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

I dislike abstraction for the same reason Marlow detests a lie. Moreover, you're being inherently - if not overtly - disparaging.

 

Thanks for the reply, Richard.

Just to clarify, I'd love to take credit for bringing new information to any Dylan discussion, but I was merely quoting Bennyboy's full post from that old thread I linked to Blood on the Tracks - MoFi reissue - is this the correct speed??? . (I couldn't work out how to put his quote in a box as the thread's closed.)

I hope that the BOTT bootleg series release, if and when it happens, will include the 'correct' speed version. The original is the original of course and unquestionably magnificent as released, but it'd be nice to make a side by side comparison. I used to have a needledrop of the '81 Mastersound HSM but have no idea what happened to it. Doubt I'll be shelling out for a copy of that release considering the prices on Discogs.

(On a side note, I like to strum along to songs from BOTT, particularly the open E tuned ones like Simple Twist and You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome. In order for it to sound correct I have to use a digital tuner to correct the pitch of my guitar from standard A440 tuning to something like 446/7. It'd be great to have a 'correct' BOTT for this reason alone!)



Cheers, Chris

 

Woodstock, NY
September 1965
(rehearsal before tour, with The Crackers/Hawks/Band)

1. Maggie's Farm
2. Maggie's Farm
3. Maggie's Farm
4. It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
5. It Ain't Me, Babe
6. It Ain't Me, Babe
7. Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window? (instrumental)
8. Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?
9. Like A Rolling Stone
10. Mr. Tambourine Man
11. Mr. Tambourine Man
12. Blues Stay Away From Me
13. Tombstone Blues
14. Tombstone Blues
15. Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
16. Ballad Of A Thin Man
17. I Don't Believe You
18. I Don't Believe You
19. Maggie's Farm (instrumental)
20. Maggie's Farm
21. Positively 4th Street
22. Please Don't Leave Me


New York City, NY
Carnegie Hall
October, 1, 1965

Set 1
1. She Belongs To Me
2. To Ramona
3. Gates Of Eden
4. Mr. Tambourine Man (some sources say Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?)
5. Love Minus Zero/No Limit
6. Desolation Row
7. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
Set 2
8. Maggie's Farm
9. I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)
10. Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window? (some sources say Mr. Tambourine Man)
11. Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
12. Tombstone Blues
13. It Ain't Me, Babe
14. Positively 4th Street
15. Ballad Of A Thin Man
16. Like A Rolling Stone

 

Thanks for the confirmation, @My Echo My Shadow And Me.

Bill P didn't reply to my email, Richard. I doubt he'd name names anyway. Time to have these tapes released; they are out of copyright in this part of the world...

 

The majority of stuff listed at start of the first thread would simply never ever be released. These releases have to have commercial value. Some dodgy old tape of Bob from the 50's would hold no interest at all. Even stuff like Bromberg sessions from 92 are not gonna sell or interest many people. Next release I am sure will be Blood On The Tracks and then possibly something like the Infidels / Empire sessions.

 

Holy Grail for me.

 

That doesn't surprise me. These private super-collectors are a tough and highly competitive lot.

You're not kidding. Holy Grail for me, too.

 

Wow. Incredible. Hope that Tulsa at least has a high quality copy, if not the original tapes.

 

As far as I know the recordings went straight from the estate of Albert Grossman into the hands of a collector in the late 1980s. So, I think Dylan's people never had access to the tapes and they are not in the Archive.

 

Thanks for that information. More than we knew before.
So the tapes are completely isolated from the Dylan camp.
Knowing the mentality of these private super-collectors, I don't believe it will ever be released.

 

wow. for some reason i imagined carnegie hall as a strictly acoustic affair, in the style of the dont look back concerts. this new development is positively mouth-watering, especially the idea – no matter how infinitesimal – of an electric "tambourine man"

i've gorged myself on the 1966 box, safe in the knowledge that nothing could ever possibly top that, but it seems like the grail train's back on!

 

You try too hard to sound obtuse and "intellectual", just say what you really mean, why don't you? Sounds like you need a "safe space" to go to.

