Bob Dylan – Bootleg Series Vol. 14: More Blood, More Tracks (2 Nov 2018)*

I am cautiously optimistic that they will make it BOTT.
What a blessing that would be. Read the www.searchingforagem.com latest
entry, but still not official. Getting hard to keep up with the new releases.. I'm a Dylan super enthusiast so that means the LP's and Deluxe CD sets of each.
Then there is the search for acetates and test pressings if possible. It never ends
.. Thank God! And... sometime soon maybe we can all go to Tulsa too.
God bless Bob, keep him healthy, strong and creative as ever. The guy is amazing.

 

An alternate Time Out Of Mind sure sounds tasty!

 

Agreed... Now that would indeed be tasty!
Another of my top BD albums. Those two LP's with master 'magician' Daniel Lanois are so incredibly superb. Like Mana from heaven ... a blessing.
I had the chance to see Lanois once in a small club, never forget it. One of the nicest guys I ever met .. we talked about things, and I actually opened up my sealed TOOM so he could sign the cover. He took the LP cover photo of course...
It was Valentines day and he signed a heart with his name. Signed Oh Mercy too, and was unbelievably gregarious. He seemed really moved when I told him we drove in from out of state. I believe many Dylan fans would love to hear one more Dylan-Lanois produced album...

 

In more or less the same way that Clinton unofficially spilled the beans on BS Vol. 13 (a year ahead of its actual release), I think there has been enough unofficial bean-spilling this time around to be very confident that BS Vol. 14 will be a BOTT box. In fact, I will eat my hat** and post a photo of myself standing on my head in the gardens of Song Towers if it turns out to be something else. (I also speculated quite a few pages ago that it would drop in November, but I'm excluding that observation from my promised hat-eating ritual, if you don't mind.)

For me the big questions that remain are:-

• Were the missing tapes found?
• Were any songs other than the 12 we know about tried out or recorded?
• Will the box contain the songs at the speed they were performed?

Moreover, what might be the configuration(s) of the (presumably) various editions? A Bootleg Series release doesn't have to be bigger than the previous edition, obviously; it only needs to be big enough to tell the story of the event(s). I mean, it could be a back-to-basics 2CD job, although that would be a bigger surprise to me than me eating my hat**.

Six CDs would seem to be about right for all the completed takes that we are aware of, but even this could be audio information overload for many people if BOTT was only a 12 song project. If the missing tapes have been found, and/or Krogsgaard's research proves to be incomplete, the disc count could rise. Could it be that the potential 6(or more)CD version would be a "Limited Collector's Edition, available only from bobdylan.com" with, say, two smaller CD editions (and the LP) available from normal retailers? I hope not.


** For these potentially embarrassing scenarios I have a hat made of chocolate...

 

Unfortunately, I think the only person who wouldn't want another Dylan-Lanois produced album is Dylan

 

Yep... I'm afraid I concur, but ya never know.

 

Continuing with the informal "Percy's Pictorial Guide to BOTT" (as if any of you really needed it...)

The studio logs for the four recording days in September 1974 indicate that Bob himself produced the sessions with engineers "Phil & Lenn".

Phil Ramone did receive a credit as Engineer on the album. Phil's assistant, "Lenn", was mildly miffed that he didn't, and that his name was incorrectly noted on the logs. "Lenn", of course, was Glenn Berger, who included a 15-page chapter about the making and re-making of "Blood on the Tracks" in his book called "Never Say No To A Rock Star".


Phil



"Lenn"


#

 

Sound 80




Paul Martinson

 

So the bottom one isn't a Harold Ramis still from "Ghostbusters"?

 

Wasn't Dylan playing songs from Blood during his concerts. To me it is fascinating to listen to the bootleg series and listen to the difference in how he approaches Tangled Up in Blue from the studio version. If the powers that be decide to release a complete set, I hope they include live versions of the songs as Dylan was working them out.

 

The Blood on the Tracks sessions began in September 1974. Dylan’s last gig before the sessions was in May of that year (the Friends of Chile benefit), and he did not play another gig until March 1975 (the SNACK benefit), by which time Blood on the Tracks had been in the shops for two months. Neither gig featured tracks from the album. So, no, there are no live performances of him working the songs out to include on the forthcoming box set.

