Bob Dylan: "Trouble No More 1979 - 1981" - The Bootleg Series Vol. 13

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by DeeThomaz, Sep 24, 2015.

  1. Tom Schreck

    Tom Schreck Forum Resident

  2. matt79rome89

    matt79rome89 Forum Resident

    Onto Disc 2:

    -"Slow Train" from 1981 really cooks. My favorite version of all the ones we have.

    -Too bad "Ain't No Man Righteous..." wasn't played more during this period. Would have been interesting to hear it evolve, or at least get tighter.

    -Rob Bowman's notes on "Saving Grace" put into words what I've also felt about Dylan in general. Many focus on just the lyrics, but it's in combination with the way he sings them-- and the melodies he creates overall-- that make him such a significant artist.

    -I'm starting to notice I lean towards the 1981 tour over 1979 and 1980. The arrangements and playing are just on fire, the band is tight as a drum, and I love the tone on Dylan's voice which has a little more rasp. "Shot of Love", "Watered Down Love", and "In The Summertime" are some of the most catchy "earworm" songs Dylan has ever done in my opinion (I know most won't agree) and love the 1981 live versions here. Can't wait to get to Earls Court.

    -I get the allure of "Caribbean Wind" and appreciate the imagery, but also feel he never figured out the best arrangement and just didn't get there on any version we have. Glad it's here, but understand his struggle with it.
     
  3. Kevin Davis

    Kevin Davis EQUIPMENT PROFILE INCOMPLETE

    Location:
    Illinois
    I think "Street-Legal" and "Infidels" are among a handful of albums which -- apart from being links in the larger, more general narrative that weaves through Bob's career -- really do more or less stand alone, at least more than they're accurately slotted into some clearly pigeonholed epoch like the Christian years. They defintely got the scope of this set right, and -- in my view -- were smart to focus on multiple takes of the same titles, showing the changes and developments (some rather drastic) they went through even in this relatively short period, rather than glossing over some of these fascinating curios so that the tail-ends of other, less-related sessions could be shoehorned into the tracklist. I like how BS13 as a result manages to feel like so thorough of a document, while still retaining the curated flow of a proper album (as opposed to "The Cutting Edge," which contains a lot of remarkable music but is sequenced very academically and uncreatively, to the detriment of its cohesion).

    Without knowing all of what exists of from the '77-'78 era, my gut says that the "Street-Legal" period will be best served by a release not unlike "Another Self Portrait," a show coupled with an assortment of studio miscellany, or maybe even a "Live 1978" release in the style of the 4th through 6th volumes. This is even truer of "Infidels," whose lackluster accompanying tour could be very easily be represented by a smattering of highlights sprinkled throughout a 2CD set of album outtakes.

    For the next set, I could envision a 1973-1976 set similar in size to this one, with the first four discs covering studio outtakes and assorted live ephemera
    from "Pat Garrett," "Planet Waves," "BOTT," and "Desire," and discs 5-8 comprising two more full live sets -- one from the '74 tour, and one from thr Rolling Thunder Revue. I'd also like to see a sort of "Lost Years" set covering 1985-1988, live and studio stuff arranged similarly to "Tell Tale Signs." If nothing else it's high time "Band of the Hand" come out on CD.
     
  4. revolution_vanderbilt

    revolution_vanderbilt Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York
    I worked on the phone briefly. I spoke so clearly that I had a few people hang up on me, thinking I was a recording.

    It's a service that you provide, and an important one at that! I have a word document or two for similar purposes (not Dylan related).

    I'm happy to report that I should be getting my set tomorrow. I'm still cautious, seeing that among the numerous updates listed in shipping today, one just says "missent." I wonder if the flight into Egypt took this long.
     
  5. TeddyB

    TeddyB Senior Member

    Location:
    Hollywoodland
    So if no one has pointed this out (or, I guess, even if they have), Clinton Heylin marks the previously bootlegged version of ‘Caribbean Wind’ that isn’t used on the new box set as being recorded on the last day at Clover Studios, the first of May in 1981. So to paraphrase, the Biograph version is recorded in a failed tryout session with Jimmy Iovine on March 31 at Studio 55 (and apparently mixed by Toby Scott at Clover in the interim ) and Dylan rewrote the lyric yet again to revert somewhat to the original, added the odd stop-start turnarounds after each verse, and attempted it at the last minute along with other four songs he felt were not yet adequately recorded. I would never have guessed that.
     
