Shelter From The Storm

I love box sets. I buy a lot of them. If there’s a box set by any artist I’m interested in, I’ll get it. The truth is I listen to each of them two or three times when I first get them, but after that not so much. Part of the appeal lies in the “extras” that often come with a box set: the rare unreleased tracks, the book or booklet with lots of essays, track information and liner notes, the photos and packaging, etc. But box sets can really run the gamut from flat out fantastic to a complete waste of time. Ideally a box set, if it’s done right, should represent the artist and/or period it covers in such a way that it appeals to someone who’s only marginally familiar with the music and to a true collector. This can be a tricky thing to accomplish. More and more the labels are getting it right, but there’s no guarantee. The worst box set I have is the Steely Dan collection Citizen Steely Dan 1972 - 1980. Not because of the music, the music is great. Because all it really contains is the first seven studio albums in their entirety with one hard to find b-side, one outtake and one demo. The complete lack of rare and/or unreleased material makes this a colossal waste of time, for me at least. I already have all the studio albums. One of my favorite box sets is a 26 CD set from Bob Dylan titled Jewels And Binoculars: The Definitive 1966 Collection. It’s a bootleg, of course, the labels would never indulge in something that extravagant. It collects all of the live recordings (and some studio tracks as well) that exist among collectors from Dylan in 1966.

The Band only made seven studio albums during their career. There is also the stellar live album Rock Of Ages and the farewell concert document The Last Waltz. Their recorded output has been recycled, repackaged, recompiled and rereleased quite a bit over the years. The first CD compilation came in 1989 with To Kingdom Come a two disc set that was marketed at the time as “The Definitive Collection.” For a two disc set it does a pretty good job and even throws in a couple of hard to find tracks. But it was hardly “definitive.” 1994 saw the release of the first box set, Across The Great Divide, a three disc affair. This time around there are two discs of “greatest hits” and one disc of rarities. Very nicely done with a gorgeous booklet containing a great essay by Chet Flippo, nice photos and track information. For those with bootleg tastes the wonderful Crossing The Great Divide (another three disc set released in the nineties) was a treasure trove of rare and unreleased material. In 2000 and 2001 Capital rereleased all of the groups albums once again, this time with tons of bonus tracks, great packaging and detailed liner notes. These really were the “definitive” editions. So, I for one, was not expecting to see this box set arrive in 2005. Did we really need another collection? Well, as it turns out, the answer is a definitive yes. A Music History is one of the most spectacular box sets ever released. Everything about it is simply stunning. Housed in a large 9″ by 10″ hardback book, it’s the perfect tribute to one of the best, most unique bands America has ever produced. Over five CDs and one DVD the producers of this compilations have pulled out all the stops.

True to the title the set is a virtual musical biography of the group. The first disc begins with four tracks recorded with Ronnie Hawkins (when they were known as Ronnie Hawkins & The Hawks) recorded in 1961 and 1963. There are eight rare tracks (three of them previously unreleased) recorded under the name Levon & The Hawks in 1964 and 1965. There are tracks from the famous Dylan tour of 1966, Basement Tape tracks and early demos recorded before their first album. A fair amount of this material has never been released before and did not circulate among collectors (at least not the collectors I know). It might be of only passing interest to the casual fan, but for the collectors it’s a gold mine. Discs two and three cover the prime years for The Band, 1968 through 1971, which saw the release of Music From Big Pink, The Band and Stage Fright, one of the greatest three album runs by any group ever. One of the things that made The Band so special from the beginning was the fact that they had been playing together for almost ten years before they recorded their first album. Night after night with Ronnie Hawkins, as Levon & The Hawks and with Dylan. I don’t think any other band has ever been so well “rehearsed” for their debut album. Even after packing all the reissued catalog discs with an abundance of bonus tracks enough rare and unreleased material was still found to fill out these discs quite nicely with numerous treats. In fact, of the 102 total tracks on the box set, 32 are previously unreleased. Disc four covers Cahoots (a bit of letdown at the time after their first three albums) and Rock Of Ages. There’s only three unreleased tracks here, one of which is an outtake from the Academy Of Music shows that made up Rock Of Ages. I have a great two CD bootleg titled Academy Of Outtakes that contains a wealth of material from these shows, so it’s a little disappointing they didn’t include a bit more of those tracks here. By the time we get to most of the music on disc five The Band was beginning to come apart. There are a couple of tracks from their triumphant 1974 tour with Dylan (documented officially on Before The Flood), three tracks from their covers album Moondog Matinee and one track from Dylan’s album Planet Waves on which they served as the backing band. There are only three tracks each from their last two albums, Northern Lights - Southern Cross and Islands. I would have liked to have seen Northern Lights - Southern Cross a little better represented here, but that’s a minor detail. It’s a vastly underrated album that I don’t think has ever really gotten it’s proper respect.

The final disc, a DVD, is a great bonus. It contains nine video tracks, most of which have never been seen before. The first piece “Jam/King Harvest (Has Surely Come)” was filmed in Robbie’s studio in Woodstock in 1970 and it’s a real pleasure to watch. There are a couple of tracks from the Festival Express Tour of Canada in 1970 which have now been released on another DVD. There are two tracks from Wembley Stadium in London in 1974 (a bit disappointing) and the last three tracks were recorded in 1976 for Saturday Night Live. Video of The Band is hard to come by, so the disc is a most welcome addition to the box set.

The Band is one of my favorite all time bands. This box set is a near perfect collection of their work from the very beginning to the very end. It’s great for collectors like me that already have everything else they’ve released and it’s great for someone who doesn’t have anything and wants a good compilation of their work. Any true fan could quibble with the song selection on a set like this, but, truth be told, this box set contains the very best of The Band. The 111 page hardbound book is the icing on the cake. Incredible photos. Detailed liner notes. Wonderful essays. You really couldn’t ask for anything more. It’s probably the best box set I’ve ever seen. Kudos to producers Cheryl Pawelski and Andrew Sandoval for doing such a fantastic job and for giving this great band the homage they so richly deserve.

The 1966 tour through Australia, Europe and especially the UK is more historically significant and more musically consequential. There’s no denying the power and the majesty of those performances. The acoustic performances are positively ethereal. Dylan sounds truly stoned out of his mind yet perfectly in the moment. His harmonica playing on those tracks is unlike anything else I’ve ever heard. He wanders off into unbelievable solos and riffs that wind over, under and around themselves like twisted angelic musical prayers. And, of course, the electric sets are truly groundbreaking. The ferociousness of the band, the power that each and everyone of them brings to each song is truly unique in recorded music. This was a band, with Dylan at the helm, doing battle with their audience each and every night. It brought out something in them that’s never been touched since. I once had a talk with an artist I was working with as an A&R man. He is a truly rare, extraordinary and unique songwriter with not an ounce of business sense in his body. A show he and his band did at 12th & Porter, here in Nashville, in late 1999 remains one of the finest, most powerful and moving performances I’ve ever seen live. Hands down better than most of the concerts I’ve seen by the rich and famous rock stars. Most likely you’ve never heard of him. I haven’t kept in touch with him since I left the music business. Last I heard he was living on the side of a mountain outside Knoxville, Tennessee. We were talking about music, about audiences, about connecting with listeners, about following your true muse wherever that took you and most of all about the difficulty of doing that when no one else seemed to be able to come with you. He too is a big Dylan fan. Think of the irony, and in the end the true triumph of Dylan’s 1966 tour I said. Here he was being booed, not just casually, but deeply and forcefully, by every audience, every night. I don’t care how famous, how self-assured, how strong, how deeply set in your beliefs you are, that must do an incredible trip on your head. And here we are forty years later and this music is commonly, widely even universally, considered some of the most important live music ever recorded. Talk about full circle. It’s Vincent Van Gogh 100 years later with a guitar. Though, thankfully, Dylan didn’t have to die before his genius was recognized. 

All that said, on a lot of days I’d rather listen to the 1975 tour than the 1966 tour. Don’t get me wrong, I listen to the 1966 tour all the time. I have a 26 CD box set (yes, 26 CDs) of every existing note from every show played on that tour. Audience tapes. Board tapes. You name it, if it is known to exist among collectors it’s there. But I come back to the 1975 tour more often. When Live 1975: The Rolling Thunder Review (The Bootleg Series Volume 5) was finally released in 2002 I was beside myself. I’d been waiting a long time for an official release of this material. I was not disappointed. While I might have done some things a little differently (what collector wouldn’t?) overall I was more than happy with this two disc set of material from the tour. Bootlegs (tape, vinyl and CD) from this tour have circulated all along, right from the very beginning. There is an audience tape from almost every single performance of the tour. There are soundboard tapes from a few. Two songs, “Romance In Durango” and “Isis,” both from Montreal, were released on the Biograph box set in 1985. 

My only complaint (and it’s a small one) with this set is the manner in which the tracks have been collected and presented. During the 1975 leg of the Rolling Thunder Review the show would generally go like this: individual members of the backing band, known as Guam for this tour, would each do a song or two; guest artists (such as Joni Mitchell, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and others) would do a few songs; Dylan would do a five or six song set with the band; Dylan and Baez would do a five or six song set; Baez would do a seven or eight song set; Roger McGuinn would do two or three songs; Dylan would return for two or three solo numbers followed by five or six more songs with the band and then everyone would wrap things up with “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” and “This Land Is Your Land.” It sure would have been nice to get a complete show from beginning to end, with all the artists represented, but most of knew that was never going to happen. The draw here is, of course, Dylan, so the two discs are devoted entirely to his performances. And rather than pull one complete show Columbia (and maybe Dylan) have chosen to cherry pick 22 tracks from five different performances (2 from the Boston afternoon show, 10 from the Boston evening show, 5 from Cambridge, 4 from Montreal and 1 from Worcester). The thing that bugs me the most is that many of the tracks have been “isolated.” The applause fades in at the beginning and fades out at the end. Even if the tracks were drawn from different performances I would much rather they have stitched them all together to at least give the illusion of one continuous performance. But, hey, these are really very minor quibbles. I’m more than happy, way more than happy, to just have this material at all.

The album opens with a raucous version of “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You” from the Nashville Skyline album. But, believe me, this version has almost nothing in common with that lilting, country ditty from Nashville Skyline. The band is loud, loose, assertive and in your face. The lyrics have been completely rewritten. Dylan is on fire. He practically screams out the second verse as a command, “Get ready! Because tonight I’ll be staying here with you.” It’s clear from the very beginning what’s to come. A rousing version of “It Ain’t Me, Babe” continues and you can feel the excitement in the crowd. Dylan lays into a fierce harmonica break and the crowd goes crazy. This is the sound of a performer, a band and a audience uniting as one. There’s as much energy coming back to the stage from the audience as Dylan and Guam are sending out. In keeping with the structure of the original shows, Dylan and the band do four more songs and then he does a solo version of “Mr. Tambourine Man” and an especially powerful solo version of “Simple Twist Of Fate.” Baez joins him for “Blowin’ In The Wind,” “Mama, You Been On My Mind” and “I Shall Be Released.” Now the combination of Dylan’s and Baez’s voice is quite unique. Their voices mix in rather odd way that some people just can’t handle. It grates on some people. Others like it. A very few love it. I’m pretty fond of it and these duets are excellent.

Disc Two opens with Dylan back alone doing strong, authoritative versions of “I’ts All Over Now, Baby Blue,” “Love Minus Zero/No Limit” and “Tangled Up In Blue.” Years later it would become a common joke that no one could understand what Dylan sings. Not so here. His words are clear, precise and forthright. If you’ve never considered Dylan a particularly good singer, you need to listen to this disc. Baez returns for a fantastic duet of “The Water Is Wide” and then the full band returns for seven more songs, including four tracks from the as yet unreleased Desire album: “Hurricane,” “Sara,” “Oh, Sister” and “One More Cup Of Coffee (Valley Below).”

I’ve been collecting the tapes of all the Rolling Thunder shows that circulate among collectors for many years. At this point I have most of the shows. There’s an energy, an exuberance, a fire, a passion and something you just can’t put into words about Dylan’s performances on this tour that has never been matched since. Everything just came together here. Everything. The band is great. Baez is better than she’s ever been before or since. The song selections are perfect. It was a short tour. It only lasted a little over a month. It was like no other tour Dylan has ever done. He and his band of gypsies, friends, on lookers and hangers-on basically just barnstormed around the Northeast, showing up with sometimes only a few days notice and entertaining the locals. They played mostly small and medium sized towns, places like Lowell, MA, Burlington, VT, Waterbury, CT, Niagara Falls, NY and Augusta, ME. They blew into town, they played like they truly had no place else to be and then they left as quickly as they came. When we get around to inventing time travel this is the first place I’m going: November 1975 with Bob Dylan and company. What an experience that would be, traipsing around from city to city with these guys. I never get tired of listening to these shows. Never.

The subject of bootlegs is always a touchy one. Some people have a strong opinion one way or another. Many average music listeners don’t really have much of an idea of what they are all about. Those that search out and collect bootlegs have their own feelings about the “morality” of the practice. Bootlegs can generally be broken down into two categories: live and studio. Live bootlegs can be broken down into a few more categories: audience recordings, soundboard recordings and radio or TV broadcasts. Audience recordings are made when someone sneaks a tape recorder (or digital recorder) into a concert and records the show from the audience. Quality on these can vary widely from truly outstanding to unlistenable. Soundboard recordings are made on the soundboard at the concert by the performer’s crew and are usually very, very good quality. Generally someone “leaks” these types of recordings to the fan base (or in some cases it’s possible they have been stolen). Radio or TV broadcasts are taped via the radio or TV when a show is broadcast live (or at a later date) and are usually excellent quality. Studio recordings generally consist of alternate versions or outtakes that someone has, once again, leaked to the fan base (or, again, they may have been stolen). Many artists these days are quite willing to allow fans to exchange live recordings as long as money is not involved. Some even encourage the practice. The Grateful Dead are probably the most well known band to do so, usually setting up a special place in front of the stage where tapers could record the show from. Studio recordings are a completely different matter. It’s harder to justify the trading and exchange of studio recordings since the artist has not usually given any permission to do so. I collect them all. I don’t try to make any “justification” for my “habit.” I’m a junkie, pure and simple. The one great thing that has happened with the advent of the internet, bit-torrent and digital trading is that most of the profit has gone out of the bootleg industry. True fans will never sell bootleg material. It is traded openly and freely. There is also a case to be made for “historical” purposes, though that’s a pretty lengthy discussion which I think I’ll save for later. But, in short, it’s the fans who have often recorded and archived a lot of this material that may well be considered priceless hundreds of years from now and looked on in a much different light. 

In the early 60s, long before he was well known, around the time he recorded his first album, Bob Dylan obtained a publishing contract with M. Witmark & Sons. Between 1962 and 1964 he recorded at least 40 (that we know of) “publishing demos” for the company. Dylan would come into the offices and sit before a tape recorder, just himself, his guitar (sometimes a piano) and occasionally a harmonica. These performances were simply meant to serve as an audible source which the publisher could use to transcribe the songs’ music and lyrics for legal purposes. Sometime in the 60s a very rare, one-sided 9 track LP was also pressed up to distribute to other artists who might have been interested in recording some of the songs. A copy of this album sold on eBay a few years ago for $737 (see image on the left). Many of these songs were never officially recorded by Dylan. Some were indeed recorded by other artists. There are however, demos of some of his best known early songs, including “Blowin’ In The Wind,” “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” and “Girl From The North Country.” Some of the unrecorded songs are excellent and some are merely just good. It’s easy to see why some of them were never recorded by Dylan or anyone else. The fact that Dylan was not “performing” these songs for an audience, or recording them for an album, makes them very unique. Dylan, for the most part, is very relaxed, just running through the songs. This has both good and bad consequences. On the one hand we get very off the cuff, spontaneous performances. There are also a few instances of Dylan playing songs on piano that he usually performed on guitar: a great version of “Mr. Tambourine Man” for instance. On the other hand Dylan’s not really trying very hard all the time and a few of the versions are fairly uninspired. In fact, at one point, while singing “Let Me Die In My Footsteps” he stops and says, “It’s a drag, I sang it so many times.” Other times he sings a portion of the song so the company can get the basis of the verse and chorus and then says, “I’ll write down the other verses for you later.” Still, for any Dylan fan these tracks are priceless. Lots of songs you will never hear anywhere else. Historically they are quite significant and very important.

These demos have been collected in at least three well known bootlegs: The Witmark Years, Through A Bullet Of Light and The Witmark Demos. All three contain basically the same material. This version, The Witmark Years, is generally considered to be the best quality and it also arranges the recordings in chronological order.

Quality is very good to excellent throughout this collection, though it does vary a bit from session to session and of course, it is not as good as officially released material. Three of the songs on this double CD have been released officially on Dylan’s The Bootleg Series: Volumes 1-3: “Walkin’ Down The Line,” “When The Ship Comes In” and “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” Here’s hoping Dylan and Sony see fit to release more of them, perhaps an entire double CD of all the tracks. That’s the best way to combat bootlegging: release the material officially. 

Other Listens on June 29th:
Nolita by Keren Ann
Nuggets II: Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 by Various Artists
Abandoned Luncheonette by Daryl Hall & John Oates
After Bathing At Baxters by Jefferson Airplane 
Hartford 1965 (bootleg) by Bob Dylan 

I try to go to France at least once a year. If there are such things as “past lives” I think I must have lived in France during one of them. I just can’t explain why I feel so at home there, so connected, but I do. It’s like being home. I first went to France when I was 18. I had dropped out of my second year of college, took what was left of my student load and bought a plane ticket to London. I think I had about $150 when I landed. I spent a couple of weeks hitchhiking around England and then headed over to the “continent.” Eventually I landed in Paris staying in a cheap youth hostel. I spent a few months there before coming back home. I used to dream all the time about being in Paris and France. It was actually 20 years before I made it back, on my way to a music convention in Berlin. Since then I’ve gone over almost every year. For awhile, when I worked for record labels, it was to attend the MIDEM convention ever year in Cannes. Then five years ago my friend Les and I went over for a two week cycling trip and we’ve since gone back three more times. I’d move to France in a second if only my wife would agree, but it seems I’ve married the only woman in America who isn’t interested in living in Paris. 

When I was in Paris last year I picked up a book titled Bob Dylan Album File & Complete Discography. I’m always interested in Dylan books and this was one I hadn’t seen before. Turned out it was only published in England, so I figured I might as well grab it. It’s the size and shape of a CD, though much thicker. The author goes through each Bob Dylan CD and writes about the album and the songs. He give notes about the recording process, stories, his take on the songs, etc. It’s nothing new, this stuff has been gone over dozens of times, but it is a interesting little book. So, I’ve been making my way through the book, listening to each album (in chronological order) as I read what he has to say. Today it was time for New Morning.

New Morning is one of those Bob Dylan albums that never quite seems to get the respect or attention it deserves. It’s not that it’s generally regarded as a “bad” album (like say Under The Red Sky, Knocked Out Loaded or Down In The Groove), it just kind of falls through the cracks. In 1993 Sony began reissuing the entire Dylan catalog, remastering the albums and releasing them as hybrid CD/SACD digipaks (usually with a few unreleased photos). The first batch contained fifteen albums, apparently what SONY and/or Dylan considered to be the best of his catalog. New Morning was not one of them. We’re still waiting for the second batch. It’s probably never coming as SACD is dead in the water. There is still hope the remaining albums will be remastered and reissued, though some fans and collectors think it might not happen. With Dylan, you just never know.

New Morning was released in October 1970, just four months after the disastrous reception that Self Portrait received. Some say Dylan was so stung by the scathing reviews for Self Portrait that he immediately felt he had to get something else out into the marketplace to redeem himself. I have no idea whether this is true or not, but it’s actually quite a fine CD, and it certainly did help to reestablish his reputation after Self Portrait. The opening track, “If Not For You” was co-written with George Harrison (who actually released a version of the song on his own album, All Things Must Pass, before New Morning even came out). It sets the mood for the album: cheerful, satisfied, fulfilled, warm and happy. This is as close to a “family” album as Bob Dylan ever came, said to be written and recorded when he was the most content with being a husband and a father. As we all know, that period of contentment didn’t seem to last too long. But New Morning is full of songs about comfort, peace, tranquility and general domestic bliss. Standout tracks include “The Man In Me,” “New Morning,” “If Not For You” and “Three Angels.” The title track is especially cheeful and energetic with Bob proclaiming how happy he is “just to be alive on this new morning with you.” Dylan did, however, take a few left turns with tracks like “Winterlude” and, especially, “If Dogs Run Free” (which is probably one of the most detested songs in his catalog. “Father Of Night” seems almost a decade early preview of his Christian conversion. “Three Angels” is more a spoken poem set to music than a song. With it’s swirling organ and background vocals it’s just one or two steps away from something Hank Williams could have done.

After New Morning Dylan was enticed by David Geffen to leave Columbia Records (his long time record label) and sign with Asylum Records where he released Planet Waves and the live Before The Flood (from his 1974 tour with the Band). The story is that Columbia was not about to let him go without a fight and to show him what was coming if he continued this route they released the famous Dylan album, a collection of ten outtakes from the New Morning and Self Portrait sessions. It’s an album whose only function certainly seems to embarrass Dylan. It’s generally regarded by many to be unlistenable (though it’s not that bad). Sure, enough Dylan was back on Columbia for his next release, Blood On The Tracks. And, before too long Dylan was out of print. Today it’s the only Bob Dylan album ever released that is not available on CD. Blackmail plain and simple? Sure seems that way. 

An alternate version of “If Not For You” from a full day’s session with George Harrison was released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 box set. But the real treats, if you can find them, are alternate versions of “Went To See The Gypsy,” “If Not For You” and “Sign On The Window” from the bootleg The Third One Now: Genuine Bootleg Series Volume Three. All three songs are dramatically different than the released versions and show completely different sides of the compositions. “I Went To See The Gypsy” is much slower, much more dramatic, just Dylan, a bass and a piano. It’s beautiful. “If Not For You” is also much slower, this time with a very prominent, almost symphonic, violin. Dylan sings each line with real passion, much more seriously than on the official version. It’s quite stunning. “Sign On The Window” adds dramatic strings (and a harp!) throughout, to mixed results.

New Morning may not be one of Dylan’s best albums, but it’s certainly worthy of a place on any music lover’s CD shelves. With Dylan almost every album has it’s own distinctive sound, feel and vibe, different from any of the others. This is no exception. I find something new almost every time I listen to it.

Other Listens on June 23rd:
Magic by Bruce Springsteen
With Friends And Neighbors by Alex Taylor
Writer by Carole King
All This Tangled Rope by Bob Dylan
Dusty In Memphis by Dusty Springfield
Abandoned Luncheonette by Daryl Hall & John Oates
The Very Best Of The Sutherland Brothers by The Sutherland Brothers 

I missed the Rolling Thunder Review by one day. One day. It’s one of the great disappointments of my life. I was living in Syracuse, New York in the winter of 1975. This, of course, was WAY before the internet and email, so news and information didn’t travel the way it does now. I didn’t even have a phone. Dylan and company began their barnstorming tour in late October. They would announce shows just a few days in advance, mostly playing small theaters throughout the Northeast. I’d hear and read about the shows in the news. Were they going to come to Syracuse? No one knew. I asked around alot, people who I thought might know something the general public didn’t know, but there was no info. I didn’t have a car. I didn’t have much money. In November I was renting a room in a house from a crazy old man for $15 a week. I had a friend who was going to school in Oswego, New York which is just under an hour north of Syracuse, situated right on the shore of Lake Ontario. I would hitchhike up to visit her on weekends and days off from work. I hitched up on Tuesday, November 18th to visit see her. As soon as I walked in the door she blurted it out: “We went to see Dylan and the Rolling Thunder Review in Rochester last night!” “What!” I screamed. “Without me?” “We didn’t have any way to get in touch with you, it was a last minute thing, we just found out about it yesterday.” Boy, was I bummed. Still am.

I dare say that Diamonds & Rust is Joan Baez’s best known album. And for many, her best. It’s the “commercial” album that finally took her “mainstream” after more than fifteen years playing music and making records. She’d been a “star” of the folk movement and had a pop hit with “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” in 1971, but this was the album that really took her another step. It’s a remarkable album if only for two songs: the title track and “Winds Of The Old Days.” Joan Baez was never really known as a songwriter. She was an interpreter. And for many years no one was better. She championed Dylan long before the rest of the world caught on, asking him to appear with her on stage and open shows for her. He, of course, dumped her by the side of the road on his jet fueled streak through the mid-sixties. Diamonds & Rust contained two self-penned tunes that were miles ahead of anything she had ever written before (and to be honest, since). Both were about Dylan. “Diamonds & Rust” is, quite simply, a masterpiece of a song. Detailing her relationship (then and now) with Dylan in a powerful, emotional and confessional outpouring, it was like a secret glimpse into one of the most famous relationships of the sixties. Where “Diamond’s & Rust” was personal, “Winds Of The Old Days” put the same relationship into a much grander setting, detailing Dylan’s “defection” from the protest movement (and her). Her excellent version of Dylan’s recently released “Simple Twist Of Fate” tied everything together. Whereas Dylan’s version is all mystery, uncertainty, regret and sorrow, hers is a rollicking, driving, forceful headlong plunge into fate and abandonment. The album also featured fine versions of Jackson Browne’s “Fountain Of Sorrow,” Dickie Betts’ “Blue Sky” and John Prine’s “Hello In There” along with a few other covers and original compositions. A great studio band and flawless production by David Kershenbaum helped make this a Gold album.

Six months after the release of this album (April 1975) Bob, Joan and a cast of thousands were swooping through the Northeast on what would be one of the greatest tours of either of their lives, The Rolling Thunder tour. Bob and Joan hadn’t played together in many years. Yet, there they were, together on stage singing “Blowin’ In The Wind,” “I Shall Be Released,” “Mama, You Been On My Mind” and more. No one ever imagined they’d see that again. The tour is wonderfully documented on the Live 1975: The Rolling Thunder Review double CD (though one wishes they might have seen fit to include some of the songs from Baez and other cast members). Bootlegs exist of almost every single performance from that tour, some soundboard recordings, but mostly audience recordings. I have most of them. The shows were just pure magic. As good as it gets. Dylan was on fire, his performances were razor sharp and deadly intimate. The band was structured chaos, perfect for Dylan’s songs, both old and new. Baez, McGuinn, Neuwirth and lots of guests also turned in remarkable showings as well.  I can’t help but think that Diamonds & Rust had a lot to do with that tour coming together the way it did.

Other Listens on June 14th:
Unearthed by Johnny Cash