Columbia Records have announced this week that Bob Dylan is to release a new new studio album titled ‘Tempest’. The album will be released on September 11, 2012 and follows his 2009 worldwide best-seller, Together Through Life. Tempest features ten new and original Dylan songs including, according to Rolling Stone, a tribute song to John Lennon: “Roll on John”. There was I thinking it was the version he sang on Cynthia Gooding’s Radio program on WBAI in 1962, a year after he came to New York. On the program Dylan told Cynthia that he had learned the song from Ralph Rinzler of the Greenbriar Boys. Despite its traditional origins Dylan put his own spin on the lyrics so maybe he is about to do it again?
The title track comes close to being his longest, Tempest, a song supposedly about the sinking of the Titanic, clocks in at 14 minutes just over two minutes short of ‘Highlands’ from Time Out of Mind which was over 16 minutes long. The rumour mill is saying that the album is unlike anything he has done before and he is supported by members of his touring band as well as Los Lobos’s David Hidalgo (Wall Street Journal).
The release will coincide with the 50th Anniversary of Dylan’s eponymous debut album, which was released by Columbia in 1962.
Track Listing
Duquesne Whistle
Soon After Midnight
Narrow Way
Long and Wasted Years
Pay in Blood
Scarlet Town
Early Roman Kings
Tin Angel
Tempest
Roll on John