Oh Mercy
Encyclopedia
Oh Mercy is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan
's 26th studio album
, released by Columbia Records
in September 1989.
Produced by Daniel Lanois
, it was hailed by critics as a triumph for Dylan, after a string of weaker-reviewed albums. Oh Mercy gave Dylan his best chart showing in years reaching #30 on the Billboard charts in the US and #6 in the UK.
Dylan's sudden rush of inspiration did not stop there. Days later (during the first week of 1988), he wrote verses for a second song, "What Good Am I?", over the course of one evening in a small art studio located on his property. The next day, he wrote another called "Dignity". Unlike his previous two songs, "Dignity" was written with the rhythm, tempo, and melody all in Dylan's head. Completed over the course of the entire afternoon and evening, Dylan composed the song after hearing of Pete Maravich
's death on the morning news. Dylan had seen the basketball
legend play in an NBA game years before and was saddened by his passing.
Over the next month or so, Dylan composed many more songs (20 by his estimate), including "Everything Is Broken", "Disease of Conceit", and "What Was It You Wanted?" Melodies were written for only a minority of them, and all of them were stored in a drawer in his home.
In the meantime, Dylan's injury was healing well, and was encouraged by his doctor to play guitar again, as such activity was needed to stretch out his hand. Dylan began playing concerts again soon after his recovery, but for the most part, his songwriting ceased once his hand had healed.
As Clinton Heylin reports, while promoting The Traveling Wilburys in the fall of 1988, George Harrison
discussed some of Dylan's upcoming work. "Harrison enthused about Dylan's new songs...informing a skeptical world that the experience of recording the Wilburys had given him the urge to write again."
Harrison was not the only peer to receive a preview of Dylan's next album, but he was possibly the first to mention it to the press. Earlier that year, Bono
, lead singer of U2
, paid Dylan a friendly visit at his home. When he asked Dylan if he had written any new songs, Dylan showed him the ones stored in his drawer. Bono urged him to record the songs, but Dylan was reluctant because he had a difficult time recording his last few records.
In a 1989 interview, Dylan said, "Bono...suggested that Daniel [Lanois] could really record them right. Daniel came to see me when we were playing in New Orleans last year and...we hit it off. He had an understanding of what my music was all about. It’s very hard to find a producer that can play...and [still] knows how to record with modern facilities. For me, that was lacking (in) the past."
Daniel Lanois
was best-known for high-profile projects like Peter Gabriel
's So
and U2
's The Joshua Tree
. He had also produced the self-titled debut of Dylan's one-time collaborator, Robbie Robertson
. Dylan would first meet Lanois in September 1988, during a stop on the Never Ending Tour
. Lanois was producing a session for The Neville Brothers
, who were in the middle of recording Yellow Moon. (Two vintage Dylan compositions — "Ballad of Hollis Brown" and "With God on Our Side" — would be included on Yellow Moon.) Held in a portable studio set up in an old colonial house in New Orleans, the session gave Dylan a firsthand look at what it would be like to work with Lanois. Dylan already liked the idea of recording in New Orleans, with its rich history in popular music, and witnessing the relaxed but professional nature of Lanois's work ethic persuaded Dylan to hire him as producer.
Six months later, Dylan began holding sessions, first at a house in Emlah Court, then to 1305 Soniat Street where they spent the bulk of their time. "We found an empty turn-of-the-century apartment building — a five-story building, a fantastic place", recalls Lanois. "It had a bordello-ish overtone. We essentially turned the control room into a swamp...we had moss all over the place and stuffed animals and alligator heads...On the record there's not really the obvious presence of synthesizers, just straight-ahead drums and bass and guitars, yet there's this blazing strangeness around it."
Dylan did not want to use his touring band so Lanois recruited a number of local musicians for these sessions, including guitarists Mason Ruffner and Brian Stoltz, bassist Tony Hall, and drummer Willie Green, all of whom were very accessible. However, much of the activity revolved around three performers: Dylan, Lanois, and engineer Malcolm Burn. Lanois himself played dobro
, lap steel, guitar, and even omnichord throughout the sessions. Burn occasionally handled tambourine, keyboards, and bass, and he was later given co-production credit. By running the sessions this way, Dylan was freed from a demanding schedule. "Daniel just allowed the record to take place any old time, day or night. You don't have to walk through secretaries, pinball machines and managers and hangers-on in the lobby and parking lots and elevators and arctic temperatures", Dylan said.
"With all records there comes a time when people get a little bit lazy, because it's a tiring and unnatural process", Lanois said. "There came a time with Bob Dylan when I felt he fell into old habits — 'Get somebody else to play on it,' he'd say, or 'just hire somebody,' when really he should have been playing the parts. And I made it clear to him that we weren't going to fly anybody in, and we weren't going to have session players play these parts. The parts would be played by the people in the room, by himself, by myself, by the engineer Malcolm Burn, by the neighborhood guys that we'd chosen to be on the record. It was not going to be a studio record. He was going to play the parts, and if they were a little sloppy they would be accepted that way."
As Dylan would later detail in his autobiography, the sessions were very difficult. The first day was spent recording "Political World", which Lanois pushed in a 'funky' direction. Dylan did not like the arrangement, and the next day, he discovered that Lanois and the others had continued working on "Political World" even after he left. The mix and overdubs finished in Dylan's absence were not to his liking, and his disappointment grew as they continued to experiment with the arrangement and the mix. Dylan felt the whole process was more difficult than it should be and that Lanois was not communicating very well; at one point, Lanois destroyed a dobro in a fit of rage.
Eventually, "Political World" was set aside and the group focused on another song, "Most of the Time", which still needed a melody. They managed to compose one fairly quickly, but as work continued, Dylan became more dissatisfied with the results.
