The Basement Tapes

The Basement Tapes
Studio album by Bob Dylan and The Band
Released June 26, 1975
Recorded Dylan–Band recordings: June–September 1967; Band-only recordings: 1967 – possibly 1975
Genre Rock, folk, blues, country
Length 76:41
Label Columbia
Producer Bob Dylan, The Band
Bob Dylan chronology
Blood on the Tracks
(1975)		 The Basement Tapes
(1975)		 Desire
(1976)
The Band chronology
Before the Flood
(1974)		 The Basement Tapes
(1975)		 Northern Lights – Southern Cross
(1975)

The Basement Tapes is a 1975 studio album by Bob Dylan and The Band. The songs featuring Dylan's vocals were recorded in 1967 at houses in and around Woodstock, New York, where Dylan and The Band lived. Although most of the Dylan songs had appeared on bootleg records, The Basement Tapes marked their first official release.

During his world tour of 1965–66, Dylan was backed by a five-member rock group, The Hawks, who would soon become famous as The Band. After Dylan was injured in a motorcycle accident in July 1966, The Hawks' members gravitated to the vicinity of Dylan's home in the Woodstock area to collaborate with him on music and film projects. While Dylan was concealed from the public's gaze during an extended period of convalescence in 1967, they recorded more than 100 tracks together, comprising original compositions, contemporary covers and traditional material. Dylan's new style of writing moved away from the urban sensibility and extended narratives that had characterized his most recent albums, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde, toward songs that were more intimate and which drew on many styles of traditional American music. While some of the basement songs are humorous, others dwell on nothingness, a sense of betrayal, and a quest for salvation. In general, they possess a rootsy quality anticipating the Americana genre. For some critics, the songs on The Basement Tapes, which circulated widely in unofficial form, mounted a major stylistic challenge to rock music in the late sixties.

When Columbia Records prepared the album for official release in 1975, eight songs recorded solely by The Band—in various locations between 1967 and 1975—were added to sixteen songs taped by Dylan and The Band in 1967. Overdubs were added in 1975 to songs from both categories. The Basement Tapes was critically acclaimed upon release, and reached number seven on the Billboard 200 album chart. However, the album's format has led critics to question the omission of some of Dylan's best-known 1967 compositions and the inclusion of material by The Band that was not recorded in Woodstock.

Contents

Background and recording

By July 1966, Bob Dylan was at the peak of both creative and commercial success. Highway 61 Revisited had reached number three on the US album chart in November 1965;[1] the recently released double-LP Blonde on Blonde was widely acclaimed.[2] From September 1965 to May 1966, Dylan embarked on an extensive tour across the US, Australia and Europe backed by The Hawks, a band that had formerly worked with rock and roll musician Ronnie Hawkins.[3] The Hawks comprised four Canadian musicians—Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel and Robbie Robertson—and one American, Levon Helm. The sound of Dylan backed by a rock band caused hostility among his audiences. Dismayed by the negative reception, Helm had quit The Hawks in November 1965 and drifted around the South, at one point working on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico.[4] The tour culminated in a famously raucous concert in Manchester, England, in May 1966 when an audience member shouted "Judas!" at Dylan for allegedly betraying the cause of politically progressive folk music.[a 1] Returning exhausted from the hectic schedule of his world tour, Dylan discovered that his manager, Albert Grossman, had arranged a further 63 concerts across the US that year.[5]

After the crash

On July 29, 1966, Dylan crashed his Triumph motorcycle near his home in Woodstock, New York, suffering cracked vertebrae and a mild concussion.[6][7] The concerts he was scheduled to perform had to be canceled.[8] Biographer Clinton Heylin wrote in 1990 on the significance of the crash: "A quarter of a century on, Dylan's motorcycle accident is still viewed as the pivot of his career. As a sudden, abrupt moment when his wheel really did explode. The great irony is that 1967—the year after the accident—remains his most prolific year as a songwriter."[9] In a 1969 interview with Jann Wenner, Dylan admitted, "I had a dreadful motorcycle accident which put me away for a while, and I still didn't sense the importance of that accident till at least a year after that. I realized that it was a real accident. I mean I thought that I was just gonna get up and go back to doing what I was doing before ... but I couldn't do it anymore."[10]

Dylan was rethinking the direction of his life while recovering from a sense of having been exploited. Nine months after the crash, he told New York Daily News reporter Michael Iachetta, "Songs are in my head like they always are. And they're not going to get written down until some things are evened up. Not until some people come forth and make up for some of the things that have happened."[11] After discussing the crash with Dylan, biographer Robert Shelton concluded that he "was saying there must be another way of life for the pop star, in which he is in control, not they. He had to find ways of working to his own advantage with the recording industry. He had to come to terms with his one-time friend, longtime manager, part-time neighbor, and sometime landlord, Albert Grossman."[12]

Early recordings

Big Pink, West Saugerties, New York (2006)

