Bob Dylan "The Bootleg Series" – overview and possible future projects

I don't see how Desire could be left out, but it doesn't necessarily have to be in the same package. I would like to see RTR concerts in a brick like The Live 1966 Recordings even if it isn't every show. Let the documentary be a separate bluray set perhaps with an accompanying soundtrack CD that could act as a sort of "best of" compilation from the documentary and the brick. There's a lot of expertly shot footage for Scorsese to work with, plus Renaldo & Clara. They could actually release two, three, even four different sets -- live concerts brick, Scorsese's documentary, the 4 hour and 2 hour edits of the film, and a box-set devoted to Desire sessions not unlike the box-set devoted to Blood On the Tracks. Because of its eccentricity Renaldo & Clara appeals mainly to the dedicated fans. I would put both versions on the same bluray and offer that as the incentive for one or more of the box-sets.

The big question is, will an RTR collection include the other acts, or just Dylan? He was the headliner but had less time on stage than the combined other acts. Should an RTR collection represent everybody? the full show?

 

31 RTR concerts in 1975.
If Dylan's appearance on the The John Hammond Tribute special is included, 32.
Dylan's complete sets would fill 2 discs per show, with one or two exceptions.
So we're looking at a 62-disc brick, assuming there are tapes.

27 RTR concerts in 1976 including Hurricane 2 in El Paso.
Complete Dylan sets would need 2 discs, except for Hurricane 2 which is only 1.
That's a 54-5 disc brick.
If you include the Clearwater rehearsals and two videotaped TV specials, more discs.

 

Eesh. Seeing those numbers makes these seem unlikely to happen.

 

True, but nobody could imagine all the 1966 concerts being released in a box-set, either. It was actually more than I had ever thought of asking for or could have imagined. A generous gift to the fans. One must believe in the impossible on the Dylan trail.

It's a short step from 36-CD box to a 52 or 56 CD box.

1965 concerts -- 22 CD's in total including the BBC, Newport, Carnegie Hall if it exists, and Ginsberg's tapes.
The 9-concert tour of England including the BBC would make a fine 9-CD brick by itself. It would make a vinyl box-set for the ages.

1979 Gospel Tour -- 26 concerts = 52 CD's.
Dylan set by itself pruned or unpruned with or without the gospel girl opening act = same number of discs.
If the Saturday Night Live appearance is included, perhaps another disc for the video, but audio only would fit onto one of the concert CD's.
This is a brick I would very much like to see happen -- AFTER the Live 1965 brick.

 

How to organize a live 1965 CD brick:

 

I'm just an observer in this process, as I've heard/own too small a chunk of Bob's studio discography to justify getting these BS releases yet. But I love reading the fan response/discussion/speculation here. Gets me excited of what's to come.

If I had the money and was at my current level of collection building when it came out, I would have gotten the Cutting Edge. Because what fan doesn't know and love the 3 albums that set was based off of? I know they're all still easily obtainable, but I'm making myself not buy any expensive (over $50) Dylan product until I finally buy this:





...That said, I'll pre-order a Blood on the Tracks set on day one as that's an album I know and love very much and want to be in on the ground floor and hear it (and participate here) right away.

 

The Bootleg Series Vol. 14: The Murdock List


@Sean Murdock

 

I'm flattered, but it's really the "Rolling Stone / Dylan Source" list; I just curate it obsessively...

 

UPDATE:

"The Bootleg Series" and additional official retrospective releases - overview and possible future projects

I. Already released

Bootleg Series:
1991 - The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991
1998 - The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966, The "Royal Albert Hall" Concert (Manchester 1966)
2002 - The Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Bob Dylan Live 1975, The Rolling Thunder Revue
2004 - The Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964, Concert at Philharmonic Hall
2005 - The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home - The Soundtrack
2008 - The Bootleg Series Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs - Rare and Unreleased 1989–2006
2010 - The Bootleg Series Vol. 9: The Witmark Demos - 1962–1964
2013 - The Bootleg Series Vol. 10: Another Self Portrait 1969–1971 (including Isle Of Wight 1969)
2014 - The Bootleg Series Vol. 11: The Basement Tapes
2015 - The Bootleg Series Vol. 12: The Cutting Edge 1965-1966
2017 - The Bootleg Series Vol. 13: Trouble No More 1979-1981
announced: 2018 – The Bootleg Series Vol. 14: More Blood, More Tracks (Blood On The Tracks sessions)

