Bob Dylan – The Bootleg Series Vol.16: Springtime In New York (1980–1985) (Content & Sound Quality)

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by DeeThomaz, Sep 19, 2019.

  1. LonesomeDayBlues

    LonesomeDayBlues Forum Resident

    Location:
    Long Beach, CA
    5-6 discs of 80s, that really must mean that the set contains more than infidels sessions, right?
     
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  2. Percy Song

    Percy Song A Hoity-Toity, High-End Client

    Yes.
     
  3. StingRay5

    StingRay5 Important Impresario

    Location:
    California
    That sounds interesting. I'd like to hear more from the Infidels sessions. By and large, the '80s are not my idea of prime Dylan, but if the 5-6 discs give good representation to every album from that period, it would be okay. Just not too much emphasis on Knocked Out Loaded, please.
     
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  4. "...Well, they're not showing any lights tonight, and there's no moon. There's just a hot-blooded singer singing 'Memphis in June' and outside they beatin' the devil out of a guy in a powder blue wig..."

    One in 1000 purchases will receive an invitation to a pool party at his home. Both pools will be open, but security will be tight. On the menu are iceberg wedge salads, crab cakes, smoked salmon, bubbly, and chocolate-chip banana bread with vanilla ice cream for dessert. Lucky persons will watch the sunset while children run around and belly flop into the pool while ladies sunbathe topless and sip on Appletinis. The men will be in the studio taking turns rocking out on all his guitars.
     
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  5. Dark Horse 77

    Dark Horse 77 A Parliafunkadelicment Thang

    If it indeed is 5-6 discs it makes me wonder what time period it covers. I've got a pretty good collection of "unreleased" material and that wouldn't nearly be enough to cover all the interesting stuff that I've heard, and I'm certainly no expert on what's out there, besides what hasn't escaped from Bob's archives.
     
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  6. streetlegal

    streetlegal Forum Resident

    Exciting news. I think the wider variety of sources will create a richer listening experience than Infidels outtakes alone; particularly hopeful for putative Shot of Love outtakes not included on Trouble No More.
     
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  7. StingRay5

    StingRay5 Important Impresario

    Location:
    California
    Considering that he managed to produce an average of 6 CDs each of the sessions for Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde, and Blood on the Tracks, I wouldn't be too surprised if there's a lot more than 6 discs of material for the whole of the 1980s. On the other hand, the '80s aren't Dylan's classic period, so between Bob and Sony, there may be some doubt over how much people really want to pay for demos and rehearsals from that decade. There may also not be as much studio material available, because rather than working in Columbia Records' own studios, Dylan was working in more expensive independent studios such as the Power Station in NYC (though it's possible that demos and rehearsals were recorded elsewhere). But I'm guessing; if some of you are more familiar with Bob's activities during the '80s, you may have a better sense than I of what might be out there.

    I'd really love to hear sessions from Time out of Mind and Love and Theft... just sayin'...
     
  8. PhilBorder

    PhilBorder Senior Member

    Location:
    Sheboygan, WI
    Why not just record a new album and title it "Bootleg Series Vol 16" ?
     
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  9. Sean Murdock

    Sean Murdock Forum Intruder

    Location:
    Bergenfield, NJ
    I'll state my oft-stated hope and preference one more time, and then I'll shut up -- which I'm sure will be a relief to those who have endured some version of this speech for over a decade now. (lol? anyone?) ....

    I have long felt that future Bootleg Series releases could be accurately predicted by looking at the original set (Vols. 1-3) and finding the "holes" in it. Where the initial "sampler plate" of Bob's vault was woefully short on Basement Tapes and the subsequent "Country Bob" period, the 10th, 11th and 15th volumes more than made up for it. The "Bob Goes Electric" period (1965-1966) was similarly under-represented on Vols. 1-3, but BS12 took care of that, and then some! Same with Gospel Bob (BS13), and where BS1-3 ends abruptly with just one song representing the 1989-1991 period ("Series Of Dreams"), BS8 (Tell Tale Signs) essentially acted as a second "sampler" volume, covering nearly 20 years itself. (That set has it's own holes too, but I'll refrain from arguing for a Love & Theft BS box here...)

