When Bob Dylan arrived on the folk scene in 1962, Johnny Cash was immediately a fan, which was reciprocated by Dylan, who had admired Cash in the 50's. Cash even wrote a fan letter to the young Dylan, which started a correspondence between them. Moving on to 1969 and Dylan was in Nashville recording his 'Nashville Skyline' album, while Cash was in the studio next door, and he decided to drop in. The two of them decided to record some songs together, and laid down over a dozen duets - some of Dylan's songs, some of Cash's, and some old favourites of them both. 'Girl From The North Country' made it onto the 'Nashville Skyline' album, but the rest have remained officially unreleased, although they've circulated on bootlegs for years.
Track listing
01 One Too Many Mornings02 Good Ol' Mountain Dew03 I Still Miss Someone04 Careless Love05 Matchbox06 That's Alright Mama07 Big River08 Girl From The North Country09 I Walk The Line10 You Are My Sunshine11 Ring Of Fire12 Guess Things Happen That Way13 Just A Closer Walk With Thee14 Blue Yodel15 Blue Yodel No 5
When Bob Dylan released 'Desire' in 1976 it immediately joined the record books for being one of the longest ever single vinyl albums, at over 56 minutes. In order to cram so much music onto a single disc the grooves had to be much closer together than normal, resulting in a loss of audio fidelity. If he'd just added in a couple of the out-takes from the 'Desire' sessions then he could have released a double album of four standard length sides, with the resultant increase in the audio quality. The songs on 'Desire' were written during the Rolling Thunder Review tour, with some of them being co-writes with Jacques Levy, and they were recorded in mid-1975. The story goes that on the way to the studio Dylan spotted Scarlet Rivera walking along with her violin case, and he stopped to talk to her, following which he invited her to the rehearsal studio to play violin on some of his songs. She later said that if she'd crossed the road a little earlier she would never have met him and her life would have been very different.I've gathered together all the out-takes from the sessions and scattered them throughout the released version of the album. There was one song which Dylan wrote but never recorded, as he offered it to Eric Clapton first, who accepted it and put it on his 'No Reason To Cry' album. Dylan helped out on vocals when it was recorded, so that version of 'Sign Language' is also included. The version of 'Seven Days' is a live one, as it's much better than the demo that is doing the rounds. So this is what 'Desire' could have sounded like if Dylan had decided to go down the double-album route, instead of compressing his generally lengthy songs onto a single disc.
Track listing
01 Hurricane02 Isis03 Abandoned Love04 Mozambique05 Catfish06 One More Cup Of Coffee07 Golden Loom08 Oh, Sister09 Sign Language10 Seven Days11 Joey12 Rita May13 Romance In Durango14 Black Diamond Bay15 Sara
Thanks to Album Fixer for the original concept in July 2016.
I put this one together back in 2013, and so recent 'Bootleg Series' releases might have made it a bit redundant, but it was one of my very first efforts, so I've decided to post it anyway. My original notes are below.I was listening to the excellent Radio 4 documentary on Bootlegs recently, and as I was listening to stories about Dylan's Great White Wonder I got to thinking if there was still a rip of it around anywhere so that I could hear it. Well, the short answer is no, there isn't. I found half of it, but the sound quality was atrocious, so I turned my attention to The Basement Tapes instead. Some investigation revealed that when they were officially released by CBS in 1975 they missed off a number of the best songs, so ever up for a challenge I decided to track them down. I managed to find all the missing tracks in pretty good sound quality, and with a little fading and patching, I don't think it came out too bad.So what we have here are The Original Basement Tapes, running in the order of the original bootleg, but in the best sound quality available. I have to say, speaking as someone who likes Dylan but is not mad on him, that this is currently my favourite of his albums, just for the fact that him and The Band seem to having so much fun singing these songs.
Track listing
01 Odds And Ends02 Nothing Was Delivered03 Get Your Rocks Off04 Clothes Line Saga05 Apple Suckling Tree06 Goin' To Acapulco07 Tears Of Rage08 Quinn The Eskimo09 Open The Door, Homer10 I'm Not There11 Million Dollar Bash12 Yea! Heavy And A Bottle Of Bread13 Please, Mrs. Henry14 Crash On The Levee (Down In The Flood)15 Lo And Behold!16 Tiny Montgomery17 This Wheel's On Fire18 You Ain't Goin' Nowhere19 I Shall Be Released20 Too Much Of Nothin'21 Silent Weekend22 Sign On The Cross
It seems I'm not the only one with fond memories of Album Fixer's site, and the good news is that I've managed to access some of the pages using the Cache option on Google, so I've been able to put together an updated 320 version of his take on Bob Dylan's 'Down In The Flood'.The premise of this one was that 1971's 'Greatest Hits Vol. 2' wasn't really a greatest hits package at all, but a collection of songs recorded in 1971, along with some live versions of older songs. Dylan's idea might have been to release some older songs that hadn't appeared yet, alongside some new versions of older songs, and some that he'd only just written, but the record company weren't keen with what he offered and so we ended up with GHV2.This version of the album contains a mixture of old songs, new songs and some live tracks, recorded from his surprise appearance at George Harrison's Concert For Bangladesh, playing new arrangements of his songs on just guitar and harmonica, and from the New Years Eve concerts where he joined The Band for a raucous run through of some of his hits. 'Song For Woody' is a jam with George Harrison, 'George Jackson' was a single about the activist, who had just died, 'Tomorrow Is A Long Time' is an out-take from the 'New Morning' sessions, and 'If Not For You' is a rehearsal for the Bangladesh concert with George Harrison. The rest are rare and alternate versions of more well-known songs.
Track listing
01 When I Paint My Masterpiece02 Watching the River Flow03 Wallflower 04 Down In The Flood 05 Song To Woody 06 You Ain't Goin' Nowhere 07 Tomorrow Is A Long Time 08 George Jackson 09 Only A Hobo10 I Shall Be Released11 If Not for You 12 A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall 13 It Takes A Lot to Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry 14 Blowin' In The Wind 15 Mr. Tambourine Man16 Just Like A Woman17 Down In The Flood 18 When I Paint My Masterpiece19 Don't Ya Tell Henry20 Like A Rolling Stone
If Album Fixer didn't make a cover for his albums I sometimes use to make one and post it on his site. This was one of my first efforts with Microsoft Paint and I always thought it came out rather well.
For anyone who had download CSNY's 'War Songs' I've just found a much better version of 'Soldier', so the link has now been updated.
