Red Sovine Bio

Red Sovine is "The King Of The Narrations." Woodrow Wilson Sovine was born on July 17, 1918, in Charleston, West Virginia. Red's mother taught him how to play the guitar. By the time he was 17 years old, Red was working professionally as an entertainer. In 1948 he formed his own band, "The Echo Valley Boys." By 1949, Red replaced Hank Williams, Sr. on the Louisiana Hayride after Williams joined the Grand Ole Opry. Red Sovine's first hit song was a duet that he recorded with Goldie Hill titled "Are You Mine?" The song, recorded on the Decca label, climbed to #15 on the record charts in 1955. In 1956, Red recorded his first #1-hit song. It, too, was a duet which he recorded with Webb Pierce titled "Why Baby Why." Sovine and Pierce recorded another hit together titled "Little Rosa." The touching song climbed to #5 on the record charts. By then Red Sovine had joined, and was a well-known regular on, the Grand Ole Opry. In the early 1960's, Red Sovine signed with the Starday Records company. In 1965, Red recorded his first big superhit with Starday. "Giddy-Up Go" was a #1-hit on the charts, and became the first of several big "truckdrivin'" theme songs that Red recorded. In 1967 Red recorded his second truckdrivin' hit, "Phantom 309." Time passed and Starday Records changed hands several times.By the early 1970's Starday was basically out of business. In 1974 the owner of Gusto Records, Moe Lytle, purchased the Starday masters and recording studio located on Dickerson Road, in Nashville. Prior to that purchase, Lytle had signed Red to a recording contract with Gusto. In 1976 Red Sovine recorded "Teddy Bear" for Gusto Records. The song was released on Lytle's newly acquired Starday label. "Teddy Bear" sold over a million copies in six weeks and climbed to #1 on the record charts faster than any other single in history. A truckdriver named Dale Royal from South Carolina is the man who first conceived the song "Teddy Bear." It was the only hit song that Royal ever wrote. There were others involved in the final drafting of "Teddy Bear." Gusto co-producer Tommy Hill, B.J. Burnette and Red Sovine also share the writers' credits. The real magic of "Teddy Bear," however, is Red Sovine's delivery of the song. After hearing this moving rendition of "Teddy Bear," there is no doubt that Red Sovine is, indeed, the "King Of The Narrations." Sovine continued to record on the Starday and Gusto labels in the five year span that followed the release of "Teddy Bear." During that time, Red made many fine recordings that showcase his exceptional vocals, and highlight his skills as one of the world's greatest story-tellers. Sadly, on April 4, 1980, Red Sovine died when he had a heart attack while driving. Red Sovine's legacy is the long list of premium songs that he recorded during his lengthy career. Red also imparted a wholesome quality to many of the songs that he recorded. That fact may say more about the "King Of The Narrations," than anything else. -CHUCK YOUNG, GUSTO KING RECORDS

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Though he had a long, distinguished career in country music, singer/songwriter and guitarist Red Sovine is best remembered for his earnest, funny, and at times highly sentimental recitations that took the cab of an over-the-road truck for their settings. Born Woodrow Wilson Sovine into an impoverished family in Charleston, WV, he was inspired as a child by WCHS radio musicians Buddy Starcher and Frank Welling. Sovine and his childhood friend Johnnie Bailes joined Jim Pike's Carolina Tar Heels and performed as "Smiley and Red, the Singing Sailors." They appeared briefly on the powerhouse WWVA Jamboree in Wheeling, but Sovine returned to Charleston to get married and took a factory job. He continued to sing on Charleston radio, but his friend Johnnie went on to greater renown as one half of the Bailes Brothers.

Bailes continued to encourage Sovine's efforts, however, and in 1947 he assembled a band called the Echo Valley Boys. After a year of performing in West Virginia Sovine moved to Shreveport, LA, where the Bailes Brothers were performing on KWKH. Sovine's own early morning show snared few listeners, but among his stagemates on the station's Louisiana Hayride show was Hank Williams, who steered Sovine toward a better time slot at WFSA in Montgomery, AL, and toward a contract with MGM Records in 1949. Over the next four years he recorded 28 singles, mostly following in Williams' honky tonk footsteps, that didn't make much of a dent on the charts but did establish him as a solid performer.

Sovine continued to perform on the Hayride and made another valuable friend in fellow performer Webb Pierce, who in the early '50s was just at the beginning of a long string of Top Ten country hits. Pierce convinced Sovine to lead his Wondering Boys band and helped him along toward a contract with Decca in 1954. The following year Sovine cut a duet with Goldie Hill, "Are You Mine?," which peaked in the Top 15, and in 1956 he had his first number one hit when he duetted with Pierce on a cover of George Jones' "Why Baby Why." Sovine had two other Top Five singles that year and joined the cast of the Grand Ole Opry. After recording close to 50 sides with Decca by 1959, Sovine signed to Starday and began touring the club circuit as a solo act. In Montana in 1963 Sovine passed on the helping hand given him by older performers when he heard the singing of African-American minor-league baseball player Charley Pride and suggested that he move to Nashville. Sovine opened doors for Pride at Pierce's Cedarwood publishing house, but his own career hit a lull. "Dream House for Sale," which reached number 22 in 1964, came nearly eight years after his last hit.

The genre of the spoken word truck driving song dated back to the late '40s, and Starday featured several specialists on its own roster, but it took several albums before Sovine's emotive baritone voice was paired with trucker material. In 1965, Sovine at last found his niche when he recorded "Giddy-Up Go," which, like most of his other trucker hits, was co-written (with Tommy Hill) by Sovine himself. That story of a father-son truck-stop reunion spent six weeks atop the country charts and even crossed over to become a minor pop hit. Subsequent truck driving hits included the ghost story "Phantom 309" and a tearjerker tale of a disabled child's CB-radio relationship with caring truckers, "Teddy Bear." The last-named song became Sovine's biggest hit since "Giddy-Up Go," spending three weeks at the top of the country charts in 1976 and reaching number 40 on the pop charts. Sovine followed up "Teddy Bear" with "Little Joe," a tale of a blinded trucker and his devoted canine friend which became his last big hit. Sovine died in 1980 after suffering a heart attack while driving his van. - JAMES MANHEIM, ALL MUSIC GUIDE.

Red Sovine Bio

Mike Daley - essay - Black English and rap music: a comparison

"You hear me when I moan": timbre and style in the singing of Robert Johnson1
Mike Daley York University

Through the popularity and influence of only 29 songs (41 performances in total including alternate takes), Robert Johnson has come to be seen as one of the most important, and certainly the most famous, of the Delta bluesmen. One of the most striking qualities of the handful of recordings which comprise Robert Johnson's output is the great variety of sounds and styles emanating from a single performer with an acoustic guitar. In this paper, I will examine some aspects of Johnson's voice and vocal style as documented in these 41 recordings, waxed between November 23, 1936 and June 20, 19372 .
The study of vocal style has little in the way of precedent. This is probably due to the necessary emphasis on timbre, which is still the most woefully underdeveloped area of musical analysis. Despite acknowledgments of the sorry state of timbre research in much of the literature, actual work is hard to find. Some examples which have guided me in my own work are Robert Cogan's New Images of Musical Sound(1984), which uses a spectrographic approach, and Alan Lomax's Cantometrics project (1968), which, though heavily criticized in its time, remains one of the only studies to systematically identify and classify voice qualities. I worked out a few methods in my master's thesis, "'One who sings with his tongue on fire': Change, continuity and meaning in Bob Dylan's vocal style, 1960-66" (Daley 1997), some of which will be applied here, and I will attempt to establish some new approaches in the present work.

Robert Johnson's vocal performances alone could easily warrant a book-length study. In the interests of relative brevity, then, I will largely confine my commentary to the timbral aspects of his work, with reference to melodic considerations where they impact on timbral choices. I use a series of verbal descriptors to classify gross voice types in Johnson's work, and cross-reference the uses of these voice types to other musical and textual (in the sense of lyric text) parameters. That, in a nutshell, is the substance of my analysis here. I am working with the hypothesis that Robert Johnson's varied vocal sounds and techniques are not random, but can be seen as parts of a reasonably systematic and coherent expressive system. In this way, I am taking a microcosmic approach to Delta blues in general by positing that the whole can only begin to be understood through the close reading of specific artifacts.

I have employed here a series of informal verbal descriptors to identify various general "voices" used by Johnson throughout the 41 performances. Some songs employ a single "voice" virtually unchanged throughout, while others will cycle through two or more "voices", often with the change dependent on phrase positions. In addition to specific "voices", I have also tracked the keys, melodic ranges, lyric themes, and melodic "blues family" according to the typology developed by Jeff Todd Titon in his pioneering Early Downhome Blues(1982). Though this data does exist in a computerized spreadsheet form, I have demurred here from employing the types of mathematical machinations used to detect patterns in Lomax's Cantometrics and in my thesis on Bob Dylan's vocal style. I believe that the sample used here is sufficiently small to permit (unlike those two very large projects), and would be ultimately better served, through an impressionistic, "manual" approach to comparison.

