Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes - where we're at currently...

Yeap - turns out I was 'misremembering'. The alt version with the Danko vocals does have drums, and it could in fact be the same backing track on both - though production-wise they certainly sound different. Too bad all the Band/Hawks stuff from this period isn't a little better documented (let alone the Dylan basement tapes...lol)

Okay - let's dive right into it starting with the first batch of recordings from the Red Room at Dylan's Hi Lo Ha house in Woodstock sometime likely in the March/April '67 timeframe. These generally are very informal recordings of covers mixed in with a batch of new Dylan originals in various states of incompleteness. Clinton Heylin has remarked upon how Dylan at this time seemed to be pulling ideas from song titles lodged in the existing American pop lexicon, as in "One For the Road" or "One Man's Loss" - though in all cases, Dylan's versions differ considerably from the songs they might have been inspired by.

Fidelity on the whole is a bit below the standard of some of the later "serious" basement recordings, though quite passable in most cases. Joel Bernstein believes these initial tracks may have been recorded at the lower 3-3/4 ips tape speed on the Ampex 602 machine.

As mentioned previously, nearly all the tracks from this period originally found their way into distribution via the 1986 "Band roadie reels", though a few were also transfered over by Rob Fraboni for the compilation reel from which the original LP tracks were selected. None of them appeared on the later 1991 cassettes; nor have any to date been released officially.

By default, the competition here is almost entirely between the versions appearing on Genuine Basement Tapes (GBT) and Tree With Roots (TWR)...

"Lock Your Door"/"Baby, Won't You Be My Baby"

"Lock Your Door" is a mere 20-second fragment that leads directly into "Baby" - one of the more intriguing 'unfinished' Dylan compositions in this whole group of recordings - cutting off abruptly as it does at the 2:49 mark. On GBT they appear together as one track - while they're separated on TWR. Sources are panned the same way in both with Dylan's vocals far left.

Like most of the tracks in the opening section, the TRW version claims to be remastered from a generationally superior version of the original source tape. They needn't have bothered - the GBT version has more presence and better overall tonal balance.

Winner: GBT

"Try Me Little Girl"

Another unfinished Dylan original whose idea may have originated with the James Brown R&B ballad "Try Me" (though the two songs are nothing alike). This simple piano-driven R&B number is a very interesting case, as it appears in wide stereo on GBT with Dylan again panned left, but in a much narrower stereo on TWR.

Again, it's marked as being from a "generationally superior" source on TWR. However, the difference in the stereo field along with the much better fidelity on the TWR version leads me to believe it might be sourced directly from the Fraboni reel - one of the few early tracks that was transfered at the time. Which of course then begs the question - did Fraboni/Robertson actually do their 'stereo narrowing' on at least some tracks at the time of transfer from the original reels (there certainly wouldn't have been any further mixing, as it wasn't selected for the LP)? Hmmm...

Winner: TWR for the much clearer fidelity, though if you have to have the wide stereo, then GBT (though sonically inferior)

"I Can't Make it Alone"

A minor key, piano-based ballad, with Dylan's voice again panned wide left on both GBT and TWR. The TWR is a bit slower and times out longer; the GBT version is not only more natural sounding and closer to concert pitch, but similar to "Baby, Won't You Be My Baby", has more presence and better tonal balance.

Winner: GBT

"Don't You Try Me Now"

Dylan again on piano for another R&B ballad - both GBT and TWR here have Dylan again panned wide left, and are at the same speed this time. Again, I don't feel TWR's claim of 'generational superiority' provides any advantage - I still prefer the more open tonality of the GBT version, though it's a bit closer call here.

Winner: GBT

We'll pick up with some more Red Room recordings in the next post...

 

Is it entirely clear that "Lock Your Door" is a fragment? Yes, it's absurdly short (absurdity takes many forms in these sessions), but somehow (perhaps through the sheer repetition of hearing it so many times) it strangely seems like a full song to me. Even if it is just a snippet, I love it as the intro to a basement tapes collection, as it suggests "the door to the basement" briefly openly and closing, and the listener getting a brief tantalizing hint of the wonders to come.

 

It could very well be just a partial recording of a much longer performance, but unfortunately, we'll probably never know.

On a related note, I've always thought it would be a fun project for an artist to take some of these early 'fragmentary' recordings and attempt to flesh them out into fully realized songs. There's certainly enough quality raw material to work with here...

 

That is pretty much what Burnett is doing with basement era lyrics. Granted, not the same perhaps as continuing Lock Your Door, but same church and nearby pew.

