effect on KC music and KC music’s effect on Dylan’s styles.
  10. For the content being discussed, the essay accommodates the audience very well, explaining both what critical regionalism is and what Kansas City blues means. It might be easier for “novice” readers if all of  the KC blues stuff was grouped together
  11. You make the concept of Kansas City blues very clear for the reader and connect Dylan’s lyrics with it well. If it were laid out so that the reader could gather all relevant information before moving on to the next piece of the argument, it would be easier to follow. My only (small) qualm with it essay is that you spend a lot of time describing Kansas City blues and relatively little time actually discussing the album and its relevance
  12. The development of the thesis could be clearer with a more logical organization and a better flow. It kinda jumps around a bit.

Plan for Revision

My main focus with these revisions is creating and advancing a claim that can be extended to the debate about critical regionalism. I also tried to create a more logical flow of ideas by concentrating relevant information for the reader.