Southern roots-rock veteran Warren Haynes has a new live album, Dreams & Songs: A Symphonic Journey, due on the 18th September from Provogue/Artone, and ahead of its release is the latest single taken from it, a rendition of Gov’t Mule‘s ‘Thorazine Shuffle’.
“John Medeski did the arrangement for ‘Thorazine Shuffle’, and his unique take on music in general was what led me to ask him to arrange that particular piece,” said Haynes. “He was able to strike a balance for ‘Thorazine Shuffle’ that takes it a little further avant-garde than most of the songs but still has that beautiful symphonic quality as far as the arrangement is concerned that really transports it into another place. His counter-melodies and all the different textures that he put in that song elevated it in a way that I wasn’t expecting. It’s probably the most unique arrangement on the record.”
The live album was recorded in 2019 at the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium in Haynes‘ hometown of Asheville, North Carolina. Watching the interplay between Haynes and his band of seasoned rock ‘n’ roll improvisers, including Oteil Burbridge on bass, John Medeski on organ and keys, Jeff Sipe on drums, and Greg Osby on saxophone, as well as Edwin McCain and Jasmine Muhammad on background vocals, alongside the 64-piece Asheville Symphony Orchestra, was said to be a hypnotic sight to witness.
Another live rendition of a Gov’t Mule number, ‘Banks Of The Deep End’, was a previous single, again capturing the thrilling collision between Haynes‘ improvisers and the 64-piece orchestra.
The original studio version of ‘Banks Of The Deep End’ was released on the 2001 Gov’t Mule album The Deep End, Volume 1, the first album the band made without bassist Allen Woody, who sadly passed away the year before. The song has gone on to connect with fans of the band worldwide.
Talking about the song, Haynes affirmed: “‘Banks Of The Deep End’ has become a favourite among Mule fans. It’s one of the songs that we probably play more than any other, and although it doesn’t vary as much on a nightly basis as some of the other tunes, it somehow takes on its own personality just based on the song itself, the lyric and the uniqueness of the chord structure and the melody.
“Playing it with a symphony just emphasises all the dramatic and dynamic changes that the song presents, and it’s wonderful hearing it in that light.”
For more than three decades, the Grammy-winning Warren Haynes has outrun genre, classification and his own comfort zone, journeying between the acclaimed solo work with his own name on the marquee, his storied jam-band Gov’t Mule, and America’s fabled rock ‘n’ roll institutions from The Allman Brothers Band to the Grateful Dead.
‘Raven Black Night’ has been another recent single. That one was originally released on the 1998 Gov’t Mule album Dose. Talking about taking a new approach to the song, Haynes said: “I had come up with this arrangement that went from ‘Raven Black Night’ into ‘Silent Scream Pt.2’, back into ‘Raven Black Night’. The way those two things married together is really cool, and the way the orchestra kind of accepted that challenge was really amazing. I think those two songs, the way they work together, kind of lend themselves to orchestration, in some ways, more than anything else on this recording.
“They sound like the orchestration completes the thought. Y’know, the orchestration kind of sounds like part of the composition, which is a tall order and very high praise indeed. I love the arrangement for that piece, and I really enjoyed singing ‘Raven Black Night’ in that light. Because, y’know, the original recording had no drums and was very stripped-down. It had a little percussion thing in the middle and no bass. Whereas this arrangement is just full-bodied, full orchestration, the opposite of the original recording, and it really takes it to a place that completes it and turns it into another thing.”
Before that came ‘Shakedown Street (Live)’, a striking orchestral take on the Grateful Dead classic.
“‘Shakedown Street’ is a really powerful orchestrated arrangement that enhances the power of the original, which I played and sang a ton of times with those guys through the years, especially with Phil Lesh And Friends, but with The Dead as well,” said Haynes. “It’s a very danceable song. A lot of people just focus on the groove and get lost in the rhythmic quality of it. The orchestra forces you to pay attention to it in a different way. It’s very dark and powerful and, I think, very effective. This song goes back to the Jerry Garcia Symphonic Celebration, which was my first experience with an orchestra. That’s kind of what started this whole journey for me, which is still going on.”
Talking about the idea behind the concert itself, Haynes said: “Growing up in Asheville, North Carolina, every creative artist walked in the comfortable shadow of author Thomas Wolfe, Asheville’s most famous native son. I was no exception. Although I was familiar with some of his work, mostly Look Homeward, Angel, like everyone else, I was 38 years old when I finally read his masterpiece You Can’t Go Home Again.
“As an Ashevillian who had found himself living in New York, I was obviously balancing the same two worlds, albeit many decades later. And although You Can’t Go Home Again was published the year my dad was born, it connected with me in a way I wasn’t prepared for. I was traveling to a lot of the same places he references, both at home and abroad, and running in similarly dissimilar circles, all the while second-guessing some of the choices made along the way, as any 38-year-old would. More than a decade later, when I wrote the song ‘Dreams & Songs’, from which this project takes its title, it would in some ways pay tribute to this experience and connection.”
In total, Dreams & Songs features the tracks ‘Dreams and Songs (Part One)’, ‘Dreams’, ‘Banks of the Deep End’, ‘Spots of Time’, ‘Broken Promised Land’, ‘Thorazine Shuffle’, ‘Makes No Difference’, ‘Terrapin Station’, ‘Raven Black Night’, ‘Just Another Rider’, ‘Black Peter’, ‘Instrumental Illness’, ‘One’, ‘Shakedown Street’, ‘Whipping Post’ and ‘Dreams and Songs (Reprise)’. It is available to pre-order now.
