BOB DYLAN & THE BAND
The Bootleg Series Vol. 11: The Basement
Tapes Complete
Columbia/Legacy
bobdylan.com
The not-intended-for-release material recorded
by Bob Dylan and The Band in 1967 is probably the most
mythologized set of recordings ever – and was the start of the bootleg record
movement.
In 1975, there was an official release of
The Basement Tapes in a 2-LP – later 2-CDs – set that included 16 tracks by
Dylan and The Band and another eight of The Band on their own.
The Basement Tapes Complete – 138 tracks on
six CDs – goes way beyond that initial set. The eight songs by The Band are not
included; they, or at least, most of them, were recorded years
later. And there were apparently overdubs added to some of the tracks prior to
the 1975 release.
While I’ve heard bootlegs of some of the
other 100-plus tracks that have now had official release with The Basement
Tapes Complete, listening to these six CDs over the past three weeks has been
revelatory and I was reminded again of an essay – Bob Dylan at 70 – that I
wrote in 2011.
“As I noted in my book review of Bob
Dylan in America by Sean Wilentz in the current issue of Sing Out!
magazine, I’ve long thought that one of the reasons I so appreciate so much of
Bob Dylan’s oeuvre is that (I think) we’ve listened to so much of the same
music. To the traditional folk and blues songs, and to so many of the musicians
who played them. When Dylan sang, 'no one can sing the blues like Blind Willie McTell,' I knew what he
was talking about because I’ve listened to all those old Blind Willie McTell
records. When he borrows lines or settings from Woody Guthrie or Lead Belly or
others, I know where they come from. Dylan’s music is rooted ever so strongly
in what Greil Marcus termed the 'old weird America,' the folk music and the folk-rooted blues and country music
that developed in particular regional locations and began to spread everywhere
in the first half of the 20th century.
“This leads me to the point I wanted to
make when I started writing this little essay. Even before Dylan went electric
at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, there have been commentators who’ve said
that Dylan left folk music behind. I don’t think that’s at all true. To this
day, Dylan’s songwriting continues to be rooted in the 'old weird America.' Dylan didn’t leave folk music behind when he embraced rock ‘n’ roll, he changed
what was possible in a folk music context; both in how it’s played and how it’s
expressed.”
So many of the songs on The Basement Tapes
Complete reinforce my thoughts about in that essay about the traditional folk
and blues songs the musicians who played them, but to that, I would add some of
his contemporary peers. I’ve listened to those same folks whose material turns
up here (and also on Another Self Portrait). Some have been people I’ve known
over the years – several have been friends.
The Band’s guitarist Robbie Robertson – who
would go on to write most of their original material – has explained that many
of the early Basement Tapes sessions were Dylan “educating us a little” about
folk music. The repertoire Dylan taught to The Band at those sessions is
fascinating to me. Folk songs, blues, country songs and covers of material by
the likes of Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Ian & Sylvia, Pete Seeger, Tim
Hardin, and others. Fascinating stuff.
Along with Dylan and a few others like Tom
Paxton and Judy Collins, the stellar Canadian folk duo of Ian & Sylvia had
a lot to do with my being drawn to folk music as a kid in the ‘60s. So, it was
particularly interesting for me to see the strong connection (which I briefly
discussed in an exchange of messages with Wayne Turiansky) to them. Dylan
offers versions of several their original songs including Ian Tyson’s classic “Four
Strong Winds”; a couple of takes of Ian and Sylvia’s “The French Girl,” one of
my favorites of their songs; and “Song for Canada,” co-written by Ian and
journalist-broadcaster Peter Gzowski in the mid-‘60s as an early Anglo-Canadian
response to the separatist strain of the brand of Quebec nationalism that began
to emerge in the province’s then-ongoing Quiet Revolution.
