Bob Dylan: The 1966 Live Recordings - Sony 36-CD box-set - November 11th 2016

I have to agree that 'Belfast' does sound very like the single at the start... But where does this info come from - what's the story?

 

I love this, like Dorothy leaving the farm house and stepping into the world of Oz, this would have been a great metaphor for Dylan plugging in.

 

Having had a listen, I think you are indeed correct. Therefore, it was quite incorrect of me to 'correct' the Liverpool recording. I have simply been creating a worse version of the single. Tbanks!

 

I thought the same - wish some forum members could ask him questions about things that have been puzzling us in this discussion!
His name was barely known before this set came out (Pennebaker didn't even remember his name), but now he's getting his moment in the spotlight.

 

I always thought he said, "Sorry, old boy."

 

I was doing the same thing, but the drumfill right after the tape cuts in tipped me off that something was up.

You can edit the first two bars of Belfast right onto Liverpool and it works pretty well, even though the EQ is slightly different.

 

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I'd be happy to have a go, here (select "photos" and your visit will be worth it, at least - stills from the "Untold Story.." promo):-

RICHARD ALDERSON »

But before I do contact him I wonder if first we could gather a short selection of, say, half a dozen specific questions I can put to him on behalf of the forum. Any suggestions, people?

#

 

This NYT article has a good example:
"Mr. Alderson has been nearly lost in plain sight. He ran the tape machine for Mr. Dylan’s shows at the Gaslight Cafe in 1962 but was uncredited on the official release of those recordings in 2005. He also appears, unidentified, in “No Direction Home”... His name is barely in the Dylan history books (of which there are many).
“Nobody really wants to give me any credit,” Mr. Alderson said. “When I brought up the fact that I’m in the Scorsese film — I’m on screen with Dylan in some of the most important parts — the response was, ‘We thought it was some other Richard.’”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/11/arts/music/bob-dylan-1966-live-recordings-video.html?_r=2

 

It's probably better that one person email with questions rather than a dozen forum people pestering him! A few questions for starters:

Did he record all the shows at 15 ips - and why? (Since it involved using a lot more reels.)
Did he make copies of shows for the band members?
How many microphones did he use to record the shows?
Did he specifically adjust the mix for the tape, or was it the same as the PA feed?
What was his interaction with the Columbia engineers at the shows they recorded? His opinion of their work?
Why did Dylan pick the Liverpool 'Tom Thumb' for release? Is Alderson aware that the intro had to be edited from another show?
Does he remember what the plans were for the Columbia live album? Did that idea come up mid-tour, was it Dylan's idea?
Was the camera crew also recording stage audio on separate reels when they filmed shows?
There are a few instances in the set where it sounds more like an audience recording patched in, possibly from a camera source - the start of the Dublin 'She Belongs To Me,' the start of the Sheffield 'Baby Let Me Follow You Down,' the audience in the first minute of the Glasgow 'Rolling Stone' track - was he adjusting the mix, or are these from separate tapes?

 

Ask him if he had a room mic that he brought up and down on the recordings to catch audience interaction.

(I know the answer is yes, but some people need convincing. )

 

I had been working on an interview with him since before the box came out. He was responding by writing on his phone, however, so he would only answer one question at a time, and they weren't the type of longer answers that one would get from having a conversation with someone.

Anyhow, I'll post it here what I have so far so RA doesn't get asked redundant questions. I did at first send him a bunch of questions, but he said they were too many to answer at once. But four or five at a time from someone else might not be too much. And a lot of the questions I did originally have were answered elsewhere.

He stopped responding just before Christmas - probably due to my thread getting left in the dust by Holiday well-wishes sent to him from family and friends.

At this point, I feel like I’d be bugging him to try to reignite my thread with him - so I’ll leave further questions about the Dylan tour to someone else, or pick up my line of questioning with him later on.

The PA rig specifics was what I was really after when I wrote him. Anyway, here goes... (Can't get rid of those bullet points).

****************

INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD ALDERSON - by 'notesfrom' ; November-December, 2016.

• Q: Had you yourself traveled very much before you went on this 1966 World Tour, or were all these locales a new experience for you?