 

What PhantomStranger said was "fairly aggressive [...] over the past few years," actually -- and that's correct:

2008: Bootleg Series Vol. 8
2010: Bootleg Series Vol. 9
2013: Bootleg Series Vol. 10
2014: Bootleg Series Vol. 11
2015: Bootleg Series Vol. 12
2016: The 1966 Live Recordings
2017: Bootleg Series Vol. 13

That's five increasingly-expansive vault releases in the past five years -- how much more aggressive can they get? Your request has been heard and has been granted. We can be fairly confident that there will be a major Bob Dylan release every year (or nearly) until the market dries up.

 

Surely the Dylan organization knows about it now, don'tcha think?

 

Hear, hear...

And not forgetting the other (limited) 50th Anniversary (European) Copyright Collections in 2012, 2013 and 2014. And The Original Mono Recordings Box in 2010. And The Complete Album Collection Vol. 1 in 2013. Last time I saw so many boxes this close together was when I last moved house.

It's true that Bob's big-box output was a bit slack in 2009. He was probably still smarting from the drubbing given to him by @Sean Murdock about the cost of BS8 the previous year. It was kind of nice to have a breather from the boxes and just enjoy the two original albums released in that year.

I wonder if Bob Inc will be happy to go head to head with The Fab Four this November? "BS14: Images And Distorted Facts" versus the Super Deluxe "White Album".

 

They've surly known about the tapes being in the hands of a collector since at least the late 1980s, but they do not have access to the tapes.

 

Bi-weekly installments.

 

Oh.
That response suggests a world of follow-up questions, but I won't ask.

 

In a post backthread, My Echo My Shadow And Me said:

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

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

Planned for 2018 (according to "a source" – Jeff Rosen? – speaking to "Rolling Stone" magazine):
- Rolling Thunder Review documentary
- Blood On The Tracks sessions (hopefully including the unknown and uncirculating solo version of the album as previously mentioned by "the source")
- Desire sessions

Mentioned by "a source" in interviews with "Rolling Stone" magazine:
- pre-Columbia coffeehouse tapes
- Hard Rain and other TV specials
- 1978 tour
- Infidels sessions
- Sydney 1986 ("Hard To Handle" concerts)
- Oh Mercy sessions [note: This could include the very early "Emlah Court" demo sessions, e.g. the piano demo of God Knows.]
- Supper Club CD/DVD [note: I think that this 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.]
- "some sort of examination of the Never Ending Tour [1988-present]"*

---

*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

---

III. My personal suggestions

Studio/demo tapes:
1982–1987 Infidels/Empire Burlesque/Knocked Out Loaded/Hearts Of Fire/Down In The Groove sessions
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)
2008 My Own Love Song soundtrack (18 instrumentals)

also:
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]
Don't Think Twice, It's All Right (NYC 2004, United We Swing outtake)

In concert:
1974 A re-examination of the board 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)

note:
"The source" mentioned 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.

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)

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 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?]

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
1978 Spanish language versions of some Dylan originals

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)

 

GREAT title for BS14. Have your people call Bob’s people!

 

WOW Echo, I just stumbled upon this. Superbly done!!

BTW, I didn't know there was an outtake -- 2009 Vigilante Man (The People Speak outtake). COOL!

 

Well, when you cherry pick the years that suit your point, it makes your point. If you average ALL the years, as you should (using proper statistical analysis), it is, in fact NOT aggressive. I'm hoping your "crystal ball" statistical analysis along with cherry picking just what you need to make your point, actually comes to fruition. We can agree on that, I hope. So, you can chime in to get the last word in again, as you always do...I'm waiting! Any good Jerry Wexler videos you can post?

 

Yikes

 

If the Dylan organization wants to release a Bootleg Series small box in the Spring, a Legacy Edition tour box in the Summer, and a Bootleg Series big box in the Autumn it's A.O.K. with me. I've been supporting Dylan since 1973. My money is his money. Just don't make me wait these long intervals. Show a little mercy. Time passes harder when you reach my age.

 

I would love to see more of the Dylan and the Band footage filmed around Woodstock in late 66 and early 67. Those teasers they put out to promote BS11 in 2014 are killin' me. I wish they'd just put all the Eat the Document footage, unedited, onto a couple of Blu-Rays or something.