Bob Dylan "The Bootleg Series" – overview and possible future projects

This is one of my favorite Dylan performances.

 

I like the Supper Club performances just fine. They're not Europe 200o, or some other better live sets, but why all the disdain?

L.

 

Helium vocals?

 

I think that's an exaggeration, but to each their own, of course.

L.

 

I surely suffer from "I was there" bias, but I like the Supper Club just fine as well.

 

One of the things I like most about those recordings is the vibe of the crowd, so props to you for adding to that in whatever way you did!

L.

 

It's an understatement, but to each their own, of course.

 

Of course.

L.

 

Do you like Tiny Tim ?

Dylan's voice at the Supper Club is like Tiny Tim's x 100.

Compared to the classic breakthrough recordings of the early 1960s
the four Supper Club shows are trivial.

 

I saw Dylan in concert around 50 times, and the Supper Club was the closest I ever physically got. It was beyond exciting (if brief).

 

This isn't a game I want to play. I don't see the need for the hyperbole, but if that's the way you prefer to express yourself, fine.

The last thing you say there is basically true (allowing, again for some hyperbole), but it's also beside the point.

L.

 

Dylan’s 1990s vocals were extraordinary. He developed an almost feminine tone that could be equal parts soft and powerful, controlled and wild. Never in his career before or since did he bend the melodies of his songs or sustain a note as he did then. This was Bob dismantling the myth. The vocals were intriguing.

In would be equally dismissive to describe 1966 as “Elmer Fudd” vocals, or 1962 as “Father Christmas” vocals. Dylan’s voice in the 1990s is no less or more than it has been at any other point in his career, which has seen many voices emerge. People may not like one or the other, but it’s still not less. It’s just Bob shedding one more layer of skin, and as such just as worthy of recognition and documentation.

 

My wish list is
Sessions from 1971-1972 including all the singles and B-Sides that have been hard to get in good quality on CD

1973 Pat Garrett Sessions

1974 Planet Waves Sessions

Any remaining studio sessions from 1975-1976

 

I’m very much hoping for a future release of the David Bromberg sessions. Judging by the four songs I’ve heard, it seems a shame to leave them in oblivion.

A track list of the sessions can be found on a blog called Skipping Reels of Rhyme: Skipping Reels Of Rhyme: David Bromberg Sessions

I would really appreciate if someone had further interesting info on the sessions to share. Does anyone know if there are more tracks circulating than the last four mentioned?

1. Hey Joe (maybe a warm up/fragment, or not recorded at all?)

2. Mobile Line

3. Just Because

4. Field Of Stone (Would You Lay With Me)

5. Annie's Song

6. Jugband Song

7. Rock Me Baby

8. Send Me To The 'lectric Chair

9. Gotta Do My Time

10. Su Su's Got A Mohawk

11. Northeast Texas Woman

12. Sail On

13. Can't Lose What You Never Had

14. World Of Fools

15. Everybody's Crying Mercy

16. Tennessee Blues

17. Summer Wages

18. Casey Jones

19. Morning Blues

20. Young Westley

21. The Lady Came From Baltimore

22. New Lee Highway Blues

23. Rise Again

24. Duncan & Brady

25. The Main Street Moan

26. Nobody's Fault But Mine

27. Miss The Mississippi & You (currently circulating)

28. Sloppy Drunk (currently circulating)

29. Kaatskill Serenade (currently circulating)

30. Polly Vaughn (currently circulating)

 

However you might want to package and sell it, to my sensitive ears it's unlistenable bellowing and tuneless whining.

 

I really would love to hear these sessions as well.

 

Weeping Willow, Delia, Jim Jones, Has Anybody Seen My Love, Ring Them Bells

These and others in the oft-derided Supper Club are, to me anyway, excellent in every way. I’d especially recommend Jim Jones, which is not to be missed.

Funny thing about Bob. Even his passionate fans disagree on all sorts of stuff, which a great thing of course.

The master himself said, in an alternate lyric,
"I know what you're thinking, but there ain't a thing
You can do about it, so let us just agree to disagree."

Bring on the Supper Club, especially with better sound and a DVD!


— David

 

I don't play games. My post was sincere and free of hyperbole.

 

I'm also here to vouch for Jim Jones, Tight Connection, and Queen Jane.

In fact, since the Supper Club and MTV Unplugged were both filmed and recorded in NYC, I propose that those six discs be released as "The Villager: 1993-1994." Awwww shucks.

 

OK.

And I mean that sincerely, too.

L.

 

Duncan And Brady and Miss The Mississippi And You were both released on Bootleg Series Vol. 8 Tell Tale Signs (3 CD version). The story is that after the sessions David Bromberg mixed 12 or 15 songs for possible release, Dylan did not like what he heard and recorded Good As I Been To You.
Nos. 27–30 were first circulating in a version that ran way too fast, make sure to get the speed-corrected version. I think the known tracks are great, with Polly Vaughn being one of Dylan's best recordings ever.

 

I got into Bob Dylan in the late 90s and advanced to bootlegs around 2001. I remember when the four Bromberg songs leaked in I think 2002 or 2003, it felt like an exciting rite of passage in Bob Dylan fandom for these unheard, quasi-unknown things to suddenly appear in the world. I could be mistaken but except for the Tell Ol' Bill sessions I think these were the only significant studio leaks in my scant 20 years of fandom?

Kaatskill Seranade and Polly Vaughn sounded so compelling, these classic-sounding Dylan performances emerging from nowhere but still covered in aural mud, that I got really excited for better-sounding versions to become available, along with the other however many tracks, especially The Lady Came from Baltimore and Duncan & Brady which I already knew from the NET.

Getting Miss the Mississippi and Duncan & Brady, the fifth song, in perfect quality via Tell Tale Signs a few years later only added to the intrigue. But I'm still waiting for the rest of the sessions >15 years after I downloaded those four crappy mp3s. Thankfully a lot of other stuff has come out in the meantime. I thought the ten years in between hearing about the Time Out of Mind version of Mississippi and actually getting to hear it was a long time but in reality I must be extremely spoiled by coming of age in The Bootleg Series era. People waited how long to hear Farewell Angelina?

 

I'm a second-gen Bob fan (starting in 1984), but the decade between when I read about "Red River Shore" (1997) and when I got to hear it (2008) felt like an eternity...

 

Okay, I finally went out and heard the available Supper Club recordings. Given the impending fall of physical media, these need to be made a priority sooner rather than later.

 

Fav Dylan voice:

74-76, 97 (can’t wait to hear TOOM without digital effect) and the growl voice since.

Fan since 75. Bootleg collector (Bleeker street) since high school)

I was surprised at his 1992 voice high pitch—(I thought 88 was great) and didn’t like it.

Supper Club —still high pitched but the performance enthusiasm carried the day. I wonder if they can put out better quality than we have.