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

I sing backup vocals on the Flashback version with Carlene Carter and the late Howie Epstein. I love the Renaldo and Clara take.

 

The primary pattern that emerges through these group of early recordings is that when Tree With Roots (likely) sourced their versions from the Fraboni reels, they're clearly superior; where they remastered from a different transfer using the same source as Genuine Basement Tapes - in this case likely the 1986 "Band Roadie Reels" - they don't come off so well. Often they seem to be the wrong speed, and there seems to be a preoccupation with making them sound 'cleaner' at the expense of detail and naturalness.

Important to keep in mind that both of these collections are now pretty antiquated in mastering terms - Genuine Basement now being of about 20 years vintage, with Tree With Roots last issued 12 years ago. So there's a genuine opportunity for an upgrade across the board. But based on Sony's recent efforts - particularly their downright horrible official Basement remaster five years ago - I'm really not sure I want them going anywhere near it.

 

Very cool! I have always loved this version. I use to have the "4 Songs From Renaldo & Clara" LP. An old roommate boosted it. I remember, watching the Flashback movie, when People Get Ready could be heard. I could wait to get my hands on that soundtrack. The version you sing on has everything a great Dylan track should have. I wish you guys would have recorded a whole album.

Is it true the track was recorded in Bloominton, ID? Do you know why? I heard something about John Mellencamp's band, but don't know the back story. Who played guitar?

Your version is one of my all time Dylan tracks.

Thank You.

 

I'm curious, were the 10/5 song demos officially pressed, given labels and distributed to...whom? And how? I know that Fairport Convention got "Million Dollar Bash" from one of these demos but I'm curious how the band got a hold of their copy to record their version. These demos don't seem to appear in any record price guide so I'm guessing they were never officially committed to vinyl.

 

I recall around 1985 or so, a Dylan buddy of raving about "The 20 Cut Basement Tapes". Anyone know anything about this and why it was special?

 

The Renaldo and Clara take is outstanding. That needs a home on a bootleg series volume.
The Flashback version is pretty nice too!

 

Thank you! The basic track for the Flashback version was recorded in Hollywood (I want to say the Record Plant). I was supervising music for the film and wanted to use the Renaldo and Clara version. Bob said instead he wanted to record a new one. We timed it to the scene in the film. Bob was on tour, so he and Barry Goldberg, who was composing for us, put together a band with Barry on piano, Howie Epstein, Jack Sherman on guitar and Gary Mallabar on drums to do a track in Los Angeles. I was roped into singing a scratch lead vocal, promised by all my track would be erased.

One of the Jeff's, Rosen or Kramer, picked up the tape (at a gas station!) and got it to Bob, who decided to take it into Mellencamp's studio in Bloomington on an off day. He brought in Mike Wanchic to add lead guitar, along with Bob's own playing and vocals. Bob called me in the studio in L.A., and asked very solicitously if he could sing the verses where the choruses were, and the verses where the choruses were. I assured him that it would be fine for the timing and he should do whatever he wanted. Then he asked pointedly who sang "that scratch vocal." Knowing damn well it was me, he told me in that inimitable voice, that "it was the worst Bob Dylan imitation since Joan BA-ez." I had made an effort not to sound like him. After I got off the phone, I looked pale. Barry Goldberg was laughing. Bob strikes again.

What Bob did in Indiana sounded great. His idea to sing the first chorus over the spare instrumentation, and the verse over the buildup was a Dylanesque stroke, and the guitars he and Mike Wanchic added sounded cool. We added the background vocals, Howie and his then wife Carlene Carter,Barry and me. Bob liked the mix and there we were.

 

There's a really good chapter about all of this in Sid Griffin's book. It seems the demos were dissiminated via either tape or acetate pressings, but there were never any vinyl demo pressings (that would have to wait for the bootleggers). In some cases, demos were sent directly to selected artists, in others, artists were not given personal copies but instead allowed private listening sessions in which they had to make a commitment which tracks they were intersted in recording - they were then given copies of just those tracks. That's what I believe happened in Fairport's case if memory serves correctly.

