They are relics of a bygone era. A few slabs of black vinyl surreptitiously printed at some nondescript record plant somewhere, scuttled off to a few carefully chosen record stores where, for the right price, they would find a grateful, passionate, maybe even a somewhat desperate listener, who needed this fix, this connection. Something that went beyond, way beyond just walking into a record store. Anybody could do that.

When you talk about bootleg albums and those of us who signed up for that wild and wooly campaign, you’re talking about a badge of honor, of commitment of dedication. There no half-ass fans in that category. If you were on the trail for bootlegs, you were a true believer. And it was a beautiful thing.

The record album you see below, which includes maybe the single-worst drawing of Bob Dylan you’ll ever see, was my Holy Grail for the longest time. Initiated into the Bob Dylan Bootleg Brigade, it started with this one.

Side One and Two were the fabled “Royal Albert Hall” concert from 1966

Though sometimes it bore a different cover, the first two sides of this bootleg record contained the fabled “Royal Albert Hall” concert that actually was recorded at the Manchester Trade Hall a few days previous.

It was explosive, dynamic, relentless, wildly exciting, Bob Dylan and the Hawks naming names, kicking ass and too bad if you don’t like it. And yes, it also contained the historic “Judas” moment, an epic incident where a distraught Dylan fan, beleaguered by Dylan and the Hawks’ raucous hour of rock and roll desperately calls out his hero just as he is about to go into his greatest song, “Like A Rolling Stone.”
“JUDAS!” he cries out and Dylan, quick on the response, snarls “I don’t believe you! You’re a lian!” Then he turns to the band and makes a suggestion about how loud to play — Hint: It’s very loud — and history is on my turntable.
While it is true, bootlegs are illegal and probably the only contraband this straight-shooting Catholic boy ever bought, if you were a Dylan devotee, you HAD to hear this earth-shaking concert I’d read so much about.

Columbia Records was so cautious or freaked out that Dylan was booed across both continents, they only released a single cut from this tour, the B-Side of the single “I Want You” from “Blonde On Blonde” which was a live track from Dylan and the Hawks’ Liverpool show, a crackling “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” that was so good, the great British Dylan scholar Michael Gray called it the single greatest live recording of Dylan and the Hawks ever.

Lucky me, I was able to get that single from a little convenience store in Milford, New Hampshire, a cigar-smoking, full-of-it guy named Sal who had absolutely no idea what gold I was buying for $1.50. If he had, he would have quadrupled the price.

I was thumbing through my vinyl records this morning; they were feeling a bit lonely, I sensed, and looking at that bootleg and two others, one of Dylan on his Australian tour — a really nicely decorated record jacket and one of Neil Young from a California stop, a collection of songs that wound up, believe it or not on the Neil Young Archives Vol. 3 that Liz bought me for Christmas.

She knew I’d be spending the year waltzing with Neil Young in writing my book (124,483 words to date) which I hope to finish this week or next. I didn’t even open the Christmas present until August I had so much stuff to get to, first. Once I did, it made me laugh to think that that evidently Neil Young or his workers found that bootleg somewhere and I beat them to it.

Neil Young Archives Vol. 3 - lists for around $160. Great idea but didn’t do it for me.

I guess I’m a bit of a romantic but the quest for these bootleg albums, which started with Dylan but quickly branched out to other artists, was always fun. I remember my friend Gerry and I hitting Hampton Beach on a weekend night, expressly to hit one of the record stores there that had bootleg albums. I bought one of The Who in Toronto that sounded as if it had been recorded in a wind tunnel. We found a few Springsteen bootlegs that were excellent. Bruce’s on-stage stories were always revelatory.

And the idea that you weren’t going to settle for what the record company was going to dish out, that you were insistent on going further, that was the sign of a true fan. I wonder if there are any of those left these days. Bootlegs are long gone as far as I know.

As for the Neil Young Archives Vol. 3 10-disc set that cost roughly $160, I’m not a fan. The packaging is impressive, there are ten discs of material but in listening to the entire thing, there wasn’t a single side that made me say, “Man, I’m glad I have this.” And that’s not good.

It wasn’t as if the quality was bad, it wasn’t. But what was there was, well, it was OK but that’s it. I’d heard hours, days, weeks, months of Neil Young by then so maybe that mattered, I don’t know.

But I do know there wasn’t anything extra, something forbidden or all that rare, something you just had to have like the Dylan show at the “Royal Albert Hall.”

The good folks at Columbia have wised up since those early days, of course. They released the ENTIRE 1966 World Tour (some kickass stuff!), the 1974 tour with The Band, a full set of outtakes for Dylan’s three classic 1965-66 records (Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde On Blonde) as well as live tracks from the Rolling Thunder Revue, Budokan and all sorts of other stuff. The Bootleg Series has swelled to 18 volumes, the latest a collection of some really early Dylan stuff, when the legend was in its formative years.

The latest installment of Bob Dylan’s The Bootleg Series, No. 18!

So, I didn’t get to play either of these three bootleg albums today. I did hold the vinyl in my hands, talked about when I bought them and how important it was at the time for me to track them down. We spent a little time this morning reminiscing. Me, my vinyl. Just like the old days.

I know they’re ready to sound off the minute I put them on the turntable. Bootlegs are like that, aren’t they? They were a sign of the times, when, contrary to what Mick Jagger promised, you couldn’t always get what you want.

Sometimes, you had to hunt. I miss those days.

John Nogowski is the author of “Bob Dylan: A Descriptive, Critical Discography and Filmography 1961-2022” now in its third edition (332 pages.) It’s available on Amazon. His new book, a comprehensive look at the music of Neil Young will be out sometime in 2026. You’re welcome to join his free Substack - [email protected]