Bob Dylan: The Bootleg Series

I dig his vocals on Budokan, I like the sort of wonky big band arrangements ... I dunno, it's always seemed kind of weirdly edgy to me, Dylan seeing how far he can stretch his songs into this smoother territory.

I'm seeing that they are charging $160 for the CDs of this new set though! WTF lol.

From the official email that went out this morning:

This new deluxe box set celebrates Bob Dylan's 1978 world concert tour and the 45th anniversary of the artist's first concert appearances in Japan. It includes two complete shows from Tokyo’s Nippon Budokan Hall (February 28 and March 1, 1978) featuring 58 tracks, 36 of which are previously unreleased, all newly remixed from the original 24-channel analog tapes.
This luxurious 12 x 12” box is imported from Japan and includes 4 CD’s, a 60-page full-color photo book of liner notes and previously unpublished photos of Dylan on-stage and behind-the-scenes at the airport, press conferences and more and facsimile memorabilia such as concert tickets, pamphlets, posters, and flyers.

Also available as a 2-LP set with a selection of 14 previously unreleased performances. Listen now to “The Man In Me.”

So not an actual Bootleg Series title, but an imported domestic release of a Sony Japan box.

his tenderly unhinged vocals on "i want you" (over just the flute, lol, and a lil textural guitar) are maybe a way in

if the remit is "add way too much drama to it's alright ma" i prefer the broadway-climax version here to the before the flood approach of just turning everything all the way up and crossing fingers

Dylan seeing how far he can stretch his songs

big appeal for me yeah

yeah, i mean, i fully recognize that getting into this era is a typical "i have listened to too much bob dylan" move, but I do genuinely enjoy it. maybe what comes across most is how strong so many of Dylan's melodies are, he really gives them room to breathe on Budokan as opposed to sort of sledgehammering them as he had during his previous 70s tours.

Maybe he realized he had only a couple more years of belting like Caruso before he blew out his voice.

I was curious, but jfc... $160 for 4 CDs? Come on.

Dylan and Zappa drive me nuts with alternating these box sets between really reasonably priced and ridiculously overpriced. I get that it comes down to extras, books and packaging... but it's obnoxious. I think I paid like $18 for the 3xCD 1970 sessions thing and less than $70 for the gigantic '66 tour box.

$108 on Importcds and it'll come down (though as a Japanese import, probably never as cheap as some of the other sets have been).

xgau:

Bob Dylan: Bob Dylan at Budokan [Columbia, 1979]
I believe this double LP was made available so our hero could boast of being outclassed by Cheap Trick, who had the self-control to release but a single disc from this location. Although it's amazing how many of the twenty-two songs--twelve also available on one of the other two live albums Dylan has released since 1974--hold up under slipshod treatment. And not only that, lyrics and poster are included. C+

I liked the xpost big band arrangements in the US '78 show I saw, especially the proto-speed metal big band "Masters of War." A lot of it was more Rolling Thunder, if that means subsets of musos all over the stage wt the same time, with more in the wings. Sometimes he'd call on one or more guys from various subsets (and/or the wings) to come together. Also, there was gospel, though also the gospel singers sang all of "Rainy Day Women." The duet with flute guy was "Blowin' In The Wind" on this occasion.

Some of it was loosey-goosey, and set up that way; some was very tight, none of it seemed "slipshod."

I tried, but this era does nothing for me. Dylan's singing is probably the best thing about it but it's not enough for me - I had a better time listening to him on the "Sinatra" tributes. What makes these shows unsalvageable is the arrangements. I am totally skipping this, which isn't saying much - the evangelical shows are much better and I never even bothered to buy that set either. (If they ever release the soundboard recording of Nov. 16, 1979 at Fox Warfield, I may pick it up.)

I am definitely with with TylerW in the "i have listened to too much Bob Dylan" camp, but I also like the rehearsal boots from this era.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTtcDE9-4oM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSeJNi1HgQg

That Tomorrow is a Long Time is really nice.

this is the best

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTQs_QJtClI

^Bob takes shouted requests(!)

wiki sez that tour started with three nights at the Budokan, Feb. 20, 21, 23, three in Osaka, then back to Tokyo for five more Budokan shows, the last on March 4. The show I saw was Dec. 3, after what was indeed a world tour, and Birmingham was def. not the last stop. So might have been very different from the Bukokan experience. Transitional, speculative, hot as spotlights pretty often:I t really did seem like a rolling crossroads. Hope somebody's got a tape.
All dates, quite a pace:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Dylan_World_Tour_1978

Yeah, he really needed the money so packing in the shows made sense. I thought people were just being snarky calling it "The Alimony Tour," but turns out, he really WAS short on funds, sinking it into a film that spent two full years in post-production and even more on a costly divorce via lawyers and the eventual settlement. Also on other things along the way - he had to pay the entire cost of the Hard Rain production because he rejected the network's taping of a previous concert, and that was very expensive for one person to bear. (Contractually, the network would have picked up the tab for any filming and recording, but if Dylan exercised his right to reject whatever the network shot, he was still obligated to deliver a show for broadcast and to do so at his own expense.)

