Lyrics: Jacques Levy and Bob Dylan / Music: Bob Dylan / 7:30
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar, harmonica
Emmylou Harris: harmony vocals
Scarlet Rivera: violin
Rob Stoner: bass
Howard Wyeth: drums
Sheena Seidenberg: percussion
Recording Studio
Columbia Recording Studios / Studio E, New York: July 30, 1975
Technical Team
Producer: Don DeVito
Sound Engineer: Don Meehan
Dylan and co-lyricist Jacques Levy were clearly inspired by the work of Joseph Conrad (distant journeys full of mystery) and Ernest Hemingway (fascination with the Caribbean) for this song, one of the most evocative and ambitious on the album. Levy recalls, “When we started to write the song there was this image of a mysterious woman on a veranda somewhere, with a Panama hat and a passport. Then there was that kind of slightly seedy hotel with a gambling room.” He added, “The hotel is probably run by Humphrey Bogart,”112 in reference to the 1942 masterpiece Casablanca, directed by Michael Curtiz. They began writing “Black Diamond Bay” in New York and finished it in East Hampton. The pair built the song like an adventure novel with enigmatic characters: the heroine “up on the white veranda” whose “remnants of her recent past / Are scattered in the wild wind”; “The Greek [who] comes down and “asks for a rope and a pen”; a soldier “Doin’ business with a tiny man who sells him a ring.” Finally, in the last verse, it becomes clear that the tale is about the destruction of a Caribbean island in 1975 following the eruption of a volcano, as reported on television by CBS broadcast journalist Walter Cronkite.
“Black Diamond Bay” was one of the most difficult songs to record. Dylan spent most of the July 29 session struggling with the mandolin and brass to record it. Twelve takes were done that day, but he was unsatisfied with the result. He opted on July 30 for a more sober orchestration. This new version is a success. The song grooves with a fantastic rhythm, played by the talented Stoner and Wyeth. Dylan provides an excellent vocal performance in tandem with the very professional Emmylou Harris, who tries hard to be in sync with the unpredictable singer. And for the first time in his career, after singing some lines in Spanish in “Romance In Durango,” Dylan chooses the language of Molière for “Black Diamond Bay.” The pronunciation is not the best, but the French were flattered.
Five new takes were made, the fourth being retained for the album. To date, Dylan has played “Black Diamond Bay” only once onstage at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah, on May 25, 1976.