Bob Dylan - Blood From The Tracks (1974)

In September 1974 Bob Dylan gathered together a bunch of session musicians and set about recording his first truly solo album since 1970. Four days later he'd taped fifteen songs, capturing the swift working practices that he'd employed in his early years, and with the stripped-back sound also echoing that period of his career. Once engineer Phil Ramone had finished with the tapes, Dylan thought he was done with 'Blood On The Tracks', and test pressings went out to critics. The ten songs that were chosen for the album were not well-received by the music critic of the Village Voice, and apparently Dylan had the same mis-givings, so he took one of the test pressings home to play to his brother David, who suggested that it lacked a commercial appeal. Accepting this criticism, Dylan scrapped half of the album and re-recorded the songs, eventually releasing a very different version of the record. The New York pressing has been widely bootlegged over the years, with many fans believing it’s the superior version of the album, and although the complete New York sessions were released on the exhaustive 'More Blood, More Tracks' box set in 2018, this recording of the original New York recordings is taken directly from a mint condition test pressing of the intended release. Two out-takes have survived from the scrapped sessions, and I've included both the superb 'Up To Me', and an early version of 'Meet Me In The Morning' entitled 'Call Letter Blues', expanding this collection of songs recorded for the first version of a now classic album. 

Track listing

01 Tangled Up In Blue
02 Simple Twist Of Fate
03 You’re A Big Girl Now
04 Idiot Wind
05 You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go
06 Meet Me In The Morning
07 Lily, Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts
08 If You See Her, Say Hello
09 Shelter From The Storm
10 Buckets Of Rain
11 Up To Me
12 Call Letter Blues

Suggested by 'The Greatest Albums You'll Never Hear' by Bruno MacDonald