  6. soundQman

    soundQman Senior Member

    Location:
    Arlington, VA, USA
    Plus the fact that gospel was a major musical influence on early rock and roll seems to have escaped his notice.
     
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  7. NumberEight

    NumberEight Came too late and stayed too long

    I can only assume that that guy’s favorite Dylan song is Going Going Went.
     
  8. MikeP5877

    MikeP5877 V/VIII/MCMLXXVII

    Location:
    OH
    "Caribbean Wind", rehearsal version is one of the best songs ever.
     
  9. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    Dylan apparently had ambivalent feelings about "Ain't No Man Righteous". It eventually became a semi-regular in the set list, only he didn't sing it, he handed off the vocal duties to one of the ladies. For my money, I instantly preferred the studio version over the live version that we've had forever - it had more life to it and the melody is more evident. That being said, it still screams "outtake", IMO.
     
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  10. kuddukan

    kuddukan Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    The Bard likes this.
  11. Champagne Boot

    Champagne Boot Ain't nothin' gonna break my stride

    Location:
    Michigan
    Watched about half of the film late last night. To probably echo what a lot have already said, cropping to 16:9 and these stupid sermons are both exceedingly suboptimal. This film feels like if they were going to try to do a documentary in the style of Masked and Anonymous. Just doesn't work for me. We don't get Dylan's actual sermons, but we get... these.

    That being said. Seeing Dylan's almost childlike joy whilst singing Solid Rock was worth the price of admission.
     
  12. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    Tomorrow marks the 38th anniversary of, perhaps, the greatest concert performance Bob Dylan ever gave. The final night of the residency at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco that kicked off the Fall 1979 "Gospel" tour.

    As Heylin astutely points out, even the bootleggers turned their backs on "Born Again Bob". Despite the circulation of a great many wonderful quality audience tapes, there were no releases from the Fall-Winter '79/Spring '80 tours in "real time".

    In 1983, still a couple of years before "Ten of Swords" would get credited for permanently changing the bootleg landscape, there came a 20 record set.

    [​IMG]

    It came on white vinyl, and was expensive as all get-out, but it contained, among a great many other things, the entirety of the 11-16-79 San Francisco concert. This was how I came to know this concert and the "Born Again" era, and it was a catalyst to get me scurrying to get audience tapes of all the other available shows.

    11-16-79 was revisited in the CD era, with "Contract With the Lord".

    [​IMG]

    Can't say that I've ever heard it, but apparently there's an upgrade "out there" (or so the title surely insinuates).

    [​IMG]

    Now that we've heard a few samples ("Slow Train", "Precious Angel", "Ain't No Man Righteous (No Not One)") from the 11-16-79 soundboard tape, hearing the entire thing is a "bucket list" item.

    A YouTube user has been posting the November 1979 audience tapes in their entirety on their anniversary date. So if you've never heard 11-16-79, tomorrow is your day (before it's inevitably taken down).

    As with Manchester '66, it can be argued that this concert's reputation results, in part, from the (relatively) high quality of the audience tape, and from the proliferation of the show on vinyl, CD, and tape. It's hard to take those elements out of the mix, but, as objective as I can manage to be, all things considered, this is the top of "Gospel" heap, and maybe the top of the Dylan concert heap, period.
     
  13. Champagne Boot

    Champagne Boot Ain't nothin' gonna break my stride

    Location:
    Michigan
    Got endless hours of enjoyment out of Contract with the Lord during my tape-trading days. Those CDs never left the car. Instantly arresting, and while I won't say it's the best show ever, it's certainly the best show of the Gospel era at the very least.
     
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  14. SPARTACUS

    SPARTACUS Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sheffield
    No sadly no hints regarding the next volume.

    Yep, Rosen didn't believe it fitted the theme. Has he heard the lyrics?
     
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  15. Bryce

    Bryce I drank what?

    Location:
    New York City
    Got my copy hard cover of Trouble in Mind yesterday. For those of you missing the concert "raps" on Trouble No More, there is a great section in the back of the book devoted totally to verbatim "raps", so you can read them to get more context to the performances.

    Regarding Trouble No More, I plan on posting more detailed thoughts on the set, vinyl and deluxe versions (w/ San Diego cd), once I've had sufficient time to digest the material. With that said, I can say that it is in my top four BLS list, with BLS 1-3, Rolling Thunder and Tell Tale Signs. I love the set. My initial gripe, like many others, is that they did not include "Let's Keep It Between Us" anywhere. One of the great "lost" tracks of the era IMHO.

