Obviously 5 Believers

"Obviously 5 Believers" (also known as "Obviously Five Believers"[3]) is a song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, which was released as the last track of side three of his double album Blonde on Blonde (1966), and was the B-side to the single release of "Just Like a Woman" for releases in America and some other countries. The song was written by Dylan and produced by Bob Johnston. It was recorded at Columbia Music Row Studios, in the early morning hours of a March 9–10, 1966 session. Four takes were recorded, although the first two were incomplete. It has been interpreted as a blues song about loneliness, with critics noting similarities in melody and structure to Memphis Minnie's "Chauffeur Blues". Dylan's vocals and the musicianship of the band on the track have both received critical acclaim, although the track has been regarded as insubstantial by some commentators.

"Obviously 5 Believers"
A single cover showing Dylan wearing sunglassses, sitting at an upright piano
Danish single picture sleeve
Song by Bob Dylan
from the album Blonde on Blonde
ReleasedJune 20, 1966 (1966-06-20)
RecordedMarch 10, 1966
StudioColumbia Studio A, Nashville[1]
GenreBlues
Length3:36[2]
LabelColumbia
Songwriter(s)Bob Dylan
Producer(s)Bob Johnston
Audio
"Obviously 5 Believers" on YouTube

In 2010, the song was included on The Original Mono Recordings. Take 3 was included on the deluxe edition of The Bootleg Series Vol. 12: The Cutting Edge 1965–1966 (2015), and all four takes were included on the Collector's Edition of that album. Dylan first performed "Obviously 5 Believers" live in concert in Palm Desert, California on May 15, 1995. In all, he has played the song in concert 40 times, most recently in 1997.

Background and recording
Robbie Robertson playing a guitar
Robbie Robertson (pictured in 1971) found the Nashville musicians "clique-ish" but felt his performance on "Obviously 5 Believers" was "the track I did that got everyone to accept me".[4]
Charlie McCoy, wearing a stetson hat, at a microphone
Charlie McCoy (pictured in 1990) rather than Dylan played harmonica on the track. McCoy said that "what [Dylan] wanted – the riff on it – is not what he does".[5]

In October 1965, Bob Dylan began recording sessions for his seventh studio album in New York.[6] His sixth album, Highway 61 Revisited, had been released on August 30 of that year.[7] The October sessions featured members of the Hawks, (later known as the Band), who Dylan had been touring with after his performance at the Newport Folk Festival in July.[8][9] However, after several sessions, Dylan took his producer Bob Johnston's suggestion to relocate recording to Nashville.[10][11] Two musicians from the New York sessions joined the Nashville recordings: Al Kooper, and Robbie Robertson of the Hawks.[12] Johnston assembled leading session players to play on the recordings.[13] Dylan had produced an outline version of "Obviously 5 Believers" by March 7.[14][15]

"Obviously 5 Believers" was recorded in the early morning hours of the March 9–10, 1966, Nashville session under the working title "Black Dog Blues". Historian Sean Wilentz, author of Bob Dylan in America, feels that the song is driven by Robertson's guitar, Charlie McCoy's harmonica and Ken Buttrey's drumming.[16][17][18] Dylan sang and played guitar, also accompanied by Kooper (organ), Wayne Moss (electric guitar), Hargus "Pig" Robbins (piano), and Henry Strzelecki (electric bass guitar).[19] After an initial breakdown, Dylan complained to the band that the song was "very easy, man" and that he did not want to spend much time on it.[16][18] Four takes were recorded.[16] Take 4 was used as the fifth track on side three of Blonde on Blonde,[20] It was the B-side to the single of "Just Like a Woman" for releases in America and some other countries.[21] In 2010, it was included on The Original Mono Recordings.[22] Take 3 was included on the deluxe edition of The Bootleg Series Vol. 12: The Cutting Edge 1965–1966 (2015),[23] and all four takes were included on the Collector's Edition of that album.[24]

