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

I agree, I don't think there was an earlier solo "mystery session" and certainly not with the songs rumoured by Clinton. We'd surely have heard something about the session other than the (only) reference in the Larry Sloman piece.

The sleeve of the RSD single (and Olof) states that the acoustic solo "Meet Me in the Morning" B-side is from the 19 September session (presumably Take 2). If this is so then there may be other solo performances other than 16 September. (I can't hear a bass on MMITM - but please, anyone, correct me if my hearing fails me.)

There was a rumour about "Spanish is the Loving Tongue". Can't remember where it came from but I know our friend @DeeThomaz is anxious to hear it, so let's hope it wasn't just a rumour! There was talk that Bob tried "Little Red Rooster" when Mick Jagger called by to drink some wine. That might have been on 17 September...

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Bootleg 1-3 also has been tagged as well


Call Letter Blues Take 2

If you see her say hello take 2

Idiot wins take 4 remake with organ overdub

Tangled up in blue take 3 remake 2

 

interesting! i was going to post about this massive (and most welcome!) retagging endeavour the other week, but back then the BOTT songs on BS1–3 were tagged only as "alternate take", like the others. this specific update is a fresh development. also, the attention to detail does bode well for the Big Red truthers, since the overall style suggests a comprehensive cutting edge approach rather than the "unreleased song" and/or "outtake" signifiers we saw on trouble no more (no, i am most certainly not reading far too much into this)

i do wonder what prompted them to do this so early on. maybe dylancorp just likes toying with us

 

Maybe they'll be releasing it earlier this year? Instead of waiting just before Christmas. Hopeful thinking.

 

This wouldn't be an indication … dare I say it … that these tracks will be excluded from a fairly comprehensive box?

 

This doesn't seem to tally fully with Michael Krogsgaard's s "Recording Sessions" listing for BOTT first published in The Telegraph in 1996, available in PDF here: http://www.dylanstubs.com/extras/sessions.pdf, from which Olof's listing is derived.

"Call Letter Blues" (Take 2) Tick for MK. Tick for Bob Inc.

Two takes of "Call Letter Blues", with "Meet Me In The Morning" sandwiched in between, were recorded on 16 September. Take 1 of "Call Letter Blues" could be an acoustic solo performance to enable Eric and the boys to learn it.

"If You See Her, Say Hello" (Take 2) Tick for MK and Bob Inc but with reservations...

Take 2 is the second performance of the first evening according to MK. The first performance was also "If You See Her..." which one would assume was a solo effort for band familiarisation purposes, as indicated in the various interviews with the band members. So, I would expect to hear the band play on Take 2 if the recollections of the session players are correct, but I don't. Could the band have been successfully removed from the mix?

"Idiot Wind" (Take 4 Remake with Organ Overdub). Big fat cross for Bob Inc? Big fat tick for MK? The jury remains out

There is no organ on the released track. The original identification mix-up seems not to have been sorted out satisfactorily. John Bauldie mentioned the spooky organ in the liner notes for BS 1-3. He had understood from tapes he had been given to listen to that the version on BS 1-3 was going to be the the one on the test pressing which, according to MK was recorded on 16 September (Take 6) with an organ overdub by Paul Griffin on 08 October. MK indicates that the take on BS 1-3 is the one recorded on 19 September (Take 4) with Tony Brown on bass. No organ. (BS 1-3 does show the date as 19 September)

"Tangled Up In Blue" (Take 3 Remake 2). I Give Up!

MK says this is Take 1, the last performance at the 16 September sessions (and BS 1-3 does give a date of 16 September). By my reckoning, Take 3 Remake 2 is the one MK says is on the test pressing, recorded on 19 September. While the 2 takes are very similar to my ears, there are subtle differences (eg:- BS 1-3: "...he was lying in bed"; test pressing "...he was laying in bed").

(This has probably all been discussed, dissected and figured out many moons ago by much cleverer people than me. Nonetheless, I do have this fear that Big Red may well contain distorted facts.)

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I'd say it's an indication that they will be included, remixed by Steve Addabbo, on Big Red.

 

i wish everyone would stop calling the potential box Big Red. i'm fully in the full sessions camp in both wanting that and especially after this re-tagging news, now somewhat expecting it to happen. that's not going to make it a Collector's Edition a la Big Blue though. i think much more likely that there will be a multi-disc (6-8) set.

 

I believe it was quietly (and perhaps, mistakenly) referenced in an essay on Bobdylan.com about the upcoming release of Another Self Portrait, noting the other occasions on which "Spanish" had been played.