They moved on to the next song, "Dignity", which was recorded with Dylan, Stoltz, and Green. Though they managed to complete a polished performance, Lanois suggested something more ambitious with a Cajun
band. Curious to see what Lanois had in mind, Dylan agreed to recut the song. The next evening, a session was held with Rockin' Dopsie and His Cajun Band, but the results were disastrous. The group experimented with different keys and tempos, but according to Dylan, everyone was frustrated with the results. Dylan still preferred the original version recorded the previous day, but it was not considered finished by Dylan or Lanois. (In his autobiography, Dylan refers to the original version as a "demo".) As the session continued into the early morning hours, the group gave up and began playing old standards like "Jambalaya", "Cheatin' Heart", and "There Stands the Glass". It was during this time that Dylan tried out another new song, "Where Teardrops Fall". "I showed it quickly to Dopsie and we recorded it", Dylan later wrote. "Took about five minutes and it wasn't rehearsed."
The next day, they listened to every take of "Dignity" recorded with Dopsie and his band, and all of them were rejected. "Whatever promise Dan had seen in the song was beaten into a bloody mess", Dylan recalled. "Where we had started from, we'd never gotten back to, a fishing expedition gone nowhere. In no take did we ever turn back the clock. We just kept winding it. Every take another ball of confusion."
However, Dylan was struck by their recording of "Where Teardrops Fall", and even though Lanois insisted on recutting it (which they did), Dylan eventually went back to the original version and used it for the album. In the meantime, "Dignity" was set aside, never to be revisited for the remainder of the sessions.
The next song was "Series of Dreams
", and "although Lanois liked the song, he liked the bridge better, wanted the whole song to be like that", wrote Dylan. "I knew what he meant, but it just couldn't be done. Though I thought about it for a second, thinking that I could probably start with the bridge as the main part and use the main part as the bridge...the idea didn't amount to much and thinking about the song this way wasn't healthy. I felt like it was fine the way it was — didn't want to lose myself in thinking too much about changing it." Lanois would continue to experiment with the song, but Dylan ultimately left it off the album.
Other songs were also finished with compromises; Dylan wasn't satisfied with the melody on "What Good Am I?" and felt the tempo was too slow, while Lanois wasn't enthusiastic about "Everything Is Broken", believing it to be an insignificant song.
"I wasn't looking to express myself in any kind of new way", Dylan would later write. "All my ways were intact and had been for years. There wasn't much chance in changing now. I didn't need to climb the next mountain. If anything, what I wanted to do was to secure the place where I was at. I wasn't sure Lanois understood that. I guess I never made it plain, couldn't put it in so many words."
Despite the arguments with Lanois, Dylan was genuinely pleased with the production, and not everything was recorded with difficulty. "Ring Them Bells" was finished quickly with ease, and Dylan was very happy with the result.
During the course of the sessions, Dylan would also write two more songs, "Shooting Star" and "Man in the Long Black Coat"; he finished both after a brief respite with his wife outside of New Orleans and would include both on the album.
Roughly fourteen or fifteen songs were recorded at these sessions, with many of the basic tracks cut live to tape. One major exception was the lead vocals; all but two songs had their live vocals replaced by overdubs accommodating new lyrics written for the same songs.
In regard to "Everything Is Broken", Dylan wrote, "Danny didn't have to swamp it up too much, it was already swamped up pretty good when it came to him. Critics usually didn't like a song like this coming out of me because it didn't seem to be autobiographical. Maybe not, but the stuff I write does come from an autobiographical place." A propulsive, riff-driven number, it was the first single issued from Oh Mercy.
A ballad with an almost hymnal poise to it, "Ring Them Bells" is one of the more celebrated tracks on Oh Mercy, and also where Lanois' production is at its most subtle and restrained. The song features some spiritual overtones, invoking St. Peter, St. Catherine and a "Sweet Martha" who may or may not be the biblical Martha. It opens with the verse, "Ring them bells ye heathen/From the city that dreams/Ring them bells from the sanctuaries/Cross the valleys and streams."
"Ring Them Bells" was also one of two songs that was released with its live vocals intact. The other song was "Man in the Long Black Coat", sequenced right after "Ring Them Bells".
"One of my favorites is 'Man in the Long Black Coat,' which was written in the studio, and recorded in one take", recalls Lanois. Praised by Heylin as a "powerful reinterpretation of the 'Daemon Lover' motif", "Man in the Long Black Coat" also contains some prominent use of apocalyptic imagery, evoking a place where the "water is high" and "tree trunks uprooted". In his own assessment of "Man in the Long Black Coat", Dylan wrote that "in some kind of weird way, I thought of it as my 'I Walk the Line,' a song I'd always considered to be up there at the top, one of the most mysterious and revolutionary of all time, a song that makes an attack on your most vulnerable spots, sharp words from a master". Supporters and critics alike have called "Man in the Long Black Coat" one of the strongest tracks on Oh Mercy.
The second half of Oh Mercy is notable for its sustained moodiness and resignation, often in relation to romantic dissolution. This is immediately apparent on the atmospheric "Most of the Time", which features the richest, most ambitious production on the entire album. Described as "magisterial" by Allan Jones of Melody Maker, the narrator in "Most of the Time" sings of an estranged lover whom the narrator can't quite shake from his memories. The song addresses an irreconcilable, personal relationship, and this theme would continue through "What Good Am I?", a frank look at the narrator's moral worth, and "What Was It You Wanted".
Though he is still uncertain of its origins, in his autobiography Dylan does write that "Disease of Conceit" may have been inspired by the defrocking of Jimmy Swaggart
.
The album closes with "Shooting Star", a wistful ballad of remembrance with possible allusions to the loss of Dylan's Christian faith. Dylan appears to address Christ: "Seen a shooting star tonight and I thought of me/If I was still the same/If I ever became what you wanted me to be". The next line, "Did I ever miss the mark or overstep the line that only you could see" makes an apparent reference to Joseph Addison Alexander
's poem "There is a line by us unseen/That crosses every path/The hidden boundary between/God's patience and His wrath.". The words occasionally evoke some portentous imagery ("the last fire truck from hell goes rollin' by"), but it ends the album on a soft, romantic note.
