Bob Dylan: The 1966 Live Recordings - Sony 36-CD box-set - November 11th 2016

Also in issues 185-187 is a three-part series on Dylan and the Hawks in Australia '66 - detailed accounts of the shows and the hotel scenes, parties, driving around, the notable acquaintances they made and their stories. The replacement guitar and the one repaired. Several pages in each issue. Very well done and worth tracking down.

 

Does it mention the visit to the Paragon Cafe in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, outside of Sydney?

 

I believe so but not sure. Doesn't sound familiar. What is the story there?

A place called Pinnochios is mentioned in Melbourne. Also a milk bar around Melbourne. Bill Berry's farm in Brisbane.

It's 36 pages in all, so it's not easy to quickly find if they did.

 

Yeah, take away the confrontation and craziness from "TNP" and you're left with musical performances that (IMO) don't compare favorably to Lou's other live albums. But with Bob's voice shot in the electric set on 5-27, take the confrontation out of that show and it is inferior to most every other European gig (since they are almost uniformly great, I might add). IMO, and all that of course.

 

What a difference a day makes.

 

Yes, if he was in any state of mind to even really care about a potential live album, he must have thought they nailed it on the 26th.

 

I can't help but see the last show through my "conspiracy theory" lens. His comments to Lennon seem to make it clear that he knew he was a sunk ship. There's already so much speculation that there was no motorcycle crash, that it was his way of getting out of continuing the tour. But I really get the sense that the last show was a sort of purposeful career suicide. It couldn't have been that hard to keep himself together just one more night if he really wanted to. And he appears in such a bad state psychologically. His retreat to Woodstock works well with a narrative of rehabilitation. He's out there with the soon to be Band, a group of collaborators but also friends, who watched him deteriorate and provided him with a safe and private space to recover. I don't think it's too crazy to think that a few small changes in circumstance could have led to him having a breakdown, or majorly burning out.

It isn't pretty stuff, but it's far easier to digest and enjoy knowing that the story doesn't end badly at all, but instead simply ends one chapter, and then begins another fruitful and beautiful one.

Now maybe it'll be interesting (for me at least) to once again revisit the New Basement Tapes songs, with the likelihood that they come next chronologically. They could very well be capturing him as he rediscovers himself. And maybe that's why he didn't do anything with them for nearly fifty years. They were a private exercise for him, no matter how good the lyrics were.

 

He was a junkie, that's all. He needed to get clean, hence the enforced retreat after the tour.

 

Why not scan those pages and post them here?

 

In his excellent article on this, John Bauldie asserted that the bike crash DID happen but that it was relatively minor. Bob was able to exaggerate the seriousness of the "injuries" to get out of all sorts of commitments. It's ironic that the crash probably saved him.

 

Was Paris the only venue that deployed the US flag? Whose idea was that? Was it not a period of escalation in the Vietnam war? I can only assume that this was why he was getting cat-calls before he even sang a note. Based on the evidence of the recording, Mr Dylan seems to be setting out to wind them, up even mocking their language (they love that). It would appear that it was Mr Dylan qui a du boeuf.

 

Where was this article published, Dave Girmour's Cat? in Isis?

I see a yearly subscription of four issues is £41.00 > $51.75 for Americans.

I'd like to subscribe and buy all the back issues that are available, but the cost is just hellacious.

 

Strange, or maybe not so strange, but there's been a shift in my interest tonight.

Listening is all about the acoustic sets now.
The acoustic sets are a bottomless well.
Just when I think I'm done with the box, the acoustic sets pull me back in.
I'm starting over and this time it will be just the acoustic sets.

Has this happened to anyone else?

 

I don't really know the story, other than that Dylan and, I suppose, some of the entourage supposedly visited the Paragon Cafe in the Blue Mountains town of Katoomba. The cafe is still there - a very attractive venue, although the service is pretty lousy these days, based on a few experiences. I was hoping to find out the story. It's surprising that they would have gone there - an hour and a half in the car from the city these days. Just a strange trip for an amphetamined-up Dylan to be interested in. On the other hand, much of the the Blue Mountains is spectacular and parts of Katoomba and most of the nearby towns of Blackheath and Leura are very pretty. Who knows? Maybe they lodged overnight at the Hydro Majestic in Medlow Bath or had an ale or two in Mt Victoria.

If the article goes into other cafe and bar visits in other towns, it surely covers The Paragon...if it actually happened.

The Sydney show really does it for me. The faintness of much of the band relative to Bob's vocals is a bit testing at times but something about that show works. It's different from the later stuff - clearer, cleaner, more lucid, less deep.

 

Has the identity of the 'Australian actress' Dylan befriended on this tour ever been revealed? Scaduto interviewed her and her testimony appears in his book: it all ended rather nastily, apparently.

 

I believe the U.S. flag was unique to Paris. It would probably have got the same reception anywhere else in Europe at that time, I'd have thought.

 

Now I just have to track down these articles...

 

Bob Dylan: The 1966 Live Recordings - Sony 36-CD box-set - November 11 »

 

From the 1984 Rolling Stone interview Bob Dylan, Recovering Christian - Rolling Stone »

So, then, it wouldn't occur to you to put out, say, the 1966 tapes of the Royal Albert Hall concert in London, another great bootleg?
No. Uh-uh. I wouldn't put 'em out because I didn't think they were quality.

 

I don't have a scanner. And smartly, ISIS' pages are just overly tall enough as to not be so easily scanned in the first place (but I think that was always the case, even before we all went digital).

Seems the entourage or Dylan would be befriended in each place they went by local folk or hipster individuals. Don Henderson in Sydney, Adrian Rawlins in Melbourne, and they and others they met at shows or press conferences would invite him and his people places, and Dylan would ask them to show him around the area by car - he was interested in seeing the working class neighborhoods or the slums (if there were any) in particular. New friends would get invited back to the hotel to listen to acetates of the new album or talk into the dawn.

In Adelaide they shopped at RM Williams and Alderson bought a kangaroo fur coat, Dylan bought boots. The article follows them to Perth.

Rosemary Gerrette. Search results for 'rosemary gerrette' - Pictures, photos, objects »

 

So minor that no record exists of an accident or a hospital visit. Sally Grossman says that she saw Dylan walk back to her house after it happened. She said he appeared dazed but unhurt.

 

No change there then.

 

Given all that's transpired with the issuing of the Basements, '65-'66 sessions and concurrent live recordings, I would love to know more about Dylan's actual frame of mind regarding putting these out. Though some may know differently, I'm personally not aware of him commenting directly on any of this anywhere. Was the decision basically made by Jeff Rosen and Sony - bearing in mind the copyright ramifications - and merely required Dylan rubber-stamping the whole affair? Or has Dylan had an actual change of heart regarding the material, and now feels that all of this is an important part of his legacy and should be out there and available for fans to hear? And how much of a role did the possibility that issuing this material could actually be profitable financially for all involved figure into it?

Whatever the case is, I'm sure damn glad it happened...

 

Sorry I just read your question now. Some of it - especially the vocals - is a bit distorted (the source surely was) but doesn't hurt the "listening experience" - you can crank it and make you feel you're in the Albert Hall in the spring of 1966. They either captured the ambience then or (my guess) used impulse response software during the remastering. It's the first time I hear these performances in stereo! Love it.

 

It was in the Telegraph magazine, later anthologised in this excellent book: All Across The Telegraph: A Bob Dylan Handbook:Amazon.co.uk:Books »