Additional retrospective releases:
2005 - Live At The Gaslight 1962
2005 - Live At Carnegie Hall 1963
2010 - In Concert: Brandeis University 1963
2012 - The 50th Anniversary Collection 1962 (4 CD-Rs)
2013 - The 50th Anniversary Collection 1963 (6 LPs)
2014 - The 50th Anniversary Collection 1964 (9 LPs)
2015 - The Basement Tape (original mono mix of 1968 publishing demo) (LP)
2015 - The 50th Anniversary Collection 1965 (download of 14 CDs worth of material)
2016 - The 1966 Live Recordings (+ separate releases of London May 26 and Sydney)

Films:
2005 - No Direction Home (covering 1941-1966)
2007 - The Other Side Of The Mirror - Live At The Newport Folk Festival 1963-1965
2007 - Don’t Look Back (covering UK Tour 1965)
2017 - Trouble No More (Live 1980 + bonus material)

II. Possible future projects

Mentioned by "a source" (Jeff Rosen?) in interviews with "Rolling Stone" magazine:
- pre-Columbia coffeehouse tapes
- Rolling Thunder Review documentary
- Desire sessions
- Hard Rain and other TV specials
- 1978 tour
- Infidels sessions
- Sydney 1986 ("Hard To Handle" concerts)
- Oh Mercy sessions
- Supper Club CD/DVD*
- "some sort of examination of the Never-Ending Tour [1988-present]"

*I think that the Supper Club recordings should stay in the vaults. Excellent quality soundboard tapes of all four shows are already circulating and are nice to have but the preceding electric shows in the US in Sep./Oct. 1993 were much, much better concerts: Jones Beach first night, Holmdel, Hollywood Bowl – some of Dylan’s best shows.

Future project mentioned by Richard Alderson (facebook, May 2018):
- Gaslight Tapes ("My original recordings of Bob from the Gaslight in October 1962 will be released on Sony in the near future ... very, very few have heard them in their pristine sonic glory.")

---

Never-Ending Tour

My suggestion would be to do a box similar to the "1966 Live Recordings" set that provides an overview of the development of the sound and most of the line-up changes.

Here are some shows that I consider the best of the best from that era:

- Berkeley 1988
- Brussels 1989
- New York City October 10, 1989
- Paris January 30, 1990
- Dunkerque 1992
- Holmdel 1993
- Dresden 1994
- Dayton 1999
- Cologne 2000
- Berlin 2003
- Kalamazoo 2008
- Tampa 2010
- Beijing 2011
- Brussels 2013
- Mainz 2015
- Frankfurt 2017

"The source" mentioned ("Rolling Stone", September 25, 2017) that in some cases the audience tapes sound better than the board tapes captured by Dylan's crew (esp. "up until the mid-2000's"), so I think they should merge the board tapes with the best audience tapes, to create a fuller, more realistic soundscape. A fan-made example of this practice would be the Rothbury 2009 soundboard/audience "matrix" (LosslessBob LB-7971) or the fan-made 3-source-merge of Jimi Hendrix's last regular show at Fehmarn/Germany 1970, which merges the official release of the show (on Dagger Records) with two audience tapes for a much better overall sound.

---

III. My additional, personal suggestions

Studio:
1984–1986 Empire Burlesque/Knocked Out Loaded/Hearts Of Fire sessions
1987 Down In The Groove sessions + reconstruction of Dylan's original version of the album (August 1987 master)
1982 Bob Dylan/Clyde King duets album ("Trouble No More" shows just how beautiful their voices sound together)
1990 Under The Red Sky (rough mix version: live in the studio, no "superstar" overdubs, diff. vocals/lyrics, fantastic album, needs to be made available to the public)
1992 unreleased album (recorded in Chicago, produced by David Bromberg)
1996/1997 Time Out Of Mind sessions (there are rumors that a covers album was recorded as a separate project before work began on TOOM, then there are the early sessions in Oxnard in 1996 and finally the sessions in Miami in early 1997 + some of the sessions were filmed by Daniel Lanois' brother)

also:
Don't Think Twice, It's All Right (NYC 2004, United We Swing outtake)
Shake Sugaree (TOOM outtake, Teatro, Oxnard 1996 or Criteria, Miami 1997) [planned for BS 8: TTS, not released]
God Knows (piano demo, presumably from 1989 Emlah Court sessions) [planned for BS 8: TTS, not released]
My Own Love Song soundtrack (18 instrumentals, recorded at the Together Through Life sessions in 2008)
Saved (Toronto 1980) and Caribbean Wind (different version) [BS 13 "outtakes"]