I have also noted the ranges of Johnson's performances in terms of scale degrees, rather than semitones. This allows for the use of concepts such as the tenth, which will have more meaning to the musically trained reader than "17 semitones".

It has been noted about blues lyrics that, rather than conforming to a narrative like Euro-American ballads, verses are drawn from a pool of circulating stanzas and assembled anew for each song without regard to narrative thread or thematic unity. In spite of this, Robert Johnson's lyrics tend to each convey a fairly cohesive theme, even as they employ the blues technique of combining verses from the "public domain". Scott Ainslie comments in his book (co-authored with Dave Whitehill) of Robert Johnson transcriptions about "When You Got A Good Friend": "Like almost all of Johnson's tunes, it is thematically much tighter than the bulk of the Delta blues that had been recorded previously" (Ainslie and Whitehill 1992:24). In my endeavour to classify these lyric themes, I have been inspired by Matt Vanderwoude's survey of blues lyric classification schemes in his master's thesis on the early work of Muddy Waters (Vanderwoude 19 ). These schemes tend to be quite general, as is necessitated by the great breadth of blues lyrics. Again, though, with such a small sample of unique lyrics (29 in all), I have chosen to develop a new scheme specifically with Johnson's songs in mind3.

1 romantic dissatisfaction (including loneliness)
2 travel
3 metaphorical sexuality (including the use of euphemisms for genitalia)
4 violence
5 humor/hokum
6 occult/evil
7 the blues themselves
8 alcohol

The centerpiece of my analytical schema for Robert Johnson is the description of his various "voice types". There are four general voice types in my system, along with a set of "rules" that apply to situations where timbral variation occurs.

Voice types:

1. "singing"
-sharply articulated consonants
-resonant "chest voice"
-slightly nasal due to a closed supraglottis (upper throat).
-usually with a slight vibrato

2. "kissing"
-lips extruded
-emphasizes the "oo" vowel sound (the "oo" vowel has some of the lowest formants of all the vowels - Johnson's use of the "kissing" sound tends to lower the formants of other vowels as well)
-reduced tongue movement and thus duller articulation of consonants (which in turn makes Johnson's delivery slurred and lyrics harder to decipher)
-has the acoustic effect of increasing upper midrange frequencies in the voice, which in turn aids in projection (see Ry Cooder's speculations on Johnson's use of the acoustic principle of "corner loading" during his hotel room recording sessions, Cooder 1990)
-sometimes predominant in a song, sometimes used for timbral contrast

3. "speaking"
-lips spread
-smoother timbral quality
-reduced articulation of consonants
-elimination of vibrato
-used for spoken passages and special situations
-some accentuation of lower formants - a "deeper" timbral quality

4. "harsh/narrow"
-closed supraglottis - nasal sound
-lateral pressure on the vocal cords causes harsh, noisy voice quality
-used sparingly except in the special humourous situation of "They're Red Hot"

Rules of timbral variation:

1. Johnson tends to efface the timbral differences between vowels in certain passages, particularly those where low formants are more prevalent.

2. Johnson tends to hold nasal consonants when they have the final position in a phrase, and he tends to "close" and darken vowels when they are held in the final position. This often occurs at the ends of the antecedent sub-phrase in the A and B lines of three-line stanzas.

3. In three line stanzas, Johnson tends to vary line C in timbre.

4. Johnson tends to vary bridge sections in timbre.

5. Generally, Johnson uses more timbral variations in lyrics that are particularly derivative or repetitious.

With this scheme in mind, what follows is a take-by-take breakdown of Johnson's performances, in chronological order4 .

"Kindhearted Woman Blues"
recorded November 23, 1936.
key: B
range: a tenth
theme: romantic dissatisfaction
blues family: 4

Two takes exist of this song. Generally, the "singing" voice is used. The first take is a good example of the second rule, as Johnson holds the final note of phrases in a nasal consonant or a closed vowel. In this line, Johnson holds the nasal consonant [n] (in "women") as well as the final vowel [i] (in "be"), "darkening" the vowel by closing his mouth slightly.

but these evil-hearted women, man they will not let me be listen

There is quite a bit of timbral variation in the bridge of this song. Johnson affects a narrow timbre for the first line, switching to the "kissing" voice for the first half of the second line, then back to an opening singing voice for the remainder of the second line and the third and fourth lines. This variation might be connected to the prevalence of certain vowel sounds in these lines. The first line contains a preponderance of high formant vowels, namely [a] ("ain't", "makes") and [I] ("thing", "drink"), which lend to a certain nasality. Johnson seems to respond to this by rendering the entire line more nasal. That is, he may have desired a variation in timbre because of the structural position of this line (the first line in the contrasting bridge section of the song), and used the timbral profile of the prominent vowels (they are prominent largely because they are rhymed) to suggest which "voice" to use.

A-ain't but the one thing - makes Mr. Johnson drink
I's worried 'bout how you treat me baby - I begin to think:
Oh, babe - my life don't feel the same
You breaks my heart when you call Mr. So-and-So's name listen

A similar explanation can be given for his use of the "kissing" voice in the first half of the second line. This section contains a number of low formant vowels - [ou] ("worried", Johnson's pronunciation of "you") and [ow] ("bout", "how"), which work well for that voice type. In fact, when these vowels cease to be used, with the word "treat" in the second line, so does the "kissing" voice. The change back to a "singing" voice is precipitated by Johnson's use of falsetto throughout the third line - he breaks out of the "kissing" voice in the second half of the second line as if to prepare for the falsetto, a vocal technique which requires "singing" production.

The timbral variation displayed in the first take of "Kindhearted Woman Blues" is virtually duplicated in the second take, even as other details change (slight alteration of lyrics, the replacement of the guitar break with an extra verse).

"I Believe I'll Dust My Broom"
recorded November 23, 1936
key: E
range: a tenth
theme: romantic dissatisfaction
blues family: 1

Apart from Johnson's use of timbral variation corresponding to the second rule, this is fairly uniformly sung in the "singing" voice. The held nasals and closed final vowels are conspicuous in the third and sixth stanzas. In the third, the word "woman" is sung in such a way that the [n] nasal consonant is prolonged, while the [e] directly preceding is almost imperceptible. In the sixth stanza, the final vowel of ñChinaî is closed to the point that it begins to sound like a nasal consonant.

I don't want no woman - wants every downtown man she meet listen
I'm 'on call up China - see is my good girl over there listen

"Sweet Home Chicago"
recorded November 23, 1936
key: F#
range: a tenth
theme: travel
blues family: 2

One of the most interesting aspects of "Sweet Home Chicago" vocally is Johnson's variations on the syllable "oh" throughout the first and second stanzas. His pronunciations vary from [o] to [ou] to [ow], with every point in between. Here, edited together are all four occurrences of the syllable:

"Oh" listen

"Sweet Home Chicago" marks the first appearance on record of Johnson's "speaking" timbre. Most noticeably, it can be heard in the second lines of the third, fourth and fifth stanzas. Here is an example from the third stanza:

Now one and one is two - two and two is four,
I'm heavy loaded baby - I'm booked, I got to go
Cryin' baby - honey, don't you want to go?
Back to the land of California, to my sweet home Chicago. listen

Apart from this, Johnson's performance is notable for the unusual pronunciation of "California" in the song's refrain ("Californoo"). He extrudes his lips for this word, perhaps giving a preview of the "kissing" voice, which appears more prominently in the word "Chicago", the last word of each verse. It's unclear why Johnson would choose to use the "kissing" voice for the two place names in the song (Ainslie and Whitehill, presumably following Stephen LaVere in the Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings liner notes transcribe the last verse as containing a reference to Des Moines, Iowa; I have serious reservations about this).

"Ramblin' On My Mind"
recorded November 23, 1936
key: F#
range: a tenth
theme: travel
blues family: 1

For the most part, "Ramblin' On My Mind" features the "singing" timbre, albeit in a rather high tessitura. The two takes of this song have somewhat different lyric texts, and in the second take, Johnson introduces a harsh timbre on the word "believe". This might be connected to the high brightness of the [i] vowel as well as the high pitch of the note itself. Probably these two factors along with an wish to give the word emphasis account for this rather isolated occurrence of vocal rasp.