Composition and lyrical interpretation

Music historians Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesdon describe "Obviously 5 Believers" as "a bluesy love song about loneliness".[2] They wrote that the song is similar in melody and structure to Memphis Minnie's "Chauffeur Blues", which was also an inspiration for '"Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" on Blonde on Blonde.[3][2] In 1995, author George White noted that the arrangement of "Obviously 5 Believers" has similarities to Bo Diddley's song "She's Fine, She's Mine", but critic Michael Gray suggests this is because both songs were indebted to earlier blues recordings.[25] Journalist Mike Marqusee also thought that Dylan draws on blues idioms that predate his discovery of the genre in the mid-1950s, and notes that both "Obviously 5 Believers" and "Pledging My Time" from Blonde on Blonde have lyrics that start with the "ritual Delta [blues] invocation of 'early in the mornin''".[26] Marqusee, however, felt that both of these Dylan compositions were "beyond category. They are allusive, repetitive, jaggedly abstract compositions that defy reduction."[26] Other blues imagery used in the song includes a woman who has left, a black dog barking, and a mother who works hard.[27] The song also has what Gill referred to as "apparently arbitrary references to 'fifteen jugglers' ... and the 'five believers'".[4]

Critical reception

The reviewer for Cash Box described "Obviously 5 Believers" as "a blues-soaked, rhythmic romancer".[28] Writing in Crawdaddy!, Paul Williams called the song "joyous" and praised the instrumental and vocal performances.[29] Clinton Heylin felt that every song Dylan recorded in Nashville for Blonde on Blonde relied on the skill of the backing musicians, but this song was "entirely dependent on them".[18]

Jon Landau's assessment was that "the vocal here is truly the entire message and on this cut we are listening to a genuine blues artist".[30] Guitarist Mike Bloomfield cited Dylan's performance on the song as evidence that he was a talented singer of the blues, unlike many other American and British artists of the time who would "just listen to records and imitate them".[31] The song received an "A" rating from author John Nogowski, who highlighted Dylan's "assured, commanding vocals".[32] The track was described by Robert Shelton as "pure honky-tonk" and among the best R&B numbers on the album,[33] whereas Gray dismissed it as "a filler track ... with a repetitive and undistinguished lyric" that was more like a song from Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited than from Blonde on Blonde.[34] Dylan biographer Ian Bell opined that Dylan's blues renditions on Blonde on Blonde "feel unsatisfactory and perfunctory, as though he knows he has better things to do, and far better things to write, and described "Obviously 5 Believers" as a "makeweight".[35]

Influence and covers

The band Obviously 5 Believers, named after the song and taking inspiration from Dylan and the Rolling Stones, formed in Birmingham, England in 1979.[36][37] Members included Stephen Duffy, a founder member of Duran Duran, and Dave Kusworth, later of Jacobites.[36] Later renamed the Hawks, they released only one single before breaking up at the end of 1981, although a compilation of their recordings was released in 2021 as the album Obviously 5 Believers.[38]

"Obviously 5 Believers" was often included in live sets by Top Jimmy & The Rhythm Pigs.[39] A 1981 rendition was described by Don Waller as "the sonic equivalent of a bar fight".[40] Chris Morris regarded the version included on the band's only album, Pigus Drunkus Maximus, recorded in 1981 but released in 1987,[41] as one of the record's highlights.[39] The Boston Phoenix reviewer Don Snowden praised it as one of the album's "sublime two-minute power shots".[41] Old Crow Medicine Show performed all the songs from Blonde on Blonde live at a Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum event celebrating the 50th year of the album.[42] The performance was released in 2017 as 50 Years of Blonde on Blonde.[42] Their version of "Obviously 5 Believers", which featured a fiddle solo,[43] was described as a "strutting blues jaunt" by Dan Hyman in Rolling Stone,[42] and a "bluegrass breakdown" by the Knoxville News Sentinel reviewer Wayne Bledsoe.[44]

Live performances

Dylan did not play the song live until 1995, when he debuted it at the McCallum Theatre in Palm Desert, California on May 15. He played it live a further 39 times before retiring it after a performance at the Charles A. Dana Center, Waltham, Massachusetts on April 12, 1997.[45]

Personnel

Credits adapted from the That Thin, Wild Mercury Sound: Dylan, Nashville, and the Making of Blonde on Blonde book.[46]

Musicians

Technical

Charts

Chart performances are for the single with "Just Like a Woman" as the A-side and "Obviously 5 Believers" as the B-side.