One of Dylan's most ambitious compositions, "Series of Dreams" is given a tumultuous production from Daniel Lanois
. The lyrics are fairly straightforward, giving a literal description of the turmoil encountered by the narrator during a "series of dreams." However, the descriptions quickly unfold into a set of highly evocative verses.
During a Sound Opinions
interview broadcast on Chicago FM radio, Lanois told Chicago Tribune critic Greg Kot that "Series of Dreams" was his pick for the opening track, but ultimately, the final decision was Dylan's. NPR's Tim Riley would echo these sentiments, writing that "'Series of Dreams' should have been the working title song to Oh Mercy, not a leftover pendant."
Another outtake, "Dignity", was one of the first songs written for Oh Mercy. Dylan viewed "Dignity" as a strong contender for the album, and an extensive amount of work was done on it. However, Dylan was dissatisfied with the recorded results, resulting in his decision to omit it.
Easily the two most celebrated outtakes from Oh Mercys sessions, Dylan would not only perform "Dignity" and "Series of Dreams" live, he would eventually issue them on official releases. "Series of Dreams" was the final track on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991, and it was later included on 1994's Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume 3
. "Dignity" was performed live during a 1994 appearance on MTV Unplugged
, and the same performance was later issued on the accompanying album. A radically remixed version of "Dignity" featuring new overdubs was released on Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume 3
, while the original Lanois production would not see release until the soundtrack album
of the television show, Touched by an Angel
.
Listed as "Broken Days/Three of Us" on the track sheets, the original version of "Everything Is Broken" was briefly issued on-line as an exclusive download on Apple Computer
's iTunes music store. In 2008, it was remastered from a better source and reissued on The Bootleg Series Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs
. Described by Heylin as an "evocation of a fragmented relationship", the lyrics were later rewritten and overdubbed with new vocals and an additional guitar part.
Two more outtakes, "Born In Time" and "God Knows", were set aside and later re-written and re-recorded for Dylan's next album, Under the Red Sky
. Versions of both songs from the Oh Mercy sessions were also included on The Bootleg Series Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs
. "The Oh Mercy outtake of 'Born In Time' was one of those Dylan performances that so surrendered itself to the moment that to decry the lyrical slips would be to mock sincerity itself", wrote an enamored Heylin.
and Down in the Groove
, Oh Mercy was hailed as a comeback in a year when several long-time veterans were releasing their own 'comeback' albums, including Paul McCartney
with Flowers In The Dirt
, The Rolling Stones
with Steel Wheels
, Neil Young
with Freedom
, Tom Petty
with Full Moon Fever
, Bonnie Raitt
with Nick of Time
, and Lou Reed
with New York
. Consensus was strong enough to place Oh Mercy at #15 in The Village Voice
s Pazz & Jop
Critics Poll for 1989. Also in 1989, Oh Mercy was ranked #44 on Rolling Stone
magazine's list of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s.
Oh Mercys unique production was unlike anything ever released on a Dylan record, and it drew praise from a majority of critics. Robert Christgau
of The Village Voice
wrote, "Daniel Lanois
's understated care and easy beat suit [Dylan's] casual ways, and three or four songs might sound like something late at night on the radio, or after the great flood. All are modest and tuneful enough to make you forgive 'Disease of Conceit,' which is neither."
But as Heylin notes, "Though many a critic who had despaired at the sound of Dylan's more recent albums enthused about the sound on Oh Mercy, it was evident that rock music's foremost lyric writer had also rediscovered his previous flair with words."
Bill Wyman
even went so far as to criticize the production in praising the songs. "Taken over by Daniel Lanois, master of a shimmering and distinctive electronically processed guitar sound...[the album] is overdone", writes Wyman. "It's irritating to hear Dylan's songs so manipulated, but there are sufficient nice tracks — "Most of the Time", "Shooting Star", both simple and direct, among them — to make this by far the most coherent and listenable collection of his own songs Dylan has released since Desire."
Though it did not enter Billboards Top 20, Oh Mercy remained a consistent seller, enough to be considered a modest commercial success.
By the end of the year, Dylan would begin planning his next album, to be produced by Don and David Was of Was (Not Was)
, using the Oh Mercy outtake "God Knows" as a starting point.
To celebrate the album's 20th anniversary, Montague Street Journal: The Art of Bob Dylan dedicated roughly half of its debut issue (published in 2009) to a roundtable discussion on Oh Mercy.
In 2006, Q magazine
placed the album at #33 in its list of "40 Best Albums of the '80s". During that same year, "Political World" appeared in the film Man of the Year
.
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
's 26th studio album
Studio album
A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...
, released by Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
in September 1989.
Produced by Daniel Lanois
Daniel Lanois
Daniel Lanois born September 19, 1951 in Hull, Quebec) is a Canadian record producer, guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter. He has released a number of albums of his own work and has produced albums for a wide variety of artists, including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Peter Gabriel, Emmylou Harris, Willie...
, it was hailed by critics as a triumph for Dylan, after a string of weaker-reviewed albums. Oh Mercy gave Dylan his best chart showing in years reaching #30 on the Billboard charts in the US and #6 in the UK.
Writing and recording
While recovering from a hand injury in December 1987, Dylan sat at his kitchen table late one evening and wrote "Political World", his first new song in a long time. It was a surprising development as he no longer felt motivated to write songs, but according to his autobiography, "Political World" came to him spontaneously and was easy to write; though no melody was composed, he came up with 20 verses.Dylan's sudden rush of inspiration did not stop there. Days later (during the first week of 1988), he wrote verses for a second song, "What Good Am I?", over the course of one evening in a small art studio located on his property. The next day, he wrote another called "Dignity". Unlike his previous two songs, "Dignity" was written with the rhythm, tempo, and melody all in Dylan's head. Completed over the course of the entire afternoon and evening, Dylan composed the song after hearing of Pete Maravich
Pete Maravich
Peter "Pistol Pete" Press Maravich was an American professional basketball player. Born and raised in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, Maravich starred in college at Louisiana State University and played for three NBA teams until injuries induced him to retire in 1980...