I believe - I believe my time ain't long
I believe - I believe that my time ain't long
But I'm leaving this morning
I believe I will go back home listen

"When You Got A Good Friend"
recorded November 23, 1936
key: F#
range: a tenth
theme: romantic dissatisfaction
blues family: 1

This song shares an number of musical parameters with "Ramblin' On My Mind", and accordingly it shares some common details of vocal performance. Like the earlier song, "When You Got A Good Friend" is in F#, with a similar range and melodic type and thus many tones in common. And, like "Ramblin' On My Mind", this song contains some occasional vocal rasp, on the high third scale degree and on an [i] vowel. In this case, the rasp falls on the word "sweet" in the third stanza (in the second take only - in the first take the word is thrown away too quickly for rasp to be audible).

She's a brownskin woman - just as sweet as a girlfriend can be listen

This song also has pronounced and sustained nasal consonants in the terminal positions of phrases. The [n] sound is particularly common here.

"Come On In My Kitchen"
recorded November 23, 1936
key: B
range: an octave
theme: romantic dissatisfaction
blues family: n/a (the form does not conform to Titon's model)

Probably the most striking aspect of this performance is the prolonged use of the "kissing" timbre. Sometimes Johnson extrudes his lips so much as to be almost unintelligible. An explanation for the use of this timbre might be found in the occurrences of [o], [oo] and [ow] sounds in the refrain.

You better come on in my kitchen
babe, it's goin' to be rainin' outdoors listen

Johnson seems to take this as a cue to use the "kissing" timbre throughout the song, and to generally vary timbre as well. Even this refrain contains more nasal syllables, on the initial "you" and later on "in". The antecedent first phrase of the line is more in the "singing" voice than the second. Johnson continues to switch between more and less "kissing" timbres throughout the performance, including a spoken passage in the fourth stanza which is, predictably, performed in the "speaking" timbre.
The use of the "kissing" timbre is less pronounced in the second take.

"Terraplane Blues"
recorded November 23, 1936
key: B
range: a fifteenth
theme: metaphorical sexuality
blues family: 2

This is one of Robert Johnson's most stirring performances on record, with an active guitar accompaniment and a vocal performance full of surprising melodic turns and falsetto whoops. For the most part, he uses the regular singing timbre, with characteristic held nasals at the ends of some lines.

"Phonograph Blues"
recorded November 23, 1936
key: B
range: a fifteenth
theme: metaphorical sexuality
blues family: 4

This is an example where the two takes of a Johnson song differ radically, and must be discussed separately. The first take might be compared in sound and style to "Kindhearted Woman Blues", with which it shares its key and melodic type. This take contains a fair bit of timbral interest. In the second stanza, Johnson interposes the "kissing" timbre into the third line (it is his general tendency to vary the third line of three-line stanzas where variation occurs). The third stanza, which functions as a kind of bridge (by virtue of its contrasting stanzaic/melodic form and stop-time guitar accompaniment) features quite a bit of timbral variation from line to line. The different "voices" are mapped out below:

Now, we played it on the sofa, now [singing]
we played it 'side the wall [speaking (though the line is sung)]
My needles have got rusty, baby [speaking]
they will not play at all [speaking]
We played it on the sofa [kissing]
and we played it 'side the wall [singing]
But my needles have got rusty [kissing]
and it will not play at all [singing] listen

The second take is much more similar to "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom" in terms of melodic style and especially in terms of guitar accompaniment. Likewise, this take has none of the timbral variation of the first take, and is performed entirely in a rather strident "singing" timbre.

"32-20 Blues"
recorded November 26, 1936
key: A
range: a twelfth
theme: violence
blues family: 1

For the most part, Johnson affects an uncharacteristically deep "singing" voice throughout this song, except for two stanzas, both of which begin with the well-worn line "Ah-oh, baby where you stay last night". Johnson slightly contracts his supraglottis at these points, creating a smaller, less resonant sound. These stanzas also mark a variation in the guitar accompaniment, so it is likely that Johnson used these timbral changes as structural variations, rather than in connection to some preponderance of a vowel sound or textual meaning.

"They're Red Hot"
recorded November 30, 1936
key: C
range: a tenth
theme: humour/hokum
blues family: n/a (not a blues song)

This song is a rather singular one in Johnson's output. In addition to bearing almost no relation to his other songs in musical and lyric style, his voice is almost unrecognizable. Johnson sings almost the entire song in an affected nasal rasp, presumably for humourous effect given the type of lyrics he is singing. Only on occasion does he let this vocal conceit slip, and usually for brief spoken passages.

Hot tamales and they red hot
yes, she got 'em for sale
Hot tamales and they red hot
yes, she got 'em for sale
I got a letter from a girl in the room
Now, she got somethin' good she got to bring home soon, now
It's hot tamales and they red hot
yeah, she got 'em for sale, I mean
Yes, she got 'em for sale, yeah listen

"Dead Shrimp Blues"
recorded November 30, 1936
key: B
range: a fifteenth
theme: metaphorical sexuality
blues family: 4

This song is not unlike many of Johnson's performances, with his by now trademark held nasals at the ends of line. In the "bridge" stanza (Stanza 3) he varies his timbre significantly, using a change in voice quality to mark the halfway point division within the stanza. This technique is strongly reminiscent of Johnson's performance in the first take of "Phonograph Blues" (see above), which is, interestingly, based on a similar lyric theme and shares both key and melodic family with "Dead Shrimp Blues".

Everything I do, babe, you got your mouth stuck out (speaking)
Hole where I used to fish, you got me posted out (speaking)
Everything I do, you got your mouth stuck out (singing)
At the hole where I used to fish, baby (singing)
You've got me posted out (singing) listen

"Cross Road Blues"
recorded November 30, 1936
key: B
range: a twelfth
theme: occult/evil
blues family: 4

"Cross Road Blues" is a performance that features Johnson's "singing" voice pushed to its limit. At several points throughout the two takes of this song, Johnson slips into a rasp, probably caused by the tremendous sound pressure generated by Johnson's larynx. Even with such a careening, forceful performance, though, Johnson manages to slip some timbre variation into the final stanza of the first take.

And I went to the crossroad, mama (singing)
I looked east and west (singing)
I went to the crossroad, baby (kissing)
I looked east and west (kissing)
Lord, I didn't have no sweet woman (singing)
ooh-well, babe, in my distress (speaking) listen

"Walking Blues"
recorded November 30, 1936
key: B
range: an octave
theme: travel (?)
blues family: 1

This is probably the Johnson performance with the most timbral variation overall. The variation also seems more random than in other songs. This might be explained by the relative monotony of the lyric text (basically two repeated couplets per stanza). He might have felt the urge to 'spice up' the performance somewhat. The entire performance is full of unusual and copious variation, but a look at the first stanza should suffice to make the point:

I woke up (rasp) this mornin' (singing)
feelin' round for my (singing)
shoes...Know 'bout I got these (kissing)
old walkin' blues, woke (singing, with rasp)
Up this mornin' feelin' 'round, (singing)
oh, for my shoes (kissing)
But you know 'bout 'at I got these old walkin' blues (singing) listen

These variations are not seemingly connected to textual meaning; in fact, they cross over syntactical divisions quite easily. This suggests that Johnson was indulging in more "playful voicedness" than the conscious, rather systematic timbral variation of some of his other performances.

"Last Fair Deal Gone Down"
recorded November 30, 1936
key: A
range: a twelfth
theme: travel (?)
blues family: n/a (does not follow the three-line blues form)

Johnson's performance here exemplifies his practice of varying timbre from line to line or stanza to stanza when the lyric is particularly repetitious or derivative of other blues lyrics. He varies mildly between a regular "singing" timbre and more raspy, narrow vocal sounds, some of which recall the parodic flavour of "They're Red Hot":

My captain's so mean on me (raspy, narrow)
My captain's so mean on me (singing)
My captain's so mean on me, good Lord (raspy, singing)
On this Gulfport Island Road (singing) listen

"Preaching Blues (Up Jumped the Devil)"
recorded November 30, 1936
key: E
range: a tenth
theme: the blues themselves
blues family: 1

The use of the narrow, raspy timbre so prevalent in "They're Red Hot" can be generally linked to the November 30, 1936 session. It occurs in a few guises; in the present example, it is used as a timbre variation for the third line in the first stanza:

Mmmmmmm mmmmmm (all lines except the last one are in the "singing" timbre)
I's up this mornin'
ah, blues walkin' like a man
I's up this mornin'
ah, blues walkin' like a man
Worried blues,
give me your right hand (narrow, raspy) listen

In the fifth and final stanza, Johnson ventures a similar type of variation, though he substitutes the "kissing" timbre for the narrow, raspy one on the third line.

