Last week’s Bonus Round: “Kansas City” is a song by The New Basement Tapes, a sort of composite band of musicians from other bands for the purpose of the album “Lost On The River”.
From the Songfacts website:
Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes is an album produced by T Bone Burnett featuring a collective of musicians recording under the moniker The New Basement Tapes. The record consists of a series of tracks based on lyrics handwritten by Bob Dylan in 1967 during the period in which he created his noted album The Basement Tapes.
Marcus Mumford of Mumford & Sons and Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes wrote the music to Dylan's lyrics for this song. Burnett feels the bittersweet tune was a riposte by Dylan to old associates. "In 1967, he had gone, in five years, from being an obscure folk singer to an international rock 'n' roll icon of the highest magnitude," he explained to The Daily Telegraph. "And, in the process, his original supporters turned on him and it seems like he's saying: 'Just how long can I keep singing the same old song?'"
"There's a great line: 'You invite me into your house, then you say you got to pay for what you break.' I think that resonated very strongly with Marcus, because he has had a similar trajectory," Burnett added. "He came out of the box very strong, became internationally successful and suffered an extreme backlash. Kansas City is his song as well."Johnny Depp played guitar on this song. The movie star had gone down to watch the rehearsals at Los Angeles' Capitol Studios, visiting his friend Burnett. However Depp ended up filling in for Elvis Costello on one recording session as the Brit had a previously scheduled gig with The Roots in Las Vegas.
Asked if Bob Dylan took an active interest in The New Basement Tapes album, T Bone Burnett told Uncut: "He just left us to it. He was mixing his own record in the next room at the same time, so he was there as a presence for us, but he didn't intrude at all. I think he was happy to let us have our own way with this stuff. I've had feedback since it's been finished, and it's been very positive."
Marcus Mumford told Mojo magazine: "There's so many lines that just couldn't be written by anyone else other than him (Dylan). It was also fun to take a bit of a liberty with them as well. I probably did it a bit more than anyone else. It got to the point when I was trying to write songs around these lyrics and it felt like I needed another verse, so I dipped into one of the other songs and nicked what I thought was a relevant lyric."
"So 'Kansas City,' for example, the last verse of that song is stolen from another song we had. I was just reading through the lyrics and I thought, 'Ooh, that works.' So I asked T Bone and he said, 'We can do whatever we want, man,' in true T Bone style." Credit: Songfacts
From Wikipedia:
“The New Basement Tapes is a British-American musical supergroup made up of members Jim James, Elvis Costello, Marcus Mumford, Taylor Goldsmith, and Rhiannon Giddens.[1] The group is best known for Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes, their 2014 album which consists of tracks based on newly uncovered lyrics handwritten by Bob Dylan in 1967 during the recording of his 1975 album with The Band, The Basement Tapes” Credit: Wikipedia
This is so cool!! I had no idea who the musicians were, that T Boone Burnett produced, Johnny Depp sat in on the song, or that these were Dylan lyrics!!! I heard the song years ago, loved it, bought the album off of Apple, and put it on a playlist! One of my favorites. Wow!!! I chose it last week for the Bonus Round because we were talking about making sure to have thoroughly rehearsed songs to be recorded in a studio with other musicians and the lyric “singin’ the same old song” just popped into my head. Just wow….
Another thought: We were talking last week about hiring session musicians to back your vocal and guitar tracks during studio recording - these musicians simply made a more or less one time-band. Very cool!