's death on the morning news. Dylan had seen the basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
legend play in an NBA game years before and was saddened by his passing.
Over the next month or so, Dylan composed many more songs (20 by his estimate), including "Everything Is Broken", "Disease of Conceit", and "What Was It You Wanted?" Melodies were written for only a minority of them, and all of them were stored in a drawer in his home.
In the meantime, Dylan's injury was healing well, and was encouraged by his doctor to play guitar again, as such activity was needed to stretch out his hand. Dylan began playing concerts again soon after his recovery, but for the most part, his songwriting ceased once his hand had healed.
As Clinton Heylin reports, while promoting The Traveling Wilburys in the fall of 1988, George Harrison
George Harrison
George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...
discussed some of Dylan's upcoming work. "Harrison enthused about Dylan's new songs...informing a skeptical world that the experience of recording the Wilburys had given him the urge to write again."
Harrison was not the only peer to receive a preview of Dylan's next album, but he was possibly the first to mention it to the press. Earlier that year, Bono
Bono
Paul David Hewson , most commonly known by his stage name Bono , is an Irish singer, musician, and humanitarian best known for being the main vocalist of the Dublin-based rock band U2. Bono was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, and attended Mount Temple Comprehensive School where he met his...
, lead singer of U2
U2
U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...
, paid Dylan a friendly visit at his home. When he asked Dylan if he had written any new songs, Dylan showed him the ones stored in his drawer. Bono urged him to record the songs, but Dylan was reluctant because he had a difficult time recording his last few records.
In a 1989 interview, Dylan said, "Bono...suggested that Daniel [Lanois] could really record them right. Daniel came to see me when we were playing in New Orleans last year and...we hit it off. He had an understanding of what my music was all about. It’s very hard to find a producer that can play...and [still] knows how to record with modern facilities. For me, that was lacking (in) the past."
Daniel Lanois
Daniel Lanois
Daniel Lanois born September 19, 1951 in Hull, Quebec) is a Canadian record producer, guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter. He has released a number of albums of his own work and has produced albums for a wide variety of artists, including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Peter Gabriel, Emmylou Harris, Willie...
was best-known for high-profile projects like Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel
Peter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career...
's So
So (album)
So is the fifth studio album by British rock musician Peter Gabriel, released in 1986. Many of its songs reflect a more conventional pop-writing style and became radio hits, while others still retain Gabriel's dark, brooding sense of experimentalism.It is Peter Gabriel's second album produced by...
and U2
U2
U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...
's The Joshua Tree
The Joshua Tree
The Joshua Tree is the fifth studio album by rock band U2. It was produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, and was released on 9 March 1987 on Island Records. In contrast to the ambient experimentation of their 1984 release The Unforgettable Fire, U2 aimed for a harder-hitting sound on The Joshua...
. He had also produced the self-titled debut of Dylan's one-time collaborator, Robbie Robertson
Robbie Robertson
Robbie Robertson, OC; is a Canadian singer-songwriter, and guitarist. He is best known for his membership as the guitarist and primary songwriter within The Band. He was ranked 59th in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time...
. Dylan would first meet Lanois in September 1988, during a stop on the Never Ending Tour
Never Ending Tour
The Never Ending Tour is the popular name for Bob Dylan’s endless touring schedule since June 7, 1988. During the past 23+ years, musicians have come and gone and the band has continued to evolve...
. Lanois was producing a session for The Neville Brothers
The Neville Brothers
The Neville Brothers, an American R&B and soul group, was formed in 1977 in New Orleans, Louisiana.-History:The group notion started in 1976, when the four brothers of the Neville family, Art , Charles , Aaron , and Cyril The Neville Brothers, an American R&B and soul group, was formed in 1977 in...
, who were in the middle of recording Yellow Moon. (Two vintage Dylan compositions — "Ballad of Hollis Brown" and "With God on Our Side" — would be included on Yellow Moon.) Held in a portable studio set up in an old colonial house in New Orleans, the session gave Dylan a firsthand look at what it would be like to work with Lanois. Dylan already liked the idea of recording in New Orleans, with its rich history in popular music, and witnessing the relaxed but professional nature of Lanois's work ethic persuaded Dylan to hire him as producer.
Six months later, Dylan began holding sessions, first at a house in Emlah Court, then to 1305 Soniat Street where they spent the bulk of their time. "We found an empty turn-of-the-century apartment building — a five-story building, a fantastic place", recalls Lanois. "It had a bordello-ish overtone. We essentially turned the control room into a swamp...we had moss all over the place and stuffed animals and alligator heads...On the record there's not really the obvious presence of synthesizers, just straight-ahead drums and bass and guitars, yet there's this blazing strangeness around it."
Dylan did not want to use his touring band so Lanois recruited a number of local musicians for these sessions, including guitarists Mason Ruffner and Brian Stoltz, bassist Tony Hall, and drummer Willie Green, all of whom were very accessible. However, much of the activity revolved around three performers: Dylan, Lanois, and engineer Malcolm Burn. Lanois himself played dobro
Dobro
Dobro is a registered trademark, now owned by Gibson Guitar Corporation and used for a particular design of resonator guitar.The name has a long and involved history, interwoven with that of the resonator guitar...
, lap steel, guitar, and even omnichord throughout the sessions. Burn occasionally handled tambourine, keyboards, and bass, and he was later given co-production credit. By running the sessions this way, Dylan was freed from a demanding schedule. "Daniel just allowed the record to take place any old time, day or night. You don't have to walk through secretaries, pinball machines and managers and hangers-on in the lobby and parking lots and elevators and arctic temperatures", Dylan said.
