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

Record World, March 1, 1969 "Nashville Report"
Info about Dylan and Cash, and it also mentions that Kelso Herston's father passed away (Feb. 16th), which is probably why he only played on the first few Nashville Skyline sessions. Sad to say, but Kelso himself passed away in December 2018, age 87. He appeared on a lot of classic Nashville recordings, and produced some great records by Del Reeves and other in the 1960s.

I really hope that the new box set will feature some of those unheard Dylan tracks from Feb. 12, and Feb. 19-21.

 

Thanks for the chronology, it puts Nashville Skyline into perspective.
Let's see how the forthcoming release fills in the blanks.

 

By all reports this set sounds like it has a pretty narrow focus. I’m still holding hope it will cover 67-73 or even 74 to clean up and Planet Waves tracks that might otherwise be left behind.

I personally prefer the older sets with a broader focus that were more curated than the newer sets that are more or less just a copyright dump.

 

Even if this turns out to be a 2-disc set or a single CD, it will be worthwhile, I'm sure.
The very thought of hearing more from John Wesley Hardin is breadth taking.
The Dylan team can put the rest of their efforts into correcting their botched job on
The 1965 Live Recordings with a revised, expanded, annotated and professionally
mixed & mastered edition, which is long overdue and conspicuous by its absence.

 

Agreed.

But you know that's not going to happen any day soon.

 

Thanks for the summary, @HominyRhodes

I've always thought it's possible that the song "Running" from 26 April may well be the Floyd Tillman song "Running Away". "Runnin'" was originally scheduled to be included in Columbia's 1973 "revenge album".



















If the upcoming box is going to be as limited as suggested by Andy in Rolling Stone then we probably won't find out this time around.

 

Telling the simple truth and conveying no more than the facts is
not throwing bricks.

I'm old enough to remember when this was never going to happen:



People swore it would never happen.

This was never to going to happen, either:

 

If anyone knows Mark Spector or Jerry Smith, who remixed those tracks for the preliminary version of the 1973 Dylan album, I wish they'd ask them about "Runnin'" (if either of them are still with us, of course). I've long heard the rumor about the Dylan track being a cover of the Tillman song, and it makes sense that it would be a cover, since Columbia probably wouldn't have dared to release an original song by BD at that time; IIRC, a few of the songs on the record were categorized as Dylan arrangements of "traditional" ballads, but that was as far as it went. Whatever the song is, I really hope they finally put it out this time around.

I was just thinking of another possibility: "Police On My Back" written by Eddy Grant and recorded by him and the great Equals in 1967 (more famously covered by The Clash) -- lyrics about "running, police on my back....running Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday," etc. Love to hear Nashville Bob doing a country-hoedown version -- kind of an "outlaw" type song, right?

 

We'll find out in about two weeks, I expect.

 

Oh, I tried some time ago! I made a wild assumption that Mark Spector was the gentleman who is now Joan Baez's manager, so wrote to him about that record. No reply. Story of my life...

 

I think I found Mark Spector on LinkedIn once, but wasn’t able to contact him through it. An interview with him could be a potential goldmine of information (I don’t think he’s ever gone on the record about the LP before), assuming his memory of his that time is still reliable.

 

Here’s my SPECULATIVE tracklisting for BS15. Yes, I do this sort of thing for fun. Let me be very clear THIS IS NOT AN ACTUAL LEAK (I’d rather not find this on another site mistakenly presented as actual news as I’ve seen happen before!). My guess is that this will be a 2CD set, with one disc devoted t9 JWH & NS outtakes, the other all Johnny Cash duets. The two discs could just as easily be reversed, or maybe they’ll mix all the tracks together but it makes more sense to me this way. I probably erred on the side of including more tracks than they ultimately will (I’m not really convinced they’ll see a need for an alternate “Nashville Skyline Rag” for instance) but this became a handy way to present a condensed look at the range of material they were likely considering so I kept it reasonably inclusive. I based it all on material known to exist in Krogsgaard’s sessionography. But who knows, maybe there are additional undocumented surprises like, say, a demo of “Champaign, Illinois” waiting to be discovered?

