Bob Dylan - Bootleg Series Volume 15 (Travelin’ Thru 1967-1969 (1st November 2019) *

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Mbd77, Sep 19, 2018.

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  1. Veni Vidi Vici

    Veni Vidi Vici Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago, IL
    I don't think he necessarily changed his mind regarding its (lack of) aesthetic merit, but like Zappa he probably thought, well if it's out there anyway against my wishes, why shouldn't I make some dough off it? And if that's what floats your boat as a fan, the more the merrier. Personally I stopped at Vol. 6 as the focus became narrower and the disc count ratcheted upwards, but YMMV.
     
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  2. Ricky Lampoon

    Ricky Lampoon Forum Resident

    Location:
    Switzerland
    This is great news for the latest in the Bootleg Series. I had kind of grown disinterested in projects containing endless repetitions of Like a Rolling Stone, for example or every single performance in 19 bla bla.

    But his late sixties stuff with Johnny Cash where he sings in his country voice is just fantastic. This promises to be the best Bootleg Series since Self Portrait.

    Please allow me back on board the Bootleg Ship, Captain Bob.
     
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  3. Mbd77

    Mbd77 Collect ‘Em All! Thread Starter

    Location:
    London
    Here’s the problem with the material from this era.

    Take a look at the photo. I won’t elaborate on the circumstances of the photo, so please don’t ask, but the issue is that a lot of stuff ended up in storage and being handled by lots of different people under lots of different circumstances. Dylan and/or the record company lost track of what’s where, so understandably, lots of stuff is missing. Further result of this: take this reel for instance - there’s no Dylan on it at all. Someone has run the reel, which would’ve had some Dylan master recordings on it at some point I would imagine, onto another reel, which probably wasn’t marked up. End result? Dylan master recordings are now lost. So where’s the tape that originally went with this reel? Presumably they’re out there somewhere on some reel in storage with another artist’s name on it. Worst case scenario would be that they’re on an unmarked reel or have been thrown out as they were unidentified. Shame.

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Sep 22, 2019
  4. stepeanut

    stepeanut The gloves are off

    What a crying shame :cry:
     
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  5. Hmm. Same background in both photos. :whistle:

    Thankyou for posting these.

    I suppose one way or another it's not surprising that things may have gone 'missing' over the years.

    And then - even if located - there's the issue of the tapes probably having been stored in less than optimal conditions and maybe having degraded to the point of not being of any use.

    To think of all of the potential masterpieces/gems that have gone forever ...

    Thanks for posting these.

    Best Wishes,
    David
     
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  6. stepeanut

    stepeanut The gloves are off

    I kind of expect there to be many undocumented home tapes. All musicians make them, and the laissez-faire attitude to documenting them is typical of Dylan and others.

    What Dylan lacked, until Jeff Rosen came along, was a trusted insider to take charge of this stuff. Neil Young has Joel Bernstein, The Rolling Stones had Bill Wyman, Pink Floyd has Nick Mason, etc. I don’t know if Dylan simply didn’t care when he was younger — that “don’t look back” attitude — but he certainly seems to now. Unfortunately, he left the best part of 30 years’ worth of chaos in his wake before Rosen got a grip on the archives. Sadly, it may be too late for many of those early tapes.
     
  7. Champagne Boot

    Champagne Boot Ain't nothin' gonna break my stride

    Location:
    Michigan
    This is presupposing that Jeff Rosen has full knowledge of what exists and/or actually cares enough to release more than what little he thinks is interesting. Personally, after years of watching this stuff closely, I just don't trust the Dylan front office to really handle Bob's legacy with the breadth and depth it deserves.
     
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  8. Richard--W

    Richard--W Forum Resident

    You articulate my own misgivings.

    If the Dylan front office fail to properly cover the early 1960s tapes,
    and the first four albums that changed the world, your judgment will
    be proven right.

    It could be that "what little Rosen thinks is interesting" has been the
    problem for quite some time:

    Bob Dylan "The Bootleg Series" – overview and possible future projects
     
    Last edited: Sep 22, 2019
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  9. NewWarden

    NewWarden Forum Resident

    The last six releases over the last five years have been from Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde, the 1966 tour, The Basement Tapes, Blood on the Tracks, the Rolling Thunder Revue, and the born again conversion. These are generally considered to be extremely important historical Bob Dylan things.
     
  10. LonesomeDayBlues

    LonesomeDayBlues Forum Resident

    Location:
    Long Beach, CA
    Don’t let the facts get in the way of complaining about what Dylan’s management isn’t doing. Meanwhile, every year for almost a decade I’ve been buying deluxe boxed sets of unreleased material from my all time favorite artist.
     
  11. Richard--W

    Richard--W Forum Resident

    So have I. For much longer than a decade.
    We're reacting to perturbing comments made by Jeff "the source" Rosen in RS.
     
  12. Summer of Malcontent

    Summer of Malcontent Forum Resident

    Don't buy this set and don't listen to the JWH outtakes anywhere else = problem solved. The people who are interested can lap them up.
     
  13. stepeanut

    stepeanut The gloves are off

    “... What little he thinks is interesting”?

    I’ve just done a quick reckoning. Since 2012 alone, Dylan has released 103 CDs, plus an additional 17 vinyl LPs, of previously unreleased archival material. If that’s not breadth and depth enough, I don’t know what is. You don’t get that kind of deep dive with any other commercial music artist.

    I, too, have been watching this unfold for many years, and I own originals all of the archival releases mentioned above, save for the 1962 copyright set.

    Jeff Rosen knows his client’s legacy very well, IMO. And, if that isn’t enough, the Tulsa deal is in place to research whatever else they can find.
     
  14. LonesomeDayBlues

    LonesomeDayBlues Forum Resident

    Location:
    Long Beach, CA
    I’m not perturbed at all about Rosen’s comments. He talks like a guy that has a huge influence in what gets released. The bootleg series has always been his thing. Minor gripes aside, Rosen has done pretty well since 1991.

    The deluxe box sets in a lot of ways started with Tell Tale Signs in 2008, so about 10 years of amazing archival releases. We can nitpick about biograph and all sorts of other archival releases but BS 8 is when “things should start interestin’ right about now...”
     
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  15. EdwinM

    EdwinM Grumpy old man

    Location:
    Leusden
    Not sure if it worked that way. In the early 60s Dylan wrote these songs and started playing them. Could be he recorded his songs in these days by simply scribbling down the lyrics and adding chord annotations or the note "following the melody of ......"
     
  16. stepeanut

    stepeanut The gloves are off

    Are you familiar with the Witmark demos?
     
  17. EdwinM

    EdwinM Grumpy old man

    Location:
    Leusden
    Weren't these recorded on request of a publisher?
     
  18. stepeanut

    stepeanut The gloves are off

    Yes, but my point is that they are demos made outside of the normal Columbia studio session system.

    “Forever Young” on Biograph is another demo used for publishing purposes.

    Dylan was keen to let early fans in Minneapolis and New York record his material. Later, I’m quite sure he owned a portable recording device of his own. You can’t get a proper idea of what a song sounds like, or how it may come across to an audience, without hearing it. Artists like to demo new material, whether it is to hear how it sounds for themselves, for publishing purposes, or for other musicians to learn. The Basement Tapes is another prime example in Dylan’s legacy.
     
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  19. mpayan

    mpayan A Tad Rolled Off

    I kind of like stumbling into a virtual bar from time to time and hearing two sloppy drunk sounding legends I admire sitting on the edge of a carpet stained small stinky stage "singing". Just not sure I needed a professional release of it.

    We'll see. Could be a nice little surprise package, could be the first true stinker of the series. Hey, it was bound to happen if the later.
     
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  20. EdwinM

    EdwinM Grumpy old man

    Location:
    Leusden
    I agree with you on this, but on the other hand I don't think Dylan is the kind of person sitting in a room with a tape recorder. In almost all known cases (friends, publishers, the Band) others were involved.
    Maybe later he used a small tape recorder to store ideas, but if you look at the way his songs develop in the studio it comes to mind that Dylan is not the person making demos to show colleagues/session artist how a song should sound. Some muciscians can more or less "hear" their own music without actually playing it, Beethoven being the most famous example (I know, he had no tape recorder but he was completely deaf anyway).
    So outside of these recordings others made I don't expect that a box of home demos will be found on mr Dylans attic. The Witmark demos even support this, he was sent to the studio by his publisher because he needed demo tapes.
     