Rick Danko recalled that he, Richard Manuel and Garth Hudson joined Robbie Robertson in West Saugerties, a few miles from Woodstock, in February 1967. The three of them moved into a house on Stoll Road nicknamed Big Pink; Robertson lived nearby with his future wife, Dominique.[13] Danko and Manuel had been invited to Woodstock to collaborate with Dylan on a film he was editing, Eat the Document, a rarely seen account of the 1966 world tour.[13] At some point between March and June 1967, Dylan and the four Hawks began a series of informal recording sessions, initially at the so-called Red Room of Dylan's house, Hi Lo Ha, in the Byrdcliffe area of Woodstock. In June, the recording sessions moved to the basement of Big Pink.[14][15] Hudson set up a recording unit, using two stereo mixers and a tape recorder borrowed from Grossman, as well as a set of microphones on loan from folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary.[16] Dylan would later tell Jann Wenner, "That's really the way to do a recording—in a peaceful, relaxed setting—in somebody's basement. With the windows open ... and a dog lying on the floor."[17]

For the first couple of months, they were merely "killing time", according to Robertson,[18] with many early sessions devoted to covers.[19] "With the covers Bob was educating us a little", recalls Roberston. "The whole folkie thing was still very questionable to us—it wasn't the train we came in on. ... He'd come up with something like 'Royal Canal',[a 2] and you'd say, 'This is so beautiful! The expression!' ... He remembered too much, remembered too many songs too well. He'd come over to Big Pink, or wherever we were, and pull out some old song—and he'd prepped for this. He'd practiced this, and then come out here, to show us."[20] Songs recorded at the early sessions included material written or made popular by Johnny Cash, Ian & Sylvia, John Lee Hooker, Hank Williams and Eric Von Schmidt, as well as traditional songs and standards.[21] Linking all the recordings, both new material and old, is the way in which Dylan re-engaged with traditional American music. Biographer Barney Hoskyns observed that both the seclusion of Woodstock and the discipline and sense of tradition in The Hawks' musicianship were just what Dylan needed after the "globe-trotting psychosis" of the 1965–66 tour.[22]

New compositions

Dylan began to write and record new compositions at the sessions. According to Hudson, "We were doing seven, eight, ten, sometimes fifteen songs a day. Some were old ballads and traditional songs ... but others Bob would make up as he went along. ... We'd play the melody, he'd sing a few words he'd written, and then make up some more, or else just mouth sounds or even syllables as he went along. It's a pretty good way to write songs."[23] Danko told Dylan biographer Howard Sounes, "Bob and Robbie, they would come by every day, five to seven days a week, for seven to eight months." Hudson added, "It amazed me, Bob's writing ability. How he would come in, sit down at the typewriter, and write a song. And what was amazing was that almost every one of those songs was funny."[24]

Dylan recorded around thirty new compositions with The Hawks, including some of the most celebrated songs of his career: "I Shall Be Released", "This Wheel's on Fire", "Quinn the Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)", "Tears of Rage" and "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere".[25] Two of these featured his lyrics set to music by members of The Band: Danko wrote the music of "This Wheel's on Fire";[26] Manuel, who composed "Tears of Rage", described how Dylan "came down to the basement with a piece of typewritten paper ... and he just said, 'Have you got any music for this?' ... I had a couple of musical movements that fit ... so I just elaborated a bit, because I wasn't sure what the lyrics meant. I couldn't run upstairs and say, 'What's this mean, Bob: "Now the heart is filled with gold as if it was a purse"?'"[27]

One of the qualities of The Basement Tapes that sets it apart from contemporaneous works is its simple, down-to-earth sound. The songs were recorded in mid-1967, the "Summer of Love" that produced The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, their most technically elaborate album.[28] In a 1978 interview, Dylan reflected on the period: "I didn’t know how to record the way other people were recording, and I didn’t want to. The Beatles had just released Sgt. Pepper which I didn’t like at all. I thought that was a very indulgent album, though the songs on it were real good. I didn’t think all that production was necessary."[28] Of the sound and atmosphere of the basement recordings, Barney Hoskyns wrote that "Big Pink itself determined the nature of this homemade brew."[29] "One of the things is that if you played loud in the basement, it was really annoying, because it was a cement-walled room", recalled Robertson. "So we played in a little huddle: if you couldn't hear the singing, you were playing too loud."[30]

Dylan had married Sara Lownds in December 1965.[31] By the time the basement sessions started in Big Pink around June 1967, he had two children: Maria (Sara’s daughter from her first marriage)[32] and Jesse Dylan.[33] Anna Dylan was born on July 11, 1967.[34] Both Heylin and Griffin suggest that recording had to move from Dylan’s home to Big Pink when it became clear that the sessions were getting in the way of family life.[35][36] Domesticity was the context of The Basement Tapes, as Hudson said in The Last Waltz: "Chopping wood and hitting your thumb with a hammer, fixing the tape recorder or the screen door, wandering off into the woods with Hamlet [the dog Dylan shared with The Band] ... it was relaxed and low-key, which was something we hadn’t enjoyed since we were children."[37] Several Basement Tapes songs, such as "Clothes Line Saga" and "Apple Suckling Tree", celebrate the domestic aspects of the rural lifestyle.[38]

The intense collaboration between Dylan and The Hawks that produced the basement recordings came to an end in October 1967. That month, drummer Levon Helm rejoined his former bandmates in Woodstock, after he received a phone call from Danko informing him they were getting ready to record as a group.[39][a 3] He wrote that on hearing the recordings they had made with Dylan, he "could tell that hanging out with the boys had helped Bob to find a connection with things we were interested in: blues, rockabilly, R&B. They had rubbed off on him a little."[40] Also in October, Dylan departed for Nashville, where he commenced work on his next studio album, John Wesley Harding.[41]