 

Haven't heard of this myself, but if someone were compiling a single-CD version of the primo Dylan compositions to come out of these sessions, it would probably come to around 20 tracks. My own personal version following session chronology would be:

Tiny Montgomery
Sign On the Cross
Million Dollar Bash (take 2)
Yea! Heavy and a Bottle of Bread (take 2)
I'm Not There
Please Mrs. Henry
Crash On the Levee (take 2)
Lo and Behold (take 2)
This Wheel's On Fire
You Ain't Goin' Nowhere (take 2)
I Shall Be Released
Too Much Of Nothing (take 2)
Tears Of Rage (take 1)
Quinn the Eskimo (take 2)
Open the Door Homer (take 1)
Nothing Was Delievered (take 1)
Goin' to Acapulco
Odds and Ends (take 2)
Clothesline Saga
Apple Sucking Tree (take 2)

As configured here, I would have no trouble proclaiming this the greatest achievement of Dylan's career. But never in a million years would I want to be restricted to such a limited vision of these sessions.

 

I knew about this from Heylin's Recording Sessions book, but have yet to hear it (gotta do something about that!). Great personal stories from TeddyB about his recording experiences with Dylan - thanks!

 

"Silhouette"
"Bring it On Home"
"King Of France"

The sonic signature and feel changes suddenly with this basement reel - almost as if they've broken camp at Dylan's house in the preparations for the move to Big Pink, and just decided to quickly lay down a few off-the-cuff things in the living room before heading over.

These were among the quirkier selections by Rob and Robbie for the Fraboni reel - "Silhouette" being just a few choruses of the Ray's 1957 doo-wop hit, "Bring it On Home" a totally improvised acoustic blues jam, and "King Of France" a distortion-marred Dylan electric piano exercise that contains the germ of an interesting composition, but is never further developed.

GBT skips "Silhouette" altogether, and their version of "Bring It On Home" is slightly sped up. TWR appears again to have gotten hold of the Fraboni reels for their versions, and they sound as good as possible here.

Winner: Tree With Roots

Next - on to Big Pink!

 

Corrections of a couple misspellings here - "Nothing was Delivered" and "Apple Suckling Tree". Really gotta proofread a little more carefully next time!

This would put it beyond one CD's length, but if I were to go another five, it would be: (still Dylan compositions only)

"Get Your Rocks Off"
"All You Have to Do Is Dream" (take 1)
"Silent Weekend"
"Don't Ya Tell Henry"
"Santa Fe"

I believe everything mentioned so far is actually copyrighted by Dylan with the possible exception of "All You Have to Do Is Dream".

 

and how many (or better, how few) of these saw release on the official album?

 

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the really glaring omissions from the official LP were "I Shall Released", "I'm Not There", "Sign On the Cross" and "Quinn the Eskimo". The other differences between the list I posted would be the selection of different takes of "Tears Of Rage" and "Too Much Of Nothing". Of course, assumed with this would be the removal of the Band-only tracks (which pretty much are all available on other collections at this point in better quality audio) in favor of making this a Dylan exclusive.

Ideally, I'd also make the following changes audio-wise...

1) Start from the since-located, original non-generational versions of all tracks. As mentioned previously, it's practically criminal that they haven't substituted these on the more recent remasters. The original clean "Tiny Montgomery" on the boots for instance absolutely blows away the official version.

2) Starting from those original versions, do no more processing than EQ/tone balancing. No compression, no noise reduction, no artificial reverb. And while they're at it, remove all later-recorded overdubs.

3) Instead of fully collapsed mono or very narrow stereo, narrow the two channels to about 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock respectively. This provides some center channel information so there's a bit of connectedness, but preserves most of the rich stereo spread.

