Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes - where we're at currently (Part 2)...

The circulating mix is all vocals for the most part with a bit of audible piano. Would be a shame if the piano is coming through the vocal mic only. Such a bad rough mix. I hope there's a proper mic'd piano track to go with the vocal track. Anyone know anything about re-mixing from 2-track?

 

As far as I know, it exists only on an acetate (title: Just A Glass of Water, I think). I forget if they have the master tape anywhere.

 

It was slated for inclusion on the scrapped 4CD version of the original Bootleg Series. Were there any acetate-sourced tracks on the 3CD set?

 

It might take an expert like slane to answer that one...I'm really not sure.

 

That makes sense, but the SL-SoL feels like a huge era to cover. That said, BS8 covered a pretty big timespan, too, right? But since, technically, Dylan wasn't quite Born Again at that time (I think?), SL really kinda doesn't fit so easily in anywhere. Also, mentally, I tend to connect PW with New Morning and BOTT as the beginning of a new chapter. Yeah, Dee's right. It's dicey and messy. Why couldn't he have just had the decency and foresight to divide his career up into easily capsulated eras for future BS releases?

 

Yes, that's basically it I think. And with the Robertson-Fraboni reels, not only has it been shown that they were in collapsed mono/narrow stereo, but also in many cases may have been derived from already generational copies or even acetate in a few cases. So I think the "restored" description here can be taken to mean "from the original reels" rather than the previous derivation.

 

I would think that Toronto 1980 and New Orleans 1981 are likely releases down the road, either freestanding or within larger boxes. "Street Legal" might be left a bit of an orphan, but it doesn't belong with the "Born Again" material, IMO. Depending on how many multi-track tapes they have, or how willing they are to use lesser quality material (even, gasp, audience tapes?), there could certainly be a '78 tour box.

If the "complete" Basement Tapes sells as well as it appears it might, perhaps the complete "Freewheelin'" (already partly covered by the first Copyright Extension set) might follow as well.

 

In "Million Dollar Bash" it states that some shooting took place upstate in early 67 and then a few months later...somewhere on pages 80-somethiing

 

Off the top of my head, I don't believe so. The acetate of "Desolation Row" was used for "No Direction Home".

 

That article says towards the end about "I'm Not There" that "it's hard to know exactly what Dylan is singing about here," but that it is captivating anyway. I'm not a fan of the overly self-important Pitchfork writers, but this one nailed the essence of the Basement Tapes here. A lot of these songs really don't make a whole lot of sense, but they keep drawing me in closer. When you deconstruct them, you get nowhere, but back it up a bit and take it all in at once, and these songs have some sort of amazing power of their own. I can't wait for this release!

 

I am most definitely a "lyrics guy" (hence my anticipation regarding "Lost on the River"), but the power of "I'm Not There" is purely visceral, and few who hear it seem to leave the experience unmoved. Heck, an entire movie inspired by a half-mumbled, unfinished, unreleased song. It could only happen to Dylan.

 

I think I categorize Dylan's studio work from late 1977 thru 1981 as an individual "era" partly because of the sound of the recordings (big band, more rhythmic, as opposed to melodic, female backing singers) and partly because he was obviously going through a spiritual crises at that time, and, for the most part, he seemed to have lost his sense of humor. I realize that the shift from secular to religious themes might divide Street Legal from the albums that followed, but to me they were simply a continuation of his "journey through dark heat."

 

I can see your point regarding the sound, and it also marks, more or less, the "Rundown" era. Still, I see more commonality in '75 Bob and '78 Bob than in '78 and the "Born Again" era. If not in the sound or the makeup of the band, then in the way that he identified himself and presented himself as a performer.

 

You are definitely not alone in that assessment. Maybe because I saw him in '78, and then not again until '81 (with Al Kooper, BTW, great show) it all seemed to be connected somehow.

 

Oh. and by the way, you find no humor in:

"He saw an animal leaving a muddy trail,
Real dirty face and a curly trail,
He wasn't too small and he wasn't too big
Ah, think I'll call it a ... giraffe!"

 

That just makes everybody groan -- I'd rather hear "I punched myself in the face with my fist..." and soon I'll hear it in remixed stereo.

 

From the standpoint of the marital turbulence arc and dovetailing "heading back out there, to the wild unknown country" narrative, I'd say '78 closes the book on the Planet Waves to Rolling Thunder era. But between the backup singers, the story of the cross being thrown on stage, and the quoting the Bible "words rang true" rewrite of Tangled Up In Blue, it could be seen as the beginning of the Busy Being Born Again story.

Let's just split the difference. The '78-based release can be its own island with a concert release + Rundown Rehearsals + the gasp surprise revelation of Street Legal outtakes and demos.

 

Sounds good to me. Great post!

 

Sold!

 

Here again, I'm a little confused by the order of appearance of these tracks on the new deluxe release. Heylin, Griffin and Tree With Roots all have these as the very earliest basement recordings attempted - with the "Red Room" in Dylan's house as the likely venue. And indeed, to my ears the sonic signature is completely different than any of the generally 'cleaner' sounding tracks known to have been recorded at Big Pink - Dylan-composed or otherwise.

Now of course I wasn't there and Garth was, so maybe I'm speaking out of school. But unless these sound substantially different on the new release than on the currently circulating versions (which I tend to doubt they will), again I have to wonder if Garth's numbering system was following a different logic than actual recording chronology?

 

I'll say this: if the BOTT Bootleg Series volume had a good number of Desire outtakes, I'd be very pleased.

 

True that — but I've always felt this came from Dylan's (conscious?) decision in 1967 to sing in a more conversational style, in a more comfortable range, rather than the way the recordings were engineered.

 

Barring another ASP-type discovery of previously unknown recordings, I thought all/most of the significant Desire outtakes had already been released at this point. An official release of the live solo version of "Abandoned Love" would be more than welcome, however!

 

I'm hoping the liner notes shed some bright forensic light on the sequences and Garth's systems.
and let us know where the songs on Disc 6 belong, etc.

Maybe they changed recording locations, and Garth did a lazy set-up for some sessions.
Maybe they recorded in several locations, not just the red room and the "basement."

I would honestly be surprised if Garth (or any of those freaks) had the foresight to
label things in any sort of archival way at the beginning of these sessions.
That just isn't something you do when you're having fun!

He probably only started to label them after it became clear that the tapes were
stacking up....and he probably had to do some guesswork back then just as much as now.