In concert:
1974 A re-examination of the multitrack tapes from New York/Seattle/Oakland/Los Angeles, mixed to better match the sound as heard in the arenas.
1976-05-16 Fort Worth
1976-05-23 Fort Collins
1978-07-15 Blackbushe (or one of the Paris shows or one of the late 1978 US shows)
1984-07-07 London [or Brussels 06/07 (incl. Tangled Up In Blue – "forbidden zone"-version), Rome 06/21, Barcelona 06/28]
1987 Entire tour with the Grateful Dead (12 CDs), mixed to match the sound as heard in the stadiums. The circulating, unmixed soundboard tapes (most of which also run too fast) are a gross misrepresentation of the shows.
1987 Entire "Temples In Flames" tour (33 CDs) with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers & The Queens Of Rhythm.

Reconstruction of "lost" albums that were due for release, but got cancelled or were replaced by reworked versions (These could be released as vinyl-only limited editions for Record Store Day.):
1963 The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (original version, mono mix, including the tracks that were deleted from the regular version)
1964 In Concert (cancelled album, mono mix)
1974 Blood On The Tracks (original version from December 1974 test pressing)
1987 Down In The Groove (original version from August 1987 master)

IV. Juvenilia (hopefully held by the Tulsa Archive)

1940s "Dictaphone" recordings of young Bobby Zimmerman singing songs like "Accentuate The Positive" (recorded by Dylan’s father) [probably lost]
1956 The Jokers acetate (early Dylan band) [bought by the Dylan organization from the estate of Larry Kegan, now probably in the Vault/the Tulsa archive]
1950s rehearsal tapes of Dylan’s early bands recorded at the garage of the Zimmerman home at 2425 Seventh Avenue East, Hibbing, MN
1958 John Bucklen tape
1959 Dick Kangas tape
1960 Karen Wallace tape – This should be released officially. The original tape has very good sound and over twenty songs, incl. early Dylan original "One-Eyed Jacks". (Still owned by Karen Wallace?)

V. Rumors

1977 "I'm Cold" demos (10–12 songs were written in 1977, one song supposedly called "I'm Cold", probably not recorded)
1978 Street Legal piano demos (said to be more like a loose run-through of some of the Street Legal songs at a rehearsal at Rundown Studios in Santa Monica)
1978 Spanish language versions of some Dylan originals

VI. Video

1956 The Jokers (early Dylan band) live on a talent show on KEYD-TV – Channel 9 – Minneapolis-St. Paul (broadcast live, probably not recorded) [Info comes from Howard Rutman.]
1958 The Golden Chords (early Dylan band) live on WDSM-TV – Channel 6 – Superior/Duluth (broadcast live, probably not recorded) [Info comes from Monte Edwardson.]
1958 The Satin Tones (early Dylan band) live on WDSM-TV – Channel 6 – Superior/Duluth (broadcast live, probably not recorded) [Info about this comes from Shelton. It is unclear if this might actually be The Golden Chords TV appearance.]
1959 Elston Gunn & The Rock Boppers (another of Dylan’s Hibbing era bands) live on WTCN-TV – Channel 11 – Minneapolis-St. Paul (broadcast live, probably not recorded) [Info comes from John Bucklen.]
1965–present – official promo films
1962–present – TV/Internet broadcasts
1966 Eat The Document (+ alternative D.A. Pennebaker cut)
1974 (it seems no shows were filmed professionally)
1976 Hard Rain (Clearwater and Fort Collins versions)
1978 Renaldo And Clara (filmed in 1975) [Note: They should include a documentary that outlines how this movie was based on 1945 French movie "The Children Of Paradise“.]
1994-08-14 Saugerties, NY ("Woodstock '94")
2002-07-18 concert for the film Masked & Anonymous, Stage 6, Ray-Art Studios, Canoga Park, CA
2009 Vigilante Man (The People Speak outtake)

 

I don't recall ever hearing about this. Are there any further details or rumours about it?

 

A Man Named Gray published the contents of the session in his Bob Dylan Encyclopedia:

Skipping Reels Of Rhyme: David Bromberg Sessions

1. Hey Joe (maybe a warm up/fragment, or not recorded at all?)
2. Mobile Line
3. Just Because
4. Field Of Stone (Would You Lay With Me)
5. Annie's Song
6. Jugband Song
7. Rock Me Baby
8. Send Me To The 'lectric Chair
9. Gotta Do My Time
10. Su Su's Got A Mohawk
11. Northeast Texas Woman
12. Sail On
13. Can't Lose What You Never Had
14. World Of Fools
15. Everybody's Crying Mercy
16. Tennessee Blues
17. Summer Wages
18. Casey Jones
19. Morning Blues
20. Young Westley
21. The Lady Came From Baltimore
22. New Lee Highway Blues
23. Rise Again
24. Duncan & Brady (released on TELL TALE SIGNS: Super Deluxe Edition)
25. The Main Street Moan
26. Nobody's Fault But Mine
27. Miss The Mississippi & You (released on TELL TALE SIGNS: 2CD & Super Deluxe Editin)
28. Sloppy Drunk (currently circulating)
29. Kaatskill Serenade (currently circulating)
30. Polly Vaughn (currently circulating)