 

For our next four Red Room recordings, Dylan gets up from the piano bench and straps on his 12-string acoustic for his first - but hardly the last - basement foray into the folk balladeer tradition. This musical style was foreign to the R&B, country, and rockabilly-bred Hawks, but here as elsewhere they prove to be quick studies and pitch in gamely enough...

"Young But Daily Growing"

This English folk ballad had been in Dylan's repertoire for quite some time at this point - informal 1961-vintage recordings of him performing it both live at Carnegie Chapter Hall in New York and in Bonnie Beecher's apartment in Minneapolis are in circulation. For this track a new player enters the picture - it's one of the 12 basement recordings to appear on the Genuine Bootleg Series (GBS) - in this case Volume 2.

The GBT version is in mono and suffers from a noisy/low fidelity transfer. The first word is also cut off at the beginning of the track. The GBS version is also mono and sounds to have originated from the same source, but it's a much better fidelity transfer with the first word intact.

On TWR it appears in very narrow stereo with Dylan slightly left, and in very clear fidelity. This track is designated as having come from an 'alternate' source tape this time, which one might again assume to be the Fraboni reels - the only other place where it's known to have been transferred. If in fact it's a wide stereo recording on the original reels (as the other tracks in this grouping are), then the narrow stereo here would not be inconsistent with that assumption.

Winner: TWR

"Bonnie Ship the Diamond"

This traditional ballad was inspired by the fate of the Canadian whaling ship Diamond, whose crew mostly perished after being caught in the ice off the coast of Greenland in 1830. For both the GBT and TWR versions we return to wide stereo with Dylan panned far left. Both versions also suffer from brief dropouts in the right channel in a couple of places that could be the result of a damaged tape.

The GBT version features a few extra seconds at the beginning of Dylan doodling on his acoustic, but still times out earlier than the TWR version as a result of being noticeably sped up. The better fidelity TWR version sounds more natural and also matches pretty closely in concert pitch the assumed key of A-minor.

Winner: TWR

"The Hills Of Mexico"

Another minor-key traditional ballad that's become something of a folk circuit staple. Almost the exact same analysis as the previous track applies here; the more natural sounding E-minor TWR version easily exceeding the sped-up GBT version. Dylan tells Garth he "doesn't have to take this one down - you're just wasting tape" after cutting the song off abruptly at the 2:56 mark - fortunately Hudson never bothered to go back and erase what they'd already laid down.

Winner: TWR

"Down On Me"

Another traditional folk song originating in the 1920's that was popularized by Big Brother and the Holding Company with their remake that same summer. The 40-second fragmentary basement recording is lower fidelity among all the sources than most of the other stuff here, and is probably one of the things that would get excised in an official release (though afficionados would argue tracks like this contribute to the informal overall flavor of these recordings).

The GBT version is close to Bb-major and sounds a little more natural to my ears than the near A-major version on TWR. Unfortunately, the first word is cut off again on GBT, and there's a brief complete drop-out about 2/3rds of the way through the TWR version.

A possible recommended alternative here might be the version on the Basement Reels, where it can at least be heard in its entirety without drop-outs, and in this case, isn't any lower fidelity than the alternatives.

Winner: Basement Reels

More Red Room to come in the next post (hope I'm not losing too many people with this early stuff!)...

 

Are you, by any chance, making this into a nice spreadsheet for some one who has these sources to be able to compile some thing at the end of it all?

Not saying I would or have or whatever....

 

Funny you should ask - spreadsheet in fact is already created and one of the sources I'm referring back to for these posts...

 

Great to know. If you ever feel like sharing, I would be grateful. This is certainly some thing that interests me a lot, and, while it's selfish, having some one else do the leg work on knowing what source is best is quite a wonder!

 

Minor point: unless I'm misremembering... on the Blind Bob Grunt & The Hawks, Vol. 1 vinyl release, which is where the "roadie reels" first leaked out, this track comes to a full conclusion, whereas on the Genuine Basement Tapes, the end cuts off.

 

Haven't heard that vinyl release (wish I had), but I can tell you on Genuine Basement Tapes it comes to a full conclusion, whereas on Tree With Roots it's slightly truncated at the end.

 

Great thread, brings some much needed new info and organization to the sessions.

 

I love all this stuff, keep up the good work!

 

I've been meaning to replace my 5-disc GBT with the more economical TWR for a while now... so far, the lesson seems to be I need to make space instead!

 

Can't believe GetRhythm is inspiring me to get my GBTs out of storage. I thought they were permanently retired after TWR.