I been stutterin' (all lines except the last one are in the "singing" timbre)
oh, oh, drive, oh, oh, drive my blues
I been stutterin' and
I'm 'on drive my blues away
Goin' to the 'stil'ry
stay out there all day (kissing) listen

"If I Had Possession Over Judgement Day"
recorded November 30, 1936
key: A
range: a ninth
theme: romantic dissatisfaction
blues family: 3

This performance continues the pattern noted above of varying timbre on the third line of the three-line stanza. Rather than using the "singing" voice as the rule, though, Johnson uses a modified5 speaking timbre. For variation, he uses the singing voice, with its more nasal, strident quality.

And I went to the mountain (all lines except the last one are in the "speaking" timbre)
lookin' far as my eyes could see
And I went to the mountain
lookin' far as my eye would see
Some other man got my woman and the '-a (singing)
lonesome blues got me (singing) listen

"Stones In My Passway"
recorded June 19, 1937
key: A
range: a fourteenth
theme: travel
blues family: 3

"I'm A Steady Rollin' Man"
recorded June 19, 1937
key: Bb
range: a thirteenth
theme: travel
blues family: 4

"From Four Till Late"
recorded June 19, 1937
key: C
range: a tenth
theme: romantic dissatisfaction
blues family: 3

Johnson uses an unchanging "singing" voice throughout these performances. There is almost no rasp at all, which is probably due to the moderate tessituras of these songs.

"Hellhound on my Trail"
recorded June 20, 1937
key: E
range: an eleventh
theme: travel (?)
blues family: 1

"Hellhound on my Trail" features a particularly penetrating and tremulous variant of the "singing" voice. This performance is a breed apart from the previous three of the day's session, and this partly accounts for the song's legendary status in Johnson's oeuvre.

"Little Queen of Spades"
recorded June 20, 1937
key: A
range: a fifteenth
theme: metaphorical sexuality
blues family: 4

This performance is substantially similar to "Kindhearted Woman Blues" and its variants. The guitar accompaniment is almost identical, as is the vocal style (which is in the "singing" voice), though this song lacks a bridge section, and thus the timbral variation that would accompany it (see "Kindhearted Woman Blues" and "Phonograph Blues (take 1)" above).

"Malted Milk"
recorded June 20, 1937
key: Eb
range: an octave
theme: alcohol
blues family: 3

"Drunken Hearted Man"
recorded June 20, 1937
key: Eb
range: an octave
theme: alcohol
blues family: 4

Among many other similarities, these two songs (three performances in all) share the use of "speaking" vocal timbre throughout. This seems to suit the bathetic texts and wistful melodies of these songs.

(from take 1)
I been dogged and I been driven
ever since I left my mother's home
I been dogged and I been driven
ever since I left my mother's home
And I can't see the reason why
that I can't leave these no-good womens alone listen

"Me and the Devil Blues"
recorded June 20, 1937
key: Bb
range: a fifteenth
theme: occult/evil
blues family: 4

Like the other song here that I have classified as being in the "occult/evil" theme ("Cross Road Blues"), this performance has a very even, regular use of the "singing" vocal timbre. One might expect Johnson to give these dark, disturbing texts a more dramatic treatment, but he seems to reserve his most varied performances for those songs with more repetitive and derivative texts, like "Walking Blues" and "Last Fair Deal Gone Down".

"Stop Breakin' Down Blues"
recorded June 20, 1937
key: A
range: a seventeenth
theme: romantic dissatisfaction
blues family: n/a (does not follow three-line blues form)

"Travelling Riverside Blues"
recorded June 20, 1937
key: Bb
range: a twelfth
theme: travel
blues family: 3

Both of these songs (with two takes of "Stop Breakin' Down Blues") feature an unchanging "singing" timbre.

"Honeymoon Blues"
recorded June 20, 1937
key: B
range: a fifteenth
theme: romantic dissatisfaction
blues family: 3

This is one of the few performances from the June 20, 1937 session that features any timbral variation at all. What variation exists is slight - Johnson introduces a "kissing" timbre into the third line of the second stanza in what is generally a "singing" vocal performance.

"Love In Vain"
recorded June 20, 1937
key: A
range: a tenth
theme: romantic dissatisfaction
blues family: 3

This beautiful song is performed entirely in the "singing" voice. It is interesting, though, to compare the final stanzas of the two existing takes, Take 1 and Take 4. Both stanzas are composed almost completely of vocables, with the first take centering on phonetic variations of the [o] vowel:

Ou hou ou ou ou
hoo, Willie Mae
Oh oh oh oh oh hey
hoo, Willie Mae
Ou ou ou ou ou ou
hee vee oh woe
All my love's in vain listen

In the fourth take, Johnson has switched to vocables related to the [e] and [a] vowel sounds:

Eee eee eee eee ooo
hoo, Willie Mae
Ey ey ey ey ey ey ey
hoo, Willie Mae
hee vee oh woe
All my love's in vain listen

Such vocal extemporization is rare in Johnson's recorded output, just as he was seemingly modest about his guitar playing abilities6.

"Milkcow's Calf Blues"
recorded June 20, 1937
key: Bb
range: a seventeenth
theme: metaphorical sexuality
blues family: 2

This song is substantially similar to "Terraplane Blues", and it shares that song's reliance on a "singing" timbre with the usual held nasals at the ends of certain lines.

Conclusions

In reference to my goal of correlating Robert Johnson's vocal performances to other aspects of his repertory, I will make a few possible connections here. Any generalizations that I might formulate here must be tempered with a major extenuating factor: Johnson's body of work, though it is all we have, is far too small to produce statistically significant results. Thus any references to a cohesive expressive system are even more speculative than is usual in this type of work.

spreadsheet image

Looking at the distribution of various parameters (enumerated above) over the five recording dates in chronological order, what immediately jumps out is the fact that lyric themes are often grouped in twos, especially throughout the November 23, 1936 session. Other than that, it can be said that Johnson varied his themes more in later sessions than in that first session.
If the songs are grouped by theme, it can be seen that the amount of timbre variation is more or less equally distributed over the 29 songs, though there is more variety in the general voice types within the "romantic dissatisfaction" theme. The "metaphorical sexuality" songs tend to have the widest ranges, all of them wider than a fifteenth. The "alcohol" songs have identical general voice types, "speaking", and identical ranges and keys as well. And the single humour/hokum song, "They're Red Hot", has a voice type all its own, the "harsh/narrow" voice.

Though the sample is small, the amount of theme to voice type correlation suggests that Johnson's use of vocal timbres is not random. As noted above, the amount of timbral variation within a song also seems to be connected to the degree of repetition in a lyric or how derivative and cliched it is. There does not appear to be significant correlations between vocal timbre and other parameters beyond this.

Mike Daley - essay - Black English and rap music: a comparison

Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock - essay - Mike Daley

Land of the Free:
Jimi Hendrix: Woodstock Music and Art Fair, Bethel, NY. 18 August 1969
Mike Daley

The first histories of rock, Charlie Gillett's The Sound of the City and Carl Belz's The Story of Rock, appeared in the late 1960s, at a time when rock journalism was in its first full flowering and the music itself had entered a period of consolidation. Rock, for better or worse, had reached its first stages of maturity with the development of the album as an artistic unit, and endorsements from the likes of Leonard Bernstein and the British musicologist Wilfrid Mellers were lending a certain legitimacy to the work of those artists and groups in the vanguard of mainstream popular music making. The time was ripe for rock literati to bestow rock with a historical narrative; rock needed a historical thread to make sense of its unprecedented popular success and its rapidly splintering stylistic branches.

But histories can never be innocent of the human need to mythologize, and these early histories of rock set a process in motion whereby the short history of this music would be understood in terms of a creation myth and a linear model, derived from Renaissance-era historiography, of style development as a tripartite model of primordial beginnings, classic flowering, and a final period of decadence and decay. Both Gillett and Belz saw this period of decadence stemming from the stylistic fragmentation and increasing commercialism of late 60s rock, the period in which they were writing. This is common among writers of contemporary histories of artistic movements, the urge to see the present as the denouement of the narrative. Predictably, this model has been somewhat stretched in later histories of rock, with the final part of the model dragged along closer to the writer's present.

This brings us to the historical moment that is the subject of my chapter, Jimi Hendrix's appearance at the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair on 18 August 1969 at Bethel, New York. In recent years, Hendrix's set has come to synecdochically represent the Woodstock festival's mythos as a cultural signpost in rock history. This assessment of Hendrix's impact qua Woodstock, is, I will argue in this chapter, a relatively recent formulation, fueled by the pervasiveness of the Woodstock film and retrospective judgments about Hendrix's overall artistic importance in the grand scheme of rock history. More specifically, Hendrix's symbolic heft has come to be focused on one particular song from his set, “The Star-Spangled Banner”.