RA: I had travelled all over America before on several tours but never off the continental US until Bob. There has been little info about me posted anywhere before. I don't have a clue why. There is a lot of info in JUDAS! about me, finally. Most of the writers who have written about the tour were ill-informed.

• Q: Did you also do the sound for the Continental US leg of the 1965-1966 tour that Dylan did

• RA: I did only the shows from Honolulu-London.
• 
  
• Q: You’ve said that there were two sets of sound systems in 1966 - Were the two systems for the Hawaii/Australia leg and the European tour basically the same set up?

RA: The 2 sound systems were identical. The wasn't any precedent for taking one's own sound system on the road. I had worked with Belafonte before and to the best of my knowledge he was the first artist to do so. I built Dylan's system as a scaled down version of what I built for Harry.

• Q: What did the sound system rig consist of, technologically and brand-wise? In some photos I noticed there are two monitors in the front corners of the stage, pointed back at the band, diagonally.

RA: The stage monitors were two Altec 604s employed as you described. The house speakers were 4 Klipsch La Scalas. The mixers were Altec 1567s and the amps were Macintosh 275s. The mics were Sennheisers. I used a Nagra III from Copenhagen to the end, and Beyer headphones for recording. Details of the sound system(s) are not really covered anywhere.

• Q: Got the box set and it's a dream come true for the fans. Thank you for taping those tour soundboards. The short film in the Times was interesting and had great footage. I saw Bob play Asheville NC on Nov 12th and he still has it. Great show. Where is the Cardiff acoustic set? And were you supposed to do sound on Dylan’s Summer 1966 Tour of America?
• 
  RA: I turned over all the tapes 50 years ago, no one knows where the missing stuff is. No, I was hired to begin in Honolulu.
  
  Q: The American tour I was asking about was the one Dylan was going to go on at the time of his motorcycle wreck.
  
  RA: No ideas on the summer tour
  
  Q: I've been listening to the box set all week. A bit OCD but such great music. Also, the road crew who moved the PA equipment and so forth - Were these guys Americans brought over especially for the tour?
• 
  RA: I was alone aside from the band, Grossman, & Bob. After Melbourne we didn't have even a proper road manager. Crews provided at the venues did the lifting.....
  
• 
  
• Q: Did you personally have to drive the equipment truck to each venue as well?
• 
  RA: No, I can't ****ing drive on the left.
  
  Q: Ha. It's confusing, especially the roundabouts. One of the revelations to be found on all of your soundboard tapes is the great complimentary piano work from Richard Manuel. What do you think of the famous CBS Manchester recording? The piano is hard to hear in it. You made your own recording off the board for this show?
• 
  
• RA: Yes I did. Sony needed to save face and issue the very expensive Columbia recordings. Several folks have pointed out their deficiencies. They do not convey the excitement or the piano work well.
  
• 
  
• Q: The grand pianos were provided by the venues, right? And the band would have to tune to the piano and hope it was in tune overall. Were there any uprights?
  
  RA: Yes, grand piano provided & I don't remember any uprights
  
  Q: What was Bob Neuwirth's role on this tour? Did he do any stage set up work?
  
  RA: **** if I know. Not as far as I know. Observer. Neuwirth was around some I never noticed him doing anything
  
  Q: Was Dylan actually playing shows while on psychedelics?
• 
  RA: Dylan hated psychedelics. I never saw him take any.
• 
  
• Q: Did you ever see John Coltrane, Miles Davis, or Thelonious Monk?
• 
  RA: You need to scope my credits on discogs, I produced a Thelonious LP. I saw them all many times.
  
  Q: OK, I only saw page 1 of the discogs page with the Fugs etc. I didn't realize that your discogs page went on for 10 pages ha ha. Yes, I know those Nina Simone records. And the Pucho, Don Patterson, Mongo stuff is really great. Interesting era the 1967 to 1969 jazz age.
• 
  
• RA: The discogs listings are good except that there is a Richard Alderson choral director who has a handful of recordings-not me obviously, but his stuff gets mixed with mine. I have been credited as DickAlderson and Richard Anderson..
  
