Bob Dylan: The Bootleg Series

Wow, QJA is so sweet and elegiac, the original such a scalpel.

A little too tasteful for me (like most of post TOOM-Dylan; I'm a weird outlier)

It's a little jarring to consider that the 34-year-old "What Was It You Wanted" is indeed part of Dylan's early years from a 2023 perspective.

If you split the span in half, World Gone Wrong is the end of the early years. Which makes sense really - that and GAIBTY are a kind of ground zero for the later period. Back to basics, one guy in a garage with his guitar and the old folksongs.

Are there a bigger batch of songs that tgise albums were culled from? You Belong To Me from the Natural Born Killers strck was from those sessions if I remember right.

I got that CD in high school before I was very aware of Dylan. It was an early experience of enjoying a performance with WTF singing.

My understanding was that it was pretty much home recordings with Dylan producing himself - there was a period when those two albums and The Bootleg Series Vol 1-3 came out and it was kind of a reckoning with his past and turning to the roots for renewal. I think maybe the performance epiphany he talks about having in Switzerland in Chronicles Vol 1 was around the same time. The "before" period ended with Oh Mercy and the after period began with Time Out of Mind which seems like a real shift to me - same producer but very different vibe.

I love those albums and want more of that

Fragmemtsis from the TOOM sessions, seems like it would be worth a listen.

They sure are good. I guess the closest I know of are the early live performances of his where he mines similar repertoire, but obviously not with his 50 year old voice. Also the Traveling Wilburys albums from around that time (not really comparable), the NYC Supper Club shows from 1993 (no major official release) and MTV Unplugged is worth a visit.

First listen to the only stream I could find, on free Spotify (commercials didn't break the vibe): some of these will have to grow on me, but "Queen Jane" actually gets me to thinking more about Jane and her situation than Dyl; this arrangement of "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight" kills, ditto the re-write of "To Be Alone With You," "What was it you thought you saw...?"---perfect lead in to "What Was It You Wanted" (not really a question), "Watching The River Flow: "People disappearin' every day," yeah, tell me about it; was that in the original? "Pledging My Time" slyly otm, "Wicked Messenger" now sporting some cruelly jaunty accompaniment, as in Charley Crockett's cover of "Tom Turkey (Alternative Version)": "Billy you're so far away from home" and all (wicked Spotify serves this up as a chaser to SK).

xpost Somebody should do a book about Dylan's 80s trek, or have they?

I thought that a book which solely focuses on INFIDELS is on the horizon

They just dropped a "Man In Me" from Budokan in advance of presumably the newest set.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IcO4yO4FdM

Hmmm. Live at Budokan is, for me, the absolute worst Dylan. Is this from the same shows? I have a hard time seeing how this can be good. That clip, "The Man in Me," isn't bad except for the saxophone. I'll probably get this but it's the first archival release that prompted an instant "bullshit" from me.

Those are substantially new lyrics. I probably won't buy it, but I'm down for the listen. Even when he's "bad" he's fascinating.

I do like the version of "Rolling Stone" from Budokan — seems sadder and wiser, even somewhat sympathetic.

This isn't THE BOOTLEG SERIES, is it? I have become quite confused by the fact that there is now a whole series of other releases that are like THE BOOTLEG SERIES but not actually part of it.

Which ones are you taking about(?)

There are the "complete" series - complete shows with the band, complete rolling thunder, now the complete Budokan. I assume these are different because they're not really curated in any way.

Hoffman forums is saying that the Bootleg Series is winding down and there are a limited number of releases planned at this point; partially because of dwindling sales and also the sense that they've gotten through most of the good stuff. Somebody was saying that at a certain point the archives may start releasing stuff, but I don't know how much of any of that is confirmed.

a "complete" show series would be good — like the Royal Festival Hall gig in 1964, or the "complete" Hard Rain 76, or a complete show from the 1980 Warfield residency ... I've always thought that someone like Dylan or Neil Young could just follow the Dick's/Dave's Picks model and target the hardcore fans who want this stuff. A subscription, 3-4 releases a year, it'd definitely make money.

Live at Budokan is, for me, the absolute worst Dylan.

I've never heard it but that's always been the word on it -- back in the day cut-out bins were swollen with copies of it.

Those COMPLETE boxes yes, that's a good example - plus, the releases which are somehow for copyright? I have '1970', think there is also an ANOTHER SIDE demos set of that kind?

These are things that I find hard to distinguish from THE BOOTLEG SERIES. In fact I thought the 1966 band series WAS part of that series!

Budokan is awesome, accept Budokan into your hearts.

i have been waiting for this for decades

I can deal with Dylan and the Dead, Knocked Out Loaded, everything else, but Budokan is the final Dylan frontier for me. It sounds pompous to me, like it's trying to add a lot of elements that just don't work: the flute, the saxophone, etc.

Tyler, what does it do for you? What am I missing?

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?