Bob Dylan has recorded a second album of standards associated with Frank Sinatra, according to his former producer, Daniel Lanois.
Lanois, who worked on Dylan’s albums Oh Mercy and Time Out of Mind, told the Vancouver Sun that he had heard all the songs Dylan recorded for the project. “He came to my house eight or six months ago and spent a few hours,” Lanois said. “We listened to 21 songs – because he’s made two records of this [Sinatra project].”
Before he played the songs, Lanois said, Dylan explained the reasoning behind the recordings. The singer told Lanois that when he was a child, music was hard to come by, “but the music he did hear really touched him and he felt that a lot of that music was written not only by great professional songwriters at the time, but a lot of it was written from the heart, from the wartime, and people just pining for a lover. He felt there was a lot of spirit in that music. He felt there was a kind of beauty, a sacred ground for him.”
Though it was known Dylan had recorded more than 20 songs for the project, this is the first time anyone close to him has suggested there are to be two albums. His engineer Al Schmitt last month said 23 songs had been recorded, but he didn’t know what would happen to the extra ones.
Dylan’s first album of songs associated with Sinatra, Shadows in the Night – which features 10 tracks – was released in February, reaching No 1 in the UK and No 7 in the US.
In the meantime, Dylan has released a new video from Shadows in the Night, a film noiresque clip for The Night We Called It a Day. This certainly appears to be the video for which a casting call was leaked earlier this month. The call read: ““[DANCER] Female, 40+, full figured. Burlesque dancer, will need to dance in audition. Think timeless a la Lana Turner or Ava Gardner. [SKETCHY GUY] 50s, rough trade, pock marked face, etc. [FAT GUY] 45+, all around huge. [BARTENDER] Male, 30s+, looking for characters.”
