Description
Down a Dead End Street is a tribute album featuring selected songs written by Bob Dylan, recorded by the American singer and songwriter Chris Taylor of Love Coma fame, self-released in October 2017. The album was produced, recorded, and mixed by Chris Taylor.
Featuring Chris Taylor on vocals, guitars, percussion, keyboards, and loops; Mitchell Connell on electric guitars; Val Cronk on pedal steel; and Jeff Elbel on both fretted and fretless bass; as well as Anthony Gravley sitting in on drums on “Man of Peace”.
I’ve been a mega-fan of Bob Dylan since 1989. I came to his music late in the game but it was Oh Mercy that caught my attention and since then I’ve purchased just about everything he’s released and have dozens of bootlegs and have heard studio session tapes from different albums throughout the years. I’ve been playing 2-3 hour shows of nothing but Bob Dylan songs… just as a whim. So it only seemed a natural next step to record them and release them to you. It was impossible to pick only 9 of my favorite Dylan songs, so I just started recording and these were the first 9 I finished. There are way too many songs I didn’t choose, I figured they were best listened to by the master himself. Here are nine of my favorites & hopefully soon to be nine of your favorites too! If, for some reason you’ve never been a fan of Bob Dylan but like my music… don’t miss this opportunity to see what I see in his music. It’s just a glimpse but oh, what a picture he paints! Oh… in case you’re wondering, the title of this album came from a song on his Down In The Groove album, Ninety Miles An Hour (Down a Dead End Street) written by: H. Blair and D. Robertson. It jumped out at me… – Chris Taylor
Texas-based Chris Taylor has built up a cult following and on this set he has picked out his own list of influential tracks from the icon that is Bob Dylan. What Chris manages to do well is maintain a sense of the rough, gravely feel of classic Dylan whilst giving each a warm polished edge. With his silky vocals he glides through the delivery of these nine tracks effortlessly, at times bringing an edge of Mark Knopfler to the proceedings. The Academy Award winning «Things Have Changed» opens the list of classics and features a haunting guitar that is restrained and full of depth. «Man Of Peace» introduces a blues element to the recording as the rhythm and bass sections roll, creating a grimy undercurrent to a track that rumbles along. The most gospel orientated track in the collection is «Gotta Serve Somebody» which is underpinned by a prominent smooth bassline. Throughout the album there is an authentic acoustic feel that creates a spacious sound where the lack of sophisticated instrumentation enhances the energy and captivates the listener. I am aware that Dylan fans may approach a full set of cover tracks with trepidation but I would reassure the nervous that Chris has not tried to reinvent the originals, only present them afresh to a new generation of listeners. With crisp production and a classic edge I am sure this offering will win Chris Taylor a new set of fans as he sensitively paints a picture of a musical giant in nine hope-filled portraits. [Ian Webber, Cross Rhythms, January 2018]
These days, San Antonio singer/songwriter and painter, Chris Taylor can be heard regularly around his hometown playing The Cove and other places where original music is till appreciated. Plus, he has over two-dozen releases available on his Bandcamp page, including records he made back in the mid 90’s with the band Love Coma. (Trivia note: Another member of that band, Matt Slocum went on to form the band Sixpence None the Richer with vocalist Leigh Nash, and produced that global megahit, «Kiss Me».) While I can’t speak for many of those, his 2013 release, Travelers Hotel, made my “best of year” list, for his smart songwriting and lovely, smooth-as-silk singing voice, and I regularly revisit his 2014 album, Daylight, that I picked up when he played Columbus on a rare tour north, accompanying two of his musical heroes, the duo in Kerosene Halo.
But this time out, Taylor has chosen to pay tribute to one of the more important songwriters, and musical influences of our lifetime, Bob Dylan. Now most Dylan fans have their own list of his best/most important songs, so I can’t imagine someone making a Dylan tribute album that didn’t include «Tangled Up In Blue», «Every Grain of Sand», or «Forever Young», but obviously nobody wants to hear me sing, as it might provide the one occasion in recent years when someone said they would prefer to hear Dylan’s own ragged voice, which has not weathered these years of endless touring as successfully as his songwriting. So, on Down A Dead End Street, we hear Taylor’s pick of 9 songs from the massive catalog of Dylan, and benefit from his sweet vocal interpretations of these memorable works.
The two opening tracks are among the strongest representations herein, «What Was It You Wanted», from the 1989 album Oh Mercy, and «Things Have Changed», which didn’t show up on a Dylan album before being added to the soundtrack of the movie “Wonder Boys,” which won him the Academy Award for best original song for 2000. Taylor’s intention is not to reinvent these finely written works, but to serve the song’s original poetry and melody in a respectful and meaningful way. While much of the record benefits from Taylor’s reverential nods to Dylan’s craft, it’s his own articulation supported by the spellbinding effect of Mitchell Connell’s lead guitars. «Man of Peace», from ‘83’s Infidels, picks up the pace, and is the one song here that benefits from the presence of a live drummer, Anthony Gravely, while bassist Jeff Elbel adds his tones to the drum machine sounds that sustain the rest of the album.
There’s two from Dylan’s controversial “Christian” period, which has just been memorialized with the recent release of Trouble No More – The Bootleg Series vol. 13/1979-1081. Taylor covers «Gotta Serve Somebody», the airplay single from Slow Train Coming, and closes out the record with the less well-known, «Pressing On», from Saved, both which benefit from the presence of a Gospel choir. But the remaining four selections speak to the breadth and depth of Dylan’s catalog, «Simple Twist of Fate», «Ballad of Hollis Brown», «Blind Willie McTell», and «Man In the Long Black Coat», and Taylor serves them up as if he’s the first one who discovered them, a benefit to a generation that perhaps has refused to taste the fruits of this genius.
My suspicion is that Dylan fans who visit these recordings out of curiosity, will be intrigued enough to seek out Chris Taylor’s original songs, and from my experience it will be quite worth the effort. [Brian Q. Newcomb, The Fire Note, November 28, 2017]
CD tracklist:
01. What Was It You Wanted – 5:38
02. Things Have Changed – 6:25
03. Man Of Peace – 6:28
04. Simple Twist Of Fate – 6:09
05. Gotta Serve Somebody – 5:02
06. Ballad Of Hollis Brown – 6:49
07. Blind Willie McTell – 5:06
08. Man In The Long Black Coat – 3:400
09. Pressing On – 4:30
Note: Available at Bandcamp: https://christaylor.bandcamp.com/album/down-a-dead-end-street-tribute-to-bob-dylan
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