The story behind the Woodstock festival has been oft told, so I summarize it only briefly here. Michael Lang, a twenty-four-year-old former head shop proprieter, had organized the successful Miami Pop Festival in 1968, which had featured the Mothers of Invention, John Lee Hooker, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and a host of others. Spurred on by the triumphant Monterey Pop festival of 1967 (where Hendrix made his American debut after forming his trio and recording Are You Experienced? in England), large-scale rock festivals were big business in 1969. Lang, after a move to Woodstock, had conceived of an alternative recording retreat based on the "Recording Farm" and "Operation Brown Rice" collectives in California. Woodstock, long established as an artists' colony, was home to a strange admixture of moneyed rock stars, struggling musicians, and conservative farmers. After meeting with investors Joel Rosenmann and John Roberts, Lang decided to launch the recording facility with a gala concert in the area. This concert idea was soon to expand into a plan for a large scale festival.

By the summer of 1969, the Hendrix Experience had completed their last American tour. Bassist Noel Redding marked the occasion by resigning from the band and Hendrix began to formulate plans to put together a new band. His evolving Electric Church concept was freer and more experimental, more communal, than the tight Experience power-trio had been. Feeling burned by his clashes with Redding, Hendrix sought to create a supportive, fluid backdrop for his music, unmarred by ego clashes. He was concerned with surrounding himself with trustworthy compatriots, which meant for him musicians that he had known pre-fame. Mike Jeffrey, distrustful of Hendrix's new direction, nonetheless rented an eight-bedroom house for his charge near Woodstock, at the end of Tavor Hollow Road near the villages of Shokan and Boiceville. Hendrix, in turn, put his old army buddy Billy Cox on notice to step in on bass, who at Hendrix's request looked up another old friend, guitarist Larry Lee. Jerry Velez was a Puerto-Rican born, Bronx raised percussionist that Hendrix had met at the Scene club in New York. He was one of the first to be invited to stay at Hendrix's Shokan retreat. Another percussionist, respected for his work around Woodstock, was Juma Sultan, and he was quickly pulled into the fray. The new group, to be dubbed Gypsy Suns and Rainbows, was almost complete.

While Hendrix vacationed in Morocco, his newly minted band tentatively rehearsed at the Shokan house. After Hendrix's return, the lineup was consolidated, after some waffling over the choice between Mitch Mitchell and Buddy Miles, on Hendrix's old Experience partner Mitchell. By all reports, rehearsals proceeded fitfully. As Hendrix's road manager Gerry Stickells recalled:

Rehearsals, as I remember they called them, consisted of getting stoned and talking about how great it was going to be. The fact that they kept adding people to the lineup proved to me that it wasn't together. They went along because someone else was paying the bills.

As the Woodstock gig drew closer, Hendrix taught the band to play some old hits like "Purple Haze", "Fire" and "Foxey Lady" as well as working up some newer songs and some jam-based instrumentals.

As the August 15 opening day approached, the organizers of the Woodstock festival found matters reeling out of control. The venue changed twice, only becoming solidified when a local dairy farmer, Max Yasgur, offered to rent 600 acres of his prime farmland to the organizers for $75,000. The site was 100 miles north of New York and 70 miles west of Woodstock, the originally projected home of the festival. On August 7 the promotion company held a pre-festival concert for the workers preparing the site. One of the performers, the Earthlight Theatre, stripped naked for their set, which prompted eight hundred local residents to sign a petition to stop the festival. But by then, the mass pilgrimage to Bethel had begun. An estimated 30,000 people were on site before security, food service or medical aid was in place. The Woodstock Festival had begun. With little in the way of security or fencing, most of the concertgoers simply walked on in, and soon enough it was declared a free festival. Only about 60,000 of the 400,000 who attended Woodstock paid to get in.

The talent roster at Woodstock was one of the most impressive ever assembled. Beginning with Richie Havens, the Friday show included Country Joe McDonald, John Sebastian, The Incredible String Band, Sweetwater, Tim Hardin, Bert Sommer, Ravi Shankar, Melanie, Arlo Guthrie and Joan Baez. Saturday brought Quill, Keef Hartley Band, Santana, Mountain, Canned Heat, Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Sly and the Family Stone, the Who and the Jefferson Airplane. Sunday's lineup consisted of Joe Cocker, Country Joe and the Fish, Ten Years After, the Band, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Johnny Winter, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and Sha Na Na, with Hendrix taking the final slot.

By the time the concert had gotten underway, the site was virtually impossible to reach by car, and many performers flew to the site by helicopter. Hendrix and his band ended up making the trip in two station wagons. He was unhappy about the media reports of the size of the gathering, and by 4:00 on Sunday, was refusing to play. The fee, $18,000, was small by his standards, though he was the highest-paid performer at the festival. In any case, Mike Jeffrey stepped in and convinced Hendrix to play on the basis of the prestige of the engagement.

With rain delays and poor planning, Hendrix and his group didn't take the stage for their festival-closing set until 8:00 Monday morning. By then, fewer than 30,000 audience members remained. The Woodstock film depicts well the haggard hordes, the scattered garbage, the hard morning air, the grey skies. The camera focuses on Hendrix's guitar with an astringent clarity, his guitar notes sharp and clear.

One of the abiding images of the place and time of Woodstock is Jimi, in white-beaded leather jacket, blue jeans, gold chains and a red head-scarf standing centre-stage alone sending out 'The Star-Spangled Banner' as a series of shock waves across the audience in the early-morning light.

The performance, to put it lightly, was loose and somewhat confused, the band showing its lack of rehearsal and perhaps the unreadiness of some of the musicians. In any case, the contributions of the two percussionists are inaudible to this listener, at least in the released mixes of the concert. Larry Lee's guitar, when it is audible, is usually horribly out of tune, and his abilities are not up to the task of trading licks with Jimi Hendrix. Even Mitch Mitchell, Hendrix's longtime cohort, Mitch Mitchell, sounds confused and unfocused. This is perhaps due to the nonexistent stage monitoring more than anything. Hendrix himself seems to be struggling himself, though still playing at a level that few have equaled. Charles Shaar Murray is decidedly more damning in his assessment:

Never in his two and a half years with the Experience had Hendrix exhibited such disregard for professionalism, not even during that band's formative weeks when, with a paucity of original material, cover versions of songs had been performed with as much enthusiasm as could be mustered. On stage at Woodstock, the same Jimi Hendrix who had refused Noel Redding the opportunity to perform "She's So Fine" - even when fans had shouted requests for the number - allowed guitarist Larry Lee to traipse off-key through two songs, “Mastermind” and the Impressions' “Gypsy Woman”4.

Listening to the Hendrix:Woodstock CD, which is more complete than previous releases but still missing Larry Lee’s two vocal turns, the encore of Hey Joe and other elements, as well as being partially reordered, there are some sublime moments here. “Voodoo Chile”, “Villanova Junction” and “Izabella” stand out for me. But surely the highlight of the set, and the portion that has come to symbolize Hendrix at Woodstock as well as a few other things, is “The Star-Spangled Banner”.

Coming out of “Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)/Stepping Stone”, Hendrix plays the opening salvo of “The Star Spangled Banner” in the lowest position on the neck, using open strings where possible, his new Univibe rotating-speaker effect pedal warbling the pitches. Mitch Mitchell is filling in the background with tom and cymbals builds in free rhythm. The crowd, roused to their greatest excitement of the set, cheers wildly. Hendrix adorns the simple anthemic melody with scoops and articulations like a lone gospel singer. This vocal interpretation continues through the first two stanzas, with some trumpet-like trills appearing later on. With feedback beginning to encroach on the held notes, Hendrix engages the wah pedal to up the treble ante. He follows the B section line “and the rockets’ red glare...” with the wail of a falling bomb and its subsequent explosion, mashing his Stratocaster’s vibrato bar to its lowest position. Some rolling confusion follows, screaming voices, machine gun ratatats, unearthly strangled cries, a mother’s futile wails. Then the line “the bombs bursting in air”, followed by a low-toned siren, some unplaceable sounds of unreality, another bomb assault, twisted metal and bodies, a trickle of blood. “Our flag was still there” leaps up to a keening, pure-toned quotation of “Taps”. The final stanza beginning with “Oh say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave” is given a straight treatment but is filtered through ululating pickup toggle switch effects, with the word “wave” held through successions of fed-back harmonic overtones. With a strangled stop, Hendrix resumes with “o’er the land of the free”, with the final note of the line again left for dead to have its fundamental pitch leached out by the feedback decay, and a final bomb’s fall to earth. After a short serious of portentous, incongruous chords, Hendrix segues into a perfunctory “Purple Haze”.

