Bob Dylan: The Bootleg Series

as Tyler has noted previously, the Isle Of Wight set is still unreleased
this set was included on the prohibitively expensive another self portrait deluxe edition ... but I'm surprised they haven't put it out as a Record Store Day release standalone or something. It's fantastic, a totally unique show.

You can find a fair number of the rants on youtube videos. Look up Dylan Live in Toronto 1980.

ANOTHER SIDE OF BOB DYLAN - oddly this has hardly been covered
the session outtakes emerged as part of a copyright dump several years ago — nothing too revelatory, really (most of it had been bootlegged before I think). Dylan did that album in one session, didn't do a lot of takes.

seems like the consensus is there will be a time out of mind set next year for its 25th (!) anniversary.
also talk of a set called The Villager which would include early coffeehouse recordings.
I'm sure they'll get to a Street Legal-era set at some point. Maybe a big box of 1974 tour recordings?

or rather, a time out of mind set this year ... what year is it? time out mind.

seems like the consensus is there will be a time out of mind set next year for its 25th (!) anniversary.

jesus 25 years yikes

I dunno who is in charge of the Dylan Bootleg series but they are doing a better job than whoever is in charge of the Neil Young Archive (i.e. Neil)

TIME OUT OF MIND sessions -- fantastic. I didn't mention it above because wasn't it technically already covered by TELL TALE SIGNS period?

So we're getting into more detailed versions of eras that the series has already covered?

I don't actually remember the ANOTHER SELF PORTRAIT deluxe version - how much bigger was it? (And does it overlap with '1970'?)

Coffeehouse material, yes that genuinely hasn't been done.

ANOTHER SIDE OF BOB DYLAN -- where was this copyright release? Surely not on CD?

Dylan & the Dead / Dylan touring with the Heartbreakers, around 1987 (also the DOWN IN THE GROOVE era?) -- has not been done by Bootleg Series.

copyright 1964 was just a download. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_50th_Anniversary_Collection_1964

another self portrait deluxe just had isle of wight (and maybe a fancy book?)

from what I understand, tell tale signs only scratched the surface of the TOOM sessions.

xp Those last few LPs you mentioned are probably left alone for a reason...

(FWIW / as noted above, the 5-disc Springtime in New York has a longer/different mix of "Death Is not the End," which ended up on Down in the Groove.)

Seems like any unreleased items from Oh Mercy and Time Out of Mind could come out together, just everything Dylan + Lanois. But, yeah, a lot of that is out there on Tell Tale Signs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_50th_Anniversary_Collection_1964

so this was a vinyl set only. Where else can one obtain it?

Looks like a CD set of it here.

that's definitely a bootleg.
it's too bad — that Royal Festival Hall 1964 show is probably one of Dylan's best solo shows, but on the 50th anniversary thing they've cut out all the in-between dialogue.

I found a very affordable Another Self-Portrait deluxe on Amazon,
second-hand, deeply discounted for packaging damage I didn't care about: has some great outtakes, like "Little Saro," some v. listenable alts that you can see why he didn't use ("Sign on The Window" is about being all alooone, don't need Al Kooper's excellent chamber players at your elbow, and yep the Isle of Wight set and xp a fancy book, which I haven't read, also the original S-P, remastered I guess.
Some xp rants were on the very lengthy TNM sampler posted on NPR.org for a while: purple paranoia going off the rails, like the Devil is so real He's embodied in maybe a business or (and?) sex rival---"cocaine dreams," as another ilxor noted, maybe on the Bob Dylan's Christian Period thread. Pretty much upstaged the excellent music (including his singing), far as I was concerned. Maybe all that was excised from the box, but I'm not in a hurry to find out.

I would like to hear the early 60s albums with bonus outtakes, like "Percy's Song" and "Talking John Birch Society Blues."

Re: Another Self Portrait, I was skeptical but it made that album’s sessions enjoyable to me, even though the original album remains a horrible listen to me (except for a few cuts that are improved substantially on Another Self Portrait). There are 16 studio cuts on Another Self Portrait that are credited as actual Self Portrait outtakes and alternates rather than something from New Morning et al. When I play just those (moving the undubbed “All the Tired Horses” to the top and the undubbed “Wigwam” to the end), it feels like a modest but highly enjoyable album to me, what Self Portrait should have been.

And I agree with dow re: the ‘60s albums, especially “The Times They Are A-Changin’” which has at least five or six outtakes better than half of the released album.

