BOB DYLAN SPECIAL: The Complete Tell Tale Signs
In the November issue of Uncut, we celebrated the release of Tell Tale Signs, the Bootleg Series Vol 8, Bob Dylanโs astonishing 2 and 3CD collection of unreleased material from 1989-2006.
By speaking to the musicians, producers and crew who worked with him during this period, we uncovered a fascinating insight into how Dylan has recorded in the studio.
Over the the month, we have published the full, unedited transcripts of those interviews, and now present the final installment.
So, today, we present part thirteen: Chris Shaw, longtime engineer for Dylanโs recording.
You can read the previous five transcripts by clicking on the side panel (right) and all 13 parts of our exclusive online series in the Uncut Special features archive by clicking here.
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CHRIS SHAW
Dylanโs engineer of choice since the turn of the millennium. Previously worked with Booker T And The MGs and Jeff Buckley, but he got the gig with Dylan โwhen he heard I got my start doing Public Enemy records.โ
The very first thing I did with Bob was the song โThings Have Changedโ, off the Wonder Boys movie, which was the song that got him his Oscar. I just got a phone call randomly one afternoon about three days before the session, asking if I wanted to work with Bob. And the first thing I said wasnโt โYesโ โ it was *โWhy me?โ
I was recommended for the job by Steve Berkowitz, the A&R guy at Sony Legacy Records, who handles all of Bobโs back-catalogue. Iโd hooked up with Steve prior to that for some amazing session work, with people like Booker T & the MGs and Jeff Buckley. And, at first, Bobโs manager wasnโt too sure if heโd want to work with me, *because* Iโd worked with Booker T and Jeff Buckley, he thought I might be like an old-school style engineer. But then he heard that I got my start doing Public Enemy records, and he got very interested. That was the reason I got the gig with Bob.
We did โThings Have Changedโ in one afternoon, and when we were done we did a very quick mix of it, and I thought it was just going to be a rough mix to give to Bob whoโd maybe give it to someone else, like Daniel Lanois, whoโd wind up engineering and mixing the final thing. But it turned out that that rough mix ended up being the final mix. And that was pretty funny, because the very last thing Bob did was raise the shaker up like 10db, making it ridiculously loud, and that was the mix he wanted to go with. So, Iโve been his engineer since then, seven or eight years now. One other thing we were desperately trying to find for the new Bootleg Series record, actually, but we werenโt able to locate, was the outtakes for โThings Have Changedโ. Because there are at least two other complete versions of that, and one that I distinctly remember that was really great, it had a kind of New Orleans shuffle to it. But we werenโt able to locate the masters in time. Hopefully, if that gets found, it might show up on the next Bootleg Seriesโฆ
Iโm not sure why Bob decided to start producing himself. I think, maybe, because of the success he had with โThings Have Changedโ, which he produced himself, and we did a couple of other things between that and โLove And Theftโ, and I think he just realised he could do it himself. I donโt think he every really thinks he needs a producer, but this was the was first time he had a chance to do it without a producer, and he just realised, โI can do this myself. I know what I want.โ Itโs funny, because Iโve met other engineers and producers who have worked with Bob, and Iโve heard stories about, yโknow, how he can be difficult, and how heโs difficult to work with. And Iโve found it to be exactly the opposite. I donโt find it difficult to get along with him at all. The thing about Bob is that: he just knows exactly what he wants. And I think the people who have said that Bob is difficult are people who were trying to put what *they* wanted on the record โ but thatโs not what Bob wants. I heard stories about arguments between him and Daniel Lanois in the studio, and I think thatโs basically what it comes down to: Danielโs got his idea how it should sound, and Bobโs got his idea about how it should sound, and thatโs where they butt heads.
On โLove And Theftโ, Bob really wanted to get the live sound of the band he had at that time, which, in my opinion, is the best band heโs ever had. Charlie Sexton, Larry Campbell, David Kemper, Tony Garnier, and we had Augie Meyers in playing organ. His idea was just, basically, get the whole band in the room and get them playing. You can never, ever know or predict exactly what it is that Bob wants. We went into that record thinking that he was going to be playing guitar, and he had this whole concept about how he wanted to โsing into the corner.โ Yโknow, he wanted to face the corner of the room and sing into it, kind of like that Robert Johnson album cover. The word came down that he wanted to try and do something like that, so we spent a whole day, before he got there, creating this elaborate set-up in the studio for him to do that. We got the whole band set up and rehearsed and got some sounds going on. And so, Bob walks in the room while weโre running through a song, and he starts doing the whole singing into the corner thing โ and within about, like, two minutes, he abandoned the whole idea and just wandered over to the piano and sat down at it, and I had a microphone sitting there just in case he wanted to record an idea, and he sat down at the piano, and never got off it for the rest of the session, except for two songs, โHigh Waterโ and โPoor Boyโ, I think.