Dwarf Music demos and Great White Wonder

Dylan referred to commercial pressures behind the basement recordings in a 1969 interview with Rolling Stone: "They weren’t demos for myself, they were demos of the songs. I was being PUSHED again into coming up with some songs. You know how those things go."[42] In October 1967, a fourteen-song demo tape was copyrighted and the compositions were registered with Dwarf Music, a publishing company jointly owned by Dylan and Grossman. Acetates and tapes of the songs then circulated among interested recording artists.[43][a 4]

Peter, Paul and Mary, managed by Grossman, had the first hit with a basement composition when their cover of "Too Much of Nothing" reached number 35 on the Billboard chart in late 1967.[44] Ian & Sylvia, also managed by Grossman, recorded "Tears of Rage", "Quinn the Eskimo" and "This Wheel's on Fire".[45] In January 1968, Manfred Mann reached number one on the UK pop chart with their recording of "The Mighty Quinn".[46] In April, "This Wheel's on Fire", recorded by Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger and the Trinity, hit number five on the UK chart.[47] That same month, a version of "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" by The Byrds was issued as a single. Along with "Nothing Was Delivered", it appeared on their country-rock album Sweetheart of the Rodeo, which appeared in August.[48] The Hawks, officially renamed The Band,[a 5] recorded "This Wheel's on Fire", "I Shall Be Released" and "Tears of Rage" for their debut album, Music from Big Pink, released in July 1968. Fairport Convention covered "Million Dollar Bash" on their 1969 album Unhalfbricking.[49]

As tapes of Dylan's recordings circulated in the music industry, journalists became aware of their existence. In June 1968, Jann Wenner wrote a front-page Rolling Stone story headlined "Dylan's Basement Tape Should Be Released". Wenner listened to the fourteen-song demo and reported, "There is enough material—most all of it very good—to make an entirely new Bob Dylan album, a record with a distinct style of its own." He concluded, "Even though Dylan used one of the finest rock and roll bands ever assembled on the Highway 61 album, here he works with his own band for the first time. Dylan brings that instinctual feel for rock and roll to his voice for the first time. If this were ever to be released it would be a classic."[50]

Reporting such as this whetted the appetites of Dylan fans. In July 1969, the first rock bootleg appeared in California, entitled Great White Wonder. The double album consisted of seven songs from the Woodstock basement sessions, plus some early recordings Dylan had made in Minneapolis in December 1961 and one track recorded from The Johnny Cash Show. One of those responsible for the bootleg, identified only as Patrick, talked to Rolling Stone: "Dylan is a heavy talent and he's got all those songs nobody's ever heard. We thought we'd take it upon ourselves to make this music available."[51] The process of bootlegging Dylan's work would eventually see the illegal release of hundreds of live and studio recordings, and lead the Recording Industry Association of America to describe Dylan as the most bootlegged artist in the history of the music industry.[52]

Columbia Records compilation

In January 1975, Dylan unexpectedly gave permission for the release of a selection of the basement recordings, perhaps because he and Grossman had resolved their legal dispute over the Dwarf Music copyrights on his songs.[53] Clinton Heylin argues that Dylan was able to consent following the critical and commercial success of his album Blood on the Tracks, released that same month: "After Blood on the Tracks, The Basement Tapes no longer had the status of a final reminder of Dylan's lost genius".[54] In 1975, as well, The Band purchased Shangri-La ranch in Malibu, California, which they transformed into their recording studio.[55]

Engineer Rob Fraboni was brought to Shangri-La to clean up the recordings still in the possession of Hudson, the original engineer. (Fraboni had worked on Dylan's 1974 album Planet Waves, on which he was backed by The Band, and the live Dylan–Band album Before the Flood, also released in 1974.) Fraboni has described Robertson as the dominant voice in selecting the final tracks for The Basement Tapes and reported that Dylan was not in the studio very often.[56] All of the songs were "remixed" to mono. Robertson and other members of The Band overdubbed new keyboard, guitar, and/or drum parts onto some of the 1967 Woodstock recordings—including a couple on which Dylan had not played. According to Fraboni, several new songs by The Band were also recorded in preparation for the album's official release.[57] Ultimately, eight of the twenty-four songs on the album did not feature Dylan.[58][59] Several of these eight were not recorded at Big Pink, but were studio outtakes. In justifying their inclusion, Robertson explained that he, Hudson and Dylan did not have access to all the basement recordings: "We had access to some of the songs. Some of these things came under the heading of 'homemade' which meant a Basement Tape to us." Robertson has suggested that the Basement Tapes are, for him, "a process, a homemade feel" and so could include recordings from a wide variety of sources.[60]

Songs

The liner notes for The Basement Tapes give the following personnel credits for all songs on the album:

Bob Dylan – acoustic guitar, piano, vocals; Robbie Robertson – electric guitar, acoustic guitar, drums, vocals; Richard Manuel – piano, drums, harmonica, vocals; Rick Danko – electric bass, mandolin, vocals; Garth Hudson – organ, clavinet, accordion, tenor sax, piano; Levon Helm – drums, mandolin, electric bass, vocals.[61]

In his book Million Dollar Bash, Sid Griffin analyzes each track and gives informed guesses about who is playing what, based on his insights into the six musicians' performance styles on various instruments, and his interviews with Robertson and Fraboni. Griffin's credits are listed below.[62] All tracks by Bob Dylan and The Band were recorded in Woodstock, June to October 1967. Tracks by The Band are as indicated.

Side 1

"Odds and Ends"

Dylan – vocal; Robertson – electric guitar; Hudson – organ; Danko – bass, backing vocal; Manuel – drums; Unknown – piano.

The chorus of the opening song—"Odds and ends, odds and ends/Lost time is not found again"—functions as "a kind of editorial comment on the entire Basement Tapes", writes Andy Gill, emphasizing the songs' "fragmentary form and fleeting pleasures".[63] Heylin suggests that this was one of the final basement songs to be recorded, and that here Dylan acknowledges that "when it came to spouting catchphrase choruses while espousing mock profundities in the verses, the process had just about run its course. Dylan admits as much by singing, 'I've had enough, my box is clean/You know what I'm saying and you know what I mean'."[64] For Robert Shelton, the song evokes the work of Fats Domino.[65]

"Orange Juice Blues (Blues for Breakfast)"

Manuel – vocal, piano; Danko – bass. Recorded in Woodstock, 1967. Overdubbed 1975: Robertson – guitar; Hudson – organ, saxophone; Helm – drums.

Manuel and Danko laid down the basic track in Woodstock in 1967, according to Griffin, and the contributions of the rest of The Band were overdubbed eight years later.[66] Critic Dave Hopkins notes that the demo version included as a bonus track on the 2000 Music From Big Pink reissue is the same performance, without overdubbing.[67] Griffin calls the song "charming in its own right", but says it would not have fit in on the original Music From Big Pink because it was all too obviously from their past: "an up-tempo bluesy number that The Hawks might have played" in rural Ontario in 1964.[68] Barney Hoskyns describes the song as one of The Band's early recordings that revealed "the breathtaking scope" of their musical range; he praises "the rollicking bar-room R&B style" of the performance.[69]

"Million Dollar Bash"

Dylan – vocal, guitar; Hudson – organ; Manuel – piano, backing vocal; Danko – bass, backing vocal.

According to Shelton, "Million Dollar Bash" epitomizes what he sees as one of The Basement Tapes' principal themes, joy.[70] Griffin named his detailed book about The Basement Tapes after this song, which has a similar instrumentation to 1950s rockabilly hits. According to Griffin, "Like Elvis's earliest single on Sun Records, the lack of a drummer does not prevent the assembled from swinging on this nonsense like the experienced players they are."[71] Heylin heard in this song two references to The Coasters: "'Along came Jones'—a song title in itself—and 'emptied the trash'—a reference to 'Yakety Yak'."[72]

"Yazoo Street Scandal"

Helm – mandolin, vocal; Robertson – guitar; Hudson – organ; Danko – bass; Manuel – drums. Recorded in Woodstock, late 1967.[73]

This is one of the earliest examples of The Band's "grittily distinctive" sound coming together, according to Hoskyns.[69] Its author, Robertson, has explained that it was based on an actual Yazoo Street in a town in Arkansas, Helm's home state: "I thought, 'Wow! They don't have streets called Yazoo in Canada!' It was like, 'Jesus, let me make up a little story here about stuff going on in the red light district.' Everything was lit in red in that song for me." Robertson recorded the lead vocal on the first version of the song, but since it was set in the South, it seemed natural for Helm to take over,[74] with what Hoskyns describes as his "best redneck-wildcat yelp".[69]

"Goin' to Acapulco"

Dylan – vocal; Robertson – guitar; Hudson – organ; Danko – bass, backing vocal; Manuel – drums, backing vocal.

The release of this song, which had not previously appeared on any demo tapes or bootlegs, made clear that more basement tracks existed than fans had believed.[75] "The song proposes a romp in that posh Mexican resort, but the heavy spirit is down in Juarez again", writes Shelton, who hears the anguish of Blonde On Blonde return to haunt the "basement proceedings".[65] Heylin comments on its uninhibited sexual innuendo, "featuring the usual debauched narrator, rambunctious harmonies, and euphemistic ribaldry" of what he regards as the best basement songs.[76]

"Katie's Been Gone"

Manuel – piano, vocal; Robertson – guitar; Hudson – organ; Danko – bass, backing vocal. Recording date disputed. Overdubbed 1975: Hudson – additional keyboards; (possibly) Helm – drums.

Probably one of the first numbers written by Manuel and Robertson in mid-1967, one of "the songs that all but announced the birth of The Band".[69] A different mix of the same recording was released as a bonus track on the 2000 Music From Big Pink reissue.[67][77] Griffin believes this was recorded in Woodstock, with drums overdubbed in 1975. Hoskyns asserts it was "almost certainly" recorded at CBS's Studio E in New York in September 1967, with a drummer present, possibly Gary Chester.[78]

Side 2

"Lo and Behold"

Dylan – vocal, guitar; Hudson – organ; Manuel – piano, backing vocal; Danko – bass, backing vocal.