Thank his then-new manager, who also managed Neil Diamond and basically worked similar deals for Dylan. IIRC Budokan was the biggest payoff, but with a lot of concessions that Dylan readily agreed to like compiling a new anthology for that market (it wound up being Masterpieces), preparing a live album that was originally supposed to be an exclusive souvenir for that market, and his agreement to perform whatever songs they requested beforehand - I guess he took requests from the audience in keeping the spirit he already held for the whole enterprise.

I can't say I ever throw on Budokan in its entirety, but I always rep for the "One More Cup of Coffee" on that album. Huge extra shot of energy relative to other ways he does that song, and I especially love the sleazy, skronky sax that jumps on you as each chorus is ending. I love slinky ominous versions of it too, including the album version, but the bite in this one is its own brand of awesomeness.

Anyway I listened to "The Man in Me" that was released and am reminded that even for eras of live Dylan that are not especially compelling musically, I can't help but want to hear everything when he's constantly messing with lyrics, adding new verses, etc. You never know when you're gonna find a diamond in the rough or have a song illuminated in a whole new way.

interestingly enough, it seems like he didn't want to release the live album widely either. as someone posted on the H0ffman Forums, this was taken from a 1984 interview with Kurt Loder:

The Budokan album was only supposed to be for Japan. They twisted my arm to do a live album for Japan. It was the same band I used on Street Legal, and we had just started findin’ our way into things on that tour when they recorded it. I never meant for it to be any type of representation of my stuff or my band or my live show.

Heylin goes into it in Behind the Shades - his books are invaluable for the less-heralded years of Dylan's career probably because it takes an obsessive fan like Heylin to put in the dedication and research needed to unearth anything in a period that usually draws little interest.

Basically, when Dylan got a new manager, he got an old-school showbiz guy who also represented Neil Diamond. Dylan was in dire straits financially due to his divorce and the costly Renaldo and Clara which clearly wasn't going to recoup the money Dylan personally sunk into it over two years, so his new manager set up a lucrative deal where he got to tour Asia for a ton of money. Three stipulations came with that:

1) a souvenir double LP of the tour for the Japanese market (a lot of bands were making similar deals at the time and those records sold really well in the Japanese market - Budokan was always a popular choice of venue as any Cheap Trick fan can tell you)
2) a pre-approved list of "hits" that would dominate the setlists
3) a box set anthology (in this case Masterpieces) which Dylan begrudgingly agreed to help sequence

It was a much-needed lucrative deal, and even though Dylan hated the live album, he thought it didn't matter because he didn't think it would have much of a market beyond Japan. Instead it wound up selling big via import so CBS pushed for an official U.S. release. Dylan was NOT happy about that, and it was tough pushing back, so he made sure that if it happened, it would at least count towards his contractual obligation of albums delivered. It went platinum in the U.S. so it wound up being more profitable for him, but again he never really wanted to put out, it really was a money-making endeavor, nothing more.

I have never seen RENALDO AND CLARA, but recently saw THE ROLLING THUNDER REVUE and then realised that most of its incredible footage is either from RENALDO AND CLARA, or is, as someone somewhere wrote, *outtakes from* RENALDO AND CLARA. I'm not sure which.

As I like Rolling Thunder a lot, I should probably try to see RENALDO AND CLARA.

You sure about that?

xpost
Yes, I think most of the live footage in THE ROLLING THUNDER REVIEW isn't in RENALDO AND CLARA, and vice versa.

I've probably mentioned this somewhere before, so apologies, but about 10 years ago the GFT in Glasgow screened the UK's only known film print of RENALDO AND CLARA, held by the BFI since the film's brief theatrical release back in the day. The print had taken on a pinkish hue that actually worked well for the film and the whole thing is far from being the chore and disaster it's painted to be.

I have a homemade DVD of R&C, copied from a VHS tape that I bought in Compendium Books in Camden, long gone now. The tape is derived from the film's only ever UK television showing, on C4, also back in the day.

There’s at least a great version of “Isis” that is in one or both, no?

In Montreal, I think, hence the dedication to “Leonard (Cohen)”

Initial copies of The Bootleg Series Volume Five came with a DVD featuring performances of Tangled Up in Blue and Isis that are taken from RENALDO AND CLARA - the only official physical media release of any kind.

Yeah. That “Isis” was up on YouTube at some point but now it’s either been taken down or the audio silenced.

So there is virtually no way of seeing RENALDO AND CLARA (unless one goes to Ward Fowler's home and watches a home-made DVD copied from a VHS cassette of a TV broadcast) ?

Remarkable!