His songs kind of continuously evolve. Theyโre not static. For him, itโs all about getting the track to fit the words, and not the other way around. So thatโs why there are so many bootlegs, six different versions of โLike A Rolling Stoneโ, four different versions of โVisions Of Johannaโ, heโs always trying to find the arrangement that works best with the sentiment heโs trying to express. To that end, he might say, โWell, Iโm kinda hearing this like this old Billie Holiday song.โ And so weโll start with that, the band will actually start playing that song, try to get that sound, and then heโll go, โOkay, and this is how my song goes.โ Itโs a weird process, and itโs unique to him out of any of the bands Iโve worked with over the past 20 years. Itโs always interesting, always unbelievably exciting, and itโs a lot of hard work โ and I mean that in a very good way. His sessions are always challenging, but, at the end of the day, you always feel like youโve got something done, and youโve done the best to get the song to work.
For Bob, especially when heโs producing on his own, if he canโt get a song completely recorded in a day, he thinks thereโs (A) Something wrong with the band, (B) Something wrong with the song or (C) Something wrong with me or the studio. โLove And Theftโ, I think thereโs twelve songs on that record, and we did twelve songs in twelve days, completed. Then we spent another ten days mixing it, and I think we mixed four of the songs in one day, in something like six hours. He decided at the last minute to change a couple of things.
Itโs very nerve wracking when youโre working with Bob, especially as a mixer, and especially if heโs there, because you donโt get much time to mix the record. He really hates being in the studio, I think, on that part of the process. So you have to be on your toes. More time is spent getting the sounds right when weโre recording than in mixing. And Iโd say about 85 per cent of the sound of that record is the band spilling into Bobโs microphone, because heโd sing live in the room with the band. Most of the time without headphones. Thatโs why the record has this big, think, almost kind of swampy sound to it, and he loves it, he really goes for that sound.
Part of the problem for me on that record was because he didnโt want to wear headphones. We were sitting there on the first day of mixing, and he said, โI wanna rerecord the second verse again, change a couple of lines.โ And I said, โOkay, let me get a headphone mix together so you can have something to sing to.โ And heโs like, โNah, nah, I donโt like wearing headphones.โ So I said, โKay, well, let me get a pair of speakers rigged up and you can sing to the speakers.โ And he goes, โOh, I used to do that with Daniel, I dunno if I like doing that.โ So what I wound up having to do was, we put the whole band back in the room with him, and *the band* would wear headphones, and then the band would play along with the track, and Bob would kind of look over at Charlie Sexton, and Charlie would be mouthing the words to the song so Bob would know where he was, and then Bob would sit there and start singing into the microphone, and the Iโd just drop-in Bobโs new mic, onto the existing track. And the great thing was, all the spill from the โnewโ band would still be there, all this bleed, so a lot of times on that record, youโre actually hearing two bands playing on each track.
Bob is constantly changing it. Heโll be like, โWhat key are we in?โ โOh weโre in G.โ โWhat tempo?โ โ85 bpm, Bob.โ โOkay, well letโs do it in C-minor, and letโs crank up the tempo to 104, and, Charlie, I want you on electric instead of acoustic, Tony, I want you to play upright bass instead of electric, Iโm gonna switch to guitar, oh, and I want you playing lap-steel.โ And so, weโre like, โOoookayโฆโ And, as an engineer, youโre suddenly racing to get all these sounds on all these new instruments, while theyโre rehearsing it, and Bob looks up and says, โOkay, letโs take.โ
So youโve got to be on the ball, and make sure youโre not missing anything heโs recording. Hence, when Jeff Rosen and I were going through the tapes for Time Out Of Mind for the new Tell Tale Signs, there were something 85 tapes we had to sort through looking for the specific songs we were looking for. You wind up with like 30 takes of a certain song or whaterver. There were only two takes of that song โDreaminโ Of Youโ, that just got released on the website, we found that one pretty easy, but there were others that took forever to find, like โRed River Shoreโ, there were four versions of that that we had to go looking for. Itโs an archival process, and itโs fun digging through that stuff, especially all the banter you hear between tracks and stuff.