This is, for Heylin, another "song that gives precedence to word play over sense".[79] Griffin notes that it is held together by "one of the key phrases of the Old Testament prophets in the King James Bible: Lo and behold!"[80] "The whole song reads like a tall tale told by a self-aggrandizing barfly", writes Gill. "The rousing chorus harmonies—which prefigure the famous chorus harmonies which would become one of the hallmarks of The Band's music—join in like drinking pals saluting him with foaming beakers, urging the narrator on to ever more ridiculous flights of fancy, rising at the end to leave him no place to go but further into fantasy, the true source of American identity."[81] "Lo and Behold" was adopted as the title of an album of unreleased Dylan songs—including a half-dozen basement tracks—recorded by the British group Coulson, Dean, McGuinness, Flint in 1972.

"Bessie Smith"

Danko – vocal, bass; Robertson – vocal, guitar; Manuel – piano; Hudson – organ; Helm – drums, backing vocal. Recording date disputed.

Rob Bowman stated in 2005 that this track was "probably" recorded at an "unknown studio" in late 1968.[82] But in his notes for the 2000 reissue of The Band's fourth album, Cahoots, he wrote that "Robbie [Robertson] is certain that 'Bessie Smith' was recorded sometime between their 1969 second album and Stage Fright", the group's third album, issued the following year.[83] Based on the testimony of engineer Rob Fraboni, Griffin asserts that "Bessie Smith" was recorded by The Band in 1975 in their Shangri-La studio in Los Angeles, as The Basement Tapes was being prepared for official release. He calls it "the most far-fetched selection included on the official Basement Tapes release, even by Robertson's broad standards."[83] Thomas Ward of Allmusic described it as "arguably one of the slightest and most routine songs of all the 'basement tapes'",[84] and noted that it lacked many of the key qualities of Dylan and The Band's other work on the album. Hoskyns, singling out Hudson's keyboard playing, writes that the song is "transformed by Garth into something as magically evocative as an old silent movie."[69]

"Clothes Line Saga"

Dylan – vocal; Robertson – guitar; Hudson – keyboards; Danko – bass; Manuel – drums.

On the safety copy of the Basement Tapes, this song was labeled "Answer to Ode". Heylin interprets it as a parody of "Ode to Billie Joe", which was a hit single for Bobby Gentry in mid-1967 when the basement songs were being taped. He calls it "as deadpan a deconstruction" of the Gentry hit as the Blonde on Blonde track "4th Time Around" was of The Beatles' "Norwegian Wood". (He adds that, in his view, Dylan generally parodied songs that he liked.) For Heylin, it illustrates Dylan's feeling that folk songs delivered "the underground story". An event with potentially world-shaking implications—"The vice president's gone mad!"—is treated in a detached, stoic manner by the community: "There's nothing we can do about it". The narrative piles up both banal and surreal details, but "Dylan delivers the 'saga' in the most laconic manner imaginable".[85]

"Apple Suckling Tree"

Dylan – vocal, piano; Hudson – organ; Manuel – tambourine, backing vocal; Danko – bass, backing vocal; Robertson – drums.

Critic Greil Marcus identifies the tune as that of the ancient children's ditty "Froggy Went A-Courtin'" and quotes Danko's description of the recording: "It all felt natural, we didn't rehearse. One or two takes from conception, on paper, to the finish. We all knew it would never happen twice."[86] Describing it as a good-natured nonsense song that really swings, Griffin suggests it was one of the last basement compositions to be recorded before Helm arrived in Woodstock and Dylan departed for Nashville.[87]
"Please Mrs. Henry"

Dylan – vocal, guitar; Hudson – organ; Manuel – piano, backing vocal; Danko – bass, backing vocal.

Heylin describes this as a hilariously bawdy song in which the singer yearns for relief both sexual ("Look Mrs Henry/There's only so much I can do/Why don't you look my way an' pump me a few?") and scatological ("Now I'm startin' to drain/My stool's gonna squeak/If I walk too much farther/My crane's gonna leak").[88] Marcus describes it as "a detailed explanation, addressed to either a landlady or a madam of just what it means to be too drunk to move, if not complain."[89]

"Tears of Rage"

Dylan – vocal, guitar; Robertson – electric guitar; Hudson – organ; Manuel – piano, backing vocal; Danko – bass, backing vocal.

"Tears of Rage" is one of the most widely acclaimed songs from The Basement Tapes. Gill likens it to King Lear's soliloquy on the blasted heath in Shakespeare's tragedy: "Wracked with bitterness and regret, its narrator reflects upon promises broken and truths ignored, on how greed has poisoned the well of best intentions, and how even daughters can deny their father's wishes." He suggests that Dylan is linking the anguish of Lear’s soliloquy to the divisions in American society apparent in 1967, as the Vietnam War escalated: "In its narrowest and most contemporaneous interpretation, the song could be the first to register the pain of betrayal felt by many of America’s Vietnam war veterans. … In a wider interpretation [it] harks back to what anti-war protesters and critics of American materialism in general felt was a more fundamental betrayal of the American Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights."[90] A strong Biblical theme runs through this song, according to Griffin, who notes that "life is brief" is a recurrent message in the Old Testament books Psalms and Isaiah. As a father, Dylan realizes now that "no broken heart hurts more than the broken heart of a distraught parent." Griffin calls the four minutes of this song "as representative of community, ageless truths and the unbreakable bonds of family as anything in The Band's canon—or anyone else's canon."[91]

Marcus suggests that the "famous beginning"—"We carried you/In our arms/On Independence Day"—evokes a naming ceremony not just for a child but also for a whole nation. He writes that "in Dylan's singing—an ache from deep in the chest, a voice thick with care in the first recording of the song—the song is from the start a sermon and an elegy, a Kaddish."[92]

Side 3

"Too Much of Nothing"

Dylan – vocal, guitar; Robertson – electric guitar; Hudson – organ; Manuel – piano, backing vocal; Danko – bass, backing vocal. Overdubbed 1975: Hudson – additional keyboards; Helm – (possibly) drums, backing vocal.

One of the most haunting themes of The Basement Tapes is an apprehension of the void.[61][65] Shelton hears in this song an echo of the bald statement that Lear makes to his daughter Cordelia, "Nothing will come of nothing" (act I, scene 1).[65] Marcus asserts that this was one of the songs recorded at the end of "the basement summer" in August or September 1967. He writes that these songs "are taken slowly, with crying voices. Dylan’s voice is high and constantly bending, carried forward not by rhythm or by melody but by the discovery of the true terrain of the songs as they’re sung. Richard Manuel’s and Rick Danko’s voices are higher still, more exposed."[93]

By November 1967, this song was a Top 40 hit for Peter, Paul and Mary. In Dylan's original, the chorus addresses two ladies—"Say hello to Valerie/Say hello to Vivian/Send them all my salary/On the waters of oblivion"—but Peter, Paul and Mary changed the second name to "Marion," displeasing Dylan. According to the trio's Paul Stookey, Dylan consequently became disenchanted with the group: "We just became other hacks that were doing his tunes."[94] Patrick Humphries notes that, whether by accident or design, the two women originally named share the names of the two wives of the major 20th-century poet T. S. Eliot.[95][a 6]

"Yea! Heavy and a Bottle of Bread"

Dylan – vocal, guitar; Hudson – organ; Manuel – piano, backing vocal; Danko – bass, backing vocal.

The meaning of this song's lyric is unfathomable. In Gill's description, the lines appear to be knocked together from offhand phrases that display "an instinct for the enigmatic which rescues the song from being forgettable".[96] Marcus calls it "the ultimate basement performance: an irreducible little throwaway that could have come from nowhere else."[97] The startlingly low harmony part on the chorus is supplied by Manuel.[98]

"Ain't No More Cane"

Helm – mandolin, vocal; Robertson – guitar, vocal; Hudson – accordion; Danko – bass, vocal; Manuel – drums, vocal. Recording date disputed.

This is a traditional Southern prison work song that Helm learned from his father while growing up in Arkansas.[83] It had been recorded by several artists, including Leadbelly. Bowman states that this track was recorded between late 1967 and early 1968 in an "unknown studio".[82] Fraboni recalled taping it with The Band years later at their Shangri-La studio in Los Angeles. "I remember doing it when we did 'Bessie Smith' in '75. They are both great songs and sound cool," he told Griffin. Helm sings the first verse; Robertson, the second; Danko, the third; and Manuel, the fourth. All four sing harmony on the chorus.[83] Ward calls the song "one of the joys of the whole collection".[99]

"Crash on the Levee (Down in the Flood)"

Dylan – vocal, guitar; Hudson – organ; Manuel – piano; Danko – bass.

In 1927, after the Mississippi floods had left half a million people homeless, Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe recorded "When the Levee Breaks"; they sang, "Oh crying won't help you, praying won't do no good/When the levee breaks, mama you got to move". Dylan's "Down in the Flood" repeated these images, adding the implication that the flood is retribution for past sins: "Now it's sugar for sugar and salt for salt/If you go down in the flood it's gonna be your fault". These lines are adapted from "James Alley Blues" by Richard "Rabbit" Brown—a song Dylan would have heard on Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music.[100]

"Ruben Remus"

Manuel – vocal, piano; Robertson – guitar; Hudson – organ; Danko – bass, backing vocal; Helm – drums. Recording date disputed.

The Band recorded at least four versions of the song: at two different Woodstock sessions, as well as at 1967 and 1968 studio sessions. Fraboni has identified The Basement Tapes track as an early 1968 Music From Big Pink sessions outtake,[101] but Bowman's liner notes for A Musical History date it as a Woodstock recording from September–November 1967.[82] Griffin says the song is "as effortlessly charming as 'Katie's Been Gone' and 'Ferdinand The Impostor', two more outtakes from the same era."[101]

"Tiny Montgomery"

Dylan – vocal, guitar; Robertson – electric guitar, backing vocal; Hudson – organ; Manuel – backing vocal; Danko – bass, backing vocal.