Early ‘60s that is

Also all the Dinkytown stuff, the Minnesota Hotel Tapes and so on (got a lot of what I've mentioned on boots, but a lot of people don't and I would like better sound where feasible). And yes, the coffee house tapes. Don't suppose he would be into actually re-recording some early unreleased songs, "Percy's" etc, with his excellent band and personal skill level---? ("I can do a lot of things I couldn't do then, but I can't do that," meaning write like he did at peak.)
a modest but highly enjoyable album to me, what Self Portrait should have been. Yeah, but that's not what he wanted--says in Chronicles he was telling superfans to fuck off---also it always seemed like escapism, escape from being That Guy, which amounts to what he says in Chronicle, only wimpier maybe, though understandable---but really what he gets is a publicity coup: STOP THE PRESSES BARD SUX--unless you liked the album, which some do, of course--but that was the angle. But a nice modest album would also have disappointed many, and (at the time) he complained something about having written (like John Wesley Harding in particular) to please the literary critics and shit, wanted a break from all that.

I like when bird and dow mix it up

(I liked some of the original S-P: "Days of '49," "Livin' The Blues," "All The Tired Horses," maybe more--put those with the best outtakes, don't send it off to undertaker Billy Sherill for added strings--and yeah you could have something nice ("Very nice placeholder, Bob" [critics pat his head]).Good for playlists, like Travellin' Through and maybe some of 1970, though I haven't heard that yet.

Trouble No More goes so hard, love that set

Thanks for the kind words morrisp!

Yeah, but that's not what he wanted--says in Chronicles he was telling superfans to fuck off---also it always seemed like escapism, escape from being That Guy, which amounts to what he says in Chronicle, only wimpier maybe, though understandable---but really what he gets is a publicity coup: STOP THE PRESSES BARD SUX--unless you liked the album, which some do, of course--but that was the angle. But a nice modest album would also have disappointed many, and (at the time) he complained something about having written (like John Wesley Harding in particular) to please the literary critics and shit, wanted a break from all that.

I'm actually skeptical of that. I'm not sure when Dylan began saying that - maybe the Cameron Crowe interview that was done for Biograph's liner notes - but that theory was floated out even earlier and I think he liked it and decided to go with it. (It reminds me of a common joke some auteur filmmakers like Orson Welles have - when someone says something about their work that they like but wasn't the intention, they retroactively make it their intention.) The reason why I'm skeptical has to do with Al Kooper and a few others who were working with him on New Morning. When they've been interviewed about that period, they all mention the same thing - everything was moving along all right until the negative press came out over Self Portrait. Dylan was bothered by it, and then all of a sudden, the work on New Morning became a lot more frustrating because Dylan kept changing his mind over and over again, re-recording songs that were presumed finished and just plain re-working and re-sequencing the album over and over again. (It probably says something that he also ditched his original plan of including a pair of covers to bookend the album.)

Or as Kooper said: "When I finished that album I never wanted to speak to him again. I was cheesed off at how difficult [the whole thing was]...He just changed his mind every three seconds so I just ended up doing the work of three albums...We'd get a side order and we'd go in and master it and he'd say, 'No, no, no. I want to do this.' And then, 'No, let's go in and cut this.'"

Dylan was struggling to write new songs, and he may have had a contractual obligation to release a new album of some kind. I think this is a case of Occam's razor - he just wanted to cut some songs his already knew without writing new ones, and he just let Bob Johnston do whatever he wanted with them rather than argue (the overdubs were Johnston's terrible idea). It's not unlike what he would do with so much of Down in the Groove, Good As I Been To You, World Gone Wrong, the Christmas album, the Sinatra-era standards albums, etc...if the songs aren't coming to him, he's comfortable doing non-original material and he probably enjoys doing it.

*Dylan was struggling to write new songs when he started on Self Portrait

(Obviously he started writing material for New Morning, but it still wasn't coming easy. It probably says something that he recycled two songs meant for an aborted play and used them to close New Morning.)

subbing out for the undubbed "All the Tired Horses" strikes me as madness!

the "Highyway 61 Revisited" performance from Isle of Wright is my definitive take. Some gnarly interplay going on there.

LOL, I hate the strings, it's like Hollywood schlock. (FWIW, I'd also move "Alberta #3" into the second slot after "All The Tired Horses")

That "Highway 61 Revisited" is AWESOME, the best thing from that show and thankfully properly mixed. (I have no idea how/why the original Self Portrait messed up the mix for those live cuts.) If I had to live cuts from that show, "H61R" would be one along with "It Ain't Me Babe." The latter would have been perfect if Dylan actually wanted to tell people to get off his back. (And more importantly it's very listenable, an excellent, new interpretation of the song.)

I like the strings on the 'if not for you' and 'sign on the window' on ANOTHER SELF PORTRAIT. (Hope I'm remembering those correctly.)