  Q: Did you spend any time in the Van Gelder studio?
• 
  RA: No Rudy was from another world, wore a lab coat & wouldn't let you touch anything. The Prestige jazz recordings I did were because the producers liked my piano sound better etc......
  
  Q: Yeah I've read that Van Gelder had a proprietary mic-ing technique that was more or less 'secret'. Were the jazz artists that you recorded in the late 60s getting what they wanted in one or two takes? Did Sun Ra do overdubs?
  
  RA: Whatever his secrets were, they're buried with him. One or two takes for sure. No overdubs for Sun.
  
  Q: What did you think of 50s Rock and Roll when that first came out?
  
  RA: Bunch of white guys trying to sound like the great black artists I heard on my radio in Cleveland The reason rock n roll began in Cleveland was because you could get so much great music from Chicago and many Southern cities on AM radio because of a freaky atmosphere affect!
  
  Q: So Cleveland was not only a transportation and commerce hub, it was this telecommunications hub as well. I guess that's down to geography.
  I’ve read that the ‘R’n’ Roll’ phenomenon (before it went mainstream) started with Alan Freed playing black Rhythm and Blues records at the urging of the Leo Mintz - the owner of the store Record Rendezvous. So in that respect it was a broadcasting phenomenon rather than anything to do with the Cleveland music scene itself.
  How long did you live in Cleveland?
  
• 
  
• RA: When I was able to leave (17). I got my own radio when I was 8, and soon started listening to music that I loved, but not intended for white kids. Alan Freed and Leo Mintz came later. I was a teenage disc jockey, got taken off the air for playing the original "One Mint Julep" by The Clovers when I was 15 in 1952. Alan Freed started broadcasting in 1951 and moved to NYC in '54. Myself & other white kids were buying black records quite a while before Freed started broadcasting....
• 
  Q: So there was already an audience for this music in Cleveland and elsewhere during the forties, due to those radio stations beaming in from other parts.
  Were those stations playing jazz as well as RnB? Was this how you got into jazz?
  
  RA: No I got into jazz later via recordings and live music
  
  Q: What year did your arrive in New York City? Did you check out the live jazz scene immediately?
  
  RA: 1954 - Stayed for a couple years, then went back to Cleveland for a couple years, got married and moved back to NYC briefly, made a detour to Hartford for temp employment for 9 months until my NYC job came through. I was listening to live music (jazz) all this time in NYC , Cleveland, & Hartford. All these places had good live jazz music... It's a complicated timeline
  
  ____________________________________
• Other questions I did not get to ask RA about the '66 Tour, but wanted to:
  
  Q: With the Nagra recordings - were you using 1200’ reels at 15 ips? Were some recorded at 7 ips?
• 
  Q: Did CBS tap into your feed lines at any point for their recordings?
• 
  
• Q: Was there an overhead ambient mic? Or was that mostly for the drums?
• 
  
• Q: Have you ever made it back to Australia?

 

In rough form:

1 - Were any of your tapes used on the boxed set "patched" using other tapes made by film crew members? One potential example being the first minute and of a half of the Dublin acoustic set, where audience member dialog is prevalent and Dylan's vocal and guitar are relatively distant.

2 - I realize they weren't made on "your watch", but do you know what was allotted to each track on Columbia's 3-track recordings? Is Clinton Heylin's assertion that there was a microphone placed over the stage by Columbia to capture audience response correct?

3 - The artwork on the CD sleeves in the boxed set assert that your tapes were done at 7.5 i.p.s., but actual listening and some simple math suggests that 15 i.p.s. is actually correct. Were all the shows captured at the same speed?

4 - When you played your tapes to Dylan and the band the following day, did you use the original reels, or did you create dubs or splice onto larger reels? In his video documentary Mickey Jones displays a reel of the (what show was it again?) electric set. Would his copy be something that you put together?

And of course I'd start with a huge "Thank You!" for his role in capturing all this great music. And I would resist the temptation to tell him that the song isn't titled "Just Like a Rolling Stone".

 

A couple of these were answered to some degree already (just to rule them out if redundant).