 

Back in New York on 16 September, 1974 (the evening before Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year):-

Bob and his merry men, and Ellen "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" Bernstein, gathered at A&R studios on the 7th floor at 799 7th Avenue at 52nd Street. This was the old Columbia Studio A which had been sold to Jack Arnold & Phil Ramone in 1967 or 1968 (depending on who you talk to).


Studio A (circled)

Apparently there were two recording studios at Studio A. Surprisingly, these were designated Studio A-1 and Studio A-2.

One might have expected Bob to have chosen the smaller of the two. Studio A-2 was 25 x 30 feet x 12 feet high (approximately 8m x 9m x 4m), which could accommodate 20 people, apparently.

But it was Studio A-1 that was used. It was 40ft x 50ft x 30ft (12m x 15m x 9m), apparently accommodating 90 people. Was Bob about to request an orchestra??


Studio A-1

#

 

The six players who arrived at A&R Studios to watch Bob's hands at work on the evening of 16 September, 1974 were:-



Eric Weissberg (guitar) / Richard Crooks (drums) / Charles Brown III (guitar) / Tony Brown (bass)



Barry Kornfeld (guitar) / Thomas McFaul (keyboards)



Barry Kornfeld also had a connection with Bob going back to the early days and nights at the Gaslight and has this tale to tell about driving Bob to see Woody in the infirmary in 1961.




#

 

A quick re-cap for those who missed post #1338 last month - the players received Union Scale. I guess the leader gets double. Six "tunes" are listed. We know that nine are listed on the recording sheet for that night (I'm counting "Call Letter Blues" and "Meet Me In The Morning" as one "tune").


I can't find reference to Coronado Service Co. or an A.D. Ward, but it seems The American Federation of Musicians is still located at 322 W 48th St. in NY:-


322 W 48th St.

#

 

There is an alternative "Meet me in the Morning" that was released on a B-side of "Duquesne Whistle" from a Black Friday RSD in 2012. Speculations pretty much never ended from that since.

 

Before the session on 16 September started it is known that Bob was greeted at the studio by John Hammond Snr. So, apart from Phil and Glenn and an unnamed minder, there were two other people in the control room watching, or about to watch, Bob record his best album since (insert your candidate, here.......................................................................................................).

John Hammond was one.



John Hammond


The other was Ellen Bernstein whom Bob had met on Tour '74 and who had stayed at Bob's Minnesota farm "at weekends" during the writing of the songs.

In August 1974, Billboard ran a General News piece by Jack McDonough about the new-ish director of Columbia's San Francisco artist & repertoire office. The article with interview, across 3 columns, was titled (look away now - remember, this was 1974; things were different in those days):- "Lib at Columbia: Ellen Bernstein, 2 Other Fems Run San Francisco a&r Offices". A photo of Ellen was included, shown below, left.





Exactly four years later, in August 1978, Billboard published another photo of Ellen, whom they described as "...an LA a&r staffer.." (above, right). Next to the photo in Billboard is an article titled "New Marketing Tools To Include Fiber Optics, Audio/Visual Units" describing new innovations and tools being used in CBS marketing and merchandising. Joe Mansfield, Vice President Marketing, Columbia Records, is reported as having introduced (I'm not kidding you) "...a new monthly pamphlet produced by the publicity department called "The Adventures of Big Red"


Let the session (and "Big Red" CD1 ????) begin....

#

 

I hate this guy. I really hate this guy.

 

This, combined with Heylin's "its on the shelf, ready to go" comment makes me wonder whether they have re-visited this release since then. I sure hope they have, because expectations for a Bootleg Series release have risen exponentially since 2012!

 

Don’t worry guys, I just plunked down a bunch of money on the half speed mastered version of BOTT. That means it’s bound to be included on the set which is cemented to happen this fall.

 

+1

 

Did anyone else spend a full minute trying to figure out what swear word started with hat? Whatever.

I am still keen to hear Robbie and Garth overdub parts onto John Wesley Harding just for the heck of it. How cool would that be.

 

That should do it.
We all appreciate your sacrifice.

 

Let me say this, at the risk of getting off topic: I am involved in other discussions on the forum about Prince and Beatles archive topics. This Dylan discussion is far and away more polite and civilized than the others! I know there's no way to make all Dylan fans happy, but I think we can generally appeal to reason. This whole BOTT thing is frustrating, but I think we won’t be so childish in this thread if we are generally let down come announcement time! Knock on wood for a complete BOTT box though, and a complete live RTR box too! Desire sessions too, but if they have to cut something I hope they cut that.

 

From your mouth to G-d’s ear!