August 2015
Guild Tidings
The official publication of
The International Songwriters Guild
Volume 20, No. 8
Next Meeting Sunday August 2nd 5:00pm
The International Songwriter’s Guild meets at 5 PM on the first Sunday of every month at the Central
Florida Musician’s Union building, 3020 East Robinson (at the extreme east end of Robinson, near
Orlando Executive Airport) in Orlando.
Songwriters, composers, performers, publishers, and the curious are encouraged to join us. Non-
members are invited to attend a meeting or two to get a feel for our group and what we do. For more
information, visit our website at www.tinyurl.com/isgsongs or myspace page at
The meetings will be structured as follows: 5:00 to 5:30, business and introductions. 5:30 to 6:00,
presentation by a guest speaker (when scheduled), 5:30 or 6:00 to 8:00, song critiques. Please bring
a CD or I-phone or mp3 player or perform your song live, and bring 10 or more lyric sheets. If we
have at least 5 songs by members who wish to be scored, and 6 members scoring, then we will have
them entered in the Monthly competition. Everyone is encouraged to write constructive comments on
the lyric sheets.
Any Details not in this newsletter are at: www.tinyurl.com/isgsongs
If you wish to join our Facebook group, please check us out at https://www.facebook.com/groups/831814850193553/
Basement Tapes
by Jeff Mason
In 1966 Bob Dylan was one of the biggest stars on the planet. The preceding year he had been
on a world tour and was backed by a five member rock band. This band was formed in Toronto and had
backed rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins from 1958 to 1963 and were known as The Hawks. The band
consisted of Canadians Rick Danko (bass guitar, double bass, fiddle, trombone, vocals), Garth Hudson
(keyboard instruments, saxophones, trumpet), Richard Manuel (piano, drums, baritone saxophone,
vocals), Robbie Robertson (guitar, vocals) and American Levon Helm (drums, mandolin, guitar,
vocals). Levon Helm had been an original Hawk who had journeyed with Hawkins from Arkansas to
Ontario.(See Wikipedia entry on The Band). The other members had arrived in the band one by one
after being plundered from competing bands by Hawkins. This band would eventually become known as
The Band and become famous.
Dylan was and still is an intensely private man. By the summer of 1966, he was feeling the
pressures of fame. The need to escape the spotlight had become a priority. Dylan had come under
criticism during the tour for playing rock and roll with an electric guitar. I think the purists and
folkies of the time felt betrayed by Dylan’s evolving style. “Bob Dylan stood on the stage in the
Free Trade Hall in Manchester on May 17, 1966. He’d just played what already was the greatest live
rock ‘n’ roll. A devastating set, the songs turned into huge bonfires, Robbie Robertson’s out of
control guitar riffs shooting out the flames. But that moment. A fan shouts out “Judas”, calling
Dylan out for betraying all his folk music fans.”
http://www.daysofthecrazy-wild.com/audio-was-a-fan-calling-bob-dylan-judas-the-greatest-moment-in-rock-history-may-17-1966-like-a-rolling-stone/
Dylan returned to the U.S. and found that his manager had more dates booked. Dylan was
reportedly injured in a motorcycle accident in July 1966. What his state of mind was after that
tour only he can say but the time needed to recoup from the accident must have come as a welcome
break. Four members of the band had “rented an ugly, pink house out in West Saugerties, just on the
outskirts of Woodstock, on a hundred acres. There’s nothing around and we think, “ All right, we can
do this. Some of the guys live there and, in the basement of this place, I think, Okay, we’ll set up
our equipment here and this is where we’ll work on our music.”
Robbie Roertson. http://njnnetwork.com/2014/11/robbie-robertson-dishes-on-dylans-basement-tapes/
Dylan had a home near Woodstock and liked the remote location. The group had put a carpet
down in the basement and had set up a small tape recorder and microphones. Dylan needed a place like
this, “Woodstock was a place where you could kinda go and get your thoughts together. It was an
artist colony. There were plenty of painters who lived in that area but very few musicians, who we
certainly knew of nobody up there playing any music. Later there were, but when we were up there,
middle of the ‘60s, we were pretty much by ourselves.”
