To understand Bob Dylan’s Fragments – Time Out Of Mind Sessions (1996-1997) – due to be released on Friday – you have to go back half a century to the release of the Beatles’s Let It Be. As millions of fans around the world bought the band’s final album, Paul McCartney was horrified. This was not the disc he had conceived: some of the most cherished songs in his oeuvre had been hijacked by superstar producer Phil Spector, who stamped his trademark ‘Wall of Sound’ during the album’s post-production process, filling it with lavish embellishments.
Fast-forward to the mid-1990s and another legendary songwriter was at loggerheads with a different superstar producer, then still a dominant force in the era of mega-selling records. Daniel Lanois might not be a household name like Spector, but in the 1980s and 1990s musicians queued for his services and trademark swampy, atmospheric sound. He was behind a string of hits for stars including U2, Emmylou Harris and the Neville Brothers.
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