My last post, highlighting the online music service Pandora, gave an example of one new technology that is making my life more enjoyable. It also spawned another example, as follows: Searching YouTube for any Simon and Garfunkel recordings of Jackson C. Frank's "Blues Run the Game," I found a recording by Nick Drake, whom I've mentioned many times previously. After watching/listening to it, YouTube also suggested I listen to his recording of Bob Dylan's classic, "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right."
Though I had read about Drake and Dylan's cross-influence on each other, I had not known Drake actually recorded any covers of Dylan's songs, so this clearly was a nice find for me, and now for any of you who similarly find such things of interest. As it turns out, Drake's recordings of both Frank's and Dylan's songs appear only on what is essentially a bootleg version of some "working tapes" of his from the 60's. After a little research, I'm still not sure if the album, "Tanworth In Arden 1967-1968" has ever been authorized by the Drake estate or released under any legitimate record company, but for Drake enthusiasts, it's a gold mine. It comprises 18 tracks, including the aforementioned covers and some original, never-released songs. Among them is a track, "All My Trials," which features Drake's actress sister, Gabrielle, (pictured, right) in a vocal duet.
I could go on about the intrinsic value of such stuff to collectors, hobbyists and enthusiasts, but I'll otherwise summarize thusly: without web apps such as Pandora, search engines, Wikipedia, YouTube and Amazon, I can't imagine how long such a chain of discoveries would have taken me to make. (With them, it took about 5 minutes). Honestly, I probably never would have heard of Frank or either Drake, or a host of other people, places and things which are common points of thought in my life. I am probably able to learn more every day in a matter of minutes on the web than was possible in hours or even days previously. How did people learn or accomplish anything in the days before such technologies? I'm not sure, but I certainly am appreciative that they're around for people today.
IMAGE: Gabrielle Drake in character on the short-lived 70's British sci-fi TV show "UFO". From http://freespace.virgin.net/b.world/Gabrielle_Drake.jpg.
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4 comments:
I was so wondering what any of this had to do with that picture...
I agree, for the most part - that discovery would have taken you ages 15 years ago. But I think the answer to the question "What did people do without technology?" is that they talked to each other. If you had gone hunting for this information 15 or 20 or 100 years ago, you would have connected with a bunch of other enthusiasts along the way, right? Communities of knowledge, communities of practice.
Of course, those communities now exist online as well, and have multiplied exponentially, and are now much more accessible.
An interesting piece on NPR last week about how iPods have changed the way we listen to music - isolated, private, personal soundtracks, rather than shared live experiences.
I'm rambling now. I'm not arguing with you, Dan (says the woman who has an iPhone in her pocket). Just thinking out loud.
Obviously, I know that there were ways to get things done in the past, because, well, things got done. The thing is, I don't think I would have even begun the search for this information - I would have had no idea that they could have been connected A-Z at all. The ability for technologies such as these to instantaneously link together related information automatically really allows someone to start one place and end up literally on the other side of the world of information in one continuous, logical stream.
Also, I thought the pic was sweet for its duality - it's a picture of G. Drake and also ironically shows the vision a group of people from the 70's had as to what the future would look like.
Yeah, I thought the picture was just relating to technology at first.
In Chronicles, Dylan talks about finding folk and blues records back before any of the technology, finding collectors who also loved the music, and trying to piece together a history of people like Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie long before Wikipedia made it so easy.
The word verification for me is "ratracce." So close, Blogger. I wonder if there are so few 7 letter words out of the possible 26^7 "words" that I'll never get an actual word.
I also wanted to say that people should poke around on YouTube and check out all the other various covers of "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright." I particularly like Rory Gallagher and Chet Atkins versions. Johnny Cash makes it sound like you'd imagine, and Dylan and Clapton live are great, but only if you like that kind of Dylan.
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