In early journalistic accounts of the Woodstock Festival, not much attention is given to Hendrix’s appearance. He doesn’t rate a mention in Charlie Gillett’s 1971 revision of Sound of the City, and Greil Marcus merely namechecks him in his eyewitness account, preferring to focus on Country Joe MacDonald and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. As late as 1986, the writers of Rock of Ages: The Rolling Stone History of Rock and Roll mentioned Hendrix only to report his performance fee. It seems that in the years immediately following the festival, the music was dwarfed by the perceived social importance of the event. But around 1989, Hendrix’s appearance starts to take on a new profundity. Not coincidentally, this date was the 20th anniversary of Woodstock, when reassessments of the festival and the ensuing years of rock history were placed under some journalistic scrutiny. Likewise, the rerelease of the Woodstock and Woodstock II concert compilations on CD caused some critics to see Hendrix in a new light vis-a-vis the festival and its symbolic meaning. In a review of this CD issue, Steve Sutherland of Melody Maker opined:

...the best of all the participants captured here is Jimi Hendrix, whose “Star-Spangled Banner”, bleeding into “Purple Haze” is among the most staggering of the live excursions he left to posterity. While his stuff on Woodstock II is mainly pedestrian by his blinding standards, “Star-Spangled Banner” blasts the American Dream to tatters and his “Haze” falls like nuclear confetti, both bitter and celebratory

Harry Shapiro, in his excellent Hendrix biography Electric Gypsy, offers a cogent analysis of the meaning of “The Star-Spangled Banner” vis a vis the revolutionary spirit of the times. He comments on the white, affluent audience demographic, pointing out that “just being at Woodstock was as close to an act of revolution as most of the audience ever came Shapiro also notes that Hendrix’s own attitude towards the war in Vietnam was rather ambivalent. He had served as a paratrooper some years earlier, and in interviews Hendrix expressed some worries about the encroaching “yellow danger” in Southeast Asia.

Did you send the Americans away when they landed in Normandy? That was also interference...but that was concerning your own skin. The Americans are fighting in Vietnam for a completely free world. As soon as they move out, they [the Vietnamese] will be at the mercy of the communists. For that matter the yellow danger [China] should not be underestimated. Of course, war is horrible, but at present it’s still the only guarantee of peace

Clearly Hendrix had a more conflicted view of the war in Vietnam than would be suggested by many of the commentators on the semantic meaning of “The Star Spangled Banner”. Charles Shaar Murray, in his beautifully rich Hendrix biography and 60s cultural history Crosstown Traffic, makes a case that Hendrix’s performance articulated the complexities of the Vietnam problem more acutely than any other artistic expression.

The “Star Spangled Banner” is probably the most complex and powerful work of American art to deal with the Vietnam war and its corrupting, distorting effect on successive generations of the American psyche. One man with one guitar said more in three and a half minutes about that peculiarly disgusting war and its reverberations than all the novels, memoirs and movies put together. It is an interpretation of history which permits no space for either the gung-ho revisionism of Sylvester Stallone and Chuck Norris or the solipsistic angst of Coppola and Oliver Stone; it depicts, as graphically as a piece of music can possibly do, both what the Americans did to the Vietnamese and what they did to themselves.

In any case, though, Hendrix’s rendition of the anthem pushed some powerful buttons in the years following Woodstock, as that festival increasingly came to symbolize the last hurrah of the love and peace era. The Altamont festival later that same year, with its air of dread, was itself filmed and released as Gimme Shelter, complete with an on-camera murder. It provided a bitter bookend to the idealism and naivete of the 1960s. Woodstock has come to represent a unique moment of community, and Hendrix’s appearance in particular symbolizes the freewheeling spirit of the era as well as the troubled heart of the antiwar movement.

Mike Daley - essay - Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock

Vocal performance and speech intonation: Bob Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone".

Vocal performance and speech intonation: Bob Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone".

Michael Daley, York University, Toronto

During my thesis research, I studied the vocal style of Bob Dylan from 1960 to 1966. In that six year span, I found that four distinctive sub-styles could be delineated. The last of these, beginning in 1965 and continuing up to Dylan's motorcycle accident in July 1966, is probably his most well-known sub-style. This sub-style seems to lie in a middle ground between song and speech, with a great deal of sliding pitch and rhythmically free text declamation. This is also the time period when Dylan had his greatest commercial and critical success, peaking with the release in July 1965 of "Like A Rolling Stone". In addition to the song's commercial success, a number of commentators have pointed to it as an artistic peak, many of them citing "Like A Rolling Stone" as the most important single performance of Dylan's 44-year (at the time of writing) recording career.

My intention here is to analyze a recorded performance of a single verse of one of Dylan’s most popular songs, observing the ways in which intonation details relate to lyrics and performance. The analysis is used as source material for a close reading of the semantic, affective and ‘playful’ meanings of the performance, and this reading is compared with some published accounts of the song’s reception.

For this analysis, I have drawn on the linguistic methodology formulated by Michael Halliday. Halliday has found speech intonation, which includes pitch movement, timbre, syllabic rhythm and loudness, to be an integral part of English grammar and crucial to the transmission of certain kinds of meaning. Intonation patterns are shared by the fluent speakers of a given language, and the understanding of basic intonational gestures precedes words both in infant language acquisition and in evolutionary brain development. That is, intonation is a lower brain function than word recognition, thus developing as a perceptual tool much earlier. Speech intonation is a deeply-rooted and powerfully meaningful aspect of human communication. It is plausible that a system so powerful in speech might have some bearing on the communication of meaning in sung performance. This is the premise by which I am applying Halliday's methods to this performance.

The musical object in question is the originally released studio recording of “Like A Rolling Stone”, a performance that has generated much discussion among Dylan’s commentators and fans. I begin with a short history of the song’s reception among critics and fans, as well as the assessments of Dylan himself.

“Like A Rolling Stone” was recorded on June 16, 1965 and was released as a single on July 20, later appearing on the album Highway 61 Revisited. It was an immediate success, eventually climbing to #2 on the Billboard pop chart and #1 on the Cashbox chart. The song was somewhat different from the top ten fare of the time, though. At a length of over six minutes (it was chopped for radio play) it was significantly longer than the two-and-a-half or three minute standard length then dominating pop radio, with a raucous guitar and organ based arrangement and four verses of dense, rapid-fire verbiage. It is generally agreed by commentators that the lyrics, at least on the surface, recount the privileged upbringing and subsequent fall into desperate poverty of a second person “Miss Lonely”. The narrator’s accusations and unflattering observations are couched in a series of declarative statements and questions, culminating after each verse in the famous refrain: “How does it feel…to be on your own…with no direction home, a complete unknown, like a rolling stone” (there are slight variations in the refrain from stanza to stanza). Perhaps the most strikingly unique aspect of the record is Dylan’s vocal performance, with its use of nasal, sliding pitches and a speechlike, highly rhythmic declamatory style. Dylan later described, in somewhat stylized terms, the genesis of the song:

“I wrote it as soon as I got back from England. It was ten pages long. It wasn’t called anything, just a rhythm thing on paper – all about my steady hatred directed at some point that was honest. In the end it wasn’t hatred. Revenge, that’s a better word. It was telling someone they didn’t know what it was all about, and they were lucky. I had never thought of it as a song, until one day I was at the piano, and on paper it was singing ‘How does it feel?’ in a slow motion pace, in the utmost of slow motion. It was like swimming in lava. Hanging by their arms from a birch tree. Skipping, kicking the tree, hitting a nail with your foot. Seeing someone in the pain they were bound to meet with. I wrote it. I didn’t fail. It was straight (to Jules Siegel, quoted in Scaduto 1973:244-5).

Whether or not one chooses to take Dylan’s comments at face value, they provide us with a sense of the artist’s own perception of his creative process and the degree to which the endeavour succeeded. They also give us a glimpse into the visual and gestural correlatives of Dylan’s sonic sense; he refers here to outward movement, directed towards a specific point. These metaphors, I suggest, are not arbitrary. They are in fact strongly indexed to the metaphorical constructs of much of the reception of “Like A Rolling Stone”, as well as the gestural aspects of Dylan’s use of vocal pitch in the performance.

In addition to the popular acclaim accorded to Dylan’s recording shortly after its release, a steady procession of commentators on Dylan’s life and work have offered their own assessments. The larger works from which the following quotations are drawn include Dylan biographies as well as short articles about Dylan and more scholarly analytical works (in the cases of Mellers and Bowden):

Anthony Scaduto:

When you heard ‘Rolling Stone’ back then it was like a cataclysm, like being taken to the edge of the abyss, drawn to some guillotine of experience…[Dylan was] biting off a word, spitting out venom, spreading a virulent emotion, infecting the listener (Scaduto 1973:245).

Patrick Humphries:

…steamrollering all that had gone before and spiraling onwards through outrageous rhymes and meter, lyrics flung like accusations, affronting yet compelling, that age-old fascination which lures unwary travelers right to the heart of darkness (Humphries and Bauldie 1991:57).

