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Sam Jones, the director of Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued, was interviewed by Jack Russell for American Songwriter magazine. It was to promote the Showtime documentary, which featured Elvis Costello, Rhiannon Giddens, Taylor Goldsmith, Jim James, Marcus Mumford, and producer T-Bone Burnett, collectively known as The New Basement Tapes, creating an album of music called Lost on the River. It featured new music written to accompany Bob Dylan lyrics leftover from the legendary Basement Tapes sessions of 1967.
Costello apparently was not happy about what Jones had to say, and expressed his disapproval in a series of pithy comments via Twitter. Below is what was posted on Costello’s verified account, @ElvisCostello:
- >This wonderful, cooperative record was not the soundtrack of a film cast by this presumptuous, deluded charlatan @AmerSongwriter @samjones @SHO_Network
- >By the way, the laughable opening shot of the film was lifted directly from "Lawrence Of Arabia" @samjones @SHO_Network
- >The trite and shallow view of an amateur musician. Preparation is not a contrivance or an evasion of the visceral "Contrivance" was slowing the film to a tedious crawl to invent melodrama, as six songwriters were cutting 47 records in 12 days
- >A complete absence of curiosity about the words in hand was a measure of your arrogance
- >From the outset, I said, "He really is an arse who thinks we are incidentally making the soundtrack for a movie he has conceived"
I had my own problems with the documentary. Jones’ amateurish use of actors to portray Dylan and members of the Band playing in the basement and frolicking on the lawn brought my blood to a boil, not to mention it being the antithesis of the spirit of the Basement Tapes to boot. However, it was interesting to witness the creative process in action, with the added bonus of some commentary by Dylan and guitarist Robbie Robertson.
In other news, Costello’s website has an announcement that the singer-songwriter created Unfaithful Music & Soundtrack Album, a soundtrack for his memoir, which features two unreleased songs, and will be released October 9. The book, titled Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink, will be published October 13.
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