"With all records there comes a time when people get a little bit lazy, because it's a tiring and unnatural process", Lanois said. "There came a time with Bob Dylan when I felt he fell into old habits — 'Get somebody else to play on it,' he'd say, or 'just hire somebody,' when really he should have been playing the parts. And I made it clear to him that we weren't going to fly anybody in, and we weren't going to have session players play these parts. The parts would be played by the people in the room, by himself, by myself, by the engineer Malcolm Burn, by the neighborhood guys that we'd chosen to be on the record. It was not going to be a studio record. He was going to play the parts, and if they were a little sloppy they would be accepted that way."
As Dylan would later detail in his autobiography, the sessions were very difficult. The first day was spent recording "Political World", which Lanois pushed in a 'funky' direction. Dylan did not like the arrangement, and the next day, he discovered that Lanois and the others had continued working on "Political World" even after he left. The mix and overdubs finished in Dylan's absence were not to his liking, and his disappointment grew as they continued to experiment with the arrangement and the mix. Dylan felt the whole process was more difficult than it should be and that Lanois was not communicating very well; at one point, Lanois destroyed a dobro in a fit of rage.
Eventually, "Political World" was set aside and the group focused on another song, "Most of the Time", which still needed a melody. They managed to compose one fairly quickly, but as work continued, Dylan became more dissatisfied with the results.
They moved on to the next song, "Dignity", which was recorded with Dylan, Stoltz, and Green. Though they managed to complete a polished performance, Lanois suggested something more ambitious with a Cajun
Cajun
Cajuns are an ethnic group mainly living in the U.S. state of Louisiana, consisting of the descendants of Acadian exiles...
band. Curious to see what Lanois had in mind, Dylan agreed to recut the song. The next evening, a session was held with Rockin' Dopsie and His Cajun Band, but the results were disastrous. The group experimented with different keys and tempos, but according to Dylan, everyone was frustrated with the results. Dylan still preferred the original version recorded the previous day, but it was not considered finished by Dylan or Lanois. (In his autobiography, Dylan refers to the original version as a "demo".) As the session continued into the early morning hours, the group gave up and began playing old standards like "Jambalaya", "Cheatin' Heart", and "There Stands the Glass". It was during this time that Dylan tried out another new song, "Where Teardrops Fall". "I showed it quickly to Dopsie and we recorded it", Dylan later wrote. "Took about five minutes and it wasn't rehearsed."
The next day, they listened to every take of "Dignity" recorded with Dopsie and his band, and all of them were rejected. "Whatever promise Dan had seen in the song was beaten into a bloody mess", Dylan recalled. "Where we had started from, we'd never gotten back to, a fishing expedition gone nowhere. In no take did we ever turn back the clock. We just kept winding it. Every take another ball of confusion."
However, Dylan was struck by their recording of "Where Teardrops Fall", and even though Lanois insisted on recutting it (which they did), Dylan eventually went back to the original version and used it for the album. In the meantime, "Dignity" was set aside, never to be revisited for the remainder of the sessions.
The next song was "Series of Dreams
Series of Dreams
"Series Of Dreams" is a song written and composed by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Originally recorded for his 26th album Oh Mercy and produced by Daniel Lanois, this song was never used in the album but was later remixed and included in Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 and Bootleg Series Volume 8...
", and "although Lanois liked the song, he liked the bridge better, wanted the whole song to be like that", wrote Dylan. "I knew what he meant, but it just couldn't be done. Though I thought about it for a second, thinking that I could probably start with the bridge as the main part and use the main part as the bridge...the idea didn't amount to much and thinking about the song this way wasn't healthy. I felt like it was fine the way it was — didn't want to lose myself in thinking too much about changing it." Lanois would continue to experiment with the song, but Dylan ultimately left it off the album.
Other songs were also finished with compromises; Dylan wasn't satisfied with the melody on "What Good Am I?" and felt the tempo was too slow, while Lanois wasn't enthusiastic about "Everything Is Broken", believing it to be an insignificant song.
"I wasn't looking to express myself in any kind of new way", Dylan would later write. "All my ways were intact and had been for years. There wasn't much chance in changing now. I didn't need to climb the next mountain. If anything, what I wanted to do was to secure the place where I was at. I wasn't sure Lanois understood that. I guess I never made it plain, couldn't put it in so many words."
Despite the arguments with Lanois, Dylan was genuinely pleased with the production, and not everything was recorded with difficulty. "Ring Them Bells" was finished quickly with ease, and Dylan was very happy with the result.
During the course of the sessions, Dylan would also write two more songs, "Shooting Star" and "Man in the Long Black Coat"; he finished both after a brief respite with his wife outside of New Orleans and would include both on the album.
Roughly fourteen or fifteen songs were recorded at these sessions, with many of the basic tracks cut live to tape. One major exception was the lead vocals; all but two songs had their live vocals replaced by overdubs accommodating new lyrics written for the same songs.
Songs
The album opens with "Political World", a song that has been described as a "catalog of troubles...almost an update on 'With God On Our Side.'" A cranky tirade against the modern world, it begins with the verse, "We live in a political world/Love don't have any place/We live in a time where men commit crime/And crime don't have a face", to which critic Thomas Ward asked, "Which age does this not apply to?"In regard to "Everything Is Broken", Dylan wrote, "Danny didn't have to swamp it up too much, it was already swamped up pretty good when it came to him. Critics usually didn't like a song like this coming out of me because it didn't seem to be autobiographical. Maybe not, but the stuff I write does come from an autobiographical place." A propulsive, riff-driven number, it was the first single issued from Oh Mercy.
