Bob Dylan: The Bootleg Series

In other words, morrisp, you can't separate Dylan's humor from his delivery. Like any joke, really.

Well, you're certainly making the case!

last night the wind was whisperin
i was trying to make out what it was
yeah last night the wind was whisperin somethin
i was tryin to make out what it was
well i tell myself “something’s coming”
but it
never does!!!

I guess my humor is more on the "Make love to Elizabeth Taylor, catch hell from Richard Burton" level

you may be a preacher, full of spiritual pride. might be a city councilman, taking bribes on the side. you might be working in a barbershop: you may know how to cut hair.

― difficult listening hour, Wednesday, February 1, 2023 11:23 AM (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

you gotta serve somebody has so many weirdly matter of fact lines like that which are super funny to me

a classic with the setup/punch rhythm of standup:

they say i shot a man named gray,
and took his wife to italy.
she inherited a million bucks,
and when she died,
it came to me.
i can't help it
if i'm lucky.

^Yeah, forgot about that one

I got a cravin’ love for blazing speed
Got a hopped up Mustang Ford
Jump into the wagon, love, throw your panties overboard
I can write you poems, make a strong man lose his mind
I’m no pig without a wig
I hope you treat me kind
Things are breakin’ up out there
High water everywhere

I mean, with his really over-top-delivery, this is pretty funny coming from a 56 year old

I’m a little torn on the de-Lanois-ing, in part, because I think when that pairing is at its best, it’s exceptional and I don’t think you can take him out of those recordings. For instance, while it was nice to hear some alternate versions of “Most of the Time” on Tell-Tale Signs, the best is absolutely still the completed track on Oh Mercy!, which is an All-Time Bob Song for me.

I actually notice the Lanois (and de-Lanois) effect a little bit less on Time Out of Mind and Fragments. Not sure how different I find it but the remix of “Highlands” sounds pretty great.

Ah well, it's been a good run.

Bob Dylan’s Bootleg Series Is ‘Definitely Winding Down’

We don’t have a lot of good tapes of the ’78 tour,” says the source. “There’s something coming. The ’78 tour will be revisited at some point in the future. I’m not at liberty to say how.”

there day 1 for at budokan bootleg series

Who's the "source" quoted throughout that piece – Rosen himself?

What's funny is, despite the expectation-setting, he does seem to tease at least three(?) likely forthcoming sets...

I'm guessing the '78 tour may have a videotaped show, so maybe a documentary film? They seem to like making those, as they did with the Rolling Thunder Revue and the evangelical shows.

He seems to specifically rule that out? (“I wish there was a movie,” says the source. “But there’s very little footage.”)

ah, never mind then!

(Probably should've read the whole article rather than lazily read what they displayed behind the paywall.)

Yeah, I'm at a loss what it could be if they don't have many good tapes. Without footage, it sounds like the best you could do is release another live album or show. If they were willing to update Street-Legal with a remix, I can see another 1978 live album as a corrective to the disappointing Budokan.

There are hours of Rundown rehearsal sessions from that era — a lot of it has already been bootlegged, but I think there's more ... I've got to hear Dylan's cover of "Rainbow Connection" before I die, anyway.

Any tracks in particular that you'd recommend Tyler? This is my least favorite Dylan era, the only one where I didn't keep a single track on iTunes or a disc on the shelf, but I imagine there must be something I've overlooked.

It would be funny if all the quotations in the RS article were from Bob Dylan.

If it was obvious by the words that it was Dylan and they still insisted he was an anonymous source, that would be truly hilarious

“I didn’t like any of the takes from that one,” said the source. “My pipes were shot. The band couldn’t follow my lead. We gave it a few more weeks, then I thought I’d be better off doing this myself. That’s how Jack Frost was born.”

I've always liked this one —

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

I'd just dive back into one of the bootlegs, there are some great vocals and some bonkers arrangements.

Ok, this Not Dark Yet (Version 1) is as good as the released version in some ways.

feel like this is a digestible comp of some of the best stuff:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LxDipG0i1c

Real heads are waiting for the de-Jack Frosted L&T.

thx for that tyler, enjoyable

why did they tape rehearsals? bob doesn't strike me as a person to listen to tapes of his own recordings, much less rehearsals

"The Bootleg Series, that's like a runaway train", said the source. "Calling at Tupelo, Indianapolis, Jackson and Dee-troit. It's a journey into a hog fire at an old cowboy camp". Indicating that further releases were unlikely, the source added: "The brakeman's waving his red flag and the lines have been crossed. The pistons are wheezing and you're on the way down. The smokestack's powering on sending those black clouds into the Western sky, but you know it's coming to an end at the next railhead. There's whisky in the next saloon and you can't wait".

Loool!

Hahaha you've got a gift

those early 60s gigs mentioned (I suppose the source might have in mind The Gaslight Tapes etc) are reminding me of backstory mentions re Omnivore's excellent previously unreleased Mountain City Four 60s folkie assemblage:

Originally members of The Pharisees, Jack Nissenson and Peter Weldon recruited Kate and Annd McGarrigle to become the Mountain City Four...In 1962, Nissenson recorded a Bob Dylan show at Montreal’s Finjan Club on reel-to-reel. It remains one of the most sought-after early Dylan recordings.

(Beyond or aside from Rolling Bootlegs, I'd like expanded reissues of the early studio albums, up through Bringing It All Back Home. seems like RB has the 60s-early 70s after that pretty well covered, alt and outtake-wise---although an expanded Planet Waves might be good.)

