Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes - where we're at currently...

It would be too much to ask -- especially in light of 30(?) other tracks we've never heard. They might be even better than Po Lazarus!

EDIT: I was just listening to Hills of Mexico -- as it falls apart at the end, Dylan says "We don't have to take this one down, Garth..." Thank goodness for Garth Hudson.

 

Hmmm I wonder if the previously unbooted Take 1 of I Shall Be Released is anything like Take 1 of You Ain't Goin Nowhere...

 

Indeed. Thank you Garth for keeping those tapes rolling.

 

Besides the mix, another difference between "Guitars kissing ... " and Live 1966 is that both discs of "Guitars kissing ... " are edited: On disc 1 (as with Live 1966) the tuning up between songs is edited out, and on disc 2 some of the "Judas exchange" was cut out. Disc 2 of Live 1966 is more complete (But it's too bad they didn't restore all the tuning up between songs on disc 1).

 

yeah, Dylan is pretty harsh on ol' Garth throughout the sessions, I would say -- another time he lectures him, "You're just wastin' tape." Bossy Bob, he sounds like a tweenage girl here. Though he does take a more passive approach when they record "The Mighty Quinn": "waitin' on you...," he intones, rather than, say, giving Garth a cue to kick things off with his organ riff.

 

You're so right. Great image -- "bossy Bob."

I think by the time they were laying down Quinn, right after Tears of Rage, Dylan knew that he was making demo recordings, instead of just screwing around and jamming, so maybe he became more sensitive to the technical aspects of what Garth was trying to do.

 

I woke up Tuesday morning knowing that I was going to go to funeral home visitation for a young man in our area who died tragically over the weekend. It was that Tuesday morning that I read the news about Volume 11 of the Bootleg Series. The news of that release got me through the day and the evening at the funeral home. This, to me, points out how important music can be in our lives. Just knowing that such a release was forthcoming - after the 1975 "official" release, the vinyl collections I have from 1987, the Tree With Roots collections, Genuine Basement Tapes, From The Reels, etc - it is finally going to come full circle. In no way did this diminish the tragic loss of life, but it helped get me through the day, and for that I am thankful.

 

Basement Tapes Complete - CD 4
1. "Tears of Rage (Take 1)" (written by Bob Dylan and Richard Manuel)
2. "Tears of Rage (Take 2)" (written by Bob Dylan and Richard Manuel)
3. "Tears of Rage (Take 3)" (written by Bob Dylan and Richard Manuel)
TEARS OF RAGE (I) (3:58)
TEARS OF RAGE (II - incomplete) (2:28)
TEARS OF RAGE (III) (4:14) '75 ALBUM

4. "Quinn the Eskimo (Take 1)"
5. "Quinn the Eskimo (Take 2)"
THE MIGHTY QUINN (I) (2:00)
THE MIGHTY QUINN (II) (2:20) (Biograph)

6. "Open the Door Homer (Take 1)"
7. "Open the Door Homer (Take 2)"
8. "Open the Door Homer (Take 3)"
OPEN THE DOOR, HOMER (I) (2:50) '75 ALBUM
OPEN THE DOOR, HOMER (II) ( :57): unfinished take
OPEN THE DOOR, HOMER (III) (3:19):

9. "Nothing Was Delivered (Take 1)"
10. "Nothing Was Delivered (Take 2)"
11. "Nothing Was Delivered (Take 3)"
NOTHING WAS DELIVERED (I) (4:24) '75 ALBUM
NOTHING WAS DELIVERED (II) (3:40):
NOTHING WAS DELIVERED (III) ( :33):

12. "All American Boy" (written by Bobby Bare)
THE ALL-AMERICAN BOY (3:56)

13. "Sign on the Cross"
SIGN ON THE CROSS (7:19)

14. "Odds and Ends (Take 1)"
15. "Odds and Ends (Take 2)"
ODDS AND ENDS (I) (1:53)
ODDS AND ENDS (II )(1:47) '75 ALBUM

16. "Get Your Rocks Off"
GET YOUR ROCKS OFF (3:41)

17. "Clothes Line Saga"
CLOTHESLINE SAGA (ANSWER TO ODE) (2:57) '75 ALBUM

18. "Apple Suckling Tree (Take 1)"
19. "Apple Suckling Tree (Take 2)"
APPLE SUCKLING TREE (I) (2:42) '75 ALBUM
APPLE SUCKLING TREE (II) (2:48)

20."Don't Ya Tell Henry"
DON'T YA TELL HENRY (2:26)

21."Bourbon Street"
BOURBON STREET (2:24) w/trombone, end cut-off

I FORGOT TO INDICATE WHICH TRACKS ON CDs 2 & 3 WERE ON THE OFFICIAL '75 ALBUM:
Tiny Montgomery
Million Dollar Bash take #2
Yea! Heavy and a Bottle of Bread take #2
Please Mrs. Henry
Crash on the Levee (Down in the Flood ) take #2
Lo and Behold take #2
You Ain't Goin' Nowhere take #2
This Wheel's On Fire
Too Much of Nothing take #1

 

Ain't that something. It's the power of music -- you can carry it around in your head, and it can carry you.