How many microphones did he use to record the shows?
He used 10 microphones to record. #5619 But doesn't say where all the mic's were placed.

(My guess: 2 on Bob (vocal/amp); 1 on Robbie's amp; 1 on Garth's speaker; 1 on the piano; 2 on Mickey (overhead/bass drum); 1 on bass amp. That's only 8 spoken for, if correct.)

Did he specifically adjust the mix for the tape, or was it the same as the PA feed?
Inside Bob Dylan's Massive New 36-Album 1966 Live Box Set »
""Alk had a Nagra tape recorder that was supposed to have sync sound on it," says Alderson. "I hooked it up to the soundboard and would occasionally check what was going to the tape machine, though it was basically the same that was going everywhere since I only had one mix. But I would kind of tweak it a little based on putting on a pair of headphones."

His opinion of their work?
He said of the CBS recordings: 'They do not convey the excitement or the piano work well.' - but he didn't comment about them sonically yet, that I know of.

 

A friend of mine has been collecting low generation Dylan tapes on reel to reel for over 35 years. He says the audience tapes in the new box are superior to all of his versions, including those he was able to verify were within one or two generations of the original masters.

 

The audience tapes are as good or slightly better than the bootlegs, except for Bristol. The previously circulating version of Bristol is noticably better than the one on"The 1966 Live Recordings".

 

I just watched it again and I agree. He says, "Sorry, old boy."

 

I agree. Thanks to you all for that very small detail.

I always thought that guy seemed hip and important, very pleased to find out (finally) who he was and what a pivotal role he played in the Tour.

 

Wow, it sounds like Alderson has an amazing history of his own -- buying R&B records in Cleveland in 1950, being a disc jockey there at the same time as Alan Freed, etc.

It's astonishing to me that he was unknown as the engineer on the 1966 tour until now. So glad he's still around and willing to talk about this stuff (more than willing it seems ... he appears awfully sore that Dylan Inc. never credited him on anything, which is why the fans never knew). The unsung hero of the '66 tour.

And just how crazy was it that he was hired to assemble a complete, very expensive sound system, fly it to Honolulu and Australia for just a few shows, and then leave it all behind? Dylan Inc. undoubtedly lost thousands of dollars on that incredibly dumb idea. It should have been obvious to begin recording in Stockholm...

 

My copy wasn't - so I guess Im on the trail again ...

 

Thank you Notesfrom, a fascinating exchange you had there with Mr Alderson. This and a trove of other posts the last few pages/weeks of the thread are really loaded with info (re: the Pennebaker/Eat The Document posts).

The psychedelics question was something I'm grateful to see addressed. I think it's a legitimate and very pertinent question, even if it's tiptoed around (or even joked about). I suspect a bit more of it was in the 1966 diet based on the uh...behavior. Moreso in the off-stage time, but I appreciate Alderson's honesty in the matter. Fun times!

I really wish I could hear Alderson's Manchester (if it still exists). A portion of his acoustic recording is out there, and I bet the electric set recording would give that gig some color. The CBS tapes are kinda monochrome to me. Strong monochrome for sure, but I like some varied technicolors.

 

There is a better circulating version of Stockholm out there - I have it and did a brief comparison before Christmas. The box set version isn't as good.

 

I better find that one too !

 

How different is the mix on Guitars And The Contemporay Fix from the official Manchester one?

Is it worth getting?

 

Three potential additional questions for Richard Alderson (complete with bullet points):

• Have you listened to the 36-CD set in its entirety?
• Of the songs/sets that you - or Columbia - taped, are there any particular recordings that capture better than any others what you actually heard that night?
• Do you remember if Dylan rehearsed/soundchecked/played any songs at the Honolulu-London shows in addition to those represented on the boxed set (or the promo snippet of Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window)?

 

Not a big difference. To my ear:
“The 1966 Live” - a bit more drums and lead guitar, vocals have more reverb (natural or ‘enhanced’?).
“Guitars Kissing” - has more balance between the instruments: more prominent bass, a little less snare and cymbal, vocals a little more up front and clearer.
Stereo separation is about the same on both, but left and right channels are opposite.