You can also go to Bob's house, where he'll sit you on a barstool at his counter and tell you about it.

or to the internet archive, which has something they call a "concert cut" of renaldo and clara.

back in college there was the oak street cinema by the university of minnesota, really amazing old school art house/repertory place. was owned by an old folky hippie type (a real character, natch).

anyway, once in college i saw "eat the document" there off a VHS projector, he had gotten a VHS tape of it from dylan himself cuz they knew each other back in the day.

Aw man that place ruled, I remember going to see Bunuel movies there in college.

My 2012 take on Renaldo and Clara when it was on YouTube, about 45 minutes a night, which may have added to my enjoyment, as I said then:

The flick's three hours-thirty-odd minutes, but very episodic, no prob with breaks. Though maybe such a bounty of episodes, jumping between live music and skits (or scenes, as some deserve to be called), got on nerves, especially those of reviewers, who were no doubt even more bombarded by Rolling Thunder hype than were us common readers of Rolling Stone, for major instance.

So as the Bootleg Series maybe winds down, here's a book from the Archive (hopefully followed by some kind of audio someday), Mixing Up The Medicine:
https://bookshop.org/p/books/bob-dylan-mixing-up-the-medicine-mark-davidson/19972348?ean=9781734537796.
And here's Lucy Sante's contribution, on a lil notebook I've heard of before, without recalling all these contents:
https://lithub.com/how-bob-dylan-blurred-the-boundaries-between-literature-and-popular-music/

Bob Dylan Stealth Releases 1973 Outtakes LP, Sending Fans on Worldwide Scavenger Hunt
The 28-track CD of 'Pat Garret and Billy the Kid' soundtrack outtakes was released because of European copyright law, and is already selling for over $500 on Ebay

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/bob-dylan-releases-1973-outtakes-lp-1234931709/

now this is something I want to hear!

love that album, esp. the looser jams

did not find the budokan release v revelatory, people say the tour picked up speed and got way better later but... yeah anyway, it's the budokan sound alright

Yeah, would like to hear those Pat & Billy jamz---that's where Black Crow Medicine Show dude got the basis for "Wagon Wheel," co-credited to Mr. D.

Also---can only hope this situation leads to more character-building/acting insight:

Unlike other young Dylan fans, though, the Dune star apparently has access to a massive trove of unreleased, early-career Dylan music via the singer’s longtime manager, Jeff Rosen, a producer on Complete Unknown.

“This might earn the ire and wrath of a lot of Bob fans, rightfully,” Chalamet said in a recent interview with Happy Sad Confused’s Josh Horowitz, “but he sent me like a 12-hour playlist of unreleased Bob stuff from like 1959 to ’64. I feel like I’m holding onto gold or something.” Chalamet clarified that some of the music is available to the public via bootlegs like The Minnesota Tapes, but ire is still probably the right word to describe how it feels to learn that Willy Wonka, of all people, gets VIP access to Bob Dylan’s vault, which is presumably more closely guarded than the recipe for Everlasting Gobstoppers. (Sorry, that’s the best Wonka reference I have in me.)

Holy shit

Bob was turned on by the foot scene b/w Tim and Armie Hammer in Call Me By Your Name iirc

That's where Rolling Bootlegs should end, at the beginning--first the out and some alt.takes from the early 60s sessions, live stuff from that era (incl. Canada etc.), then Dinkytown, and finally whatever he did back in Hibbing maybe, like I saw passing mention recently of a record store recording booth set of 50s hits.

Sorry---THE BOOTLEG SERIES, that is.

listening to that pat garett release now

nothing special but very enjoyable

I meant to acknowledge that the *unreleased* jamz were where embryonic "Wagon Wheel" came from.

(duh, sorry)

Dow. This Pat and Billy Boot. Or something else?

https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2023/10/10/diamonds-from-the-deepest-ocean-bob-dylan-pecos-blues-or-lucky-luke/

Ahh. Shit. The version on AQ has been taken down. But it’s available.

I think dow may be referring to the 28-disc set in the link above(?)

Word. The “embryonic Wagon Wheel” is on the Pecos Blues version that I have. I guess the thing with bootlegs is that sometimes they are inconsistent.

Oh I may be mixing posts up, sorry. The whole “Wagon Wheel” thing is bizarre… I’ve never actually seen the song performed, but I understand it’s a popular choice for bands to play.

yeah, didn't know the story tbh

from that rs article:

The 1973 collection that just hit will be largely familiar to Dylan fans since the Pat Garrett sessions leaked several decades back. Former Old Crow Medicine Show singer/guitarist Chris “Critter” Fuqua picked up a copy of the bootleg during a family trip to London when he was in high school, which he passed along to bandmate Ketch Secor. He became enamored with the song fragment “Rock Me Mama,” which is little more than Dylan and his bandmates messing around shortly after cutting “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door.”

Secor fleshed out the composition into a finished work and eventually released it as “Wagon Wheel” on Old Crow Medicine Show’s 2004 self-titled LP. It became the group’s signature song and found an even bigger audience in 2013 when Darius Rucker took it to #1 on the Country chart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNTsYfjBcuQ