Album Reviews

Bootlegs, outtakes and unreleased material mostly interests completists, scholars and obsessive fans. Usually, the quality and significance declines with each new archival release, but not with Bob Dylan.

The obsessives will be joyous of course, but even casual fans will become caught up in both Volume Nine’s narrative intensity and the astonishing creative power evident in these raw, casual and pure non-performances.

Bootlegs, outtakes and unreleased material mostly interests completists, scholars and obsessive fans. Usually, the quality and significance declines with each new archival release, but not with Bob Dylan.

The obsessives will be joyous of course, but even casual fans will become caught up in both Volume Nine’s narrative intensity and the astonishing creative power evident in these raw, casual and pure non-performances.

After all, these demos Dylan made for his music publisher M. Witmark and Sons between 1962 and 1964 when he was in his very early 20s and presented here in chronological order, were not meant to be artistic statements. Most have never before been officially released and collectors have had to make do with poor sounding genuine boots.

They were intended as faceless templates designed to entice other artists to record and perform the tunes so the songwriter and publisher could collect royalties on the sheet music, records, live performances and synchronization rights (use in movies and stage productions and now, but not often then, in commercials).

That’s how the business worked back then and everyone from Carole King to Neil Diamond to Lou Reed got involved in “song plugging.” When Dylan came to New York, he did likewise.

For me, this is easily the most exciting, fascinating and vital in Legacy’s Dylan Bootleg Series. As you listen and read Colin Escott’s perfectly attuned, business oriented narrative accompaniment, the story of Bob Dylan’s fast track rise to stardom unfolds.

Escott weaves Dylan’s meteoric early narrative as he goes from songwriter/song hawker to recording artist and live attraction within the Tin Pan Alley music business system now long gone thanks in great part to Dylan.

Thanks to the stop-action quality of compressing two year’s worth of visits to a small demo studio at M. Witmark and Sons, his publisher, to document new songs, the compilation feels like a jukebox or an iPod in shuffle mode as Dylan tries out different musical genres and unique vocal personas, growing in writing and performing sophistication before our ears—not that he didn’t sound fully formed even on the earliest material.

People used to say Dylan sounded like an old man when he was young but listening to him here, that’s wrong. Dylan sounded like an old recordwhen he was young.

It’s as if he learned to imitate an old 78rpm disc the way an African Gray parrot mimics the sound of an answering machine. He “plays” 78s of his own invention of course, but the ghost of the antecedent pushes its way to the foreground on many of these formative tunes and performances.

Some, like “Blowin’ In the Wind,” “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “Tomorrow is a Long Time,” and “Only A Hobo” have become iconic sung by others after hearing and recording their versions of these very demos, so it’s thrilling to finally hear what Peter, Paul and Mary, The Byrds, Judy Collins and Rod Stewart heard.

Some like “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall,” “Masters of War,” “The Times They Are a Changin’” and others were owned by Dylan, though even some of those received memorable treatment by others.

For Fairport Convention fans, hearing the original of the gorgeous “I’ll Keep it With Mine,” first heard by the music buying public on their What We Did On Our Holidays(Island 9092)will bring the set to an especially poignant ending. How producer Joe Boyd got the demo back then would probably be an interesting side story.

Even the less than memorable and dead end tunes (fifteen of which have never before been released in any format) offer something of interest, even if they serve merely as links to bursts of mind-boggling greatness as startling to witness today in these early iterations, as they were in the final versions that stopped us in our tracks all those years ago. Hearing Dylan accompanying himself on piano on “The Times They Are A- Changin’”  reveals the melodic complexity Dylan managed with basic chording.

When you finish reading and listening, your appreciation for all of Dylan’s commercially released music will have been greatly enhanced. The four LPs here aren’t one-time documentary fascinations: they stand up well to repeated scrutiny.

Dylan coughs, muffs some lines, apologizes, promises to write down some versus, laughs, directs and even at this early time complains that he’s sung one song “so many times” but as quickly as these informal asides and glitches appear, they dissolve and the magic spell reasserts itself.

One doesn’t have to imagine what the music business people with whom Dylan surrounded himself might have been thinking upon hearing these tunes because Escott’s notes give some indication.

John Hammond, who signed Dylan to Columbia, was thrilled with the youngster’s honesty and integrity. The other executives called it “Hammond’s Folly.” New York Times music critic Robert Shelton saw it coming immediately upon seeing Dylan, but Leeds Publishing’s Lou Levy didn’t. He’d first signed Dylan for $100 but relinquished the contract when Witmark wanted Dylan. Escott compares this to Decca’s turning down The Beatles around the same time.

All of the main characters from Albert Grossman to Artie Mogull come to life in the Damon Runyan-like New York City music biz history Escott recounts. You’ll read how Peter, Paul and Mary came to first record “Blowin’ In the Wind” and other anecdotes that bring life and focus to this early period during which Dylan simultaneously recorded his first album of mostly covers that reportedly sold a Folkways Records-like grand total of 2500 copies.

Sony/Legacy’s packaging is absolutely stellar. These folks really get what needs to be provided to entice people to buy physical media.

This is a sturdy box set you will want to own. There literally isn’t a surface that gets ignored. The insides are lined with “Six Eye” wallpaper. The lettering on the cover is embossed lamination set against matte photos.

Each of the four LPs is housed in a beautifully presented LP jacket featuring a full sized matte-finish black and white photo of Dylan taken during this period. The left hand margin of each is finished in a laminated faux leather wrap around surface. The back of the jackets reproduce an old Columbia Records 78 RPM manufacturing blurb once found on the label’s 78rpm sleeves and the labels are reproductions of audiodisc acetate blanks.

The full-sized book is similarly well executed and features full page, stunning black and white and color photos, most previously not published, memorabilia, original typed and handwritten lyric sheets and other nostalgic material. And of course there is Escott’s flawless annotation.

I suspect the 180g vinyl was pressed at Rainbo in Los Angeles and it’s clear now that the company has achieved a consistently high level pressing quality many in the industry never thought possible from the “hit and miss” company. My four LPs were all hits and no misses in terms of quiet and excellent fit'n'finish.

As for the actual sound, while it’s variable, even the worst of it has a direct, immediate and honest sound that will communicate to you the sensation of being in that little room and witnessing these performances. The best of them, like Dylan’s vocals on “The Times They Are A-Changin’” will make you feel as if you’re in the room despite the muffled piano.

It sounds and feels like New York City in the early 1960s. Just don’t expect me to explain exactly why, but if you were around then you’ll smell the air. I doubt this was cut from anything but a digitally compiled source but however it was done, the sound is transparent and true and the 12 X 12 packaging alone makes it a worthwhile investment, though at around $140 dollars, it’s pricey.

I was more looking forward to George Marino’s all-analog mastering of the mono commercial releases than to this set of publishing demos, but it’s doubtful those will have the same impact as this set.

When the day comes that Dylan’s work will be in need of a career capping summation, however well it’s conceived and produced, it’s not likely to achieve the clarity, focus and importance of this career opening “prequel-like” box.

Recommended without reservation!