Bootleg Series 14-Box Set

Are there any albums so extraordinary that every note from the sessions is worth hearing? A matter of taste in the end; but Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks is a great candidate. Here’s why. First, the album we know as Blood on the Tracks is composed of two distinct sessions. One in New York, in September 1974. The second in December 1974, in Minneapolis. Both the mood and the musicians in these two sessions are very different. In New York the mood was intense, sad, low-key. There was a band on some of the tracks, but most are solo, or accompanied only by Tony Brown’s bass. In Minneapolis Dylan has a different band and his mood has veered to energetic, angry, nearly shouting at times. Why two sessions? A complete album was made from the first sessions and test pressings were made (and later widely bootlegged). Dylan wasn’t happy with it. Too personal? Too downbeat? His brother may have told him it would never sell. So he returned to the studio in a different town. The final album mixed some songs from New York with others from Minneapolis, including the epic Idiot Wind. Neither session was a long drawn-out affair. Everything in this set (and I referring to the big 6-CD deluxe edition) was recorded in just 6 days of studio time. Why the intensity? Dylan is at a moment of personal transition. His marriage is shaky. He is confused, perhaps, about relationships, about how to find inner peace, about the big issues of life. So being the artist he is, the songs pour out of him, full of emotion. He went into the studio with the songs fully formed. He had already performed them privately. So he was highly focused. That said, Dylan is unusual in the way he constantly tries new ways of expressing himself, even within the context of a single song. Every performance is something different. Combine that with the intense emotions he was feeling, and the amazing songs he was writing, and the fact that he was at the peak of his powers as a musician and vocalist, and you get these remarkable sessions. A personal story. Back in the 70s I had always enjoyed Blood on the Tracks. Then I picked up a bootleg which had different versions of some favourite songs, like Tangled up in the Blue, and Idiot Wind. I played Idiot Wind and was stunned. The tempo was slow. The mood was no longer angry, but still passionate. The lyrics were different, more personal. Some, in my view, among Dylan’s best: You close your eyes and pout your lips and slip your fingers from your glove. You can have the best there is but it’s going to cost you all your love you won’t get it for … money. If you like Dylan at all, you just have to hear the way he sings that last line above. Money. And love. Timeless themes, intense emotion. In addition, there was an amazing swirling organ behind the vocals. I loved that bootleg. However, it was spoilt by an annoying skip, baked into the mastering, due to the fact that the bootleg came from a needledrop of the test pressing mentioned above. Life got better. Sony released The Bootleg Series 1-3 and included some of the New York session songs not included on Blood on the Tracks. This included the version of Idiot Wind mentioned above – except not quite, the swirling organ was missing, despite being mentioned in the sleeve notes! Better copies of the test pressing also appeared, though not from Sony, so at least the skip was no more. Now it is 2018 and here is More Blood More Tracks. “Includes the complete New York Sessions for Blood on the Tracks”, says the label. It also includes new mixes of the Minneapolis tracks that were on the released album; the others from that session have been lost and/or recorded over. If you love Dylan, I highly recommend this set. The 1CD/2LP version is wonderful, a reimagined Blood on the Tracks similar but not the same as the Test Pressing, and with an additional fantastic song, Up To Me, though we have heard this before. The 6CD version though is the one to have if you are, like me, passionate about this album. Every track is worth hearing, many are wonderful. You will hear variations in the words, but more important, variations in the delivery as Dylan explores how best to perform these songs. Sony has chosen to package this in the form of two books in a slipcase. One has the 6 CDs in a glossy illustrated presentation with notes on each track by Jeff Slate. The other has more pictures, press cuttings, and a reproduction of (nearly) every page from a notebook in which Dylan wrote out the lyrics. The notebook is really interesting, with lyric corrections, and of course variations from what is actually sung. There are also new songs which we have never heard, There ain’t Gonne Be any Next Time, Church Bell Blues, Where do you Turn, It’s Breakin’ Me Up, and more. Do I recommend this set? Completely. However I have to note some errors and disappointments. The biggest one for me is that the test pressing version of Idiot Wind is STILL not included. That is, the same vocal take is included, but without Paul Griffin’s overdubbed swirling organ, that I heard all those years ago. Another take with organ appears here, but quite different. So sad. Second, Sony apparently intended to reproduce the entire lyric notebook mentioned above, but accidentally missed out pages 8-11 and 52-53. The set is very expensive and the only response so far is to post pages 8-11 (but not 52-53) for download as a PDF. Especially annoying as page 53 includes another unreleased song, Little Bit of Rain. Let’s hope Sony does the right thing and reprints the book for us. Third, there are some oddities with splicing in a couple of versions of Idiot Wind, where one take is mixed with another. Note of this bars me from giving the set 5 stars. To hear these sessions in such high quality is just delightful.