 

And so at last we've arrived at Richard, Rick, and Garth's "swinging bachelor pad" - Dylan continuing to live at his Hi Lo Ha house, while Robbie stayed holed up in nearby digs with French girlfriend Dominique. It could be anywhere from late-April to mid-May at this point in 1967, warm enough now so the guys wouldn't have to fire up the noise-producing steel furnace in their adapted basement garage "recording studio".

The space couldn't have been less ideally suited to recording - all hard surfaces, including cinder and concrete block walls with a cement floor. So how much trouble did they take to fix it up for recording? Well, they covered the floor with a big rug - how about that!

To this day, Dylan, Robbie, Garth, etc., emphasize how important this informal atmosphere was to the unique vibe they achieved with these recordings. Robbie especially cites the benefits in spontaneity achieved through being positioned around each other in a circle and having to react in real-time to what each other is playing.

That they were this successful in laying down mostly coherent tracks right on the spot with very little rehearsal is also testimony to the Hawk's versatility and adaptability as musicians. Taking their cues from this, another very well known band would in fact try this same sort of setup in studio venues in London in early 1969 with a generally acknowledged lower rate of success.

As we will see, it did take a bit for Garth to dial in the sound here - in fact, along with the regular basement tracks these early Big Pink reels contain a bit of messing about that sounds like nothing more than some sound testing being done. But we'll skip over that for our purposes here...

"Nine Hundred Miles"

This abrasive 45-second fiddle and mandolin-fueled blast through the familiar folk staple is one of those things that leaves the unitiated scratching their heads wondering "what the hell was that"? For others though, it stands as just one more example of the incredible range of stuff the guys were trying out here, and for that alone feels like an essential part of the basement story.

Like most of the tracks on the early Big Pink reels, it comes to us via the 1991 cassette transfers; the narrow stereo, more tonally balanced TWR version being more palatable than the mono GBT in this case.

Winner: TWR

"Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad"

A heavily distorted piano-driven romp through another familiar folk standard, also recorded by Woody Guthrie, Elizabeth Cotton, and the Grateful Dead. If nothing else, the guys sure sound like they're having a blast recording it! Again, narrow stereo on TWR, mono on GBT. TWR's better resolution transfer again carries the day here.

Winner: TWR

"Spanish Is the Loving Tongue"

The gang finally begins to achieve a measure of audio coherency with this classic cowboy ballad first published as a poem by Charles Badger Clark in 1915, before songwriter Billy Simon added the music sometime later. A Dylan favorite, he also recorded a not nearly so cogent version during the Self Portrait sessions (later, another Dylan reject), and then a couple of beautiful solo piano versions - one of which of course saw release as the B-side of "Watching the River Flow" in 1971.

The group achieves a very full ensemble sound here, with, as Griffin puts it, an "achingly sincere" Dylan vocal topping it off. Once again mono on GBT, narrow stereo on TWR - but this time I prefer the more natural, lifelike tonal blend on the GBT version.

Winner: GBT

"On a Rainy Afternoon"

Yet another one of those half-composed, half-improvised Dylan efforts that one gets the feeling with a little more work put in and care taken with the recording, could have really been worthwhile. And yet even with Dylan's distorted vocal barely rising above the din it's still a very interesting diversion. Similar to the previous track, my preference here is for the more natural-sounding tonality of the mono GBT version rather than the narrow stereo TWR.

Winner: GBT

Next - more "adventures in sound" with the early Big Pink tracks...

 

I've been up until today depending on Tree Without Roots to cover my needs for unreleased Basement Tapes, but now I'm using your work to build a better set with the recommended versions of each track. (And, discovered that for some reason, rather than having One Man's Loss, I had Stones You Throw twice in my iTunes, so I got to hear a song today that I never heard before!!)

 

Some versions of TWR had that glitch sadly.

 

I want to thank GetRhythm for providing a lot of valuable information in this thread.