For me, personally, I have really fond memories of recording that song on โLove And Theftโ, โMoonlight.โ Itโs really gorgeous, and I think the take thatโs on the record is the second take, the whole thing is completely live, vocals and all, not a single overdub, no editing, it all just flowed together at once, and it was a really beautiful moment. During that session, at the end of every night, I would do a quick rough mix of the songs that we had been working on so he could hear them. And the rough mix of โMoonlightโ ended up being the final master. I took two more stabs at mixing it, and everytime, we would wind up going back to that rough mix, thereโs just something about it.
But, the thing was, thereโs a lyric on the song where Bob sings, โThe leaves cast their shadows on the stones,โ and, when he was singing it live, he was reading his lyrics off a piece of paper, and, I guess, for a split-second, he got dyslexic, because on the live take, he actually sang, โThe leaves cast their *stadows* on the stones.โ So, the only time I did any editing on that song, was when I heard this word โstadowsโ go by, I knew he meant shadows, because I had the lyric sheet in front of me. So, when I tried a remix, I took the vocal, and I found a โshโ from somewhere else, and I chopped the โstโ out and put that in, so he was singing โshadows,โ yโknow. And Bob was listening to all these mixes, and he kept saying, โNah, man, I really wanna use that rough mix.โ Finally, I said, โWell, you know, on the rough mix, you donโt sing โshadows,โ you sing, โstadows.โ And he took a long hit on his cigarette, and he kind of looked at me deadpan, and he went, โWell, you know:*โstadows.โ*โ So, at the final mastering, we figured that we really couldnโt let that stadows go by, because everybody would give him shit about it, so we did sliver edit, literally just for the โsh,โ like a 15 milisecond edit.
There arenโt really any outtakes from โLove And Theftโ. There are a couple of alternate takes, a lot of outtakes, but they werenโt fully complete unfortunately, or maybe the vocal wasnโt up to par, because Bob was just kind of still going through it. Bob, often, wouldnโt really start truly singing until he felt the band was getting their groove together, he would just kind of mumble through a take and listen to them, and say, โOkay, thatโs not really working, letโs try something else.โ There was one outtake I was trying to get put on Tell Tale Signs, though, the very first take of โLonesome Day Blues,โ because, it might have been the first track we did, we had the whole band playing in the room, and thereโs a moment when itโs the first time the band really got their groove together, and Bob was just starting to sing it, and as the song progresses, you can hear him getting really into and the band really getting into it, the song builds up.
But the thing was, the first two verses were just Bob not really singing, because he wasnโt sure if it was right yet. But by that third verse he starts singing, and by the fifth heโs just *really* leaning into it. I distinctly remember that moment, standing in the control room watching the band, everyone in the control room, the hair on the back of the neck was standing up, people are saying, โOh my God, this sounds amazing.โ When it came to whether or not to put it on the new record, though, we had to decide that, for the listener, because the first two verses arenโt really there, itโs just not a fully satisfying experience.
โLonesome Day Bluesโ really set the mood for that whole record. โLove And Theftโ was an amazingly fun record to do. I think Bob was just having a blast producing himself, and he had one of his best bands ever with him. And they laid down that groove so hard. There were ten of us in the control room, and we were all whooping and hollering the entire time that song was going down. It was the first time we had heard Bob really just lay into a vocal in ages. We were so excited about that. In the same way that, on Modern Times, we were really excited to have Bob playing harmonica again.
That was amazing โ I remember sitting there thinking to myself, โHoly shit. Iโm recording Bob Dylan *playing harmonica.* This is incredible.โ Iโm a jaded studio guy, yโknow, Iโve been working in studios for twenty two years. But every day on those two albums, every day I work with the guy for like five minutes, Iโll be sitting behind that console, and Iโll have this voice in the back of my head: *Holy fucking shit. Iโm recording Bob Dylan.* And all of a sudden the hair on my arm is standing up, and Iโm looking around, waiting for someone to barge in and point at me and say, โHe shouldnโt be here.โ Heโs a blast to work with, Bob. As serious as the guy is, he has an incredibly wicked sense of humour, and heโs actually a lot of fun in the studio. When heโs in a good mood, itโs phenomenal.
