Basement Tapes
Richard Shapiro
Well, I was planning to spend these days off listening to the many
tapes I've received from fellow r.m.d'ers, especially the '66 tour
tapes -- this is an unusually generous group and I find myself with a
LOT of tapes that I've only played through once.
But somehow I got sucked into listening to Basement Tapes instead: the
officially released ones, the great pile of unreleased ones that
turned up on the 'BBG & the Hawks: Basement Tapes' set, and a few
other odds and ends (so to speak) I have on tape. What an amazing
collection of music! The *highly* idiosynchratic lyrics, alternately
cheerfully absurd and despairingly bleak; the multitude of singing
styles, each half ironic and half serious; the wonderfully off-kilter
accompaniment by The Band; the weird but somehow compelling tunes...It
doesn't have the incisiveness and the strength of 65/66, but I could
easily be convinced that this was a kind of pinnacle of Dylan's
career.
So much for opinions. Now, some questions:
1. How different is the offical release from the original versions of
the released tracks? I know they were remixed into mono, and I've
heard that some of them had instrumentation added. How significantly
did this alter things? (I also know that some of the released takes
were different from the ones that circulated on earlier bootlegs, but
that's not the question I'm addressing here.)
2. From the sources I have, there are 6 known tracks sung by Dylan
which are not either officially released or on 'BBG & the Hawks'.
These are:
Tears of Rage alternate 1 (the one on 'Troubled Troubador', etc)
Tears of Rage alternate 2 (the one in triple time)
The Mighty Quinn alternate (on 'Troubled Troubador' et al?)
Don't Ya Tell Henry (Dylan vocal)
Nothing Was Delivered alternate
Open the Door, Homer alternate 2 (alternate 1 was on BBG & the Hawks)
I've heard the first four, but not the last two. Has anyone heard
these? They seem to be rare items. How different are they from the
known versions? Perhaps someone wants to send me a tape :-)?
Statistics: I made a tape of the Dylan vocals on the official release
(minus 'Quinn' from Biograph) and it took up exactly one side of a
100-minute cassette. I did a similar thing for the BBG & the Hawks
records and it took up slightly less than a full 100-minute tape --
with the six tracks listed above, it would come out to a little over a
full 100-minute tape. That is, the ratio of released to unreleased is
just under 1:2. If a couple of the less interesting alternate takes
were dropped, the entire collection (again, considering Dylan vocals
only) would just fit onto 2 cds. Are you listening, Columbia?
douglas.sulpy
>
...> Nothing Was Delivered alternate
> Open the Door, Homer alternate 2 (alternate 1 was on BBG & the Hawks)
I have these on bootleg somewhere -- The alternate "Nothing Was
Delivered" is wonderful - it's done in a 50's style, with Bob
laughing his way through some of the lyrics. I'm in the process
of moving at present, but if you don't get it from someone else you're
welcome to a tape when I get my act together.
One of the things that becomes annoyingly clear when comparing the
bootlegs with the legitimate releases of the Basement tapes is that either:
1) All of the bootlegs are mastered fast or...
2) The "official" LP is mastered too slow.
Since the tracks sound better 'fast' (and sound 'right', for that matter),
I tend to think that Columbia and/or Bob or Robbie screwed up (on purpose?)
when putting together the official Basement Tapes collection.
I, too, wish Columbia would get their act together. There's a lot of
unnecessary stuff on the Basement Tapes bootlegs, but there's also
at least an albums worth of material that SHOULD be released (Like,
ahem! "I Shall Be Released"!!).
And while they're at it, they can put out "Shot Of Love", "Saved" (With
the original cover, please!), and "Dylan" (With all the otherwise
uncollected B-Sides added -- good idea, huh?).
Just day-dreaming for the new year :-).
David Thomas
>In article <50...@bbn.COM>, rsha...@bbn.com (Richard Shapiro) writes:
>One of the things that becomes annoyingly clear when comparing the
>bootlegs with the legitimate releases of the Basement tapes is that either:
>
>1) All of the bootlegs are mastered fast or...
>2) The "official" LP is mastered too slow.
>
>Since the tracks sound better 'fast' (and sound 'right', for that matter),
>I tend to think that Columbia and/or Bob or Robbie screwed up (on purpose?)
>when putting together the official Basement Tapes collection.
>
That's interesting. A few years ago I noticed the following comparing "Troubled
Troubador" with the official issue.
Yea Heavy and the bottle key of E (E flat, official)
Please Mrs Henry key of D (D flat, official)
Down in the flood key of B (B flat, official)
Lo and Behold key of E flat (D , official)
Tiny Montgomery key of F (E , official)
Other tracks were less clear cut. I always thought my tape deck was up
the creek.
If i'd been at the sessions (!) I'd have prefered the unofficial keys
myself.
David Thomas
Brunel University