Emma Swift – Blonde on the Tracks
Tiny Ghost – Out Now
While Joan Baez and Judy Collins are the names that most readily come to mind when thinking of albums by female singers dedicated to the songs of Bob Dylan, there have been many others. These range from the well-known such as Odetta, Thea Gilmore, Julie Felix, Barbara Dixon, Maria Muldaur, Barb Jungr and, most recently, Joan Osborne, to more obscure artists such as Lesley Mason, Beth Scalet, Janet Planet and soul singer Bettye LaVette. To the list, you can now add Australian singer-songwriter Emma Swift, partner to and sometime collaborator with Robyn Hitchcock who contributes guitar here alongside pedal steel player Thayer Sarrano and Steelism rhythm section Jon Estes and Jon Radford. The album was produced by Wilco’s Patrick Sansone.
Despite what the title suggests, this isn’t a selection of covers from Blonde on Blonde or Blood On The Tracks, but a pick and mix selection ranging from the early years to the most recent Dylan album, Rough and Rowdy Ways.
It kicks off with the oldest number, a simple, jangling guitar, percussive click rework of Queen Jane Approximately from Highway 61 Revisited that softens the original’s acidic bite and then jump to the present with I Contain Multitudes. While slightly longer, like the original, it’s a world-weary, vocally intimate arrangement, here with a slight echo to her voice.
Moving on to Blonde On Blonde, a steady drum thump anchors an inspired pedal-steel flavoured reinvention of One Of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later), the pace slowed down (the song now runs over a minute longer), Swift’s delivery bringing a new emotional depth to the break-up lyrics as the arrangement swells with the arrival of the chorus. Linking the unfulfilled relationship theme, Simple Twist of Fate marks the first of the two Blood on the Tracks numbers, again slower and more melancholic, the second being the equally emotionally despondent You’re A Big Girl Now, here closing the album in an early hours club mood with bluesy organ and Radford’s snare and rim snaps percussion.
Returning to Blonde on Blonde, she opts for the near twelve-minute epic Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands, laid back, heavy with piano and rumbling bass and Swift’s well-judged, air and smoke delivery squeezing the expressiveness from the words.
From 1970 and New Morning, perhaps taking a cue from The Persuasions cover, comes a soulful, gospel organ treatment of the march rhythm and uplifting The Man In Me that, brushing aside the gender view of the title she makes her own.
Previously covered in gospel style by Betty LaVette, Going Going Gone is one of the more obscure tracks, originally appearing on Planet Waves and subsequently the Budokan live album, Hitchcock’s guitar work and Sansone’s keys both capturing the blues groove, but also teasing out the inherent country flavours, the song closing with a throaty bass and guitar hurrah.
Swift has said the project emerged out of a lengthy depressive period of writer’s block, while that may be the case, her interpretations and musical finesse shine brightly throughout this impressive cover album.
https://continentalrecordservices.bandcamp.com/album/blonde-on-the-tracks