On โLove And Theftโ and Modern Times, Bob would sometimes come in with reference tracks, old songs, saying, โI want the track to be like this.โ So, like, on Modern Times, thereโs the Muddy Waters track [โTrouble No Moreโ] that eventually became โSomeday Babyโ. Heโd come in and present these templates and use them as reference points. The songs were pretty much written before he came in, they werenโt jammed out, but it was a case of him trying to get the band to play them the way he heard it. And sometimes that meant going down all these detours, โOkay itโs not really working like this, letโs try it like this.โ
Like on the new Bootleg Series record, thereโs the slow version of โSomeday Babyโ on there, the kind of gospel one. That was just like, he was getting kind of frustrated with the โMuddy Watersโ version not coming together, and, after dinner I think, he walked back into the room and George Receli, his drummer, was tapping out that groove, and Bob sat down at the piano, and all of a sudden they came up with *that* version. We really raced to record that, I think it was only done for one or two takes. I think the vocal is pretty much untouched, maybe just one or two lines he changed later. And I think the reason he abandoned *that* version was that he was still really stuck on the Muddy Waters version. And, also, because he may have thought it sounded a little too much like Time Out Of Mind.
Bob really, *really* hates to repeat himself. He just hates it. A lot of times on โLove & Theftโ, heโd do a version of a song and heโd say, โAww, Iโve *done* that already. We gotta figure out some other way of doing it.โ Thatโs really what itโs all about with him. For him, itโs like the whole thing is like a big chunk of marble, and heโs just got to chisel away at it to find exactly what it is heโs looking for. Heโs not 100 per cent sure to begin with โ he knows he wants it to be a statue of some sort, but heโs not sure if itโs going to be a statue of a man or a woman or a child or a horse or whatever.
Modern Times took a little bit longer to record. By that point, Charlie Sexton had left the band and shortly after Larry Campbell had left, and, just in my opinion, they were such an incredible pair of guitar players for Bob to work with, and they left becuyase opportunities had presented themselves to them, yโknow, like, Charlie became a producer in his own right, he had produced a Lucinda Williams record, and it was really good, and he was getting a lot offers to produce, and I think at one point he sat down and said to himself, โI can be in Bobโs band for the rest of my life, or I can strike out on my own.โ And Charlieโs a young man, so he decided to go off an do it, and Larry Campbell left shortly after. So it took three new guitar players to replace the two that Bob had.
The sessions for Modern Times went a little slower, it took maybe a month rather than three weeks. Not for any real reason I can pinpoint. Bob had a lot of ideas to sort through, there were a lot of different versions of each song he had to settle on before he could decide where he wanted them to go, and I think he had this vision in his head that maybe he couldnโt quite articulate to the band as quickly, so it took a few times trying out ideas to get it to land where he wanted it to be. And I think there was a lot more lyric writing he had to deal with. Bob never has a shortage of ideas where song lyrics are concerned. That was something that always astounded me, especially on โLove And Theftโ. Heโd be like, โOh, I wanna re-write the second verse. And heโd walk off, and ten minutes later come back, and say, โOkay, โ and heโd sing something and Iโd be, like, โJesus Christ, you just wrote that in ten minutes?โ I know guys who have spent their whole lives trying to write a verse that good. Iโve worked with a lot of great artists, musicians and songwriters, but, man, when you walk in the studio with *that* guy, heโs operating on a completely different level. Itโs really refreshing when. You have to work hard to make a record sound *bad* with him.
There was a lot of editing done on โLove And Theftโ. Like, the song โHigh Waterโ, for example, the verse order of that was changed quite a few times, literally hacking the tape up. He was like, โNah, maybe the third verse should come first. And maybe we should put *that* *there*.โ There was a lot of that. But the really big breakthrough on Modern Times was that we didnโt do it on tape at all, it was the very first album he had ever done using ProTools. That whole record was done digitally, and so everything was preserved, we have hours and hours and hours of all the outtakes, because we left the machine running just 24 hours a day.
Actually, it wasnโt difficult to get him to go for using ProTools.
Between โLove And Theftโ and Modern Times, we did a couple of things for movie soundtracks. There was โCross the Green Mountainโ, the song we did for Gods And Generals, and a couple of others, and, when we went into the studio for that, I said to Bob, โYou know, since this is just a one-off song, itโs not going to be for an album, I wouldnโt mind trying ProTools, just so I can show you the benefits of it.โ And he said, โOkay, whatever.โ And we did a take of the song, and he was like, โOkay, I want to edit out the second verse and put the fourth verse in there.โ And I said, โOkay, and by the time he walked into the control room from the studio, I had it done.โ And his eyes just opened wide. โYou can edit that fast on ProTools?โ โYeah.โ โAnd you can keep everything?โ โYou can keep everything, Bob.โ You could just see the gears in his head suddenly spinning.