There were also several other songs Ian
& Sylvia recorded before Dylan and The Band worked on them in ’67. While I’d
bet Dylan was probably as familiar as Ian and Sylvia were with the sources for
these songs, it’s still interesting to note that the list includes Johnny Cash’s
“Big River”; the cowboy song “Spanish is the Loving Tongue,” actually a setting
of the poem “A Border Affair” by Charles Badger Clark; Brendan Behan’s “The
Auld Triangle,” recorded by Ian & Sylvia as “The Royal Canal”; the country
song “A Satisfied Mind”; and the traditional songs “Po’ Lazarus” and “Come All
Ye Fair and Tender Ladies.”
To that list you could also add a couple of
Dylan’s originals from The Basement Tapes sessions – “Quinn the Eskimo,”
recorded by Ian & Sylvia as “The Mighty Quinn” and “This Wheel’s on Fire,”
a co-write with The Band’s Rick Danko – that Ian & Sylvia recorded right
around the same time, as well as “Tears of Rage,” a co-write with The Band’s
Richard Manuel, that Ian & Sylvia recorded less than a year later. With
multiple takes of some songs, I count an Ian & Sylvia connection to at
least 15 tracks. Amazing.
Among the other covers that particularly
interested me are Eric Von Schmidt’s “Joshua Gone Barbados,” a favorite song of
mine since the ‘60s, and “Rock Salt and Nails,” an early song written by my
late friend, Bruce “Utah” Phillips.
The version of “Joshua Gone Barbados,” the
story of the leader of the island country of St. Vincent taking a vacation
while crisis envelopes his society, is incomplete. But, still, I find it
fascinating that Dylan was working on it. (For really great versions of “Joshua
Gone Barbados” seek out recordings by Von Schmidt, Tom Rush, Dave Van Ronk, and Fourtold. My favorite version is by Johnny Cash.)
I saw Utah Phillips perform at
least a hundred times over the years – including dozens of concerts I produced
myself – and not once did I ever hear him sing “Rock Salt and Nails,” easily
his best known song. Decades ago. I asked him about the song and he told me it
was a piece he wrote to clear his mind of anger after the break-up of his first
marriage. But, once he got the anger off his chest, he had no more need – or desire
– to ever sing the song again. He said he only sang it once when it was freshly
written, for Rosalie Sorrels, and it was Rosalie who started its spread to so many other artists.
I mentioned that Bruce said he wrote the
song in anger and, indeed, the song concludes with a verse that he admitted was
misogynous. So, I’ve always found it interesting that so many women – Rosalie,
Joan Baez, Kate Wolf, the Short Sisters, among others – have sung the song. My
guess is that Dylan, like so many others, both women and men, was attracted to the gut-wrenching
emotions the song captures so brilliantly.
And, as much I could talk about so many
more of the folk songs and covers of other songwriters, I do need to say a few
words about some of the original material Dylan produced in this period and
that was captured in those sessions.
Certainly among the highlights are the two
very different versions of “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere.” The first take, which I’d
never heard before, seems to be Dylan goofing around with the tune and coming
up with verses off the top of his head, while the second take are the verses
that became classic. Was that a peek inside his songwriting process or was he
just having fun? I suspect the latter and it’s a lot of fun to hear.
Other highlights include double and triple
takes of such great and enduring songs as “I Shall Be Released,” “Too Much of
Nothing,” and “Crash on the Levee (Down in the Flood).”
The six CDs are enclosed within a hard
cover book that includes a couple of fine essays on the Basement Tapes and the
set also includes a second, beautifully presented, hard cover book of photos.
Although many of the tracks on The Basement
Tapes Complete are themselves incomplete, it is an endlessly fascinating look at
the process Dylan was employing in those productive months of 1967 and a great addition to the old weird Americana that is so much a part of what folk music is.
And, it’s more than fascinating, to
understand how much the lessons rubbed off on The Band. When they would emerge the
following year with Music from Big Pink, it was obvious that they had
fully assimilated folk music into their rock ‘n’ roll and R&B essence.
--Mike Regenstreif
