THE HOWARD FISHMAN BAND
BOB DYLAN & THE BAND’S BASEMENT TAPES
ERASE THAT, GARTH
Thursday, 4/4/08, 8 pm
Nelson Music Room
$18 • $5*
Special Offer: Buy tickets to all three shows for $36 (Offer does not apply to Duke student ticket price).
THE OLD WEIRD AMERICA
Friday, 4/3/08, 8 pm, Nelson Music Room
$18 • $5*
THIS WHEEL SHALL EXPLODE
Saturday, 4/5/08, 8 pm, Nelson Music Room
$18 • $5*
Fishman is a student of the great American musical forms, a singer-songwriter whose tastes run from early jazz and Tin Pan Alley to rock, country-folk, and New Orleans brass bands. Beginning his musical career in New Orleans and NYC, the composer, guitarist, and bandleader uses popular music as a medium through which he elucidates American stories. Critics say that his work “transcends time and idiom," making him a valuable resource for translating American visionaries.
For Statements of Fact, Fishman reinterprets the collaboration between Dylan and The Band that resulted in The Basement Tapes, one of the most peculiar objects in the rock archive. Recorded in a barn in 1967, this jumble of outtakes and oddly majestic songs is a milestone in music history, but for Fishman it’s also a doorway into America’s musical past. In three separate, linked shows, Fishman and his comrades play songs from the tapes and the outtakes that produced them, reflecting on the nature of collaboration and on the live heritage of American popular music.
Fishman’s “Basement Tapes Project” by Evening:
Thursday, April 3
“The Old Weird America”
Old-as-the-hills folk, country, blues & gospel tunes at the root of The Basement Tapes.
Friday, April 4
“Erase That, Garth”
Officially unreleased original tunes recorded in 1967 by Dylan & the Band in the basement in West Saugerties.
Saturday, April 5
“This Wheel Shall Explode”
Highlights from The Basement Tapes, the official 1975 double-LP, released to broad critical acclaim eight years after they were recorded.
Howard Fishman on the web: