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

Just to point out: there are at least 9 additional basement reels that exist in the vault that have never been bootlegged & the contents of which are unknown. So about 5 hours more at least...

 

'That is a remarkable statement. Which vault?

 

I'm not sure where they are stored. They're not at Iron Mountain but Columbia/Dylan's people have them. When I say have them...they're not that good at keeping track of what they have, but if they actually go through the master tapes when compiling a box set rather than copy the bootlegs or rely on Greil Marcus' book they'll find them.
The inclusion of 'Minstrel Boy' on Another Self Portrait would indicate that fortunately they're going through the tapes.

I've also heard there are additional tapes from both before and after what you would consider to be these 'basement' recordings.

Source: I'm a very serious Dylan collector & have done a bit of work with Columbia & other Dylan film/audio sources. I was shocked at one point that I was able to point them towards some Dylan material which they not only didn't have but didn't know existed...

 

LOL when i say i have them.... they are not that good at keeping track of what they got ... but they got them they just dont know they do.

I dont want to be the one to say but...........there are more important serious dylan collectors than squirrels on an avocado tree.

takes me back:

" hello, is this so and so"

"yes can i help you"

"im a very important and serious dylan collector please send me the materials you are said to hold"

"no adios"

LOL

 

Could the Minstrel Boy basement tape have simply been a music publishers demo that turned up in a file cabinet somewhere?

 

Fascinating stuff. Appreciate your weighing in - would love to hear any further details you have on the disposition of the original reels - which seems to be a big unknown out there. I'd prefer not to make any incorrect assumptions over the remaining course of this thread...

 

yes there are 5 hours of extra basement tapes that columbia and bob have but unfortunately the dont know they have. so if they never get released its not like they dont exist. LOL dylanism is a trip it got its own particular logic.

 

Given the span of time that covers the 'Basement Tapes' sessions, another 5 hours or so does not seem too far fetched. As to the poster above, he did not claim to be important, just serious.

 

why stop at 5 hours, why not 50 hours more, after all thats but two days.
as long as only the dylanists know where the tapes are we can blame bob and Sony for not putting them out, for not knowing what they have. i wouldnt wait for them standin up.

 

We have surely learned by now that as far as the Bootleg Series releases are concerned, nothing should be ruled out, they are a continuing source of unexpected delight.

 

Clinton Heylin in Revolution In the Air states unequivocally that there's nine more reels still uncirculating, so it's more than likely there's more stuff out there. Perhaps these contain several more songs from that era copyrighted by Dylan but as yet unheard; i.e. "Wild Wolf", "Better Have It All" and "You Own a Racehorse". But Heylin also reiterates that no actual new basement-recorded material has surfaced since the 1991 cassettes alluded to many times in this thread.

"This Wheel's On Fire"

"You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" (take 2)

"I Shall Be Released"

"Too Much Of Nothing" (take 2)

The above successively recorded tracks (excepting "Too Much of Nothing" and substituting next-to-be-recorded "Tears Of Rage") constitute a virtual 'murderers row' - i.e., the best known and most iconic of all the material laid down by Dylan and the Hawks at Woodstock in that halcyon Summer of '67. The first of these - "Wheels On Fire" - was actually a Dylan-Danko collaboration of course - though like the Dylan-Manuel co-written "Tears of Rage", they didn't actually work on the song together - rather, Dylan first furnished the manuscript of lyrics and his Band-mates were then charged with coming up with the music. In each case, Rick and Richard came through with flying colors - in due course carrying them over (in vastly different, more elaborate arrangements) to their first Capitol LP (which might have more accurately been titled "Music Inspired by Big Pink" - none of it was actually recorded there, excepting possibly an early take of "Caledonia Mission".)

"This Wheel's On Fire" of course was chosen as the closing track of the 1975 official LP, where it appears in a mono mix with acoustic guitar fills in several places by Robbie, a busier piano overdub from Richard supplementing the original sparely composed part, and additional harmonies in the chorus from Richard and possibly Levon. Some may prefer this more dramatized "enhanced" version - to my ears, it's a bit much - especially after acclimating to the subtleties of the originally recorded track.

For this, Genuine Bootleg Series (GBS) and Tree With Roots (TWR) both feature good sounding wide-stereo versions that sound derived from the same source, Dylan appearing far right. Again, I find the GBS version slightly preferable tonality-wise - however, my digital file of it has a brief skip on the word "wait" in the first verse (maybe someone else who has this can confirm it's there on theirs.) So I'll have to go with the TWR version by default. Genuine Basement Tapes (GBT) continues its streak of general awfulness in this section with a hissy sounding, sped-up atrocity.

Winner: Tree With Roots

Take 2 of "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" is the much beloved version covered umpteen times by various artists, the Byrds beating everyone to the punch with their Sweetheart of the Rodeo nod. The narrow-stereo official LP treatment is a little less heavy-handed this time, the only after-the-fact addition being Robbie's electric guitar overdub.

The boots carry over the same pattern from "Wheels" - the wide-stereo GBS and TWR versions featuring Dylan on the left side this time, with the GBT version again hissy and sped-up. No skips this time with GBS, while the tonality improvement over the somewhat muffled TWR version is much more obvious...

Winner: Genuine Bootleg Series

In perhaps the greatest oversight in the selection of the 1975 official LP tracks, the original "I Shall Be Released" - an absolutely incandescent recording with one of Dylan's best-ever vocals - was of course left off. Not sure if Robbie's ever offered any justification for this, though Sid Griffin theorizes that its omission - along with "Quinn the Eskimo" - may have been due to their "over familiarity".

Of course, they later made it up to us in 1991 with the awful sounding version on the first Rare and Unreleased Bootleg Series set that sounds derived from a 'several generations down' source at best. Gee, thanks Columbia...

Over in bootville, same exact analysis applies here as on "Nowhere" - GBS winning out over TWR, though this time by a slimmer margin. GBT again is horrible here - I actually wouldn't be surprised if their versions from this section were sourced from the original mono acetates, these tracks not appearing anywhere on the 1991 cassettes...

Winner: Genuine Bootleg Series

"Too Much Of Nothing" (take 2)

This more stately re-recorded version does away with the corny "rising pitch" device in the verse on the 1975 official LP 1st take, though it's still I think shamed by such stellar company here. The wide-stereo GBS and TWR have Dylan back over on the right side, with GBS once again a bit preferable tonality-wise. GBT actually includes two different iterations of the track, though neither again is really up to snuff...

Winner: Genuine Bootleg Series

 

well if this clinton person says they exist that probably puts the kabosh on the whole thing. have you read his books? his sessions book where leon russell , i think, is only a hobo session. lets not even disucuss his bios, took three and still didnt know he was married.

 

I generally bristle at the "those damn critics don't know any more than I do" mindset that prevails here, but.....yeah, Clinton Heylin. WHAT. A. HACK.

 

reading those fanzine dylanist books are like walking into an alternative universe. if you never read one its a blessing in disguise.

 

@GetRhythm

Hey, I just noticed that it seems Silent Weekend was accidentally skipped over (it should go between Sign On The Cross and Don;t Ya Tell Henry, I think?) Just curious what your opinion is for a source on it. (and also curious if the placement I have for it is correct!)

Also, I agree that the undubbed This Wheel's On Fire is a thing of beauty. It does make me wonder, though, if these sessions had been properly multi-tracked, if overdubs wouldn't have sounded more tasteful and appropriate. But that is a pretty big what if anyway! Not all the overdubs are bad though. I think the extra guitar in You Ain't Goin' Nowhere (take 2) is very fitting.

 

"Tears Of Rage" (Takes 1-3)

With "Tears Of Rage" we reach the last in the current series of major Dylan (or Dylan and collaborator - Richard Manuel in this case) compositions, and the only basement track where there's three more-or-less complete extant recorded takes (Take 2 ends a bit abruptly, but we still get a full 2-1/2 minutes here.) It also starts a new basement reel onto which multiple takes of "Quinn the Eskimo", "Open the Door, Homer" and "Nothing Was Delivered" all seem to have been successively recorded. The known whereabouts of this reel at different points in time has some interesting implications for sound quality differences both here and with the immediately succeeding recordings.

Take 1 - which has a little more forward momentum than the two succeeding ones - was the one initially chosen for the 5-song second mono demo to come out of the sessions, afterwards duly copied over to the original 14-song acetate. Both it and the 3/8 time (I think) 'waltz feel' Take 2 were then copied over to the "Basement Safety" later in 1969, though it seems by then the original reel had already been misplaced, since these and the other tracks on it are all marked as coming from a 'generational copy'.

Next we come to the "Fraboni reels" compiled for the official LP release in 1975, where Robbie or whomever apparently decided point-blank that the previously unused dirge-like Take 3 would be the one selected for the LP - Takes 1 & 2 apparently not even given further consideration, as they weren't copied over (if my reference source lists are indeed accurate). And the relative muddiness/lack of definition in the mono version on the official LP would seem to indicate that again a generational source was used. Whatever then became of the original reel???

Okay - fast forward to 1991 and all of a sudden on cassette #3 of the "1991 cassettes" up pops the contents of this entire reel, all in wide-stereo, clean, nice fidelity versions. I guess someone managed a thorough dig through one of Garth's trunks finally...lol. The grey market Genuine Basement Tapes (GBT) and Tree With Roots (TWR) versions are obviously sourced here, and both sound way better than any 'official' version. Which of these you prefer might be a matter of personal taste, but here again for me it's the less futzed-with GBT versions; TWR being EQ'd primarily for hiss reduction. Nice to see GBT pulling out of its recent slump of acetate-derived tracks with the great sounding stuff here...

Winner (all three takes): Genuine Basement Tapes

 

Heylin has "Silent Weekend" at the point in the sessions you mention here, but Griffin places it (more accurately I think) right around the end, Levon having returned by then to take over drumming duties (sounds more like his style to me). But the further along we get past this current reel, the more muddled the chronology seems to get, with lots of discrepanices between Heylin and Griffin...

Regarding the overdubs, as I mentioned very early on, all of them I think are fairly tastefully executed - but after acquainting myself with the original versions, they just seem superfluous/unnecessary. But most people who've only heard the official LP probably don't mind them at all...

 

ah, that makes sense in regards to Silent Weekend. I have no expectations of my own collection being perfectly in chronological order, but I want to keep it consistent to some guideline, and for now, I'll be going by your order! (much better than following TWR, my previous guide!)

Again, I think overdubs would have been a different story if these songs were multi-tracked. Rather than adding more piano, they could have replaced it. Made the mixes sound better, etc. I wonder if they wanted to try and compete with the bootlegs by putting out something "better" and "more polished"?

 

That's indeed possible, but I think much of the charm of the original recordings is that they're entirely the sound of a group of musicians creating music completely in the moment - and if there's a bum note, or the beginning of a take cut off, or a chuckle here and there, so be it. The fact that they were for the most part playing for the sheer joy of it results in a spontaneous and unselfconscious approach to music making that lends the recordings a spirit all their own. Part of the relative failure of the Beatles' Get Back episode is that I think they consciously tried to re-create this same spirit (though they were talented enough of course that much of it is still worthwhile).

As to the main motivation behind the overdubs, I don't think it was to 'show up' the existing boots so much as that Robbie and company probably thought the original recordings/arrangements were a bit spare/skeletal - their entire band of course not being present for the lion's share of them. And now they had all these nice spanking new studio facilities at their disposal - why not make good use of them? At any rate, they sound just fine (as you would expect from these guys), but for me they go against the spirit of the original sessions.

 

Derek Barker (Under the Influence) also places Silent Weekend near the end, around the time of Goin' to Acapulco.

 

On my copy of GBT, there's a great unlisted "extra" song by The Band, with Levon on vocals, called something like "My Baby's Got Money All the Time" -- does anyone know the origin of this track?

 

I think it's called 'If I Lose' and is originally by Charlie Poole and the N Carolina Ramblers. I have the same version as you do, but it's eluding me right now as I hunt around for it to double check this.

 

It's called 'If I Lose', written by Charlie Poole. It's on the expanded 'Music From Big Pink'. I can't remember where it was recorded (a studio demo from before the album?), it's not a Basement track though, IIRC.

EDIT: subtr beat me.

 

Recorded at Gold Star, LA in February 1968, along with the BT version of 'Long Distance Operator' and others.