    Anyhoo, the biggest and most conspicuous "hole" in Bootleg Series Vols. 1-3 was the complete absence of anything from 1984-1988, save for one single (and excellent) alternate take of "When The Night Comes Falling From The Sky." We did get a handful of terrific outtakes from Shot Of Love and Infidels, but otherwise Bob Inc. seemed to want nothing to do with the mid-80s. But the hole was there, and undeniable -- and once Jeff Rosen and company proved that even the Self-Portrait era could be rehabilitated (BS10), I concluded that nothing was impossible and began my eight-year vigil for a similar effort to be made on behalf of the mid-1980s.

    Very briefly, I became "aware" of Bob in high school between 1984 and 1985, and by 1986 I was a rabid fan. I devoured all the classics, but the first Dylan albums I experienced "live" as a fan were Empire Burlesque and Knocked Out Loaded. Tough time to become a Bob Dylan fan, at a time when he was widely mocked and even needed Stevie Wonder to teach him how to "sing like Bob Dylan." (See the "We Are The World" sessions if you're unfamiliar...) As you might guess, Oh Mercy was as life-changing for me as the descriptions I've (enviously) read of people hearing "Like A Rolling Stone" on the radio in 1965. Nevertheless, I have a fondness for those "lesser" albums ... I'm not saying they're "great" (they're not), but they're MINE, and I want to see that period get some love.

    So I hope that this Bootleg Series will be another era-redefining feat of strength a la Another Self Portrait -- an effort that was so successful that it spawned another Bootleg Series (Vol. 15) AND the Bob Dylan 1970 set. I have long argued that such a set would be commercially viable as long as it included the Infidels sessions; split those off into their own set, and all of a sudden 1984-1988 doesn't look so hot. But beyond commercial concerns, I think there is a thread that runs through the four albums starting with Infidels and ending with Down In The Groove. Yes, they are all wildly different albums, and the decline in Bob's writing is palpable as the covers pile up on KOL and DITG -- but still, there's a story to be told here. Please bear with me as I type these sentences once more for old time's sake -- it will be the last time, I promise!

    The easiest connection to make is between Infidels and Empire Burlesque; the faucet had opened and Bob was writing songs like crazy, and the songs spilled over from one album to another -- even if the two albums were vastly different. Songs that were started for Infidels were re-recorded or re-written for Empire, so at minimum BS16 can highlight the sessions for both albums, the way the songs developed, and how they sounded before they were coated with a heavy sheen of "1980s" in the final production. Similarly, some songs that didn't make it onto Empire Burlesque found their way onto Knocked Out Loaded -- including both the great ("New Danville Girl"/"Brownsville Girl") and the not-so-great ("Driftin' Too Far From Shore"). Then, of course, there is the matter of the infamous Rolling Stone "Summer of 1986" article that absolutely raved about the KOL sessions their writer witnessed. Was that typical rock-mag fluffery, or is there amazing stuff in the vaults from 1986?

    Just as Empire was a diminished cousin of Infidels, and KOL was a blurry photocopy of EB, Down In The Groove continues the downward slide of Knocked Out Loaded. And yet, some of those covers are really good, and if you could remove the reverb bath from, say, "Rank Strangers To Me," you might have a track as surprising to fans as "Pretty Saro" was in 2013. Also, in a nice full-circle twist, DITG actually has an Infidels outtake ("Death Is Not The End") as one of its highlights. So by collecting these sessions in one place as an "era" we can see one of Bob's greatest creative outpourings burst free and peter out, until he's actually cannibalizing himself just five years later. That might not sound enticing to everyone, but I think it would be fascinating. And yes, I'd throw in some "secular" outtakes from Shot Of Love at the beginning, since they got left off BS14 and don't seem to have any other home.

    I guess we have a couple of months to wait before we learn the full details, but I for one can't wait.
     
  10. Joe Stewart

    Joe Stewart Forum Resident

    Location:
    Florida
    Some live material from the Heartbreakers tours would be good for this set.
     
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  11. tstrapac

    tstrapac Forum Resident

    I'm still a relatively new fan, I'm not that very familiar with this era and this article is fascinating. Does anyone have any recommendations of other similar quality articles?
     
  12. NewWarden

    NewWarden Forum Resident

    That's an interesting aspect too. The tours are fairly different and there is no singularly "legendary" gig that would merit a couple concert disks like Trouble No More, but live stuff scattered throughout could be additive like it was on Tell Tale Signs. I've never know if tracks from famous guest spots like the Letterman show or Farm Aid are "eligible" for a formal Dylan compilation -- maybe we'll find out -- but just some Empire Burlesque tracks performed live by the Heartbreakers like I'll Remember You or Trust Yourself would fit the "second chance theater" aspect of an Another Self Portrait for the '80s.

