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

More Love, More Theft, More Dignity.

 

Thanks for your effort Percy Song. Interesting reading

 

Fascinating stuff, thank you, sir.

Mike Bloomfield couldn't follow Dylan either, when Dylan previewed some of the BOTT songs for him. If musicians were trying to watch Dylan's hands to figure out the key they were playing in, it may have been confusing.

 

Could be. Though I suspect it's more because all the songs use the same chords, which can get confusing, rather than not being able to hear/follow them.

Didn't Bloomfield say that the songs all started to sound the same after a while?

Well they do (at least on the NY album). Same chords, same shapes (save for the odd minor chord in a couple of songs). Though that's quite nice for the listener.

 

The anecdote about the guy wanting to figure out a part on piano before moving back to organ makes sense to me, as the piano gives the player more visceral feedback and organ can be hard to hear in a mix because of its timbre and the overtone series. I once played organ in a loud rock band, and we rehearsed an entire song before I realized I had been in the wrong key and was playing everything a fourth off. No one had even noticed! now, the fact that every song was in E at the NYC sessions is another matter altogether. It’s possible the musicians were getting vague or contradictory instructions, like “whatever you do, just follow Bob,” which seems like good advice for these songs but actually might have confused the situation more. “It’s basically all in E major. Trust your ears” would have been better advice.

 

I know I'm probably in the minority here, but I'm glad Bob re-did half the album in Minnesota. The NYC version of BOTT -- as great as it is -- does get very "samey" for me, especially with the very long, very slow "Lily" dragging down side two. They made a couple of mistakes in track selection -- the NYC "You're A Big Girl Now" is perfect, imo -- but I greatly prefer the Minnesota versions of "Tangled," "Lily" and "If You See Her." "Idiot Wind" is a toss-up -- they're so different emotionally they're almost different songs. For flow and variety, I'd go with the faster, angrier Minnesota version on the album -- but you'll have to pry the NYC version out of my cold, dead hands!

 

I agree, the released album is better/more varied than the NY version, though I enjoy both.

I've also been enjoying my 'third variation' a lot lately, which mops up the outtakes released on CD so far:

Tangled Up In Blue (BS 1-3)
Simple Twist Of Fate (speed-corrected album version)
You're A Big Girl Now (Biograph)
Idiot Wind (BS 1-3)
You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome (speed-corrected album version)

Call Letter Blues (outtake - BS 1-3)
Up To Me (outtake - Biograph)
If You See Her, Say Hello (BS 1-3)
Shelter From The Storm (Jerry Maguire soundtrack)
Buckets Of Rain (speed-corrected album version)

 

For dullards like me who believe keys are for opening locks, I've been told the keys on the released BOTT are as follows:-

Tangled Up In Blue : A
Simple Twist of Fate: E
You're a Big Girl Now: G
Idiot Wind: G
You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome..: E
Meet Me In The Morning: E
Jack of Hearts: D
If You See Her: D
Shelter From The Storm: E
Buckets of Rain: E

I'm not sure which key Richard uses to open the door.....

 

I'm also a firm believer that the finished album is superior to the test pressing. What happens when you make greatness greater? What is the color when black is burned?

 

Yes, those are correct for the released album. But on the withdrawn NY version all the songs are in E.

 

As a novice guitar player back the '70s, I had a hell of a time trying to play along with "NY" tracks on BOTT (open tuning + capo = ???), while the Minneapolis ones were a breeze in comparison. Off the top of my head, other Dylan tracks that I had trouble following were: "Oxford Town" (Freewheelin') "It's Alright Ma" (BIABH) and "Down In the Flood (Gr. Hits II, 1971). The easiest album for me to play along with? ---> John Wesley Harding. Simplicity from start to finish.

 

Indeed.

 

I'm in the camp that much prefers the NY versions. I don't get they "sounds samey" criticism as I find each song very distinct in terms of melody and lyrical content. It's only samey in so far as Nick Drake's "Pink Moon" album is samey.