As for the 78 tour, I saw a lot of footage played on a VCR across the aisle from my own table at a record show in the late-ish 90s: it was being hyped as a series of shows, or from a series, though I noticed he was always dressed in seemingly the same scruffy matador or Cisco Kid outfit as tge Birmingham Al show I'd attended on that tour.
B'ham had were about 20 musos onstage most of the time (only exception I recall: a duet "Blowin' In The Wind," with flute player he introduced as saxist on some 60s hit, title of which I've forgotten). Otherwise, he might have them all playing, on a very fast "Masters of War," for inst, but more often it was subsets, incl. recombinant combos formed for the moment from platoon A, sqaud 2 and so on (would also beckon others from the wings). Female chorus featured in various ways, like all vocals on "Rainy Day Women," while maestro accompanied with guitar and the usual tennis shoe toe-tap.
Hope they've got a good tape of that one.

formed for the moment by individuals or sub-subset duos, trios etc. from the ranks of platoon A and squad B etc, who would then go back to previous placement---we might later hear from all of platoon A etc. as such--or not. Overall seemed tighter than expected, though they'd been touring quite a bit that year, and some of them were recognizable Rolling Thunder veterans.

"expanded reissues of the early studio albums, up through Bringing It All Back Home"

Surely this last is covered on THE CUTTING EDGE?

I seem to recall that a release of outtakes from ANOTHER SIDE also occurred though I've never seen it.

you could definitely do a great expanded Freewheelin set. It's all come out as part of those copyright dumps, but that's not really doing it justice — there's a lot of terrific stuff.

Didn't realize The Cutting Edge went back that far, thanks---though I can't afford the 18-disc version of that, and want more than the 2-CD, but with an emphasis on previously unreleased songs, from the sessions for each albums, rather than alternate versions---so yes, expanded releases of all original studio albums from s/t to Bringing, at least.
Despite previous releases on comps, this kind of contextualization would help me wrap my brain a little more around a long and winding body of work (hopefully).
Here's a good discussion of the debut, with description of an link to contemporaneous xpost The Minnesota Hotel Tapes, and a link to entry on Freewheelin---this goes on to detail an import expansion of Bob Dylan:

Because its copyright expired in Europe in 2012, several editions have appeared in the EU from competing oldies labels. One edition, from Hoodoo Records, includes 12 bonus tracks (1 single and 11 live radio recordings from 1961 to 1962) and a 16-page booklet.

14. "Mixed-Up Confusion" (single) Dylan 2:30
15. "Roll On John" (live) Traditional, arranged by Dylan 3:16
16. "Hard Times in New York" (live) Dylan 2:32
17. "Smokestack Lightning" (live) Chester Burnett 3:03
18. "Stealin' Stealin'" (live) G. Gannon 3:24
19. "Baby, Please Don't Go" (live) Joe Williams 2:19
20. "The Death of Emmett Till" (live) Dylan 5:11
21. "Man on the Street" (live) Dylan 2:25
22. "Omie Wise" (live) Traditional 4:02
23. "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" (live) Dylan 3:21
24. "The Girl I Left Behind" (live) Traditional, arranged by Dylan 5:39
25. "Blowin' in the Wind" (live) Dylan 2:29

from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Dylan_(album)

Dow: the CUTTING EDGE that I know is 5 CDs. The first disc, I think, is BRINGING. It's absolutely marvellous. I think it would give you what you need - unless there is yet more important material that I haven't heard (eg on these 18CDs which I have never seen).

Has anyone heard DYLAN & THE DEAD? Is it any, and I do mean any, good?

every person who did died of blood poisoning

xpost - As a fan of both, no. It's baffling to hear what versions they chose when there were much better performances to pull from.

Dylan & The Dead isn’t horrible, it’s just nothing special and it’s disappointing in relation to What Could Have Been. The only official Dylan release that strikes me as truly awful is Budokan.

it's bad but it's not *that* bad. i think it's a shame that Garcia didn't just do a tour with Dylan — apparently there was some talk of that happening right before Jerry died.

Yeah, I wouldn't say it's "horrible", but it's also not very good if you've heard other shows from that tour. There were just better performances of those songs.

Sounds like there could be a DYLAN & THE DEAD Bootleg Series LP then?

(I do not know The Grateful Dead.)

i think it's pretty unlikely — but who knows? It's never been mentioned by the powers that be as a future possibility. Seems like an early 60s set, a 1978 set of some kind and maybe an Oh Mercy sessions box are the most likely Bootleg Series releases in the coming years.

Reading the "Truckin'" entry in The Philosophy of Modern Song, Bob LOVES the Dead, and is more effusive in his praise for them than for pretty much any other artist in the book. He stops just short of saying he wished he'd been in that band. I can see how his shows with the Dead were frustrating, though: they have their own internal language, Bob has his, and and they just kind of butt up against each other. And you can't really blame either of them: what artist has actually sounded great doing a guest spot with the Dead? (partly meant rhetorically, but also I'm genuinely curious in case I missed something)

yeah i think the Dead were a bizarre musical eco-system — not easy to just slip in there and start jammin'.

Dylan closed a few California shows covering "Friend of the Devil" last year.

According to the Heylin book, Dylan kept asking guests to his home, after he'd pop a shittily recorded tape of the Dylan/Dead mix in a player, "What do you think? I think it needs more bass."

yes I saw him cover that last year!! xp

(in Oregon$

what artist has actually sounded great doing a guest spot with the Dead? (partly meant rhetorically, but also I'm genuinely curious in case I missed something)

I'd vote Branford Marsalis