Disc one: John Wesley Harding & Nashville Skyline outtakes

1. Drifter’s Escape (Take 5)- 10/17/67
2. I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine (Take 2)- 10/17/67
3. All Along The Watchtower (Take 2)- 11/6/67
4. John Wesley Harding (Take 1)- 11/6/67
5. As I Went Out One Morning (Take 1)- 11/6/67
6. I Pity The Poor Immigrant (Take 2)- 11/6/67
7. I Am A Lonesome Hobo (Take 1)- 11/6/67
8. The Wicked Messenger (Alternate Take)-11/29/67
9. I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight (Alternate Take)-11/29/67
10. Down Along The Cove (Alternate Take)- 11/29/67
11. Dear Landlord (Alternate Take)- 11/29/67
12. To Be Alone With You (Take 8)- 2/13/69
13. I Threw It All Away- (Take 1)- previously released on BS10
14. Goin’ To Chicago (Take 1)- 2/13/69
15. One More Night (Take 1)- 2/13/69
16. Lay Lady Lay (Take 1) - 2/13/69- previously download only
17. Peggy Day (Take 1)- 2/14/69
18. Tell Me That Isn’t True (Take 2)- 2/14/69
19. Country Pie (Take 1)- 2/14/69- previously released on BS10
20. Nashville Skyline Rag (Take 1)- 2/17/69
21. Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You (Take 11)- 2/17/69

​

Disc Two: Bob Dylan & Johnny Cash Sessions (tracks with an asterisk are unbootlegged to the best of my knowledge).

1. One Too Many Mornings (Take 6)- 2/17/69 *
2. I Still Miss Someone (Take 7)- 2/17/69 *
3. Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right/ Understand Your Man (Take 3)- 2/17/69 *
4. One Too Many Mornings (Version #2, Take 2)- 2/18/69
5. Mountain Dew (Take 2)- 2/18/69
6. I Still Miss Someone (Version #2, Take 4)- 2/18/69
7. Careless Love (Take 1)- 2/18/69
8. Matchbox (Take 3)- 2/18/69
9. That’s All Right Mama (Take 2)- 2/18/69
10. Mystery Train (Incomplete; Take 1)- 2/18/69 *
11. Big River (Take 2)- 2/18/69
12. Girl From The North Country (Alternate Take; Take 1)- 2/18/69 *
13. I Walk The Line (Take 2)- 2/18/69
14. How High The Water (Incomplete; Take 1)- 2/18/69 *
15. You Are My Sunshine (Take 1)- 2/18/69
16. Ring Of Fire (Take 3)- 2/18/69
17. Wanted Man (Incomplete; Take 1)- 2/18/69 *
18. Guess Things Happen That Way (Take 5)- 2/18/69
19. Amen (Incomplete; Take 2)- 2/18/69 *
20. Just A Closer Walk With Thee (Take 1)- 2/18/69
21. Blue Yodel #1 (T For Texas)- 2/18/69
22. Blue Yodel #5 (It’s Raining Here)- 2/18/69

​

*Although disc 1 might seem overly generous with tracks, keep in mind the entire original JWH & NS album are only about 66 minutes in length together. The songs tend to be relatively brief (at least by Dylan’s standards) and the longest track from the sessions (The Ballad of Frankie Lee & Judas Priest”) was apparently recorded in one take and thus unlikely to be included. Meanwhile. I think they’ll likely want to include ALL of the bootlegged Johnny Cash stuff for copyright reasons plus include a few unbootlegged tracks as fan bait, which is why I threw in a couple repeat songs there.)

*The available paperwork for the 11/29/67 John Wesley Harding session is incomplete. I am working from the assumption there are multiple takes of the four songs known to be recorded that day, but that might prove inaccurate. Meanwhile a few days of Nashville Skyline paperwork is missing (some of which might or might not only involve overdubs and/or mixing), so there is some room for real surprises there.

