- DYLAN BOB & THE BAND THE BASEMENT TAPES RAW:THE BOOTLEG VOL11.
2-disc set of 38 highlights from Dylan s legendary 1967 sessions
with The Band
Compiled from meticulously restored original tapes
56-page booklet with extensive liner notes and rare photographs
Compiled from meticulously restored original tapes many found
only recently - this historic six-disc set is the definitive
chronicle of the artist's legendary 1967 sessions with
members of his touring ensemble who would later achieve their own
fame as The Band.
Among Bob Dylan's many cultural milestones, the legendary
Basement Tapes have long fascinated and enticed successive
generations of musicians, fans and cultural critics alike. Having
transformed music and culture during the early 1960s, Dylan
reached unparalleled heights across 1965 and 1966 through the
release of three historic albums, the groundbreaking watershed
single "Like A Rolling Stone," a controversial and legendary
'electric' performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival and
wildly polarizing tours of the United States, Europe and the UK.
Dylan's mercurial rise and prodigious outpouring of work during
that decade came to an abrupt halt in July 1966 when he was
reported to have been in a serious motorcycle accident.
Recovering from his injuries and away from the public eye for the
first time in years, Dylan ensconced himself, along with Robbie
Robertson, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson and, later,
Levon Helm, in the basement of a small house, dubbed "Big Pink"
by the group, in West Saugerties, New York. This collective
recorded more than a hundred songs over the next several months
including traditional covers, wry and humorous ditties, off-the
cuff performances and, most important, dozens of newly-written
Bob Dylan songs, including future classics "I Shall Be Released,"
"The Mighty Quinn," "This Wheel's On Fire" and "You Ain't Going
Nowhere."
When rumors and rare acetates of some of these s began
surfacing, it created a curiosity strong enough to fuel an
entirely new segment of the music business: the bootleg record.
In 1969, an album mysteriously titled Great White Wonder began
showing up in record shops around the country, and Dylan's music
from the summer of 1967 began seeping into the fabric of popular
culture, penetrating the souls of music lovers everywhere. With
each passing year, more and more fans sought out this rare
contraband, desperate to hear this new music from the legendary
Bob Dylan.
The actual s, however, remained commercially unavailable
until 1975, when Columbia Records released a scant 16 of them on
The Basement Tapes album (that album also included eight new
songs by The Band, without Dylan).
A critical and popular success, The Basement Tapes went Top 10 in
the US and UK.
Over the years, the songs on The Basement Tapes have haunted and
perplexed fans, with the s themselves representing a
Holy Grail for Dylanologists. What's on the rest of those reels?
The Basement Tapes Complete brings together, for the first time
ever, every salvageable from the tapes including
recently discovered early gems recorded in the "Red Room" of
Dylan's home in upstate New York. Garth Hudson worked closely
with Canadian music archivist and producer Jan Haust to restore
thedeteriorating tapes to pristine sound, with much of this music
preserved digitally for the first time.
The decision was made to present The Basement Tapes Complete as
intact as possible. Also, unlike the official 1975 release, these
performances are presented as close as possible to the way they
were originally recorded and sounded back in the summer of 1967.
The tracks on The Basement Tapes Complete run in mostly
chronological order based on Garth Hudson's numbering system.