A ballad with an almost hymnal poise to it, "Ring Them Bells" is one of the more celebrated tracks on Oh Mercy, and also where Lanois' production is at its most subtle and restrained. The song features some spiritual overtones, invoking St. Peter, St. Catherine and a "Sweet Martha" who may or may not be the biblical Martha. It opens with the verse, "Ring them bells ye heathen/From the city that dreams/Ring them bells from the sanctuaries/Cross the valleys and streams."
"Ring Them Bells" was also one of two songs that was released with its live vocals intact. The other song was "Man in the Long Black Coat", sequenced right after "Ring Them Bells".
"One of my favorites is 'Man in the Long Black Coat,' which was written in the studio, and recorded in one take", recalls Lanois. Praised by Heylin as a "powerful reinterpretation of the 'Daemon Lover' motif", "Man in the Long Black Coat" also contains some prominent use of apocalyptic imagery, evoking a place where the "water is high" and "tree trunks uprooted". In his own assessment of "Man in the Long Black Coat", Dylan wrote that "in some kind of weird way, I thought of it as my 'I Walk the Line,' a song I'd always considered to be up there at the top, one of the most mysterious and revolutionary of all time, a song that makes an attack on your most vulnerable spots, sharp words from a master". Supporters and critics alike have called "Man in the Long Black Coat" one of the strongest tracks on Oh Mercy.
The second half of Oh Mercy is notable for its sustained moodiness and resignation, often in relation to romantic dissolution. This is immediately apparent on the atmospheric "Most of the Time", which features the richest, most ambitious production on the entire album. Described as "magisterial" by Allan Jones of Melody Maker, the narrator in "Most of the Time" sings of an estranged lover whom the narrator can't quite shake from his memories. The song addresses an irreconcilable, personal relationship, and this theme would continue through "What Good Am I?", a frank look at the narrator's moral worth, and "What Was It You Wanted".
Though he is still uncertain of its origins, in his autobiography Dylan does write that "Disease of Conceit" may have been inspired by the defrocking of Jimmy Swaggart
Jimmy Swaggart
Jimmy Lee Swaggart is a Pentecostal American pastor, teacher, musician, television host, and televangelist. He has preached to crowds around the world through his weekly telecast...
.
The album closes with "Shooting Star", a wistful ballad of remembrance with possible allusions to the loss of Dylan's Christian faith. Dylan appears to address Christ: "Seen a shooting star tonight and I thought of me/If I was still the same/If I ever became what you wanted me to be". The next line, "Did I ever miss the mark or overstep the line that only you could see" makes an apparent reference to Joseph Addison Alexander
Joseph Addison Alexander
Joseph Addison Alexander was an American biblical scholar.He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the third son of Archibald Alexander and brother to James Waddel Alexander and William Cowper Alexander....
's poem "There is a line by us unseen/That crosses every path/The hidden boundary between/God's patience and His wrath.". The words occasionally evoke some portentous imagery ("the last fire truck from hell goes rollin' by"), but it ends the album on a soft, romantic note.
Outtakes
When Rolling Stone magazine wrote "it would be unfair to compare Oh Mercy to Dylan's landmark Sixties recordings", author Clinton Heylin countered this remark, arguing that the Oh Mercy sessions had the songs to compete with Dylan's most celebrated work. A few of these songs were not issued on the album, but they soon found their way into private circulation where they acquired a strong reputation among critics and collectors.One of Dylan's most ambitious compositions, "Series of Dreams" is given a tumultuous production from Daniel Lanois
Daniel Lanois
Daniel Lanois born September 19, 1951 in Hull, Quebec) is a Canadian record producer, guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter. He has released a number of albums of his own work and has produced albums for a wide variety of artists, including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Peter Gabriel, Emmylou Harris, Willie...
. The lyrics are fairly straightforward, giving a literal description of the turmoil encountered by the narrator during a "series of dreams." However, the descriptions quickly unfold into a set of highly evocative verses.
During a Sound Opinions
Sound Opinions
Sound Opinions is a radio talk show focusing on rock music. It airs Friday night at 8 PM CST and Saturday morning at 11 AM CST on Chicago Public Radio. The show is hosted by Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot and features interviews with musicians and industry figures as well as featuring current music...
interview broadcast on Chicago FM radio, Lanois told Chicago Tribune critic Greg Kot that "Series of Dreams" was his pick for the opening track, but ultimately, the final decision was Dylan's. NPR's Tim Riley would echo these sentiments, writing that "'Series of Dreams' should have been the working title song to Oh Mercy, not a leftover pendant."
Another outtake, "Dignity", was one of the first songs written for Oh Mercy. Dylan viewed "Dignity" as a strong contender for the album, and an extensive amount of work was done on it. However, Dylan was dissatisfied with the recorded results, resulting in his decision to omit it.
Easily the two most celebrated outtakes from Oh Mercys sessions, Dylan would not only perform "Dignity" and "Series of Dreams" live, he would eventually issue them on official releases. "Series of Dreams" was the final track on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991, and it was later included on 1994's Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume 3
Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume 3
Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume 3 is a compilation LP album by Bob Dylan, released on Columbia Records on compact disc in 1994, catalogue CK 66783. It peaked at #126 on the Billboard 200.-Content:...
. "Dignity" was performed live during a 1994 appearance on MTV Unplugged
MTV Unplugged
MTV Unplugged is a TV series showcasing many popular musical artists usually playing acoustic instruments. The show has received the George Foster Peabody Award and 3 Primetime Emmy nominations among many accolades.-Unplugged:...
, and the same performance was later issued on the accompanying album. A radically remixed version of "Dignity" featuring new overdubs was released on Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume 3
Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume 3
Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume 3 is a compilation LP album by Bob Dylan, released on Columbia Records on compact disc in 1994, catalogue CK 66783. It peaked at #126 on the Billboard 200.-Content:...