This song is, according to Heylin, perhaps the first of the original compositions that Dylan and The Band recorded in Big Pink, having warmed up on a wide range of traditional material. He calls it "the prototype for a number of standout songs in a new-found style" that employs uninhibited, nonsensical lyrics: "Scratch your dad/Do that bird/Suck that pig/And bring it on home". He suggests that "this kind of wordplay would have had Edward Lear reaching for the smelling salts", as all pretense of sense is abandoned.[102]

Side 4

"You Ain't Goin' Nowhere"

Dylan – vocal, guitar; Hudson – organ; Manuel – piano; Danko – bass; Robertson – drums. Overdubbed 1975: Robertson – electric guitar.

A first take of this song (which remains officially unreleased) features a stream of nonsensical lyrics, held together by the chorus, "Now look here dear soup, you'd best feed the cats/The cats need feeding and you're the one to do it/Get your hat, feed the cats/You ain't goin' nowhere".[103] For Heylin, this first version demonstrates Dylan's talent for delivering "strings of pearls wrapped in riddles. ... Dylan had a tune, the last line of each verse (i.e., the title), and the chorus." The released second take fleshes out the verses into something closer to a narrative.[104] Gill argues that the first verse possesses a "stark rural cohesion" via its "brisk meteorological details"—frozen railings, rain and clouds—but the succeeding verses become more and more fantastic, ending with a non sequitur about Genghis Khan supplying his kings with sleep.[105]

The Byrds' version, released as a single on April 2, 1968, reached number 74 on the Billboard Hot 100.[106] They transformed it into a classic of the then burgeoning genre of country rock, whereas on the basement version the country music flavor is more of an undercurrent, suggested by "the lilting chorus melody".[105] Roger McGuinn felt that the songs was perfect for The Byrds: "It was country-ish and had that Dylan mystique where you couldn't really figure what he was talking about, yet the lyrics nevertheless drew you in. ... I always thought it was about when Bob was laid up in Woodstock after the bike accident and sure wasn't going anywhere."[107]

"Don't Ya Tell Henry"

Helm – mandolin, vocal; Robertson – guitar; Hudson – piano; Danko – bass, backing vocal; Manuel – drums. Recording date disputed.

This song was written by Dylan, and there is an officially unreleased basement recording of it on which he sings lead.[108] According to Bowman, the Band-only version released on The Basement Tapes was recorded between late 1967 and early 1968 in an "unknown studio".[82] Griffin, however, reports that Fraboni identified it as having been recorded in 1975. Griffin characterizes this version as musically superior to the "drunk-as-skunks" rendition with Dylan.[109]
"Nothing Was Delivered"

Dylan – vocal, guitar; Robertson – electric guitar; Hudson – organ; Manuel – piano, backing vocal; Danko – bass, backing vocal.

Roger McGuinn heard a story behind this song: "'Nothing Was Delivered' sounded like a drug deal gone bad. It had a slightly dark or ominous tone."[110] The Byrds recorded it for Sweetheart of the Rodeo. For Marcus, Dylan's "cool cowboy vocal" helped turn it into the "best rewrite of Fats Domino's 'Blueberry Hill' anybody's ever heard."[111] And for Shelton, it was one more reminder that the boozy camaraderie of The Basement Tapes is constantly subverted by an aching sense of nothingness and a quest for salvation.[112]

"Open the Door, Homer"

Dylan – vocal, guitar; Robertson – electric guitar; Hudson – organ; Manuel – piano, backing vocal; Danko – bass, backing vocal.

The refrain of this song is lifted from a 1947 number one hit by Count Basie, "Open the Door, Richard"—which is what Dylan actually sings in his chorus. That song was based on a 1919 vaudeville skit by Harlem comic John Mason, so, as Griffin puts it, "this is a nonsense song based on a nonsense song".[113] Heylin claims that Homer was a nickname for the late novelist and musician Richard Fariña, a friend of Dylan's. Fariña died in a motorcycle crash on April 30, 1966, on his way home from a launch party for his debut novel, Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me, so the song may be an homage to a departed friend.[114] Danko thought Dylan changed the title from Richard to Homer because Richard was already there—in the shape of Richard Manuel.[115]

"The song lopes along jauntily", writes Gill, "tendering obscure bits of baffling advice, some common sense, others with the cryptic power of folk remedies: value your memories properly, they won't come again; flush out your house if you don't want to be housing flushes; swim a certain way if you want to live off the fat of the land; and forgive the sick before you try to heal them. The sensible ones lend a sort of bogus credence to the less sensible".[116] In Shelton's description, "Despite its light source, agony tempers the joy, contrasting not only Dylan's conflicts but also his ability to grow despite holding opposing ideas and impulses in his mind."[65]

"Long Distance Operator"

Manuel – vocal, harmonica; Robertson – guitar; John Simon – piano; Hudson – organ; Danko – bass; Helm – drums. Recorded in Los Angeles, February 28, 1968.[117]

This song was written by Dylan, and he had performed it as early as December 4, 1965, at a concert in Berkeley, California—soon after The Hawks had started to back him on his rock and roll tour. Dylan and The Band ran through this number in Woodstock in 1967, although the Basement Tapes version is an outtake from the 1968 Music from Big Pink sessions.[117] Gill calls it "half an idea fleshed out to a riff" that is a funky blues extension of the classic Chuck Berry song "Memphis, Tennessee".[116] The released version has had one verse cut; a longer version of the same take appears as a bonus track on the 2000 reissue of Music From Big Pink.[67]

"This Wheel's on Fire"

Dylan – vocal, guitar; Hudson – organ; Manuel – piano, backing vocal; Danko – bass, backing vocal; Robertson – drums. Overdubbed 1975: Robertson – acoustic guitar.