John Herdman:

Rock bottom intensity of feeling…he tells us what he feels himself, he projects himself with eerie immediacy into the feelings of others, and in so doing he shows us what we feel too (Herdman 1982:14).

Paul Nelson:

The definitive statement that both personal and artistic fulfillment must come, in the main, by being truly on one’s own (Nelson 1966:107).

Betsy Bowden:

…the absence of any personal pronouns (sic) sucks the listener into the song…the song’s ‘you’ gets thoroughly conquered in both sense and sound (Bowden 1982:104).

Wilfred Mellers:

Although the words are dismissive, the music – with its jaunty repeated notes and eyebrow-arching rising thirds…is positive in total effect (Mellers 1985:140).

“Hugh Dunnit” writing in The Telegraph (a Bob Dylan fan magazine):

…his birth cry is the primal demon voice that whoops out the surging refrains of this song…each is a searing, vituperative taunt, designed to needle to the bone. But the tone of the words (as sung) and music is unmistakably joyous, celebratory. [Dylan] is exultant, free, on his own, ecstatic that he is as he once was, a complete unknown – unknown because unknowable (quoted in Williams 1991:153).

While these assessments are rather broadly variant in tone and content, some recurring themes are discernible. I have grouped some salient metaphors and descriptors from the critical history of “Like A Rolling Stone” (including Dylan’s own commentary) into five main thematic areas below:

Thematic area 1:

Strong antagonism
“venom”
“dismissive”
“affronting”

Thematic area 2:

Attractiveness
“sucks the listener in”
“lures unwary travelers”
“compelling”
siren song metaphor
“drawn to some guillotine of experience”

Thematic area 3:

Positive message
“joyous…exultant…celebratory”
“personal and artistic fulfillment”

Thematic area 4:

Projecting
Thrusting outward
“spitting out venom”
“lyrics flung”
“directed at some point”
“whoops out”
“spiraling onwards”

Thematic area 5:

Sureness/effectiveness
Virtuosity
Intensity of feeling
Expressivity
“I wrote it. I didn’t fail. It was straight”

Thematic area 1 parallels the mood and content of the lyrics as they appear on paper – a strong antagonism is conveyed through the constant, invasive questioning and damning judgments of the invisible first person (who may or may not be identified as Dylan himself). I would doubt, though, that the lyrics alone create such a strong mood of condemnation. Dylan’s overall vocal timbre here is quite hard and nasal, the kind of vocal sound that might accompany a ‘tongue-lashing’ by someone who clearly feels that they are in the right, perhaps directed at a child or some other person in a position of lesser power. Such a tone suits this classic monologic text, whre the life history and inner thoughts of the “you” are co-opted by the narrator who is himself invisible, that is, not named, not described: an inviolable, inscrutable disembodied voice. Much of Dylan’s expressive output around the time that “Like A Rolling Stone” was recorded displays a similar style of interpersonal communication.

Thematic area 2 groups together references to the ‘attractiveness’ of the performance, its power to draw the listener towards something which, when it is named at all, is vaguely dangerous or forbidding. Humphries seems to refer to the ancient Greek myth of the Sirens, who lured travelers towards destruction with an irresistible song. Scaduto, perhaps specifying the nature of the destruction, refers to a “guillotine of experience”, which might suggest that the listener experiences some irrevocable change in worldview once drawn into “the abyss”. These types of metaphors are difficult to reconcile with the sense of the lyrics as written, so it seems that this theme of ‘attractiveness’ might be connected in some way with thematic area 5, which is concerned with virtuosic control. The “abyss” might be the potentiality of the listener herself being targeted for this kind of vitriol, while at the same time she is drawn to the source by the sheer mastery with which the antagonism is delivered.

Thematic area 3, headed by “positive message”, primarily comes from Paul Nelson’s 1966 essay, which suggests that all of the characters in “Like A Rolling Stone” are actually in some way Dylan. This theme was taken up in the Telegraph, whose author connects the performance with a projection of Dylan as triumphantly breaking the chains of his safe, successful ‘folksinger’ career in favour of some new, uncharted musical terrain in the rock milieu. Thus the ‘story’ of the verses is just a scaffolding upon which to hang the exultant chorus. Rather than chalking up this interpretation to creative critique, though, I would suggest that this, too, is an impression based on performative factors more than lyric sense. The band’s performance certainly helps matters along in this regard. There is nothing careful about the way the studio musicians barrel through the song, in spite of Al Kooper’s famous story (found in his autobiography, Backstage Passes) that this song marked his first ever try at organ. Dylan, too, contributes sloppily transcendent rhythm guitar and harmonica flourishes. The harmonic structure of the song itself can also be seen as a series of affirmations, with the verse consisting primarily of stepwise climbs from the I to the V chord, which is held until a satisfying return is made to the tonic I. The inevitable perfect cadences that begin each line of text are contradicted only once in the form, when a IV chord intervenes at the prechorus. This IV chord then reverses the movement of the previous lines, falling stepwise down to the I until the upward movement is restored with an extended II – IV – V climb. The choruses condense the stepwise climbs of the verses into terse I – IV – V statements which Dylan might have associated with the irony-free rock’n’roll aesthetics of “Twist and Shout” and “La Bamba”. I submit, then, that the commentators who associate “Like A Rolling Stone” with joy, celebration and liberation might be hearing these values primarily as embodied in the music, despite the fact that their critical faculties might impel them to look to the lyrics first.

Thematic area 4 might be fruitfully compared to thematic area 2 in that they both seem connected to gesture, space, movement and energy. Whereas area 2 contains metaphors of attraction, area 4 refers to outward projection, ostensibly from the same source that attracts. The references to “spitting out” and “lyrics flung” directs our attention towards the mouth, and indeed Dylan referred to this song on a number of occasions as “vomitific”. Could this thematic area, along with area 2, be related to various listeners’ connections with the corporeality of the performance? We hear Dylan’s mouth as he sings, but we can also envision his facial expression, perhaps his body movements as well. This we deduce from the aural landscape of the recording, which gives us information about Dylan’s vocal timbre, the speed of enunciation, and other details, but I believe that it is in the area of pitch that we will find the greatest correlation to gestural metaphors. As we will see, much of Dylan’s vocal pitch use in “Like A Rolling Stone” finds him taking a syllable and describing a kind of arc, with medium or short rise and a longer fall. This parallels somewhat the spatial path of an object thrown into the air. And since Dylan performs this arc repeatedly, sometimes several times in a single line of text, it follows that a listener might hear the words as “flung”, or even “spiraling outwards”, as each arc is succeeded by another.

Thematic area 5 contains metaphors of ‘sureness’ and ‘effectiveness’, connected with what might be though of as virtuosic expressive control. Robert Walser has traced the 18th century origins of the term “virtuoso”, a word that is popularly though of as referring to technical mastery. Walser points out that this technical mastery was always in the service of expressive and rhetorical control (see Walser 1993). The ways that this virtuosity is manifested in “Like A Rolling Stone” are twofold. As I hope to demonstrate, Dylan uses vocal pitch to emphasize the lyric sense – this may be interpreted as a rhetorical use of performative virtuosity. But his division of phrases does not always serve the ‘sense’ of the discourse; on the contrary, his re-alignment of points of emphasis in the lyrics, again through pitch use, can be understood as playful. The virtuoso makes meaningful performances, but he also shows off what he can do. By sometimes obscuring meaning, he displays his mastery.

A close reading of Dylan’s vocal performance in “Like A Rolling Stone” will allow for a better understanding of the metaphorical constructions that followed in its wake, in the form the critical responses recounted above. This close reading will consist in the main of an analysis, based on Michael Halliday’s linguistic method, of pitch use in the second verse and chorus. First, a word on Halliday’s method.

Through much of the history of linguistic inquiry, the written word has occupied a privileged place as an object of study. Languages are traditionally analyzed primarily in terms of their grammars; this reflects the popular belief that words and sentences constitute the essential part of human verbal communication. As such, spoken language is routinely transcribed to written form for analysis. Of course, popular knowledge also tells us that ‘how you say something is often as important as what you say’. Every native speaker of English performs the language in some way that communicates things that the written word can not. The scientific understanding of this ‘sonic sense’ of speech, however, has developed slowly and fitfully until recent years.

As early as the 1930s, work began to be undertaken towards the understanding of speech intonation, the universe of sonic details that accompany every utterance. These details include large and small gradations in pitch, timbre, amplitude and rhythm. The British linguist Michael Halliday has formulated a cogent system for understanding speech intonation in the context of a “functional” English grammar in his 1970 monograph A Course in Spoken English: Intonation and his larger work from 1994, An Introduction to Functional Grammar. Since Halliday’s work on the nature of speech has constituted one of the starting points for my own research, I include here a thumbnail explanation of his theory as it applies to the present work. The following short explanation is a paraphrase of some of the ideas put forth in Halliday’s 1970 and 1994 publications, with an aim towards setting the stage for the analysis here.