*Although I don’t believe it’s likely, I leave open the possibility they’ll include some material from the 1969 Self Portrait sessions.

*Although he didn’t have any full gigs during this period, there are a few brief live appearances they could draw from, including the Woody Guthrie tribute, the Mississippi River Festival (it would be an amazing surprise if we learn it was recorded) and perhaps most likely, The Johnny Cash Show. For instance, it would give them a complete version of “I Threw It All Away” to use instead of repeating the Another Self Portrait take.

*Although I used a “methodology” of sorts, yeah, the takes I chose were mostly just guesses as to which ones were potentially most interesting from the paperwork. Likewise, in most cases I just made educated guesses as to which of the Dylan/Cash takes were bootlegged ones.

 

Cool list. I’m still betting JWH and NS will be on separate discs, regardless whether they could both fit on one or not. Hoping all the missing paperwork, live stuff, and any other unknowns results in 3-4 discs. We don’t have the facts yet, so now is the time to dream.

 

Lets hope its a single or 2CD set this time!

 

Thanks @DeeThomaz : I LOVE a bit of speculation!

Definitely room for surprises. The afternoon sessions on 20 and 21 February seem likely to have been for overdubs and mixing, but the evening sessions (6:00 - 10:30), on 19, 20 and 21 February - after all the officially released Nashville Skyline songs had been completed - each had a full complement of musicians present which leaves plenty of room for speculation about, for example, attempts at recording a batch of covers prior to the April sessions. I can't imagine the two Bobs would permit those Nashville Cats to goof off downstairs to the lounge and use up precious studio time drinking coffee, playing ping pong or Rich Uncle for four hours at a time before signing-off their union cards at master scale. That would never happen. Oh, hang on....

But seriously, I'm looking forward to an undocumented "Spanish Is The Loving Tongue" from February at the very least.

 

Professional enquiries only. Depends how professional (or cheeky) you feel tonight...

http://www.joanbaez.com/contacts/

 

That seems very likely.

And a deluxe 6CD edition for those of us who can't get enough of Nashville Bob. With banter, facsimiles of all the studio logs and a decent essay. And a super-deluxe edition to include set of bongos, a cowbell, and a reproduction promo 45 single of "Lay Lady Lay" if you order it from Bob's website. I've cancelled my preorder of AR50 in anticipation of this. Bring it on...

 

And 40 hours of janitorial service from Kris Kristofferson (subject to terms and conditions.)

 

Bob Dylan The Bootleg Series Vol 15: The Complete Christmas In The Heart Sessions

 

Sold. I'd prefer he'd made that a series instead of the Sinatra tributes.

 

I'd love to see this see the light of the day...add some of the True Confessions shows with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

 

Listed on the Ken Burns country music soundtrack:

Girl from the North Country - Bob Dylan with Johnny Cash

Yeah!!!

 

Wow. Such a detailed, well thought-out piece of work. I think you covered all the tracks that we're currently aware of, but I'm also hoping for some real surprises. You seem a little skeptical about the inclusion of any tracks from the April-May 1969 sessions, but I hope they're represented -- and they will fall under the copyright expiration deal, too, right?

Anyway, I'd welcome a complete alternate take or two of "Living The Blues," which Dylan seemed to be planning as a follow-up single (coupled with the la-la-la version of "Spanish Is the Loving Tongue") to "I Threw It All Away," which wasn't a great success. Then, of course, "Lay Lady Lay" did become a major hit, and so "Living The Blues" was shelved for the next LP, although I believe the live Cash TV version of that "new Dylan song" wound up on some of the GWW bootlegs in the meantime.

My fingers are definitely crossed for an extensive selection of JWH alternate takes, and as many of the 1969 tracks as they care to give us -- studio, live, demos, Cash duets, whatever.

Thanks again for putting that list together.

 

But weren't many of those Christmas songs the same ones that Sinatra sang on his Christmas album???