Album Reviews

Larry “Ratso” Sloman’s annotation brings into sharp, entertaining focus this collection of vital Dylan outtakes, alternative takes, unreleased tracks and live performances from 1989’s Oh Mercy sessions through his most recent 2006 release Modern Times.

There’s not a throwaway or “curiosity” in the bunch. Back in 1987, Sloman recounts, Dylan had booked some dates with The Grateful Dead, at a time when he felt pretty much washed up and ready to retire as he wrote in his autobiography “Chronicles-Volume One.”

During the first rehearsal Garcia had urged Dylan to try out some of his more obscure songs but Dylan felt so disconnected he used a lame excuse and fled the space. On the way back to his hotel, Dylan stopped into a local bar where he heard an older gentleman delivering some jazz standards in a style that immediately spoke to the spent superstar. It so inspired Dylan that he immediately returned to the rehearsal space and began trying out the old tunes. At least that’s the story. With Dylan you never know! At least it’s a good story. Dylan had a second fall and rose yet again from the creative dead in front of a Swiss audience in 1987.

This tumultuous period of self-doubt and creative outbursts produced the swampy brilliance of Oh Mercy and the confused Under the Red Sky,” but even that album had a few worthwhile tracks, though nothing from those sessions are found here.

There are seven tracks from the Daniel Lanois producedOh Mercy sessions and six from Time Out of Mind. Less is sometimes more and that’s the case with these revealing, under-produced, unadorned tracks. The feel is live, exploratory and vital. These are not “leftovers” in any sense of the word. In fact, Dylan sounds more vital on most of these tracks than on the more polished studio albums that came from these sessions. The live unreleased tracks are a treat—which is more than I can say for the live show I saw at the PNC center in New Jersey a few years ago when Tom Petty opened for Dylan. Tom’s set was reliably swell. Dylan came out and played keyboard in front of an unidentified older looking gent in Bermuda shorts who played guitar while conferring with Bob about the chords. We walked out half way through. There was nothing happening on the stage that night but plenty was in 1993 when Dylan sang “Ring Them Bells” at The Supper Club, which is included here.

This 4 LP set was cut from 16 bit 44.1K files so why would anyone bother with it instead of just getting the far less expensive CD set?

Well, there’s the packaging and the free MP3 download that’s part of the purchase price. Of course, if you buy the CD set you can upload higher quality files to your pod of choice but you can’t beat the 12”x12” full color perfect-bound, full color book (calling it a “booklet”) would be an injustice.

The photos are stark and instructional, showing Dylan both empty and fulfilled. The annotation is at the same time brutally honest and sympathetic and the credits are unusually complete.

Greg Calbi, who mastered the set at Sterling Sound culled from disparate digital sources sent by the set’s compiler, brought over some CD refs so we could compare them to the vinyl cut at Sterling by Ray Janos.

George Marino’s room at Sterling has recently been retro-fitted with a preview head-equipped playback deck that will once again allow Sterling to cut AAA vinyl, but of course given the set’s source material that system couldn’t be used.

Comparing the actual source with the vinyl proved interesting! Ideally the tonal balance should be identical, assuming your goal is faithfulness to the source. That’s not everyone’s goal judging by what some listeners prefer, but that’s another story!

I had the $80,000 four box DCS stack here to use as a digital source (transport, DAC, word clock and upsampler) and my reference Continuum Caliburn turntable and Manley Steelhead to use as the analog source.

The well-pressed 180g vinyl sounded tonally identical to the CD through the Steelhead—less so through some other phono preamps here for review. However, the vinyl’s additive qualities produce a greater sense of realism without losing any of the CD’s positive attributes. There’s something about the vinyl process that does that. When properly played back there’s magic and I really don’t care from where it comes. It’s just there.

Tell Tale Signs-The Bootleg Series Vol. 8 is a surprisingly vital and coherent abridgement of a creatively mixed but ultimately rich and triumphant period for Dylan.