Il box è bellissimo, con i due booklet spettacolari e, come di consueto con le versioni deluxe della Bootleg Series, con un'estetica e delle foto meravigliose. Bellissime le foto che riproducono il taccuino con i testi manoscritti da Dylan all'epoca della gestazione dell'album. Per quanto riguarda la musica, che dire? Parliamo di uno dei più bei album di Dylan (e quindi della storia della musica), uno dei più intimi. Qui abbiamo delle versioni straordinarie, se possibile ancora più intime di quelle del disco. Un viaggio disarmante nel mondo di questo capolavoro. VERGOGNOSO invece il modo di operare di Amazon: ho prenotato questo disco un mese prima dell'uscita, con l'opzione "prezzo più basso", pagandolo 125 €, il giorno stesso che mi è arrivato amazon ha abbassato a 115 € e ora dopo una settimana è a 107 €. Mi chiedo dove sia il rispetto per quei clienti che si muovono addirittura in anticipo prenotando e pensando di risparmiare cosi qualcosa. Invece a questo punto non conviene affatto prenotare ma aspettare che amazon abbassi il prezzo dopo l'uscita del disco, visto che la cosa è successa più volte. E' una presa in giro, altro che serietà e prenotazione a "prezzo più basso"

It is a documentary, taking you through the making of an incredible album. You follow Dylan through the evolution of the songs. He's so focused and determined to push himself and everyone involved as hard as necessary to achieve what he was striving for. As you travel through the 6-day timeline you often wonder, as I'm sure the musicians did, "if that's not the take.... what's he hearing?" The ultimate conclusion would have been a 7th disc, the final album sequenced, remastered without echo and speed-change, just like the tracks in this set -- the chance to hear the remastered combination of takes from the New York and Minnesota sessions that made up the final album, in order. More info on about what was going on during the project would have been interesting -- anything that's known -- any insights into the composer's, the artist's mind; as it is, it's a fascinating puzzle to work out by close listening to the process, when is a recording finished?

This is a beautifully packaged set of cds. I love the original album and had an old bootleg of some of these earlier versions of the songs which I’ve always liked. Having the whole picture is fantastic; the back story, the edits of the lyrics, the music, the different arrangements and performances. You have to invest some time and attention to sets like this, but if you like Dylan you will be rewarded with some fascinating insights.

"To me it felt almost too intimate; too close to the bone. Literally blood on every track." "Nobody convinces Bob to do anything Bob doesn't want to do." "Fierce, passionate, and intense. Dylan is still almost as different as one could imagine from the artist he had been just three months prior in New York." This is a box set many people (including me) have waited for, for quite some time. This latest trawl through Dylan's vaults wasn't released simply to assuage fan's desires for more music from the "Blood On The Tracks" sessions--but to ensure that copyright control didn't slip away from Columbia/Sony Records. But the legal reasons are well beside the point. The end results for Bob-o-philes and/or fans of that original album is that we now get to hear the available tracks recorded over those six days in '74. In one way this set can be heard as a multi-disc extension of the original album's songs--not just Dylan working through the lyrics and the music to the final takes. Now issued in chronological order, and without the slight echo added to the original album tracks and at the correct pitch for the first time, this music takes us down avenues explored by Dylan as he tries various combinations of musicians and lyrics in search of hearing on tape what he heard in his head. And with the remixed sound (even on the officially released album tracks) these performances have a closeness, an immediacy, a "human-ness" that brings another dimension to these songs. The original album tracks, now remixed, have a slightly different feel to them, while the unheard tracks each bring something worthwhile to fan's ears. The majority of these tracks are taken from the multi-track master tapes, but there are a few tracks that come from mono 1/4" rough mixes, which have lower fidelity. And while there's multiple takes of a number of songs, the seeming repetition doesn't make for tedious listening--far from it. There's a certain something here that's captivating--listening to Dylan as he changes his mind (and a few lyrics) to something ever closer to what he wanted. Picking out high points is pretty useless. Each take here has something to recommend it--these album sessions are that important. There's a single disc available that picks out a few alternate takes which only hints at this whole process Dylan went through. But diving deep into the music from these sessions (a few tracks have been previously released on the "Bootleg Series Vol. 1-3", "Biograph", and "Blood On The Tracks" test pressings) you really begin to understand what was in Dylan's mind during this period--an album about his personal problems--or an album influenced by Chekov's short stories--who knows for sure? From solo sessions to duos. trios and full bands, this multi-disc set is the best way to hear all the tracks surrounding one of Dylan's finest albums. Disc One is Dylan solo--vocal, acoustic guitar, harmonica--with some intimate performances that are quite nice to finally hear together. Disc Two has Dylan playing with the Deliverance band--but the band not giving enough impact to Dylan's songs--which nonetheless are a good insight into Dylan's struggles recording these tunes. Also here are several takes of "Idiot Wind" with only a bassist accompanying Dylan which have a power of their own, and many takes of "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" again with the band. Disc Three is Dylan again using only a bassist, with a few tracks also using organ or piano. Disc Four is made up of a few solo tracks of "Buckets Of Rain", and the rest again with bassist Tony Brown. Disc Five continues with Dylan using only a bassist for accompaniment with remakes of "Tangled Up In Blue" "Simple Twist Of Fate", "Idiot Wind", and a few other songs. Disc Six has the Minneapolis tracks recorded with local musicians that were released on the original album but with a slightly different sound. The packaging is similar to other Dylan box sets. Everything slips into a (8 1/2" X 9") hardcover slipcase. There's two books--one with the discs and track-by-track information, along with period photos. Each disc slips into a pocket in a hard cardboard page in the book which incorporates some cool graphics in the pages for each disc. The other book-a 122 page hardcover book with sewn in pages ("Stories In The Press, Photographs, Writings and Memorabilia") is full of more ephemera like photos of Dylan in sessions and on stage. A number of pages are taken up with a repro of one of Dyaln's notebooks of lyrics from these sessions that show him changing lyrics that better suited him. There's some great repros of test pressing labels, promotional record jackets, artwork, singles record jackets, album charts, a newspaper piece from Ralph J. Gleason ("In Praise Of A Mouth Harpist"), and other great stuff that few people have previously seen. This is one of the better volumes in this fine Bootleg Series, and anyone who finds something of meaning in the original album should add this apparently limited edition set to their shelf of Dylan music. I had this set prior to the official release date so I could post this review on release day.