The thing is, now, heโs gotten so used to the speed of that, when we were doing Modern Times, he was actually getting impatient with the machine. Heโs be, like, โOkay, letโs swap the second and third verse.โ And ten minutes later heโs like, โAre you done yet?โ Iโm like, โBob, donโt you remember the last record we did, it took me about an hour to do that, can you give me somewhere between zero and an hour to get it done?โ
But, working with Bob, thatโs what unique, is everything is always live. He might edit the structure of a song, he might switch verses around because it tells the story better, but we never go in and do these micro-edits and tuning instruments or other computer tweaking that so many other people do: basically, to him, the computer is just one big tape machine. And thatโs the reason Modern Times sounds so good: yeah, it was recorded using this new technology, ProTools, but we used an old desk, old microphones, old pre-amps.
The downside of using that stuff is, though โ a couple of times during Modern Times, the computer crashed, in the middle of a take. And, Iโll tell you right now, there is no worse feeling in the world than having to walk out into a live room while the band is playing and have to stand in front of Bob and make him stop and tell him itโs because a computer has crashed. You feel about four inches tall. I mean itโs no oneโs fault, itโs nothing anyone can control, but that โฆ*irked* him a couple of times. I love working with Bob, itโs such an adventure, and he *always* keeps you on your toes, because you can never, ever, ever predict what he likes. Just when you think you know what heโs going to do, he doesnโt do it. Heโs constantly evolving.
The word โchameleonโ has been tossed around quite a bit, but he truly is, he just adapts to whatever is going on in the studio.
Bob has made me totally rethink the way I record a lot of other bands since, as far as getting the band to play live in the studio, doing minimal editing, getting away from the fucking computer. The biggest thing Iโve learned from him is the importance of the lyric and the vocal to a song โ most bands you work with today, the lyrics and the sentiment are so disposable. And one of the things I find myself getting on bandsโ backs about now is the essence of the vocal โ you know, are the band actually paying attention to the vocal.
Thatโs the biggest memory I came away from โLove And Theftโ with โ whenever things were going wrong, it was almost always because the band werenโt listening to what Bob was saying. And โLove And Theftโ is a great record because Bob doesnโt want *anything* getting in the way of a vocal. There should be no guitar riffs going on while heโs singing, no soloing while heโs singing, no fancy playing while heโs singing, and so, the great thing about โLove And Theftโ is, thereโs this tension in all the songs, because, all the other musicians are trying to get theirs in while heโs not singing, yโknow. Whenever Bob stops singing, Charlie or Larry will try to put a little riff in there, or do a solo. If you go see Bob live, youโll see these little times when he might turn to the guitarist and give him the eye, like, โYouโre playing on top of me โ donโt do that.โ So, thereโs kind of boxing match going on, and everyoneโs trying to get their kicks in when Bob isnโt singing.
The studio, recording, for him is sort of like a necessary evil โ I mean, he enjoys it, but he just hates the time it takes. Heโs always talking about when he used to make albums: โThis record, we did, like, four songs in one day.โ
The thing about Bob is, on the last couple of albums, in the studio, he was always playing these old Carter family albums, old Bob Wills records, and one of the things heโs really enamoured with is the technology back then- you could only record with one or two microphones. You listen to a Carter Family record, thatโs them just standing around one microphone. He would talk about how immediate it sounds, how raw and vital it sounds. And, you know, I said Iโm really down with that, if he wants to try it, but the thing is, doing it that way, you canโt take anything away โ you can add to it, but you canโt take anything out, so everything has to be right. So weโre always trying to get that sound with modern techniques. Which is always a struggle. And he understands it all, heโs not ignorant of modern technology. He just hates how records sound today. But he has said, โI really wanna try doing a record with a microphone.โ So, who knows, we might be doing that on the next record, you never know. It might start that wayโฆ
But, for him, a recording is just a document of the song at that moment in time. My favourite Bob Dylan songs is probably, โItโs Alright Ma, Iโm Only Bleedingโ. Especially today, because I think the lyrics mean even more today than when he wrote it. And he has this really wicked way of playing it live now, itโs kind of raucous, and I saw him backstage once after the show, and I said, โHey, I love the new version of โItโs Alright Maโฆโ โ but do you ever play it like the original recording?โ
And he looked at me, and he said, โWell, yโknow, a record is just a recording of what you were doing that day.
โYou donโt wanna live the same day over and over again, now, do ya?โ
DAMIEN LOVE