The Rolling Stone interviews - Jann Wenner [14]
How has that changed the music?
It’s changed the music drastically. It’s given birth to English groups to come along and do it like Eric Burdon. It’s also given birth for the Stones and the Beatles to come along and do it—not that they wouldn’t have done it otherwise—but the first place the Beatles wanted to see when they came to America, ’cause I came over on the plane with them, was the Apollo Theater.
As bad as a record as “Book of Love” by the Monotones is, you can hear a lot of “Book of Love” in the Beatles’ “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?” I think you hear a lot of that dumb, great-yet-nonsensical stuff that makes it—even though it’s silly. It’s got the same nonsense.
I believe that the English kids have soul. Really soul. When I watch Walter Cronkite or Victory at Sea, or You Are There—any of those programs, I see bombs flying all over England and little kids running. Now that’s probably Paul McCartney running. You know, ’cause that’s where the bombs fell. They say soul comes through suffering. Slavery for the blacks. And gettin’ your ass bombed off is another way of gettin’ some soul, so I would say that these English cats have a lot of soul legitimately. You’re gonna have Dave Clark in there who don’t know too much about it, and just like you’re gonna have a Rosy and the Originals in America who don’t know too much about it.
What artist do you really feel has not been recorded right that you’d like to record?
Bob Dylan.
How would you record him?
I’d do a Dylan opera with him. I’d produce him. You see, he’s never been produced. He’s always gone into the studio on the strength of his lyrics, and they have sold enough records to cover up everything—all the honesty of his records. But he’s never really made a production. He doesn’t really have to.
His favorite song is “Like a Rolling Stone,” and it stands to reason because that’s his grooviest song, as far as songs go. It may not be his grooviest message. It may not be the greatest thing he ever wrote, but I can see why he gets the most satisfaction out of it, because rewriting “La Bamba” chord changes is always a lot of fun and any time you can make a Number One record and rewrite those kind of changes, it is very satisfying.
I would like him to just say something that could live recording-wise forever. I would have enjoyed recording John Wesley Harding in its own way. He doesn’t really have the time nor do any of his producers necessarily have the ambition or talent to really overrule him and debate with him. I would imagine with Albert Grossman there is a situation of business control just like it would be with Elvis Presley and Colonel Parker. Assume that there is no control, then somebody should be much more forceful. Maybe nobody has the guts, balls or the ambition to get in there, but there is no reason unless Dylan didn’t want it. But there is a way he could have been made to want it.
There is no reason why Dylan can’t be recorded in a very certain way and a very beautiful way where you can just sit back and say “wow” about everything—not just him and the song—just everything.
How would you have done ‘John Wesley Harding’?
There is a way to do it. He’s so great on it and he is so honest that it’s just like going into the studio with twelve of Stephen Foster’s songs. There’s so much you can do. There is so much you can do with Dylan; he gives you so much to work with. That’s probably why he sells so many records without trying so very hard in the studio.
It’s also probably why the Beatles . . . well it’s obvious that Paul McCartney and John Lennon may be the greatest rock & roll singers that we’ve ever had. They may be the greatest singers of the last ten years—they really may be! I mean there is a reason for the Beatles other than the fact that they’re like Rogers and Hart and Hammerstein, Gershwin