Note for folks re-exploring the Genuine Basement Tapes. The original pressing of Disc 3 was accidentally collapsed to mono. The re-pressing was restored to the intended stereo. I've never heard the original pressing, though, so I don't know how much it detracts from the recordings.

 

The highest compliment I can give a thread can have is that it makes me want (crave) to listen to the music being discussed. And not coincidentally, I've been on a real Basement Tapes binge for the last couple days.

For anyone who enjoys the thread, can I recommend they also seek out Sid Griffin's Million Dollar Bash book. The heart of it takes a similar approach to this thread, going through the recordings chronologically offering smart impressions and analysis.

Though I think it's worth mentioning that any chronology of these recordings is highly speculative. There is no contemporaneous studio documentation. The generally accepted chronology seems to be based (if I understand correctly) on how the tracks were sequenced on the various reels that leaked into circulation, and then pieced together with, basically, educated guesswork.

 

Though TWR was certainly well-intentioned, it still falls way short of being definitive. I think a lot of people checking in will be surprised at the frequency with which the versions on other collections might be preferred (though as always in evaluating audio quality, this is all fairly subjective according to one's personal tastes).

 

All very true, though in some sections it's pretty obvious that the tracks were recorded in sequence due to the similar style and sonics, such as the Sun/rockabilly session to come later. Probably the most muddled period actually is towards the end, when Dylan's primary attention was already diverted towards his recording activities for John Wesley Harding in Nashville. At that point, he probably just slipped in a few more basement sessions here and there upon returning to Woodstock between the JWH sessions.

Continuing with the early Red Room recordings...

"One For the Road"

Possibly inspired by the Sinatra saloon classic, but in this case a country-styled ballad weeper. The versions on both GBT and TWR begin with the whirring sound of the tape machine getting up to speed. Wide stereo with Dylan fully left again.

The same critique applies here as to many of the tracks in this section - too much is lost presence-wise in TWR's supposedly generationally superior transfer, and though noisier, I prefer the openness and more natural sonics of the earlier GBT version.

Winner: GBT

"I'm Alright"

Another fragmentary recording clocking in at about a minute, which in this case is very unfortunate because this song has real potential (Griffin isn't far off when he suggests it might have been perfect for the Faces to cover). Wide stereo again, Dylan left.

The alternate common critique for this section of tracks applies here, where for some reason the tape is sped up on the GBT version (it clocks in a whole three seconds shorter), making it completely unpalatable. The TWR version here has good sonics, and conforms pretty closely to concert pitch in the more natural sounding key of F-major.

Winner: TWR

"Song For Canada"

Dylan was on a real Ian Tyson kick during these sessions, recording no less than three of his compositions. Of course, Ian and Sylvia duly repaid the favor by covering several basement tracks later. This first one here is often referred to as "One Single River" after the catchphrase at the beginning of the chorus. This is one of my personal favorites among all the earlier basement performances.

This time it's TWR with the tape speed issues - the version there is slowed down so substantially that it clocks in a whole 17 seconds longer than the GBT version. Which makes this one an easy call in favor of GBT, which offers good sonics and appears close to concert pitch in the more natural sounding key of D-major.

Winner: GBT

"People Get Ready"

Robbie Robertson in particular was inspired by the sweet Chicago soul of the Impressions; in fact, his early composition "You Don't Come Through" (often referred to as "You Say You Love Me") that the Hawks took a couple cracks at recording during these sessions sounds like a transparent effort to write a Curtis Mayfield song.

This heartfelt rendition of the Impressions classic has a 'rough around the edges - wee hours of the morning' feel, but is all the more affecting for it. Wide stereo - Dylan left joined by Richard Manuel in places, with Rick Danko harmonizing in the right channel.

The same critique as on "One For the Road" applies here - TWR is cleaner, but sacrifices too much in presence and openness.

Winner: GBT

We'll try to wrap up Red Room recording activities in the next two posts before the gang undertakes the big relocation to that famous basement garage in the big pink house...

 

As I can recall, there were some annoying indexing errors on TWR (the one that sticks in my head is the transition between "Come All You Tender Ladies" and "Under Control"). Also (my memory is even hazier here, though) I think there was drop off on a couple tracks ("Santa Fe" and "All American Boy", maybe...) that I didn't recall on GBT. I'll have to check specifically on them to say with confidence.

 

Sorry, I mixed GBT and TWR up there. I knew one of those cut off.

 

No arguments from anyone yet concerning some of my choices? Well then, carrying on...