Just got invited to a jam with friends and some folks I’ve not yet met coming up in a few weeks and I’m busy printing chord charts for the thoughtfully provided potential setlist. I’m sure old friends who have known each other for awhile, or forever, don’t really need setlists - everyone already knows what they’ll be playing, or if there’s a new song someone wants to play they’ll learn it together. This one looks to be a little larger and eclectic group if everyone shows up (scheduling around family and life is always an issue, of course), so a setlist is a very courteous way for the host to set everyone a little more at ease. I’ll have played through the songs a few times, knowing we may need to change keys (I’ll be sure to have my capo conversion chart and a pencil handy, and brush up my Nashville Notation skills a bit), or something. Most of them seem to be reasonable (i.e., songs that don’t seem to need EVERY possible chord), so it should be a great time, and I’m sure I’ll sit a few out if they’re beyond my capabilities, maybe even if they aren’t, just to watch the masters at work. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Speaking of songs that use ALL the chords, I admit have a semi-secret addiction (no longer even semi-secret, obviously). I love Japanese anime! While I dig the swords and sorcery type shows (I believe the Japanese word is Shōnen) - sort of magical powers and adventures fighting monsters and such - the genre grew out of a Japanese style of manga, which in the West we term “graphic novels” rather than comic books, probably because it sounds less silly when you’re older, but still like it. Don’t judge me if you liked the Lord Of The Rings, Harry Potter or Game of Thrones movies/shows, and you know you did! Anyway, in addition to the storylines, I really like the music found in the opening and ending credits scenes. I often find titles to these songs by using the Soundhound app (a lot of the titles are in Kanji, so you have to sleuth about a bit to find the chord chart on Ultimate Guitar or Chordify). Many of them use a crazy number of chords (reflecting Asian/Eastern musical traditions) and I just think, “Nope”. But some are less onerous and more accessible to beginning and intermediate guitarists, and provide an interesting break from the usual blues based popular folk/country/pop/rock/Christian music we often play as we advance. Hearing that Asian/Eastern musical influence often combined with Western/American/British pop rock influence makes for some interesting music. Below is a YouTube of one of my favorites, and below that is a pic of the chord chart out of my (fairly full, actually) 3 ring binder of songs I like to play - no link, because I can’t remember where I found the chord chart originally - few chords, all mostly familiar and some fast, challenging chord changes. If that Bb is kinda unfamiliar, check the chord diagram below the chart. Bar with your index finger on the first fret across all strings and either your ring or pinky across the D-G-B-e strings of the 3rd fret and just stay off the high e string. Pretty cool song, I think the video is pretty cool too, and unless you speak Japanese, you won’t even need to sing along.
I’ve heard from some beginning guitarists lately, and I invite anyone just starting out to check my archives at
for my early posts that focus on subjects that may be of interest. Within the last few months I also posted some “Retrospective” posts which more or less serve as an index with links to my earlier stuff so you may want to check those out rather than just go hunting around. As always I promote locally owned guitar shops for instruments, instrument maintenance, and all around good advice; and a local guitar instructor is a must. If you just can’t help but hit up YouTube, stick with Sean Daniel on his YouTube channel, especially his older stuff that’s aimed at beginners. Yesterday I was kind of whining around about being on too many email lists, but Acoustic Guitar Magazine, American Songwriter Magazine, Soundfly, Songtown, and the CD Baby blog are all great resources to check out, and yes, you’ll likely get a bunch of emails, some that want to just sell you stuff, others that are really informative. If you need gear and your local guitar shop doesn’t have everything you need, most of the musicians I know stick with Reverb. Beware the gear addiction habit, though!
Bonus Round: Fall is in the air, and you’re not here…
Cheers and keep playing!!
Michael Acoustic
Took a closer look (and also realised the song’s called ‘Kansas City’). There’s three quite classic guitars and one oddball. The guitar I did not immediately recognise (tan solid body electric) is a Danelectro 57 or 59. The acoustic indeed looks like a Gibson Custom (maybe a J45). Depp’s blue hollow body is a Duesenberg Alliance (Mike Campbell series). The other sunburst hollow body is (I think) a Barney Kessel Gibson (could also be a Gibson Tal Farlow). The Danelectro foxed me, I never saw one, at first glance, with this small headstock (on a small phone screen), it could have been a Gibson Melody Maker (which are great to play live, super light but with a real full sound). Drum kit is a Ludwig Super Classic.
Video of "Singin' the same old song" is v cool. Song is also v cool. These musicians are just totally on it. I was checking the guitars they are using. I recognise most of them, classics. But the seated electric rhythm player with the tiny headstock, what is it? Can’t quite figure it. Maybe a Gibson Melody Maker?