And in some ways I think the comparison with Pink Moon is an appropriate one to make. I find that the extra instrumentation of the Minneapolis sessions dilutes the emotional intensity of the more acoustic versions. Sort of in the sense of imagine if they added some electric guitar, bass and drums to Pink Moon. It could still sound good, but the emotional power of the album would have been much different.

 

Thinking about the comments from Tom McFaul in the post by @Percy Song and what @Tom Schreck and @slane said -- it seems to me that it would be easier to find the key of a song that you're trying to play along with by pressing down and holding a note on an organ, rather than running thru notes or scales on a piano. I have a piano and a small electronic keyboard with organ sounds, and for me, the organ makes it easier to determine the right key.

 

It's too bad this site didn't exist back when I was trying to figure these songs out! dylanchords.info - Bob Dylan: Chords and Lyrics - dylanchords.com unofficial mirror

And this page has detailed information about open tunings, capo placement, and chord fingerings throughout his career: Roadmaps for the Soul

 

I certainly like having all those versions, and they are distinctive, but the circulating NY take of "...Jack of Hearts" seems to be somewhat tentative, and not quite top shelf, IMHO. Maybe we'll have some alternate takes to compare it with on the 'rumored' forthcoming box set.

 

"Jack of Hearts" is the only one where I feel like the NY take is clearly inferior to the released version. All the rest of 'em are "not better/worse, just different" type things for me.

 

I think a lot of the NYC / Minnesota comparisons are debatable -- you could argue strongly for either version of "Tangled," for example -- but to me "If You See Her Say Hello" is the one clear case of the Minnesota version being more fleshed out, more "finished" sounding than the NYC. The acetate version sounds like a demo to me in comparison.

 

Maybe it's because Jack of Hearts is my least favourite song on the album, but I just prefer the more stripped down version. I find the faster paced album version sticks out like a sore thumb, while the slower acoustic version just fits better. I'm not the biggest fan of either version though, usually the one track I regularly skip.

 

I should really finish off the quote from Tom McFaul:-

"None of us could hear a thing we were playing, or anything anyone else was playing. I could see the drummer in the booth but it was like a mime act."

I, for one, really hope there isn't too much curating on the deluxe version of BS14, and that we are given access to the sessions the way we were on Big Blue. I want to hear what happens when session musicians, playing instruments they can't hear, are trying to play in unison with other session musicians playing instruments none of them can hear, on songs they've never heard being played before, in a key they haven't been given, by a musician who doesn't communicate.

I mean, the Big Blue "She's Your Lover Now" session could be used to illustrate a seminar entitled "Management By Telepathy: Why It Doesn't Work". The first New York session for "Blood on the Tracks", by some accounts, seems to have taken the art of telepathic management to a whole new level. I'd love to be a fly on the wall for that...

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I guess it probably varies from musician to musician, and maybe it's just a feel thing for me, but piano helps me learn songs more readily than organ. Not just a question of finding the key, but really learning the structure of a song. I think part of it is the physicality of it. Piano just feels more concrete, so I can really identify with a keyboardist wanting to start there before coming up with an organ part.

 

You do NOT skip a track when listening to BOTT...……………………………... O.K. ?

 

Tom McFaul at home in the late 1990s, probably feeling a little more relaxed than he was on 16 September, 1974.





Tom has an interesting history. He composed and conducted this piece of music, letting everyone know what the key was before they started on it. It was released on CD in 2002:-






After he locked horns with Bob in A&R Studios he composed this jingle:-





No, really, he did....

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Will it be out for Christmas?!

 

The idea that the punk rage, headlong momentum, and passionate intensity of the Minnesota "Idiot Wind" is inferior to the wistful, Wurlitzer-filigree, self-pitying fatalism of the New York version (with its offhand alternative lyrics, like that I-Ching verse!) seems nuts to me. The NYC take is the perfect example of the fascinating Dylan outtake that's a joy to have as a work in progress but is just not the one.

Pretty much the same for the driving intensity of the album's "Tangled Up In Blue" vs. the comparitively laid-back, semi-non-committal New York version.