, while the original Lanois production would not see release until the soundtrack album
Touched by an Angel: The Album
-Chart performance:...
of the television show, Touched by an Angel
Touched by an Angel
Touched by an Angel is an American drama series that premiered on CBS on September 21, 1994 and ran for 211 episodes and nine seasons until its conclusion on April 27, 2003. Created by John Masius and produced by Martha Williamson, the series stars Roma Downey, as an angel named Monica, and Della...
.
Listed as "Broken Days/Three of Us" on the track sheets, the original version of "Everything Is Broken" was briefly issued on-line as an exclusive download on Apple Computer
Apple Computer
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...
's iTunes music store. In 2008, it was remastered from a better source and reissued on The Bootleg Series Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs
The Bootleg Series Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs
The Bootleg Series Vol. 8 – Tell Tale Signs: Rare and Unreleased 1989–2006 is a compilation album by singer-songwriter Bob Dylan in his official "bootleg series" of rare and unissued recordings. It was originally released as a double, and triple album. It was later released as a single album,...
. Described by Heylin as an "evocation of a fragmented relationship", the lyrics were later rewritten and overdubbed with new vocals and an additional guitar part.
Two more outtakes, "Born In Time" and "God Knows", were set aside and later re-written and re-recorded for Dylan's next album, Under the Red Sky
Under the Red Sky
Under the Red Sky is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 27th studio album, released by Columbia Records in September 1990.The album was largely greeted as a strange and disappointing follow-up to 1989's critically acclaimed Oh Mercy...
. Versions of both songs from the Oh Mercy sessions were also included on The Bootleg Series Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs
The Bootleg Series Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs
The Bootleg Series Vol. 8 – Tell Tale Signs: Rare and Unreleased 1989–2006 is a compilation album by singer-songwriter Bob Dylan in his official "bootleg series" of rare and unissued recordings. It was originally released as a double, and triple album. It was later released as a single album,...
. "The Oh Mercy outtake of 'Born In Time' was one of those Dylan performances that so surrendered itself to the moment that to decry the lyrical slips would be to mock sincerity itself", wrote an enamored Heylin.
Aftermath
After disappointing sales with Knocked Out LoadedKnocked Out Loaded
Knocked Out Loaded is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 24th studio album, released by Columbia Records in July 1986.The album was received poorly upon release, and is still considered by some critics to be one of Dylan's least-engaging efforts...
and Down in the Groove
Down in the Groove
Down in the Groove is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 25th studio album, released by Columbia Records in May 1988.A highly collaborative effort, it was Dylan's second consecutive album to receive almost unanimous negative reviews...
, Oh Mercy was hailed as a comeback in a year when several long-time veterans were releasing their own 'comeback' albums, including Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
with Flowers In The Dirt
Flowers in the Dirt
-Additional tracks:-Special Package :Following tracks are included on bonus disc.#"Message" - 0:28#* A environmental message from Paul to the Japanese fans.#"The Long and Winding Road" - 3:51...
, The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
with Steel Wheels
Steel Wheels
Steel Wheels is the 19th British and 21st American studio album by The Rolling Stones and was released in 1989. Heralded as a major comeback upon its release, the project is notable for the patching up of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards' relationship, a reversion to a more classic style of music and...
, Neil Young
Neil Young
Neil Percival Young, OC, OM is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation...
with Freedom
Freedom (Neil Young album)
Freedom has received mainly positive reviews. Allmusic's William Ruhlmann rated the album four-and-a-half out of five stars, explaining that it "was the album Neil Young fans knew he was capable of making, but feared he would never make again." He also stated that "there were tracks that harked...
, Tom Petty
Tom Petty
Thomas Earl "Tom" Petty is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He is the frontman of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and was a founding member of the late 1980s supergroup Traveling Wilburys and Mudcrutch. He has also performed under the pseudonyms of Charlie T...
with Full Moon Fever
Full Moon Fever
Full Moon Fever is the first solo album by Tom Petty, though it features contributions from several members of his backing band, the Heartbreakers, along with fellow members of the Traveling Wilburys. The record shows Petty exploring his musical roots with nods to his influences...
, Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Lynn Raitt is an American blues singer-songwriter and a renowned slide guitar player. During the 1970s, Raitt released a series of acclaimed roots-influenced albums which incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk and country, but she is perhaps best known for her more commercially...
with Nick of Time
Nick of Time (album)
Or the American 1995 thriller film by the same name, Nick of TimeNick of Time is the tenth blues rock album by Bonnie Raitt, released on March 21, 1989....
, and Lou Reed
Lou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
with New York
New York (album)
New York is the fifteenth solo album by Lou Reed. It was received very warmly as a return to the style of The Velvet Underground - founded by Reed in the 1960s...
. Consensus was strong enough to place Oh Mercy at #15 in The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
s Pazz & Jop
Pazz & Jop
The Pazz & Jop critics' poll is a poll of music critics run by The Village Voice newspaper. It is compiled every year from the top ten lists of hundreds of music critics...
Critics Poll for 1989. Also in 1989, Oh Mercy was ranked #44 on Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine's list of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s.
Oh Mercys unique production was unlike anything ever released on a Dylan record, and it drew praise from a majority of critics. Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau is an American essayist, music journalist, and self-proclaimed "Dean of American Rock Critics".One of the earliest professional rock critics, Christgau is known for his terse capsule reviews, published since 1969 in his Consumer Guide columns...
of The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
wrote, "Daniel Lanois
Daniel Lanois
Daniel Lanois born September 19, 1951 in Hull, Quebec) is a Canadian record producer, guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter. He has released a number of albums of his own work and has produced albums for a wide variety of artists, including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Peter Gabriel, Emmylou Harris, Willie...
's understated care and easy beat suit [Dylan's] casual ways, and three or four songs might sound like something late at night on the radio, or after the great flood. All are modest and tuneful enough to make you forgive 'Disease of Conceit,' which is neither."
But as Heylin notes, "Though many a critic who had despaired at the sound of Dylan's more recent albums enthused about the sound on Oh Mercy, it was evident that rock music's foremost lyric writer had also rediscovered his previous flair with words."