I love how disc after disc after disc of TROUBLE NO MORE begins with the same song: 'slow train'.

Coming back to 1970, which I've now played umpteen times:

I know that this is 2 or 3 sessions, and George Harrison played in one, and isn't on most of the tracks - though his involvement is a big part of the appeal.

What puzzles me is that GH is officially listed as playing on a few songs that are mostly spaced apart. Thus eg: it's not 'GH, guitar on tracks 1-5', but 'GH, guitar on tracks 2, 4, 6-7, 11'.

If the tracks are chronologically consecutive, and GH was in the studio the whole time, why isn't he playing on more of a run of songs?

Is it possible that he *is* playing on more songs than are listed, but they're not sure?

How can they tell anyway? Not much of the recording, TBH, comes across as very distinctively GH.

Is there a dedicated article about this session somewhere? Given the Bob obsessiveness out there, I might have expected it.

The songs with GH are listed in BOLD on the tracklist on this page.

https://www.musicconnection.com/kubernik-bob-dylans-1970-session-with-george-harrison/

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

This version seems to include studio chatter (haven't listened properly yet). Again, if GH was present the whole time, I can't well see why he wouldn't be playing along.

Because George offered to play whatever Bob wanted him to play, or not at all. Whatever would please him...

How do you know?

As I said -- is there a fuller account of this somewhere?

think Mark G was making a little Let It Be joke there

tick

Heh, like with His Assholiness McCartney, right? As heard on yet another tense, tedious Beatles studio tape. Whatever Dylan's intent, Self-Portrait always was the sound of escapism, evasion, and yeah feeling like the well was dry---having all those unreleased originals somehow didn't count, weren't where he was currently at/not at now---and yeah the cover pic looks like a door knob *and* a guy saying, whaaaa, ain't no answers in here, bub, these kitschy keepsakes is all this ol' hickboy's got. (Live tracks carefully drained of all force to fit right into the hoarder's used cotton swab collection.) That's what it sounded, like, but the his earliest comment I've seen is, "I didn't think it was that bad!" Seemed surprised by the backlash, not courting it. (Although I first read it as "that bad," like maybe he knew or guessed that it might plausibly, "arguably," as we strangely say now, considered to be kinda bad? Maybe he was inclined to think so too---?
Which is maybe why he worked his and everybody else's ass off on New Morning, although I'm surprised to learn he took it that far: doesn't sound labored or overthought/contrived, like some later offerings; it tells the or a story, of where he is at now and how he got here, in a more personalized way, words and music, than the charming high generic originals of Nashville Skyline, discreetly distanced (alts of Travellin' Through show that it could have been much livelier overall, more like the issued takes of the title track, "To Be Alone With You," and my fave LP track, "Country Pie"--but again, that's not what he was going for)( just the sound of Cash making small talk in *those* outtakes is almost overwhelming: more of him on the issued record could have been waaay too intense for this chill interlude, a duet album, as the producer and Cash indicate some eagerness for, would have overshadowed Dyl's modest crooning, challenged him in ways he wasn't into)
And certainly NM was there to get the cred back on track after S-P, although his People then put out the word that it was recorded before the latter: true or not, didn't want to seem too concerned, too motivated by trying to please. (Planet Waves seemed more like something-for-everybody, but mostly worked, I thought.)

Yeah, I don't think New Morning sounds labored or overthought, just the opposite (a big part of its charm). I don't think anyone would've guessed so much work was being done on it, though on paper, having so many takes on different dates does suggest something might've been amiss.

I wish he put "Spanish Is the Loving Tongue" on the album instead of banishing it to B-side purgatory. (The version on Dylan is horrid. The alternate take on Another Self Portrait is pretty good but the master take on that B-side is best. For whatever reason the B-side version has never been given a proper U.S. CD release though it's on the import CD collection Masterpieces. For those who don't what that is, when Dylan struck a deal to perform at Budokan in 1978, his label's Japanese branch decided to release a comprehensive best of as a tie-in, along with that infamous live album.) If he had kept to the original intent of bookending New Morning with covers, "Spanish Is the Loving Tongue" would've been a perfect opening track.