Bob Dylan. http://consequenceofsound.net/2014/11/listen-to-bob-dylans-first-audio-interview-in-10-years/
It’s a normal thing these days to record at home. Everyone has a phone or some kind of
digital studio on their computer. Back in those times the only recording was done in a studio, “ if
you make a record you went to where you make records.” Robbie Robertson. The basement in the pink
house was a typical basement with a cement floor, big metal furnace and cinder block walls. It was
not an ideal environment for recording. Dylan and the other musicians were not concerned. Nothing
that they recorded here was expected to be heard.
Yet here in this beautiful location surrounded by mountains and woods, Dylan would write
or propose 150 songs in a seven or eight month period. Here are some of the songs from his most
prolific period: “Tears of Rage” recorded by Ian and Sylvia, “Down in the Flood” recorded by Blood,
Sweat and Tears, “I Shall be Released” recorded by Joan Baez, “You Ain’t Going Nowhere” recorded by
The Band, “This Wheel’s on Fire” recorded by Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger and The Trinity and “Mighty
Quinn” recorded by Manfred Mann.
Almost 50 years later, we are now fortunate to learn of Dylan’s creative process during
this time. Five or six days a week, Bob would show up around noon and wake up the others. He might
make coffee and start writing. “I’d write them in longhand and I’d write ‘em on the typewriter and
whatever was handy. Pencil, pen, typewriter.” Where did his ideas come from? “How do we go about
writing our songs? I’d know I wasn’t gonna write anything about myself, I didn’t have nothin’ to say
about myself that I’d figure anybody would be interested in anyway. You kind of look for ideas on
TV.” “As The World Turns” or “Dark Shadows.” “Any ol’ thing would create the beginning to a song:
names out of phone books and things. When China first exploded that hydrogen bomb, it just flashed
across the headlines in newspapers, so, you know, we just go in and write “Tears Of Rage.” Things
were just happening, there were riots in the street, they were rioting in Rochester, in New York. It
wasn’t that far away, so we write “Too Much Of Nothing.” “ And just one thing lead to another, you
know. The human heart, the first time that anybody ever heard of a human heart being transplanted,
that was incredible. That was a real breakthrough, so we came up with a song, and then when we got
the lyrics down, we took the song to the basement.” Bob would sit at the typewriter and write a
letter and not mail it. No one wrote more letters to himself than Bob. Those letters would form the
basis of songs.
More to follow next month. See you soon.
ISG Bulletin Board
Meeting space graciously provided by Central Florida Musicians Association, Local 389. You are
invited to join the largest union in the world, representing the interests of the professional
musician. Visit their website at afm389.org for more information. You may reach them by phone at:
407-894-8666.
Why isn't your gig announced here? Members in good standing
call SusieCool with your appearance schedule! 407-760-2153
We are having a Performing Songwriter's night on August 21st.
We will be featuring Jeff Evans, Melanie Fisher and mellify (Matthew and Rebecca Campbell) and we
will have a songwriter's round featuring Dell Smith, SusieCool and Asli Goncer. This will be at the
Sleeping Moon Cafe from 7 to 10pm.
They have some really great food and teas and they also serve beer and wine, so bring your appetites
and your listening ears!!! Sleeping moon is at
495 N Semoran Blvd Suite 1, Winter Park, Florida.
I will post a flyer on our ISG facebook page soon, and also on the Sleeping Moon facebook page.
Please bring your friends. If this goes well and we have a good audience then they will want to have us back!!
Also for anyone interested, Central Florida Folk hosts a song circle at the sleeping moon on the
last Wednesday of each month. 7 to 10pm. All are welcome. It is acoustic. Next one is this coming
Wednesday July 29th.
Current members please send us your website info if you would like your site to be listed in the ISG
members page. Also if you have any songs that have placed first in the monthly critiques, please
send the mp3's to isgorlando@gmail.com if you would like to have them featured in the ISG MySpace
page. https://myspace.com/21075001
No critique scoring for July
New members always welcome!
© 2015 ISG