A highlight of Bob Dylan’s Sinatra tribute album Shadows In The Night was the closing track, “That Lucky Old Sun” from 1949 with music by Beasley Smith and words by Haven Gillespie. A close relation to “Ol’ Man’s river”, Dylan sounds very old on this last song, the inescapable sun is lucky, lazy, floating in the sky while down below Bowie works himself over and over like the un perpetual and unlike the sun also finite. Coming at the end of the album it sounds like the harbinger of old age. An unescapable world for Dylan and a heaven in the heavens for the sun. Dylan gives the song the deepness of age, the weariness it bears itself. The music, more than anywhere else here sounds like classicist (indeed, all the songs here sound like they are arranged for a full orchestra – Grade: A
Not all of the songs on Shadows In The Night are really part of the “Great American Song Book”. Here are some other versions.
Frankie Laine – The first big hit by the Western singer spits the words out like he is Elvis Presley in Charro (or do I men Love Me tender), when the full orchestra moves in during the break they are like a herd of cows stampeding and there us an edge of anger to his take. – B
Aretha Franklin – She turns in into a Gospel track, the “rolls around heaven all day” takes on a spiritual quality. – B
Dean Martin – Dean isn’t quite taking it seriously, you half expect him to split a Cosmopolitan with the lucky old sun, he slurs it and swings right through it without a worry in the world – C+
Leon Russell – Ah yes, the blues, Leon almost skats it.
Brian Wilson – Rearranged for harmonies, the sun and Cali, what do you expect. Only 57 seconds – B
Johnny Cash – Cash sounds mellow and pained and takes in a funeral pace. – C
Louis Armstrong – I could have done without the backup singers, but Armstrong is absolutely magnificent while the chorus sounds like rejects from “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” – B+
Willie Nelson – He sounds quite spritely here, maybe because he recorded it during the 1978 Stardust sessions – B-
Tony Bennett, K.D. Lang – You just can’t compare to Lady Gaga –she sings circles round. She is absolutely magnificent here – B-