Awful video, but here's a YouTube upload, apparently ripped from an old 45 judging by the occasional clicks that sound like vinyl pops that weren't filtered out well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVtn4bTh54c

I also prefer the alternates of "If Not for You" and "Went to See the Gypsy" that were on The Genuine Bootleg Series and eventually (sort of) released on Another Self Portrait. The latter has a beautiful vocal, and the electric piano gives it a nice "Phil Ramone producing in the 1970s" vibe even though he wasn't the producer here:

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

The former was remixed for Another Self Portrait. It sounds like it could be mono there while the bootlegged version is a wider stereo with a pedal steel overdub that's missing on the official release. I guess Sony/Dylan's people wanted to make the recording all about that fiddle, but I kind of like how the two instruments complemented each other on the bootleg. Here it is:

https://vimeo.com/580372445

'Went to See the Gypsy', along with 'Sign on the Window', seems to have been rehearsed / recorded more times than anything else in this period.

'Sign' is a marvellous tune and suggestive lyric. 'Gypsy', I'm not so sure. Wonder if Dylan overrated a bit (I keep reading that he was struggling to write songs), or if he should have rewritten it slightly. The lyric seems to build up to something but - as I know from hearing it about 100 times in the last month - effectively has nothing in the middle. The encounter with the 'Gypsy' is a non-event.

The best I can say about that, I suppose, is that it's a mystery how the Gypsy and his entourage disappears suddenly disappear completely from a hotel room while Dylan is making a telephone call.

Yeah, I don't think New Morning sounds labored or overthought, just the opposite (a big part of its charm).

seems like Kooper was probably frustrated that he worked up some pretty elaborate arrangements for a few of these songs and Dylan ended up going with the more ragged takes. I do really like the full band version of "time passes slowly" on Another Self Portrait.

'Gypsy', I'm not so sure. Wonder if Dylan overrated a bit (I keep reading that he was struggling to write songs), or if he should have rewritten it slightly. The lyric seems to build up to something but - as I know from hearing it about 100 times in the last month - effectively has nothing in the middle. The encounter with the 'Gypsy' is a non-event.

The best I can say about that, I suppose, is that it's a mystery how the Gypsy and his entourage disappears suddenly disappear completely from a hotel room while Dylan is making a telephone call.

This is gypsy slander and should not be tolerated. Went to See the Gypsy is a top 10 Dylan on a summer night with a beer in your hand.

The encounter with the 'Gypsy' is a non-event.

Like, I can't even. This is the entire point of the song!

WENT TO SEE THE GYPSY RULES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

it's great in the jaunty New Morning version and possibly even more affecting on the Another Self Portrait more mournful verison

"'How are you?" he said to me/I said back to him"

It's very human.

Yeah, for the first time he shows himself as the credulous, I Want To Believe seeker and sucker ("He smiled when he saw me coming, said, 'Well well we-ell"), and sticks around even when the advance man unnecessarily hypes: "...He did it in Las Vegas, and he can do it here!" Sounds like he's still disappointed by the non-event. Here and in the desolate-to-desperate "Sign In The Window," and the freaked-out "Day of the Locust," nuthin left to do but the-end-of-the-Sixties cliche, get back to roots--b-but he's already done that on the previous two albums, and still sounds desolate-to-desperate on "Time Passes Slowly" ("when you're lost in a dream!"). But then he does get it together on all the remaining songs (as he did on the LP opener, I think it was, "If Not For You.") Even gets back to his seeker interests on "Three Angels" and "Father of Night"---are these the ones written for a play?

I love NEW MORNING, but unlike you, I don't think 'went to see the gypsy' is as good as it should be.

'The song is all about a non-event', yes, but maybe he could then clarify more about this non-event, what it meant, why he 'went to see the gypsy' in the first place, what he was expecting, why they say so little to each other, why he would depart this important gypsy character to make a telephone call, how he feels when the character mysteriously disappears.

I have read around all that I could on this song and the one standard line seems to be that it's about Elvis Presley. Not that Dylan really saw Presley in Minnesota. Why call Elvis the gypsy? Tell us more.

Dylan would be the last artist I would expect or want to clarify anything. He's been avoiding clarifying things since at least 1964.

The song, imo, is about expectations vs. reality and at the end reaches for a zen contentment like a lot of New Morning songs. It's similar to Sign on the Window (talk about an underdeveloped lyric), though in Sign it seems the narrator is trying to convince themselves while in Gypsy the narrator is convinced.

Maybe Dylan should have done a sequel song (cf Glass Onion) where he explains "The Gypsy was Elvis".

I’m sorry to correct you but “Went to See the Gypsy” is literally as good as it’s possible for a song to be.
The gypsy was Elvis, and wasn’t, and that little Minnesota town was Duluth, and Hibbing, and wasn’t, and the song happened and didn’t and the girl was nowhere to be found, and that’s what happens when you see the gypsy.

Or is it?

I quite like the song, and I've probably heard it more than any other over the last month - probably about 50 times of multiple takes.

But I think it's underdeveloped and could have benefited from another draft.