 

Last year, Rolling Stone published their story on Trouble No More on September 20th, and their update about the future of the Bootleg Series on September 25. True to form, this year they also published their More Blood, More Tracks story on September 20th, just a few days ago. If history continues to repeat itself, we might have an update to look forward to in Tuesday.

 

Yes, they usually like (or maybe Rosen requests) the "announcement" article to breathe a little before doing a "speculation" article -- but surely the interview with "the source" covered both topics at the same time. With nothing at all about future volumes in the BS14 article, we can expect a "future Bootleg Series" article at some point soon.

 

Over on Twitter, the author of those pieces mentioned the article is coming this week He describes it as “a juicy one.”

 

Nice.

 

I imagine there should be a mention of Richard Alderson's Gaslight Tapes which were being promoted in May as coming soon. I can't think that they would be a standalone release in the Bootleg Series but "The Source" has mentioned previously a coffeehouse set.

 

I also cannot see the Gaslight Tapes as part of the Bootleg Series. There was talk of the release being vinyl only (Record Store Day or Black Friday?). Another thing - next year they will have to deal with several 1969 recordings circulating among collectors and they will have to make them available officially in order to secure the copyright for the recordings in the EU. Again I cannot see those recordings as part of the Bootleg Series. Maybe they will do a digital release of those?

 

The non-release of the JWH sessions in 2017 tells me that they don't "have to deal with" anything they don't want to from here on out. They've protected what they see as the most valuable material -- 1963-1966 and BOTT -- and they'll treat everything else on a case-by-case basis. I doubt they think the Dylan-Cash sessions are more important or valuable than the JWH sessions.

 

But it is two Columbia artists in that they can protect in one shot. I always thought this one would be a fairly easy thing to sell in some form or another. I know many don't care for it but having had a tape of the old bootleg LP I've always had a soft spot for it.

 

The copyright collections haven't focused on protecting what's GOOD, but much more so what's "out there". The Dylan/Cash sessions are very much out there, so they should appear on the 1969 version of that set. But on a Bootleg Series release? I doubt it.

 

So far they have protected every unreleased recording that is of future commercial value and every unreleased recording that is circulating among collectors. They did not protect the John Wesley Harding sessions, because they are not in the hands of collectors (according to an official source speaking to Rolling Stone magazine). On the other hand they did protect poor quality 1964 audience recordings, simply because they are out there and thus within reach of the public domain labels. So I think they will certainly protect the 1969 recordings that are circulating (including the Dylan/Cash recordings), in order to keep the public domain labels away. I just do not think they will do it as part of the Bootleg Series.

 

Oh, sorry, I forgot which thread I was in. Yeah, I did say "some form or another". It does seem more like a Record Store Day kind of thing.

 

While it's true that the focus more recently has been on what's "out there," it's also true that when they started the Copyright Dump tradition, they released and protected a whole lot of unbooted, uncirculating stuff. Would I love to see the Copyright Extension series to resume in 2019? Sure. But legally, in the EU, they have foolishly (imo) allowed all their unreleased JWH sessions to enter the Public Domain.

According to some actual collectors, SOME of the JWH sessions are actually "out there" with collectors -- not circulating, but out there. But you and Ray are correct, Sony and Dylan Inc. have narrowed their focus on commonly booted material and Dylan/Cash certainly doesn't rise to the level of "Bootleg Series" quality. I guess I'm just bitter at how the JWH tapes were neglected -- not because I'm a particular fan of extending copyrights forever and ever, but rather because I fear those tapes will just gather dust* in Tulsa rather than ever being released.

*Metaphorical dust, of course, because they will be in a climate controlled vault, where they can last forever and be heard by no one. Makes no eff-ing sense!!

 

I agree with you that their approach was short-sighted. What we all know is "out there" is not always equal to what IS out there. Of course my opinion is based on (and biased by) my desire to get to hear the stuff!

 

I do know that Dylan's people have been reaching out in the past month or so to copyright holders for literary properties used in Rolling Thunder doc.