Bill Wyman
Bill Wyman
Bill Wyman is an English musician best known as the bass guitarist for the English rock and roll band the Rolling Stones from 1962 until 1992. Since 1997, he has recorded and toured with his own band, Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings...
even went so far as to criticize the production in praising the songs. "Taken over by Daniel Lanois, master of a shimmering and distinctive electronically processed guitar sound...[the album] is overdone", writes Wyman. "It's irritating to hear Dylan's songs so manipulated, but there are sufficient nice tracks — "Most of the Time", "Shooting Star", both simple and direct, among them — to make this by far the most coherent and listenable collection of his own songs Dylan has released since Desire."
Though it did not enter Billboards Top 20, Oh Mercy remained a consistent seller, enough to be considered a modest commercial success.
By the end of the year, Dylan would begin planning his next album, to be produced by Don and David Was of Was (Not Was)
Was (Not Was)
-Studio albums:-Compilation albums:-Singles:-Contributions:* A Christmas Record - "Christmas Time In The Motor City"* That's The Way I Feel Now: A Tribute to Thelonious Monk - "Ba-Lue-Bolivar-Ba-Lues-Are"...
, using the Oh Mercy outtake "God Knows" as a starting point.
To celebrate the album's 20th anniversary, Montague Street Journal: The Art of Bob Dylan dedicated roughly half of its debut issue (published in 2009) to a roundtable discussion on Oh Mercy.
In 2006, Q magazine
Q (magazine)
Q is a popular music magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom.Founders Mark Ellen and David Hepworth were dismayed by the music press of the time, which they felt was ignoring a generation of older music buyers who were buying CDs — then still a new technology...
placed the album at #33 in its list of "40 Best Albums of the '80s". During that same year, "Political World" appeared in the film Man of the Year
Man of the Year (2006 film)
Man of the Year is a 2006 Comedy film directed and written by Barry Levinson and starring Robin Williams in the lead role. In addition to Williams, the film features Christopher Walken, Laura Linney, Lewis Black and Jeff Goldblum....
.
Track listing
All songs by Bob Dylan.- "Political World" – 3:43
- "Where Teardrops Fall" – 2:30
- "Everything Is BrokenEverything Is Broken"Everything is Broken" is a song written and recorded by American musician Bob Dylan, and released on his 1989 album, Oh Mercy. The song's lyrics describe Dylan's detachment from his world at the time of its writing. The track found on Oh Mercy is a re-working of a take recorded earlier...
" – 3:12 - "Ring Them Bells" – 3:00
- "Man in the Long Black Coat" – 4:30
- "Most of the Time" – 5:02
- "What Good Am I?" – 4:45
- "Disease of Conceit" – 3:41
- "What Was It You Wanted" – 5:02
- "Shooting Star" – 3:12
Personnel
- Bob Dylan – vocalsSingingSinging is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
, guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, pianoPianoThe piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
, harmonicaHarmonicaThe harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...
, twelve-string guitar, organOrgan (music)The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with... - Daniel Lanois – dobroDobroDobro is a registered trademark, now owned by Gibson Guitar Corporation and used for a particular design of resonator guitar.The name has a long and involved history, interwoven with that of the resonator guitar...
, lap steelLap steel guitarThe lap steel guitar is a type of steel guitar, an instrument derived from and similar to the guitar. The player changes pitch by pressing a metal or glass bar against the strings instead of by pressing strings against the fingerboard....
, guitar, omnichordOmnichordThe Omnichord is an electronic musical instrument, introduced in 1981 and manufactured by the Suzuki Musical Instrument Corporation. It typically features a touch plate, and buttons for major, minor, and diminished chords...
(tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10) - Mason Ruffner – guitar (tracks 1, 8, 9)
- Brian Stoltz – guitar (tracks 1, 3, 8, 10)
- Tony Hall – bassBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
(tracks 1, 3, 6, 8, 10) - Cyril NevilleCyril NevilleCyril Neville , is a percussionist and vocalist who first came to prominence as a member of his brother Art Neville's funky New Orleans-based band, The Meters...
– percussionPercussion instrumentA percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
(tracks 1, 6, 9) - Willie Green – drumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
(tracks 1, 3, 6, 8, 9, 10) - Paul Synegal – guitar (track 2)
- Larry Jolivet – bass (track 2)
- Alton Rubin, Jr. – scrub boardWashboardA washboard is a tool designed for hand washing clothing. With mechanized cleaning of clothing becoming more common by the end of the 20th century, the washboard has become better known for its originally subsidiary use as a musical instrument....
(track 2) - John Hart – saxophoneSaxophoneThe saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
(track 2) - Rockin' DopsieRockin' DopsieRockin' Dopsie was born Alton Rubin in Carencro, Louisiana. He was a leading Zydeco musician and button accordion player who enjoyed popular success first in Europe and later in the United States...
– accordionAccordionThe accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
(track 2) - Malcolm BurnMalcolm BurnMalcolm Burn is a Canadian-born music producer, recording engineer and musician. In 2001, he won a Grammy Award with Jim Watts and Emmylou Harris for his work on Harris's Red Dirt Girl. -Biography:...
– tambourineTambourineThe tambourine or marine is a musical instrument of the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zils". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though some variants may not have a head at all....
, keyboardsKeyboard instrumentA keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
, mercy keys, bass (tracks 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9) - Daryl Johnson – percussion (track 3)
Production
- Daniel Lanois – production, mixing
- Malcolm Burn – recording, mixing
- Mark HowardMark Howard (producer)Mark Howard is a Canadian record producer, engineer, and mixer. He has worked with many artistsincluding Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Lucinda Williams, Willie Nelson, Marianne Faithful, Emmylou Harris, U2, Peter Gabriel, R.E.M...
– mixing, studio installation - Greg Calbi – mastering