Maps of Music

Planet Waves (1974)

Where the lyrics of Planet Waves take you, and where it was really made.

The album was first titled Ceremonies of the Horsemen, but a last-minute title change delayed its release by two weeks, and it still reached No. 1 on the US Billboard charts.

Key places

Studio B at Village Recorder, November 1973 (1973)

Recording site Village Recorders — Dylan and the Band held the album's first session at Village Recorder Studio B in Los Angeles on Friday, November 2, 1973. Complete takes of Forever Young and Nobody 'Cept You were recorded that day. The Monday session on November 5 also returned to Village Recorder. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Planet Waves: fourteenth studio album by Bob Dylan
• Released 17 January 1974 by Asylum Records in the US and Island Records in the UK
• Backed by the Band, Dylan's longtime collaborators
• Planned as a reunion tour with the Band, the tour was documented on the 1974 live album Before the Flood
• Cover art drawn by Dylan himself

Background

• Dylan had not toured since 1966, when the Band accompanied him as The Hawks
• Robbie Robertson moved to Malibu in summer 1973, near Dylan's home, and the idea of touring again grew from that time
• Dylan and the Band tested the tour plan at Robertson's home in September 1973
• Original title was Ceremonies of the Horsemen, a reference to the song Love Minus Zero/No Limit
• The release was delayed two weeks when Dylan changed the title at the last minute
• Another earlier working title was Wedding Song

Recording

• Sessions took place in Los Angeles, starting at Village Recorder Studio B on Friday, November 2, 1973
• Drummer Levon Helm was not present at the first session because he was still travelling to Los Angeles
• Three songs demoed in June 1973 were the focus of the first session
• Forever Young was the most difficult song to record and was recorded in several sessions
• The Band's Richard Manuel, Rick Danko and Helm do not sing on the album

Cover

• The phrase Cast-iron songs & torch ballads is written on the right side of the cover image
• The word Moonglow is written on the left side and is sometimes read as a subtitle
• The original back artwork is handwritten, with a long essay on the left side
• The initial release included an insert said to set out excerpts from Dylan's personal journals

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota; raised in Hibbing, Minnesota.
• Moved to New York City in January 1961 to pursue a music career.
• Signed to Columbia Records after playing harmonica on Carolyn Hester's album; debut album Bob Dylan released in 1962.

Members

• Solo artist; backed over the years by bands including the Hawks/the Band, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and his touring band led by bassist Tony Garnier.

Career

• Breakthrough with The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963); protest songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" became anthems for the civil rights and antiwar movements.
• Went electric with Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited (1965) and Blonde on Blonde (1966), provoking controversy among folk fans.
• Motorcycle accident in 1966 led to nearly eight years without touring; Basement Tapes recorded with the Band.
• Converted to Christianity in the late 1970s and released gospel albums; won Album of the Year Grammy for Time Out of Mind (1997).
• Has toured since 1988 on the Never Ending Tour; won an Academy Award and ten Grammy Awards; awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Planet Waves would ship gold, topping Billboard's album charts on the basis of advance orders
• The critical reception was generally positive, if a bit muted
• Critics were not as negative as they had been toward Self Portrait and Dylan, but some were still not enthusiastic about the album's laid-back roots rock
• Robert Christgau placed it at No. 18 on The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop Critics Poll for 1974
• Christgau wrote that Dylan is telling listeners to take the grease and jam it
• Ellen Willis of The New Yorker called the album openly personal and unlike all other Dylan albums

Records

• US: briefly No. 1 on the Billboard album charts, a first for Dylan
• UK: No. 7
• By the end of 1974 it had sold a modest 600,000 copies
• Only about 100,000 units sold after the initial advance orders
• It is estimated that $92 million in checks and money orders came in from about ten million ticket applicants for the tour

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• The album was first to be called Ceremonies of the Horsemen, and the change to Planet Waves delayed release by two weeks
• It was Dylan's first album made entirely of new, original songs in three and a half years
• Dylan's first live album after this, Before the Flood, did not include any Planet Waves songs
• Planet Waves is referenced in Part 6 of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Stone Ocean, where a character has a power with this name
• Overdub-free take of Forever Young was kept on the album after Fraboni argued for it against Dylan's wishes

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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