Tonality

Intonation in English is organized in units Halliday calls tone groups. Halliday says of the tone group:

The tone group is one unit of information, one 'block' in the message that the speaker is communicating; and so it can be of any length. The particular meaning that the speaker wishes to convey may make it necessary to split a single clause into two or more tone groups, or to combine two or more clauses into one tone group (Halliday 1970:3-4).

The pattern by which tone groups are distributed throughout speech, called tonality, is crucial to the sense of an utterance. The speaker divides up the stream of spoken words into groups, and this reveals to the listener how to mentally organize the information. Almost all of the time, tonality follows a predictable course, with tone groups basically corresponding to grammatical clauses. But when it is disrupted, as in Bob Dylan’s 1965 studio performance of "Like A Rolling Stone", grammatical sense can be fundamentally altered.

Tonicity

Each tone group has a tonic syllable, a place of prominence which the speaker seeks to mark as most important and which carries the most pronounced pitch change. It often carries the burden of "new information" in the clause and as such the normative place of a tonic syllable is on the last word in a clause. Placement of the tonic syllable in places other than this is understood to be contrastive. The placement of tonic prominence is referred to as tonicity.

Tone

Halliday has identified five basic tones, or pitch contours, in English. Tone interacts with tonality (distribution of tone groups) and tonicity (placement of tonic prominence) to create meaning in English intonation. Following are the tones identified in Halliday's system:

simple tone groups:

tone 1 falling
tone 2 high rising, or falling-rising (pointed)
tone 3 low rising
tone 4 falling-rising (rounded)
tone 5 rising-falling (rounded)

I have transcribed the lyrics of the second verse and chorus of “Like A Rolling Stone” using an adaptation of Halliday’s notation for speech intonation. The second verse is not dissimilar to the other three verses in style, but I chose it because it seemed to me to contain the widest variety of playful inflections and pitch gestures. The tones themselves (the numerals which begin each tone group) were chosen on the basis of their resemblance to Dylan’s use of sung pitch, as shown here. Each tone group is set off in a separate line of text and framed in double slash marks; syllables with tonic prominence are underlined and rhythmic feet are divided by single slash marks.

a) //5 ah you// (rising, then falling, tone)

b) //1 gone// (falling tone)

c) //1 to the/ finest//

d) //1 school//

e)//1 all//

f) //1 right//

g) //1'^miss/lonely/but you/know you/only/used to/get//

h) //5 juiced in/it//

i) //1 ^no/body's/ever/taught/you/how to/live out/on/the street//

j) //5 ^and/now you're/gonna/have to/get/used to//

k) //5 it//

1) //1 ^you/say you'd/never//

m) //1 compro/mise//

n) //1 with the/mystery/tramp but/now you//

o) //1 realize//

p) //1 he's not/selling/any//

q) //1 alibis//

r) //1 as you/stare in/to the/vacuum/of his/eyes//

s) //1 and say//

t) //1 do you/want to//

u) //1 make a/deal//

v) //1 how does it/feel//

w)//1 how does it/feel//

x) //1 to be/on your/own//

y) //1 '^with/no di/rection/home//

z) //2 a com/plete un/known//

aa) //2 like a/rolling/stone//

Below I have transcribed the same verse and chorus "grammatically", using line breaks to mark off likely clause divisions:

ah you gone to the finest school all right miss lonely

but you know you only used to get juiced in it

nobody's ever taught you how to live out on the street

and now you're gonna have to get used to it

you say you'd never compromise with the mystery tramp

but now you realize he's not selling any alibis

as you stare into the vacuum of his eyes

and say "Do you want to make a deal?"

How does it feel?

How does it feel to be on your own

with no direction home

a complete unknown

like a rolling stone?

The verse begins with a tone 5 (line a). This being a tone group unto itself, it would be plausible to refer to this speech function as an initiating call; tone 5 in this case has a meaning of "insistence". This is the second verse, after all, which can be thought of as constituting an expansion of the ideas begun in the first. Thus the highly tonicized first pitch gesture of this verse might be interpreted as a kind of fanfare; musicologist Philip Tagg characterizes such strong upward pitch sweeps as "a call to attention and action, a strong movement upward an outwards...energetic and heroic" (Tagg 1979:14).

What follows is a rapid-fire series of Tone 1s. The use of the Tone 1 pitch fall here is unremarkable in itself, but it is the tonicity characteristics that are unusual here. The listener is bombarded with a series of tonicized words (tonic prominence is used in normal speech as a pointer to the new information in an utterance) and Dylan gives tonic prominence to nearly every word in the first part of the first line. This overloading of new information pointers renders the text as forceful and intrusive upon the listener. There is a sense of an intoxicating sensory overload.

Right away a general non-alignment of tone groups as sung with the grammar of the written lyric is evident. This manifests itself in the distribution of tone groups in many different places within the grammatical clause, as well as the placement of tonic prominence on syllables other than the last lexical item in the clause. In tone groups e) and f) this unusual, seemingly indiscriminate use of tonality breaks up the cohesion of the phrase "all right", a phrase that has become fused, or indivisible, through popular use. The phrase is rendered contrastive to its usual meaning and marks the word "all" as a piece of new information. This would force the cliched phrase to be processed in terms of its actual meaning, rather than as a purely 'textual' conjunctive phrase, which it has become in popular usage. Thus the listener hears "all right" as an emphatic confirmation of the text immediately preceding. This technique seeks to renew the cliche, something that Dylan has done lexically in other songs by substituting unexpected words in common phrases (see Ricks 1987).

It would be grammatically plausible to segment the first line of this verse into two clauses as follows:

ah you gone to the finest school all right miss lonely
but you know you only used to get juiced in it

The second clause would usually be distributed over one tone group. This does not happen here, though not because of the overloading of tone groups that occurred in the first clause. Instead, the last part of the first clause ("miss lonely") is included in the second clause's tone group, which itself cuts off at "get" rather than being completed with "juiced in it". Thus the normative placement of the tone group on the clause is shifted backward by one phrase. This has the effect of presenting a grammatically incoherent group of words as a single package of information. This clouds the meaning of the clause somewhat, but perhaps more importantly it constitutes a poetic strike against grammar, at least as it appears in straight written narrative. Clearly Dylan, like Chuck Berry and others before him, is reveling in his virtuosic masterof the medium of sung text here.

The next couple of lines contain relatively little in the way of pitch playfulness, even though symmetry would suggest that the pitch falls should continue at the same rate. Dylan, though, refuses to do the expected. When the chorus begins, tonic syllables seem to be in their proper places. But Dylan throws in a few more curveballs. Curiously, the last two lines are sung in contours similar to tone 2. This would seem to introduce a mood of questioning – tone 2 indicates uncertainty, most often. But this coincides musically with the melodic resolution to the tonic, or home note, so the overall effect is that of closure.

Close reading of the vocal performance of a song, as I have attempted here, can yield a good deal of information about how meaning is handled beyond the lexical and grammatical levels of the lyrics. In the case of the second verse of "Like A Rolling Stone", these prosodic details can be seen in the context of that song's reception; intonational play and emphasis in the performance might be connected to perceptions of virtuosic expressive control, a sense of 'expressivity' or 'intensity of feeling', and gestural metaphors such as "flung" and "spiralling outwards". On the other hand, certain aspects of reception can be more precisely connected to other facets of the musical object: a sense of strong antagonism might be traced mainly to the lyrics, while a feeling of celebration and joy may be connected to the general raucousness and energy of the band's performance.

Though I am certain that pitch in sung language does mean in a significantly patterned way, I am also aware that singing is not speech, and other factors do enter the semantic and affective landscape of musical expression. Nonetheless, a look at Dylan's use of pitch in this song, through the lens of linguistic speech intonation, goes a long way toward explaining the precise nature of Dylan's communication of meaning in sung performance. One need only observe the many gestural and metaphorical correlations between the linguistic aspects of the performance and the effects of that performance (as recounted in the reception history) on listeners. A certain thoroughgoing nature of Dylan's aesthetic is suggested here, with musical, linguistic, gestural and (perhaps subsuming all of these) metaphorical aspects all articulating a cohesive, deeply embedded system of drives and directions. Postponing any further investigation into this broader inquiry for now, this analysis of vocal performance in the second verse of "Like A Rolling Stone" reveals much common ground between speech and song in the transmission and reception of meaning, though the precise nature of this shared sign-system may only be understood through further interdisciplinary inquiry.

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