Counting Crows is a perfect example of my ‘Folk Rock Derivative’ group. They have branched out into a wide range of musical directions, but there is a rootsy core to all of their work that traces straight back to Bob Dylan, The Band and Van Morrison.
In fact, the band has name-checked Dylan and Richard Manuel in song and covered Morrison in concert. Hell, ‘Mr. Jones’ sounds like a lost lost track off of Moondance.
Of the 35 artists I’m featuring in my musical genome series, seven are women. And of those seven, three fall into the ‘Country Plus’ category. I don’t know if that’s a coincidence or if it says something about my taste.
Tift Merritt started off as very much a country artist with her debut Bramble Rose, though hewing more toward Americana and folk than traditional country. She quickly expanded that sound on her sophomore album, Tambourine, exploring Memphis soul and R&B flavors.
Billy Joel is another strand in the ‘Piano Men (And Women)’ segment of my personal musical genome. That’s fitting, considering he gave it its name. And I didn’t feel right selecting any other song to represent him.
Joel doesn’t bridge any of my other categories in a meaningful way. Apart from the cinematic intro to ‘The Ballad of Billy the Kid,’ he’s never dabbled in country. His experiments with doo-wop and 50s pop on An Innocent Man aren’t exactly what I have in mind for my ‘Pure Pop’ category. And his street-smart style in no way derives from folk rock.
I’m back on my musical genome project this week, and I’ve arrived at my first aberration.
First, a few words about how I went about categorizing my tastes. I scanned my music library for artists whose entire discographies I own (or near enough to not make much difference) but discounted anybody who is only two or three albums into a career. Then I started scanning that list (of 35 artists) for similarities.
Today’s Random Weekends selection is a track from Volume 3 of Bob Dylan’s Bootleg Series.
Before the Dylan-philes jump down my throat about the incorrect lyrics I’ve included below, understand that I have just included the “official” lyrics to this song posted on Dylan’s own website. He obviously changed them quite a bit when recording the track, but I like to offer both in order to explore the contrast.