    I have some other minor complaints, but I'll save those for later. Overall the set is fantastic.
     
    Last edited: Nov 15, 2017
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  16. Percy Song

    Percy Song A Hoity-Toity, High-End Client

    C'mon then, what did CH say about the discrepancy between the chronology and the liner notes?
     
  17. SPARTACUS

    SPARTACUS Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sheffield
    Clinton is adamant that his dates are correct. He referred back to a previous question regarding the use of the image on the page which holds disc 7 of the Earls Court ticket stub from the wrong night, as a case in point that errors abound within this set and those previous.
    With hindsight I should have asked whether the omission of "Saved" from Toronto was deliberate or accidental.
     
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  18. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    Something's got to give.

    Clinton talks about the "audience tape" of the Nashville '78 soundcheck, all the way down to identifying the taper.

    He then states "a fastidious young tyke at the Dylan office, doing excavations for yet another Bootleg Series - this one covering the gospel years - found a cassette marked "Slow Train - Soundcheck." Surely not? Sure enough, this "Slow Train" would prove to be that four-minute workout of the song at the Nashville Municipal Auditorium."

    The only way for this statement to be true, since the Nashville soundcheck audience tape doesn't match the soundcheck on the box, is that the "tyke" found the Nashville tape, and then it went unused (and Clinton failed to tell us that, leaving the obvious insinuation in place that the Nashville take IS the one on the box). But Clinton would STILL be wrong, because he lists the Nashville "Slow Train" in the chronology appendix as appearing on the box (which it clearly does NOT, unless there are two of them!)

    This calls for the Fonz

     
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  19. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    For those who are not audience tape averse and would like some context (and some history), here's the audience tape of the opening night of the Gospel era (11-1-79). The first heckles for the opening act, amazingly, come in less than 5 minutes ("Rock and roll!"). Once the singing begins, there is some positive audience response (punctuated by a few shouts of "Dylan!" and "Bring Dylan on!", but that's common territory for any opening act to deal with I'd say). "Look Up and Live By Faith", performed in the opening act, sounds a bit like a potential inspiration for "Stand By Faith".

     
  20. jpmosu

    jpmosu a.k.a. Mr. Jones

    Location:
    Ohio, USA
    For the past 20 years, I've been convinced that Dylan was never better as a live performer than in the first leg of Rolling Thunder.

    But I gotta say: these 1981 live cuts from Trouble No More are making me re-think that!
     
  21. Percy Song

    Percy Song A Hoity-Toity, High-End Client

    Well someone not a million miles from here did mention the ticket behind Disc 7 a while back. Curious that it was used, certainly, but not necessarily indicative of an "error" by Sony/Bob Inc/rarecoolstuff. He's certainly not wrong that errors abound in other sets.

    But unless there was an unholy mix-up with tape identification, then the Nashville soundcheck is definitely not on the box, and I'd say it's safer to scribble amendments in the chronology rather than the box set. What a shame he hasn't replied to my email.

    You should've asked Question 5 as well though. :)
     
    RayS likes this.
  22. NumberEight

    NumberEight Came too late and stayed too long

    Maybe the error was not using the June 28 concert. I wish they had, as that was the night I went!
     
  23. Bryce

    Bryce I drank what?

    Location:
    New York City
    Agreed.
     
  24. DeeThomaz

    DeeThomaz Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    In The Felony Room
    To me, it has a sense of fun and vitality that I find missing on some of the STC tracks (at least their studio incarnations). I think it would have been a very welcome inclusion. For that matter I would have liked to see "Trouble In Mind" too (though I think they choose the right take for the b-side, even if the outtake is tremendously enjoyable as well). "Ye Shall Be Changed" is the one unutilized song I'm fully comfortable with the fact it remained an outtake. I just feel like I'm being hectored at when I listen to it, albeit with some good images and turns of phase. There's a quality to the vocal I find off-putting, hard to explain exactly.
     
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  25. Craig's Story

    Craig's Story Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    Believe it or not I am still on the fence with this ... Can someone help me with the sound quality ? As I believe the live stuff is from cassettes . I was ok with the basement tapes , but would expect much better with this set . How do the live recordings sound as the volume is increased ? Thanks for all the help
     

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