 

Sadly, a version still circulating (as I only got it two years ago...)

And yes, cheers to GetRhythm! Looking forward to analysis of the real heart of the Basement recordings!

 

Thanks to everyone for the compliments, but if anyone disagrees with any of my assessments, please feel free to say so. I'm especially interested in hearing opinions where there's an obvious difference in tape speed - one or the other has to be more correct. It could be my ears are just more acclimated to one of the versions in some cases...

Yes, it will get a bit more fun as we get further in - especially since we can finally add a few more players; i.e., the Genuine Bootleg basement cuts in places, and of course the official versions (by no means a total washout). I have to say though that I love all the less celebrated stuff just as much - taken altogether it's a rich tapestry that only gets more fascinating the deeper you explore.

 

Yes, the early stuff has some great moments. Young But Daily Growin' is one of my favorite Dylan cuts. And to take in these sessions as a whole, you can see a great evolution, starting with Dylan planting the seeds with all these great remembered covers, and derivative originals, which finally grows into a beautiful selection of splendid Dylan classics, that bear the influence of the material that the sessions started with, but have taken on their own identity.

 

"I Can't Come In With a Broken Heart"

Hey - wait a minute - weren't these guys just playing folk songs a few minutes ago? Sure, but that gets old after a while - why not mix it up with this grungy, minimalist homage to the then up-and-coming Velvet Underground? Robbie was familiar with them from apparently poking his head in on a show for about five minutes the previous year (not his scene), and Dylan of course knew Andy Warhol from having previously been the subject of one of his "screen tests."

All distorted guitars and distorted vocals - with a healthy dose of tape distortion to top it off - a first take ends abruptly following a massive overload of (you guessed it) distortion, but they pick it back up and get through about two minutes before it kind of mildly slows to a conclusion. Curiously, it's in wide stereo on GBT with Dylan right, in very rough sound. Though mono, the cleaner, more coherent TWR version is preferable here.

Winner: TWR

"Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies"

Back into the folk world for this somewhat free-form vocal excursion apparently owing something to the traditional "Come All Ye Fair and Tender Maidens" (also known as "Silver Dagger"), but if anyone can tell what Dylan's half-coherent warblings actually signify, you're way ahead of me here.

Still, there's something about the densely arranged, acoustic soundscape that's quite evocative - lending it an ethereal, lilting quality. After a bit of chatter, it morphs into about 27 seconds of a basic blues progression at the end, which Dylan cuts off abruptly, saying his 12-string "ain't meant to do this type of thing."

Skipped altogether on GBT, the wide stereo, Dylan-right version on TWR wins by default here.

Winner: TWR

"Under Control"

Very dense, half-improvised blues excursion, Dylan's vocals buried a bit in the din in the far right of the wide stereo mix. The versions on GBT and TWR sound very close here, but I'll call this one in favor of GBT, where Dylan's vocals stand out a little better - though what sounds like some tape artifact-induced noise starts to creep in about 2/3rds of the way through (this will become a bigger issue in the next section).

Winner: GBT

Up next - more from the folk ballad tradition with a dash of country as Garth starts to get a handle on the audio...

 

"Ol' Roison the Beau"

A good ole 19th-century Irish drinking song, which took on new life in various later-day political campaigns and musicals. The band gives it a rollicking, zydeco-style treatment, aided now by a less congested, more balanced recording - though putting Dylan's vocals together with the bass on one side maybe wasn't the best signal routing choice.

GBT has Dylan far right; TWR switches the channels, putting Dylan far left. TWR claims their version is from an "alternate source tape", though there are no other sources listed for this track other than the 1991 cassette tranfers. I would prefer GBT here for the more natural, open-sounding tonality; however, the tape artifact noise mentioned in the previous post is fairly constant and definitely a distraction. So TWR wins by default - though it could definitely sound better.