And I completely understand that the mere prospect of knowing that you'll soon get to hear five or six hours of some of Dylan's deepest "secret music" could bolster your spirits through such downbeat days. I know that I've been a little more upbeat than usual for the last 72 hours or so myself.

 

I sure hope the liner notes indicate where in the session chronology
the songs on Disc 6 belong (according to Garth's notes).

It's gonna bug me a little.

 

I was speechless for several days. I never thought this would happen. As I have said before, this is the best time ever to be a Dylan fan. Our man is still out there playing and making records (I have seen him twice on different tours in less than one year), while we can get our hands on great treasures from the archives like ASP and BT.
How much better can it be??

 

Ronnie Wood at his autobiography book - Ronnie, writes that he overheard the following at a party back in the mid-70s
Peter Grant: Hi. I'm Peter Grant. I manage Led Zeppelin.
Bob Dylan: Hey, I don't come to you with my problems.

 

I think you're almost spelling this out, but to be clear....Take 2 has the 1975 overdubbed piano even on the Band's Musical History "official" version. It is perhaps better mastered than on the '75 Basement Tapes....but still, personally, I'd take the TWR version with no overdubs.

I just discovered this thread. I feel silly piping in with this one caveat. The thread was excellent, and I spend quite a lot of time trying out your suggestions today. I suspect, the way things go, it will remain useful even after the official set comes out. Especially for those who like their stereo wide at times.

 

Wouldn't they go to the bootlegs if their copies were inferior? Perhaps we could imagine that the bootlegs were taken from those missing/stolen reels

Also - Yea! Heavy and a Bottle of Bread (take 1) & Nothing was delivered (take 3) were not included on TWR - at least not on my copy!

 

The Auld Triangle, it's long been a favourite of mine, be great to hear it in the top possible fidelity

 

Absolutely wonderful performance and definitely one of the highlights of this whole episode. However, as booted, it already appears in excellent fidelity (I suspect this one originated from an very good dub of the Fraboni reels) , so I doubt if we'll see too much of a gain here - other than perhaps more of a "wide stereo" presentation.

 

A few things of note here - the abbreviated Take 3 of "Nothing Was Delivered" has always appeared separated from the prior two at a further point in time on the boots, but here directly follows them. This would lend further credence to the theory of Richard Manuel drumming rather than being a unique Levon appearance.

Curious also about the sequencing here of the "All American Boy", "Sign On the Cross", "Don't You Tell Henry", "Bourbon Street" grouping - these have always appeared earlier on the boots. My own personal feeling is that the boots are probably correct and that Garth's numbering system as followed here may be operating under a different logic than the actual recording chronology.

 

Thanks for that. I agree it is a wonderful performance, a relaxed vocal (perhaps slightly aided by alcohol?) where he just seems to be really enjoying singing. No problem on the fidelity, just glad for it to get an official release. In which case I will turn my immediate attention to the previously unheard version of I Shall Be Released.

 

While no one would argue that the Bootleg Series on the whole has been a boon to Dylan fans, I have a lot of problems with the sound quality on several of the sets. I agree that the Manchester '66 concert (i.e., "Royal Albert Hall") sounds better as booted, and the "Live '64" Philharmonic show sounded way better as well. Much more could have been done with the Witmark Demo set to improve the audio quality, and a lot of the "No Direction Home" soundtrack is a punched-up mess.

Let's hope they get it right this time...

 

Further regarding the '66 "Royal Albert Hall" set - I think is was really shortsighted to issue just a single complete performance from that tour. There were so many other amazing and reasonably well-recorded shows - personally I lean towards the Sydney acoustic set and the Liverpool rock set, but there are many other single and sets of tracks from other shows - that could have painted a much fuller picture of the impact of that storied tour.

 

Very, very true. Not forgetting the amazing Sheffield show that they auditioned for release. Now if they can combine that with all the existing 16mm Pennebaker footage from that year, we'd be in for one heck of a box set.

 

Much earlier in the thread, I indicated a preference for the eventual mixing methodology of these tracks to being one where they narrowed the strict wide stereo a bit to around the "9 o'clock-3 o'clock" range; where most of the stereo spaciousness is preserved while providing for some center channel information. I won't flatter myself that someone in authority out there was actually listening, but I'm encouraged that these initial iterations seem to bear that out to some degree.

 

Excellent post, and I still profess myself to be more than a bit puzzled by some of the logic in the track selection and the descriptions given. As configured, I certainly wouldn't grant it the status of being a "definitive" abbreviated basement selection - any casual fan of these recordings deserves better. I know there was discussion around the time of the original '75 LP of it being a 3-LP set - maybe this has some resemblance to how that set would have originally been configured (although some of these selections didn't actually make the Fraboni reels).

I'm a bit surprised that they didn't follow the strategy of making this somewhat of an 'adjunct' set to the original LP. In other words, let those prior iterations stand on their own, and only include here alternate takes of the basement originals and other standout tracks that weren't originally selected (those that want 'wide stereo', non-overdubbed versions of everything can go to the deluxe set). This way, they preserve the relevance of the original LP instead of it now becoming something of a historical curio.

But who are we kidding - it's the deluxe set for me all the way!

 

I'm getting the two-cd set. My shelf doesn't have room for anything more.

"I'm Not There."

 

Same feeling here. As when I knew about the Smile Box Set