The Rock n Roll Curmudgeon Rides Again
The Bob Dylan Bootleg Series: A Totally Subjective Retrospective (quattro)
Let us make this penultimate installment a bit less clunky and long-winded as its three predecessors. And yes, there will be a fifth and, possibly the longest, essay speculating on the music still in the dark, dark vaults.
Be it by magic or mishap, I realize as I scan the titles of my final five, they serve to encompass Dylan’s entire body of work. At Number Five sits the most recent entry, namely the magnificent Vol. 17: Fragments – The Time Out Of Mind Sessions (1996-1997) With a remix that strips away all of producer Daniel Lanois swampy hue, (for some, it marred the original record and for some, myself included, it enhanced the autumnal mortality.) It is five loaded discs of Dylan and the apocalypse, eye to eye.
Numero Four is the set that pretty much started it all, namely Vol. 1-3: Rare & Unreleased – 1961-1991. Though it had been roughly six years between the 1985 release of the 3CD set Biograph — a mash-up of one man’s (manager Jeff Rosen) essential Dylan playlist, (though it did uncover such critical previously unreleased performances as the epic “Caribbean Wind,” (’81), “Visions of Johanna,” (’66), “Isis,” (’75) and that cranked up, ’81 b-side “The Groom’s Still Waiting at the Altar.” ) Vol. 1-3: Rare & Unreleased – 1961-1991 served as the bootlegger’s validation. Everyone wanted to hear this stuff and let those that didn’t be damned to the Bay City Rollers or Slade archives. Tracks from the legendary Minnesota Hotel Room, Christmas ’61. “Blind Willie McTell.” “Farewell Angelina.” “Foot of Pride.” “Series of Dreams.” Vol. 1-3 scratched the surface, and once the surface was compromised, the vault blew open.
The Bootleg Series Vol. 13: Trouble No More 1979–1981 is, for me, essential. There was gale force idiot wind blowing from coast to coast and continent to continent during the Born Again period. Well the enemy I see / is dressed in a cloak of decency effin’ a right and Dylan knew it.
Across five discs and one DVD, the gospel powered protest songs bound from the stage. Imagine singing I believe in youto a bugged-out audience today of neo-nazis and they’re weary hippie counterparts. Nothing short of bloodshed would ensue.
Truth be told, Dylan was as possessed on stage during this time as he was during Rolling Thunder four years prior. Backed by one of the fiercest bands he’d yet to assemble — Fred Tackett – guitar, Spooner Oldham – keyboards, Tim Drummond – bass, Jim Keltner – drums, and vocalists Regina McCreary, Helena Springs, and Mona Lisa Young — this set bristles with an energy some might call salvation and some deem damnation. Dylan knew our natures were split because his was splintered and he threw it at us full tilt. I ain’t gonna go to hell for anybody. All the proof you need is right there.
The Bootleg Series Vol 10: Another Self Portrait is, like Vol. 13, indispensable. I return to these two sets on a fairly regular basis. Vol 10 sets the record straight on another snake-bit season of Dylan lore, ’69-’71. Everyone who heard the dual disc Self Portrait back then had an opinion and a few choice words to say. And it’s safe to say, looking out with fifty years of perspective and hindsight, 99.8% of the words were bad. Vol 10 luminously twists that whole stale narrative and virtually dares you to put together your own self portrait and see how it all plays out. The voice is Nashville Skyline. The music timeless.
The tops of the pops, without any hesitation, is The Bootleg Series Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs: Rare and Unreleased 1989–2006. Three exceptionally vulnerable and starless discs, brooding on how the lives and the loves that pulled them through delivered them to this messy pile-up of years. Dylan the craggy, old bluesman, spinning tales of road kill and compromise. Only one thing I did wrong / stayed in Mississippi a day too long. Well that certainly can be said about most of us.
The emptiness is endless / cold as the clay / you can always come back / but you can’t come back all the way. Hell yeah.
Dylan alone at the piano looking for “Dignity.” With a weary south-of-the-border sway, “Red River Shore” is beyond anyone’s sense of sadness. Though nothing looks familiar to me/ I know I’ve stayed here before / Once, a thousand nights ago / with the girl from the red river shore. And then the spirit breaking last lines: Sometimes I think no one ever saw me here at all / ‘cept the girl from the red river shore. All that and we are only up to track five of Disc One. ‘Cross the Green Mountain,” “Born In Time,” “Huck’s Tune,” “Everything Is Broken,” “Things Have Changed,” and a host of spectral refractions follow beneath the thunder blasted trees . . .
Just as I’m putting the finishing touches on this, they have announced the late year release of a 4CD set The Complete Budokan 1978. Who knows if it is an official entry into the Bootleg Series or not. Either way, I want to thank you all for sticking with me on this.
But there’s still one more to go . . .
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Mike Jurkovic is the president and co-founder of CAPS, Calling All Poets, a long-established reading series and small press (CAPS Press). He is a prolific writer of poetry, prose and music reviews and many of his works can be read here on Lightwood.
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