    Now I can only wonder which well-known-to-devotees rarity will get left behind this time. Pretty Boy Floyd and A Couple More Years are far from sure thins, but surely this is Band of the Hand's long-awaited canonization.
     
  13. Also Grateful Dead
    Also and most wonderfully Oh Mercy.
    I’m guessing this will be a studio set from Shot Of Love to (he types with a feeling of dread) Down In The Groove but there are other possibilities.
    Doubt Oh Mercy will be in there but it would certainly bookend the set with Bob at the top of his game.
     
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  14. Sean Murdock

    Sean Murdock Forum Intruder

    Location:
    Bergenfield, NJ
    The Bob and Heartbreakers version of "When The Night Comes Falling" from the Hard To Handle VHS was great -- definitive, maybe...
     
  15. musicaner

    musicaner Forum Resident

    wasnt some Infidels themed artwork posted somewhere on the net not log ago?
     
  16. Sipuncula

    Sipuncula Forum Resident

    Location:
    Texas
    In short, agreed. ;)

    This era represents the last conspicuous "hole" in my Dylan musical knowledge. There are so many interesting phases of his career, all of them satisfying in their own way, all of them worth delving into, but it takes time. I've listened to Dylan casually for 20 years, gone to some shows, but only really started getting serious about it over the last year or so, and I've added one or two LPs at a time, week by week, finally completing the set. But I've gone too fast. Time is valuable, but you've got to make time to let it sink in. To date I've listened to Infidels maybe two, three times and given Empire Burlesque and Down in the Groove a spin or two each. Big knowledge gap for me between this and, say (1997-date). I displaced a bunch of other stuff off the shelf's prime real estate area as my Dylan collection grew, but I've saved a 1" wide space just to the right of Travelin' Thru into which a Bootleg Series Volume 16 box covering the '80s might just fit. Just as Another Self Portrait got me really deep diving into that period of his work, I think this one will do the same for me concerning the '80s. Looking forward to it.
     
  17. I never understood why his 1980s output was so disparaged. Love and Theft was the first album of his that I listened to that I didn't really like. I can't say that for any of his other albums. To be circumspect, I agree that there must be diamonds in the rough that would round out a well curated volume sixteen. Once this is done, I'm crossing my fingers for a complete Dylan and The Dead vinyl box.
     
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  18. Crosseyed

    Crosseyed help I'm a rock

    Location:
    NJ
    There was a fallow period in the 80's where it seemed the only good song he had written in years was Dark Eyes...
     
    Last edited: Jul 9, 2021
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  19. Nogoodnik

    Nogoodnik Celebrity Jeopardy and Mini Crossword smart

    Location:
    Saint Paul, MN
    I think a set completely devoted to this touring period for both parties is in order, frankly. I do wonder if issuing one solely with Dylan material would be easier, rights and permissions-wise. Would CBS/Sony still need to acquire performance permissions for the Heartbreaker’s appearance?
     
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  20. Bonddm

    Bonddm Forum Resident

    A Grateful Dead box set a couple of years ago included 2 shows from the Dylan and the Dead tour, but with all the Dylan performances excised. That got me thinking that maybe there were plans for some of those performances to end up on a future Bootleg Series.

    Giants Stadium 1987, 1989, 1991 - Wikipedia
     
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  21. matt79rome89

    matt79rome89 Forum Resident

    I imagine it was more of a rights/royalty issue than predetermined future release. I know most people have no interest in this tour, but I enjoy what I've heard from various nights and especially the rehearsals. What would be really cool is if they released a companion live set along with the upcoming BS release that includes one show each from the Petty, Dead, and select other 80's tours. One can dream.
     
  22. shadow blaster

    shadow blaster Forum Resident

    Location:
    Scandinavia
    Great post. Totally agree, if done right, this could be an amazing and revelatory set.
     
  23. shadow blaster

    shadow blaster Forum Resident

    Location:
    Scandinavia
    I wonder if there will be a smaller configuration as well, 1 or 2 CDs, 2-3 LPs?
     
  24. duggan

    duggan Senior Member

    Location:
    sydney
    One of the Sydney gigs for example.
     
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  25. misterbozz

    misterbozz Senior Member

    Location:
    Nerima-ku, Tokyo
    Would be just what the doctor ordered, as long that doesn't somehow include 2 discs dedicated to a 1984 live show or similar. Full on live stuff would be better on another set.
     
    Last edited: Jul 10, 2021
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