Chart (1966) Peak
position
Belgium (Ultratop 50 Wallonia)[47] 12
Canada Top Singles (RPM)[48] 38
Netherlands (Dutch Top 40)[49] 30
US Billboard Hot 100[50] 33
US Cashbox Top 100[51] 28
US Record World 100 Top Pops[52] 26

References

Citations

  1. Sanders 2020, p. 99.
  2. Margotin & Guesdon 2022, p. 238.
  3. Trager 2004, p. 462.
  4. Gill 2011, p. 151.
  5. Sanders 2020, pp. 233–234.
  6. Margotin & Guesdon 2022, p. 212.
  7. Margotin & Guesdon 2022, p. 183.
  8. Wilentz 2010, 1756.
  9. Farrer, Martin (May 30, 2022). "Ronnie Hawkins, rock'n'roll legend who mentored The Band, dies aged 87". The Guardian. Archived from the original on January 13, 2023. Retrieved April 26, 2023.
  10. Heylin 1995, pp. 45–46.
  11. Heylin 2021, p. 388.
  12. Heylin 2021, pp. 388–392.
  13. Wilentz 2010, 1867–1884.
  14. Heylin 2011, p. 241.
  15. Heylin 2016, 2892.
  16. Wilentz 2010, 2013.
  17. Gill 2011, pp. 150–151.
  18. Heylin 2010, pp. 379–380.
  19. Sanders 2020, p. 279.
  20. Nogowski 2022, p. 61.
  21. Fraser, Alan. "Audio: 1966 – Just Like A Woman". Searching for a Gem. Archived from the original on March 24, 2022. Retrieved December 2, 2022.
  22. "Obviously Five Believers". Bob Dylan's official website. Archived from the original on December 2, 2022. Retrieved December 2, 2022.
  23. "The Bootleg Series, Vol. 12: The Cutting Edge 1965 – 1966 Deluxe Edition (2015)". Bob Dylan's official website. Archived from the original on December 2, 2022. Retrieved December 2, 2022.
  24. "Bob Dylan The Cutting Edge 1965 – 1966: The Bootleg Series Vol.12: Collector's Edition". Bob Dylan's official website. Archived from the original on March 6, 2016.
  25. Gray 2004, p. 304.
  26. Marqusee 2005, p. 208.
  27. Trager 2004, p. 461.
  28. "CashBox Record Reviews" (PDF). Cash Box. September 3, 1966. p. 18. Archived (PDF) from the original on February 13, 2022. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
  29. Williams 1969, p. 68.
  30. Landau 1990, p. 258.
  31. Delehant, Jim (February 1967). "Mike Bloomfield (guitarist with Paul Buttefield Blues Band) puts down everything (Part II)". Hit Parader. p. 57.
  32. Nogowski 2022, p. 62.
  33. Shelton 1987, p. 324.
  34. Gray 2004, p. 302.
  35. Bell 2014, p. 442.
  36. Sendra, Tim. "Obviously 5 Believers Review". AllMusic. Archived from the original on October 15, 2022. Retrieved March 16, 2023.
  37. Petridis, Alexis (October 15, 2004). "Radio daze". The Guardian. Archived from the original on September 27, 2021. Retrieved March 16, 2023.
  38. Seaman, Duncan (August 26, 2021). "Stephen Duffy and David Twist on The Hawks: 'We weren't after world domination'". The Yorkshire Post. Archived from the original on August 29, 2021. Retrieved March 16, 2023.
  39. Morris, Chris (May 29, 2021). "50 More of the Best Bob Dylan Covers Ever Recorded: Bonus Tracks Edition: 38 Top Jimmy & the Rhythm Pigs, 'Obviously Five Believers'". Variety. Archived from the original on November 7, 2021. Retrieved March 16, 2023.
  40. Waller, Don (July 14, 1981). "A roguish Top Jimmy at the Whisky". The Los Angeles Times. p. VI.6.
  41. Snowden, Don (October 16, 1987). "Top Jimmy & The Rhythm Pigs: blues rooting". The Boston Phoenix. p. 12.
  42. Hyman, Dan (April 27, 2017). "How Old Crow Medicine Show Reimagined Bob Dylan's 'Blonde on Blonde'". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on May 19, 2022. Retrieved March 16, 2023.
  43. Thanki, Juli (2016). "Old Crow Medicine Show delivers stellar Bob Dylan tribute". The Tennessean. Archived from the original on March 16, 2023. Retrieved March 16, 2023.
  44. Bledsoe, Wayne (April 23, 2017). "Old Crow Medicine Show, Los Straitjackets bands reinterpret the classics". Knoxville News Sentinel. p. 5D.
  45. "Setlists that contain Obviously Five Believers". Bob Dylan's official website. Sony Music Entertainment. Archived from the original on July 29, 2016. Retrieved December 2, 2022.
  46. Sanders 2020, p. 276, 279.
  47. "Bob Dylan – Just Like a Woman" (in French). Ultratop 50.
  48. "RPM 100" (PDF). RPM. October 24, 1966. p. 5. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 6, 2021. Retrieved July 23, 2022.
  49. "Nederlandse Top 40 – week 39, 1966" (in Dutch). Dutch Top 40.
  50. "Bob Dylan Chart History: Hot 100". Billboard. Archived from the original on November 17, 2021. Retrieved June 29, 2020.
  51. "Cashbox Top 100" (PDF). Cashbox. October 15, 1966. p. 4. Archived (PDF) from the original on June 7, 2022. Retrieved December 5, 2022.
  52. "100 Top Pops" (PDF). Record World. October 15, 1966. p. 19. Archived (PDF) from the original on September 30, 2021. Retrieved July 23, 2022.

