Maps of Music

Shadows in the Night (2015)

Where the lyrics of Shadows in the Night take you, and where it was really made.

Dylan cut these Sinatra standards live in Capitol Studios B, the room where Sinatra often recorded, with his band playing in the same space and no headphones.

Key places

Studio B at Capitol Studios (2015)

Recording site Capitol Studios — The album was recorded in 2014 at Capitol Studios in studio B, the room where Frank Sinatra often recorded his albums. Dylan and his five-man touring band played live in the same room without headphones. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Shadows in the Night: thirty-sixth studio album by Bob Dylan
• Released by Columbia Records on February 3, 2015
• Ten traditional pop standards made famous by Frank Sinatra, chosen by Dylan
• Dylan produced the album himself under the pseudonym Jack Frost
• Recorded in 2014 at Capitol Studios, studio B

Background

• Songs drawn from Sinatra's late 1950s and early 1960s recordings
• Sinatra recorded thematic albums on separation and heartache in that period, such as Where Are You? (1957), No One Cares (1959), and All Alone (1962)
• Where Are You? contains four of the songs on Shadows
• Dylan said he wanted to make this album after hearing Willie Nelson's standards album Stardust in the 1970s
• Dylan's stated intention was to uncover these songs rather than cover them

Recording

• Recorded live with Dylan singing and his five-man touring band performing in the same room at the same time, without headphones
• Recording engineer Al Schmitt set the other microphones away from the instruments, since Dylan did not want to see any mic except his vocal mic
• Sessions ran 3:00 pm to 6:00 pm, then 8:00 pm to around 10:30 pm after a two-hour break, Monday through Friday
• 23 songs were recorded and ten were chosen for the album

Cover

• Images and design evoke the early 1960s
• Front cover uses a photo of Dylan behind a vertical-bar design that emulates Freddie Hubbard's 1962 Blue Note album Hub-Tones
• Back cover shows Dylan and a masked woman at a nightclub table looking at a seven-inch Sun Records single, possibly alluding to the 1966 Black and White Ball

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

• Metacritic: average 82 out of 100 from 31 reviews
• AllMusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine praised the richly idiosyncratic feel and the slow, winding arrangements
• Billboard's Kenneth Partridge gave the album four out of five stars
• The Guardian's Alexis Petridis said it may be the most straightforwardly enjoyable album Dylan has made since Time Out of Mind
• Rolling Stone's David Fricke described the album as 'quietly provocative and compelling'
• The New York Times's Jon Pareles gave a positive review
• Pitchfork's Stephen Deusner found the covers emotionally muted and less impressive than Sinatra's originals
• Robert Christgau played the album several times before finding it 'painful'

Reappraisal

• Two songs on Rolling Stone's 2020 list of Dylan's 25 best songs of the 21st century: 'Stay with Me' at 25th and 'Autumn Leaves' at 22nd
• Spectrum Culture included 'Autumn Leaves' in its 2020 list of Dylan's best songs of the 2010s and beyond
• Ray Padgett considers 'That Lucky Old Sun' the highlight of the album

Records

• UK Albums Chart No. 1 in its debut week, selling 22,031 copies
• At 73, the oldest male solo artist to chart at No. 1 in the UK, until Paul Simon broke the record in 2016
• Dylan holds the record for the longest span between No. 1 albums, 51 years, since The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in 1963
• Also debuted at No. 1 on the Norwegian and Swedish album charts
• US: No. 7 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the Top Rock Albums chart, selling 50,000 copies in the first week
• 151,000 copies sold in the US as of April 2016
• Nominated for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album at the 2016 Grammys

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Dylan's version of 'Full Moon and Empty Arms' was streamed on his official website from May 13, 2014, before the album was announced.
• Dylan performed 'Stay with Me' in concert from October 26, 2014, as a teaser for the album.
• 50,000 free CDs were offered to randomly selected readers of AARP The Magazine.
• Nash Edgerton, who had directed three earlier Dylan music videos, directed the video for 'The Night We Called It a Day', starring Dylan and Robert Davi, shot in high-contrast black and white.
• Dylan performed 'The Night We Called It a Day' on the Late Show with David Letterman on May 19, 2015, near the end of Letterman's run.
• Engineer Al Schmitt said Dylan listened to the Sinatra recordings before each session and then did only two or three takes per tune.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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