For this next group of Red Room recordings, the guys take a quick U-Turn away from their brief soul foray into an area where Dylan & the Hawks were both comfortable - honky tonk-styled country of both the knockabout and serious variety. This of course foreshadows the more serious commitment Dylan would make to that genre in the ensuing several years following...

"I Don't Hurt Anymore"

We start with a casual romp through this big 1954 hit for Hank Snow, Dylan kicking things off with his out-of-tune 12-string after abruptly deciding to raise the key a step in the preamble. Wide stereo again with Dylan left and Rick Danko's high harmony on the right.

Again, the TWR transfer sacrifices too much of the life and energy present in the earlier GBT version.

Winner: GBT

"(Be Careful) Of the Stones You Throw"

A sincere rendition of this Bonnie Dodd-composed morality play that would have been known to the guys from Hank Williams' "Luke the Drifter"-persona version. Same elements as the previous track, though a bit lower-fidelity, noisier recording - which also seems a tad defective as there is audible slowing starting roughly midway through the track to the point where by the end it's almost in a different key.

Again, have to call this one in favor of the GBT version; the cleaner TWR transfer can't make up for the loss of life and presence. On most of these, I almost have to believe that the TWR people attempted further remastering that actually worked to the detriment of the sound - perhaps BlueTrane could chime in and let us know how they sound on the Blind Boy Grunt vinyl collections.

Winner: GBT

"One Man's Loss"

This cacaphonous stomp is the outlier in this grouping of recordings - Sid Griffin in fact suspects that it might have been recorded at an earlier point closer to the start of the Red Room activity. Dylan's vocals are very faint at first and seem to shift around a bit in the stereo field before settling in on the right and becoming more audible as the track progresses. Here the TWR version is preferred - offering better resolution and detail than the GBT version.

Winner: TWR

"Baby Ain't That Fine"

Composed by Dallas Frazier (who also wrote "Elvira" and "Mohair Sam") this very pleasant Tex-Mex foray is one of the few tracks among these recordings that achieves a balanced distribution of elements in the stereo field, the vocals not panned all the way to one side for a change. The GBT version is sped up and thin sounding; the TWR version full and detailed - also conforming closely to concert pitch in the key of A-major.

Marked as coming from an "alternate source tape", I suspect this is another that was sourced directly from the Fraboni reels - further evidence of the higher quality audio that most likely exists on most of these early recordings in their original manifestations.

Winner: TWR

"Rock Salt and Nails"

This cover of the Utah Phillips-composed slow country ballad is often cited by afficionadas as one of the key performances among the unreleased basements. The speed variation between the GBT and TWR versions this time is to such a degree that they sound a whole half-tone different in key - with GBT in C# major and TWR in C. While C# is an unnatural key for guitar, this could easily be accounted for via use of a capo to raise the overall pitch, and the faster GBT version to my ears sounds more natural - whereas the whole thing kind of plods in the muffled slower version on TWR.

Winner: GBT

"A Fool Such As I"

A way more relaxed and better version of the Hank Snow/Elvis Presley hit that Dylan later covered again during the Self Portrait sessions - eventually coming out on the execreble Dylan outtakes LP. Again a whole half-step difference between GBT and TWR in key - GBW in Eb major and the slower TWR version in D. During the preamble, Dylan actually raises the key again on-the-spot - announcing "C" to his bandmates - further evidence that he was using a capo on his guitar.

Same critique here as the previous track - GBT sounds more natural and lifelike, TWR muffled and plodding.

Winner: GBT

From here there's an abrupt shift in tone and feel to the sessions, though they may not have actually made the move yet to Big Pink. For those keeping score, here's how it shakes out so far:

Genuine Basement Tapes: 10

Tree With Roots: 7

Basement Reels: 1

Agree?

 

My favourite.

 

I'm going to dig out GBT over the weekend, have a listen to your recommendations and see if I can make up an argument for the sake of it.

But thanks for all this - great to have it all in place!

 

First of thanks for this thread, I'm loving it.

Dylan revisited People Get Ready in a rehearsal version for Renaldon & Clara. You can find it on the Four Songs From Renaldo & Clara LP. You can also find it as Dylan's contribution to the Flashback OST.

I love all the versions.

 

My big Question: If the Tree With Roots recordings were remastered to the proper speed, pitch etc. would those cuts win out over some of the Geniune Basement Tape recordings?

 

I had always felt that Tree With Roots was the superior collection. I really hope Sony released a bunch of uncirculated tapes. I can die a happy man then.