Bibliography

  • Bell, Ian (2014). Once Upon a Time: The Lives of Bob Dylan. New York: Pegasus Books. ISBN 978-1-60598-627-2.
  • Gill, Andy (2011). Bob Dylan: the Stories Behind the Songs 1962-1969. London: Carlton. ISBN 978-1-84732-759-8.
  • Gray, Michael (2004). Song and Dance Man III: The Art of Bob Dylan. London: Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-8264-6382-1.
  • Heylin, Clinton (1995). Dylan: Behind Closed Doors – the Recording Sessions (1960–1994). Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-025749-6.
  • Heylin, Clinton (2010). Revolution in the Air - the Songs of Bob Dylan Vol.1 1957-73. Constable & Robinson. ISBN 978-1-84901-296-6.
  • Heylin, Clinton (2011). Behind the Shades: The 20th Anniversary Edition. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-27240-2.
  • Heylin, Clinton (2016). Judas!: From Forest Hills to the Free Trade Hall: A Historical View of Dylan's Big Boo (Kindle ed.). Route Publishing. ISBN 978-1-901927-68-9.
  • Heylin, Clinton (2021). The Double Life of Bob Dylan. Vol. 1 1941-1966, A restless, hungry feeling. London: Bodley Head. ISBN 978-1-84792-588-6.
  • Landau, Jon (1990) [1st pub. Crawdaddy!: 1968]. "John Wesley Harding". In McGregor, Craig (ed.). Bob Dylan : the early years: a retrospective. New York: Da Capo Press. pp. 248–264.
  • Margotin, Philippe; Guesdon, Jean-Michel (2022). Bob Dylan All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track (Expanded ed.). New York: Black Dog & Leventhal. ISBN 978-0-7624-7573-5.
  • Marqusee, Mike (2005). Wicked Messenger: Bob Dylan and the 1960s. New York: Seven Stories Press. ISBN 978-1-58322-686-5.
  • Nogowski, John (2022). Bob Dylan: A Descriptive, Critical Discography and Filmography, 1961-2022 (3rd ed.). Jefferson: McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-1-4766-4362-5.
  • Sanders, Daryl (2020). That Thin, Wild Mercury Sound: Dylan, Nashville, and the Making of Blonde on Blonde (epub ed.). Chicago: Chicago Review Press. ISBN 978-1-61373-550-3.
  • Shelton, Robert (1987). No Direction Home: the Life and Music of Bob Dylan. London: New English Library. ISBN 978-0-450-04843-2.
  • Trager, Oliver (2004). Keys to the Rain: the Definitive Bob Dylan Encyclopedia. New York: Billboard Books. ISBN 978-0-8230-7974-2.
  • Wilentz, Sean (2010). Bob Dylan in America (Kindle ed.). London: Vintage Digital. ISBN 978-1-4070-7411-5.
  • Williams, Paul (1969) [1st pub. Crawdaddy!: 1966]. "Understanding Dylan". Outlaw blues; a book of rock music. New York: E. P. Dutton. pp. 59–69.
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