ALBUM RELEASE NEWS

What becomes a cult-favorite legend most? When it comes to onetime Bob Dylan tour manager, noted folk artist, songwriter, painter, and producer Bob Neuwirth, it seems quite befitting that a long-awaited reissue of the artist’s self-titled debut album is set to receive new life on vinyl with a 50th anniversary 1LP reissue on Sunset Blvd. Records on September 27, 2024. (Bob Neuwirth was originally released on Asylum in 1974.)

For this reissue, the label’s team has confirmed with AP that each track has been completely remixed “from scratch” to reflect how Neuwirth had long intended the collection to sound. In his later years, Neuwirth — who sadly passed away at age 82 in May 2022 — felt the album didn’t sound like the debut he would have made if he was sober at the time, given that the recording sessions had, quote, “turned into a legendary multi-day party.” (See if you can get a sense of that in-studio vibe via the photo below, courtesy of his label team.)

At any rate, engineer John Hanlon (Neil Young, Gillian Welch, R.E.M.) reworked each Bob Neuwirth track from new hi-res audiophile-quality digital transfers of the original 16- and 24-track analog tapes. The officially phraseology, as seen on the hype sticker below, notes that Bob Neuwirth has been “remixed by John Hanlon” and “remastered by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering.” The Bob Neuwirth vinyl itself has been pressed at Studio 4 Vinyl, and the SRP is a quite reasonable $23.99. The LP pressing is a limited edition of 750, and you can order your copy now right here.

Guests galore appear on Bob Neuwirth — among them being Kris Kristofferson (who once described Neuwirth as “a Shakespearean jester who’s wiser than all the rest”), Roger McGuinn, Don Everly, Cass Elliot, Richie Furay, Rita Coolidge, Booker T. Jones, Chris Hillman, Geoff Muldaur, Dusty Springfield, Timothy B. Schmit, Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, Stephen Bruton, and many more (many of whom can be seen “at work” in the pair of in-studio photos in this story).

For further background, the Neuwirth LP reissue is the upshot of a conversation Neuwirth began with Hanlon years ago. “Bob asked me, ‘Have you heard my first record? Would you listen to it and tell me what you think?’” the engineer relates in the official press release. “I knew I’d get a great sound out of it. I would just approach it differently. I never tried to match what was originally there, because that was in 1974.”

Hanlon then added that he was never given any specific directives from Neuwirth in regard to a remix before he passed away in 2022. The only thing Neuwirth told Hanlon, the engineer recalled, was, “‘Hey man, I know your work, okay? That’s all I need to say. I know your work and you know my work.’ So,” Hanlon confirmed, “I just approached it really organically, and I just made it sound like great rock ’n’ roll.” (And that he did!)

You can get a taste of what Bob Neuwirth is all about by checking out the following YouTube clip of “Kiss Money” (Side One, Track 2). This Americana-ish track is buttressed by exquisite steel guitar work of the late great Ben Keith.

Bob Neuwirth is bookended by a pair of favorites of mine, starting with “Rock & Roll Time,” which opens Side One, a song he co-wrote with Kristofferson and McGuinn. Again, from the press release, McGuinn is quoted as saying about writing with Neuwirth, “You have to have a good imagination. Definitely being a painter, I think, helps. It’s the same thing with Joni Mitchell — she’s an imaginative songwriter who painted. Bobby had that gift, too.”

Incidentally, Neuwirth-penned songs continue to be recorded to this day, including one he co-wrote with T Bone Burnett, “Hawaiian Blue Song,” which Burnett recently included on his April 2024 LP on Verve Forecast, The Other Side (Side B, Track 2). You can read Mark Smotroff’s review of that stellar Burnett LP right here, which posted on May 17, 2024. (Of Neuwirth, Burnett once said that he is “the best pure songwriter of any of us.”)

The Neuwirth album closes with “Mercedes Benz” (Side Two, Track 6), the ever-enduring posthumous Janis Joplin hit Neuwirth and Joplin co-wrote with Michael McClure that was included on Pearl, her one-and-only album with the Full Tilt Boogie Band that was released in January 1971 on Columbia, three months after her passing in October 1970. In his version here, however, Neuwirth made a few subtle changes to the lyrics — such as “no help from my friends” becoming “no help but my friends,” and “buy me a Mercedes Benz” becoming “buy them all a Mercedes Benz.”

Me, I was privileged to get an early copy of the Bob Neuwirth LP sent my way, and I’m quite pleased with what I heard on it, especially on tasty tracks like the slow-rolling twang of “Just Because I’m Here (Don’t Mean I’m Home)” (Side One, Track 3) and the self-aware wink-nudge of the countrified dirge “Legend in My Time” (Side Two, Track 1). True, I did have to replace the (egad) paper inner sleeve with one of my own audiophile-grade plastic inners — but other than that, I have no complaints, as my deep black vinyl was well-centered and quite quiet. The Music gets an 8.5, and the Sound is a solid 8. A print of Neuwirth’s artwork is said to be included with “a limited supply of vinyl,” but my LP did not come with said print. Considering the pressing is capped at 750 copies, you might want to order up your own copy of Bob Neuwirth STAT.

BOB NEUWIRTH
BOB NEUWIRTH
1LP (Sunset Blvd.)

Side One
1. Rock & Roll Time
2. Kiss Money
3. Just Because I’m Here (Don’t Mean I’m Home)
4. Honky Red
5. Hero

Side Two
1. Legend In My Time
2. Rock & Roll Rider
3. We Had It All
4. Country Livin’
5. Cowboys & Indians
6. Mercedes Benz