Winner: TWR

"I'm Guilty Of Loving You"

Another apparently half-finished Dylan original with tons of potential. In fact, with its mood of ruminative longing, almost sounds like prime early 70's Van Morrison; maybe an outtake off of something like His Band & Street Choir or Tupelo Honey. Chopped off unfortuitously right around the 1:07 mark - too bad this was never developed further.

Audio-wise, pretty much the same analysis, with the same reversal of channels between GBT and TWR. Although this time GBT is also at a very low level - at least on my version. So again, TWR by default.

Winner: TWR

"Johnny Todd"

A sailor's song originating in Liverpool that later found its way into German chanteuse Marlene Dietrich's cabaret act. Though such traditional fare again is far from the Hawk's wheelhouse, they give it an energetic, spirited treatment; Richard Manuel's strident piano licks setting the tone.

Exact same analysis as on the previous track, the low level and tape artifact noise preventing me from selecting the otherwise preferable GBT version.

Winner: TWR

"Cool Water"

Originally recorded in 1941 by the great Bob Nolan and the Sons of the Pioneers, this is one of several original versions of basement tracks that Dylan later featured during his "Theme Time Radio Hour" hosted programs, introducing it as "one of the most mysterious songs ever written about facing the barren waste without the taste of water." Dylan and the Hawks take it at a slower tempo with a more basic arrangement, though still a very sympathetic rendition.

Again, very unfortunate tape artifacts in the low-level GBT version, so the muffled-sounding TWR version will have to suffice.

Winner: TWR

"The Banks Of the Royal Canal"

Among most afficionados' short list of the most essential unreleased basement tracks, this prison ballad was originally written as "The Auld Triangle" by Irish poet and playwright Brendan Behan for his play The Quare Fellow in 1954. Everything just seems to fall into place here - gorgeous, very affecting Dylan vocal supported by excellent ensemble work by the Hawks, all captured in excellent audio by Garth. Certainly Rob Fraboni and Robbie Robertson were impressed enough to transfer this one over to the Fraboni reel for further consideration in the compiling of the official LP.

This time GBT and TWR reverse the channels, with Dylan left in the GBT version, and right in TWR. The not-bad TWR version would be an okay choice here, but like the cavalry coming in to save the day, here we have an excellent sounding version from the Genuine Bootleg Series collection that sounds like a less futzed-with transfer direct from the Fraboni reel.

Winner: Genuine Bootleg Series

"Po Lazarus"

Originally a recording by folklorist Alan Lomax in 1959 of a work song sung by a group Mississippi penitentiary inmates. Later appropriated for the soundtrack of O Brother Where Art Thou, earning James Carter - its originator - a nice series of royalty checks.

The tape catches Dylan in the process of teaching the guys the song on the spot, but just as it gathers momentum, it cuts off around the one-minute mark. GBT and TWR are in agreement this time with Dylan far left, but GBT again has the tape artifact noises, and TWR sounds overly processed. The preferred version here is actually on the Basement Reels, as repeated as track 24 on the 2nd volume, Dylan right.

Winner: Basement Reels

Up next - "The Sun Sessions" redux - in Woodstock, NY!

 

For What It Is Worth, I dug up this information from Les Kokay.

Bob Dylan - The 20 Song Acetate(s)

Wheels on Fire
You Aint Going Nowhere
I Shall Be Released
Too Much Of Nothing T2
Open The Door Homer T3
Open The Door Homer T1 (inc)
Open The Door Homer T2
Nothing Was Delivered T2
Nothing Was Delivered T1
Tears Of Rage T3
Tears Of Rage T1 (inc)
Tears Of Rage T2
Mighty Quinn T2
Mighty Quinn T1
Million Dollar Bash
Yea, Heavy And A Bottle Of Bread
Please Mrs. Henry
Down In The Flood
Lo & Behold
Tiny Montgomery

A more complete acetate than the first Basic 14 song acetate.

 

This is an important thread, and I thought I'd give it a gentle bump