    Last edited: Sep 23, 2019
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  21. Percy Song

    Percy Song A Hoity-Toity, High-End Client

    Thanks for the summary, @HominyRhodes. "Six missing completed takes...." from BS15 doesn't sound too bad if you say it quickly!! It's kind of sad that, for example, the business card that Otis Redding gave to Bob at the Whisky A Go Go on the eve of the infamous World Tour in 1966, and other (dare I say it?) trinkets, have survived but truly priceless tapes such as these (and, of course, the Sound 80 BOTT outtakes) have been mislaid/destroyed. It really is a tragedy. Also, I'm not entirely sure where all the Nashville studio sessions logs from "Blonde on Blonde" through to "Nashville Skyline" and beyond ended up either; I don't recall ever seeing any. I've posted these images before but it might interest people now that some of the JWH outtakes are surfacing. I've never worked out what the "SW" stands for in the phrase "SW Work Reel" in the first image, which contains those "less drums" mixes. It's probably obvious and I'm over-thinking it:-


    [​IMG]


    [​IMG]
     
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  22. DeeThomaz

    DeeThomaz Senior Member

    Location:
    In The Felony Room
    This sheet for the master is interesting, particularly the entry for “All Along The Watchtower.” Assuming the extra takes of AATW and JWH are presented in the order they were recorded (the songs themselves are presented chronologically so I think this is a safe assumption), there is a bit of a potential conflict with the Krogsgaard sessionography:

    Studio A
    Columbia Recording Studios
    Nashville, Tennessee
    November 6, 1967, 6:00 - 9:30 pm.

    Produced by Bob Johnston

    1. All Along The Watchtower CO120955 Take 1b
    2. All Along The Watchtower Take 2C
    3. All Along The Watchtower Take 3C
    4. All Along The Watchtower (Insert) Take 1b
    5. All Along The Watchtower (Insert) Take 2C


    Musicians: Charlie McCoy (bass) and Kenneth Buttrey (drums).
    A splice of 3 and 5 released on John Wesley Harding.


    Based on the that sheet you’ve posted here, it would seem Take 2 should be the master (“2 cuts #1 is choice”— Take 2 being the first complete take), but Krogsgaard seems to think Take 3 spliced with “Take 5” (logged as the 2nd attempt at an insert here) was the master.

    Meanwhile BS15 is offering “Take 3,” which if Krogsgaard is right would mean we’re getting the complete take before it had the insert incorporated into it. That seemed a little odd when the track listing was announced since there was another complete take available to the compilers that was completely unreleased. That said, it’s not totally implausible (similar to when The Beatles included the two original takes of “Strawberry Field Forever” on the SGT Pepper box). But I’m suspecting now that Krogsgaard was wrong and it was actually Take 2 that was the basis for the master. Or, perhaps just as likely, the BS15 compilers have mislabeled this track?
     
    Last edited: Sep 23, 2019
  23. DirkM

    DirkM Forum Resident

    Location:
    MA, USA
    Sorry if this has been asked/answered before, but with all of the talk of copyright extension sets, doesn't that mean that the JWH outtakes here could technically sneak out on PD releases later on?

    I told myself that I was going to stay away from future Dylan releases out of protest at the missteps with More Blood, More Tracks (missing notebook pages, missing Idiot Wind, etc.), but this might just tempt me back into the fray. "Country" Bob has always been one of my favourite Dylan periods.
     
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  24. DeeThomaz

    DeeThomaz Senior Member

    Location:
    In The Felony Room
    Yep. “The Source” specifically commented on this in the Rolling Stone article. Ultimately he shrugged off the practical implications, saying “People don’t really buy records anymore, so it doesn’t make much of a difference.”

    Bob Dylan’s Bootleg Series to Tackle 1969 Johnny Cash Sessions
     
    Last edited: Sep 23, 2019
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  25. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    Did I imagine it, or didn't one of "preview" articles specifically mention that we were getting the released take without the splice?
     
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