 

Here's the title:

Bootleg Series Vol. 14: Now With Spooky Organ

 

See Blood on the Tracks - MoFi reissue - is this the correct speed???

Quote: "[Engineer Phil] Ramone tells me that he noticed the speed up [on Blood On The Tracks]. It wasn’t intentional. In those days, tape machines could easily run off-speed, if not checked. The mastering machine, he assumes, was off. As Ramone had something like perfect pitch, he was always noticing such things, and was usually correct." (Glenn Berger, who worked with Phil Ramone on engineering Blood On The Tracks, in an article from 2011)

 

You win sh.tv today!

 

Can my prize be a Big Blue Box?

 

Dylan attempted recording it at the "Blood" sessions because he thought two released versions were simply not enough. Turns out he was about 40 years ahead of the curve, right as always!

Yes, I think it is a mistaken reference to the live version from 1976.

 

It's better to think outside the box.

 

well cheaper anyway.........

 

Someone with deeper knowledge than me will know.... didn't T-Bone Burnett make mention of Dylan playing a new song(s) for him just after BOTT that he said were pretty devastating? I thought he may have even mentioned a title... Have any of you heard this story?

 

My knowledge is deep, but that deep is at the other end of the pond.

 

Yep, that's basically it. It was on BobDylan.com (though it was in Ben Rollins’ on-line only notes for the Basement Tapes Complete box). I can't find them on the site anymore, but the entry for the Basement Tapes recording of "Spanish Is The Loving Tongue" was:

"A traditional song based on a poem written by cowboy poet Charles Badger Clark in 1907, this is one of the songs Dylan has returned to again and again throughout his career. This is Dylan’s first known taping of this song. He would release another performance for the first time in 1971 as the “B” side of the single, “Watching the River Flow.” He would record it again but not release it during the sessions for Blood on the Tracks."

It's probably just mistake but I think there is some reason to not completely dismiss the possibility. First of all, Rollins’ notes were generally reliable as I recall. He was commissioned to write pieces for both the Basement box and the follow year's Cutting Edge set. It seems quite possible he was also involved with the Blood on the Track box that seems to have been worked on around the same time. So it's not much of a stretch to imagine how he would have access to information of this nature that wasn't otherwise public.

 

Heylin provided this summary of what little is known about these songs in his book "Still on the Road":

I’M COLD

Written circa winter 1977. No recording known.

This single song title, remembered by Rolling Thunder Revue musician Stephen Soles, is the only solid information we have regarding the material Dylan wrote during the winter of 1977, when he was preoccupied by a divorce and custody battle with his wife of eleven years. That there were a number of songs written at this time Dylan himself confirmed in conversation with the L.A. Times” Robert Hilburn the following May: “I cut that whole experience right off. I had some songs last year which I didn’t record. They dealt with that period as I was going through it. For relief, I wrote the tunes … Some people around town heard them. I played them for some friends. But I had no interest in recording them. I wanted to start off new on the album." None of these songs survived to Street-Legal, if we are to believe a comment Dylan made after being asked directly, by Australian Craig McGregor in March 1978, whether his new songs addressed the end of his marriage. “We were breaking up for a long time. So [the next album] doesn’t reflect too much of that[…] The one Street-Legal song that sounds like it perhaps came out of these earlier efforts is “We Better Talk This Over.” But most of the lyrics on his new album were so rich in archaic symbolism that it would be hard to prove their relationship to his personal predicament one way or the other—which was doubtless Dylan’s intention. Any songs he wrote “for relief” were probably closer in vein to those he would write in the months after recording Street-Legal. Indeed, when it comes to titles like “You Don’t Love Me No More” and “(Daddy’s Gonna Take) One More Ride,” it is tempting to speculate whether they may be one and the same.

Excerpt From: Clinton Heylin. “Still On the Road.” iBooks. Still On the Road by Clinton Heylin on iBooks

 

Still going off memory... but the story I recall was him playing these new songs for people in New York. Either way I guess we can assume none of these songs were ever recorded... shame

 

But why re-tag the old mixes (and not just apply the tags to the new mixes, if and when they appear)?

If those old mixes are going to be re-used on a BOTT set then I could understand it meaning something, but otherwise not.

 

Good point. A teaser, to make us believe that BOTT is going to be the next Bootleg Series, perhaps? Is it confirmed that the re-tagged files are the old mixes and not sneak previews of the new mixes?

 

i think the more important thing is that it is the takes and versions are being tagged, less so than the mixes.

 

Take 4 of Idiot WITH the organ overdub is the version the circulates unofficially, yes?