"This Wheel's On Fire" closes the album "at a peak of sinister mystery", according to Gill, who suggests that it brings the record back to the motorcycle crash that created the circumstances for The Basement Tapes: "It is virtually impossible not to see the locked wheel of Dylan's Triumph 500 in the title, the very wheel upon which his own accelerating pursuit of disaster was borne so swiftly, and then arrested so abruptly. The verses brim with unfinished business, anchored by the certainty that 'we shall meet again'."[116]

Both Gill and Shelton suggest that Dylan's lyric again draws upon Shakespeare's King Lear, echoing Lear's tormented words to his daughter: "Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound/Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears/Do scald like molten lead" (act IV, scene 7).[116][65] Shelton describes how the song builds firmly through a series of tension-and-release peaks, and he connects the central image to the prophet Ezekiel's vision of a chariot that is recounted in the black spiritual "Ezekiel Saw The Wheel".[26]

Cover art

The cover photograph for the 1975 album was taken by designer and photographer Reid Miles in the basement of a Los Angeles YMCA. It poses Dylan and The Band alongside characters suggested by the songs: a woman in a Mrs. Henry T-shirt, an Eskimo, a circus strongman and a dwarf. Robertson wears a blue Mao-style suit; Manuel wears a U.S. Air Force uniform.[118] Musicians David Blue and Neil Young are also present in the photo.[119]

Reception and sales

 Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic 5/5 stars[120]
Robert Christgau A+[121]
Rolling Stone 5/5 stars[122]
Virgin Encyclopedia of Popular Music 3/5 stars[123]

Columbia Records released The Basement Tapes on June 26, 1975.[124] The album peaked at number seven on the Billboard chart,[125] and reached number eight in the UK.[126] It was acclaimed by critics. John Rockwell of The New York Times hailed it as "one of the greatest albums in the history of American popular music."[127] Rolling Stone's Paul Nelson called its contents "the hardest, toughest, sweetest, saddest, funniest, wisest songs I know".[128] Robert Christgau gave it an A+ in his Village Voice "Consumer Guide" column,[121] and commented on how the recordings sounded richer and stranger in 1975 than when they were made: "The basement tapes were the original laid-back rock, early investigations of a mode that would eventually come to pervade the whole music. Not that they suggested any of the complacent slickness now associated with the term—just that they were lazy as a river and rarely relentless or precise." He concluded, "We don't have to bow our heads in shame because this is the best album of 1975. It would have been the best album of 1967, too."[129] The Basement Tapes topped the Voice's Pazz & Jop Critics Poll.[130] The review in The Washington Post declared, "He may perplex, irritate, and disappoint, but Dylan has to rank as the single greatest artist modern American pop music has produced."[127]

Criticism of 1975 album

Criticism of the 1975 official release of The Basement Tapes has centered on two issues: the recordings by The Band on their own, and the selection of the Dylan songs. As critic Michael Gray puts it, "The interspersed tracks by The Band alone merely disrupt the unity of Dylan material, much more of which should have been included. Key songs missing here include 'I Shall Be Released' and 'The Mighty Quinn'".[131] Heylin similarly argues that compiler Robbie Robertson did "Dylan fans a major disservice" by omitting those two songs as well as "I'm Not There" and "Sign On The Cross". He writes, "The album as released hardly gave a real idea of what they had been doing in Woodstock. Not even the two traditional songs pulled to the master reels—'Young But Daily Growin'' and 'The Banks Of The Royal Canal'—made the final twenty-four cuts."[132]

The honesty of the 1975 album was questioned by a reviewer of the remastered version of The Band's Music From Big Pink, issued in 2000. Dave Hopkins noted that "Katie's Been Gone", which appears as a bonus track on the Big Pink reissue, is the same recording as appeared on The Basement Tapes, but now "in stereo and with improved sound quality beyond what the remastering process alone would provide". Hopkins declared, "The cat's out of the bag: 'Katie' and the other Band-only tracks on The Basement Tapes must have been intentionally muddied in the studio in 1975 so that they would fit better alongside the Dylan material recorded in the basement with a home reel-to-reel."[67] Heylin also takes exception to Robertson's passing off The Band's songs as originating from the basement sessions. By including eight Band recordings to Dylan's sixteen, he says, "Robertson sought to imply that the alliance between Dylan and the Band was far more equal than it was: 'Hey, we were writing all these songs, doing our own thing, oh and Bob would sometimes come around and we'd swap a few tunes.'"[59] Heylin asserts that "though revealing in their own right, the Band tracks only pollute the official set and reduce its stature."[59]

Barney Hoskyns describes "Heylin's objections [as] the academic ones of a touchy Dylanologist: The Basement Tapes still contained some of the greatest music either Dylan or The Band ever recorded."[133] Sid Griffin similarly defends the inclusion of The Band's songs: "'Ain't No More Cane' may be included under false pretenses, but it is stirring stuff. ... And while a Dylan fan might understandably grumble that he wanted to hear another Bob song, a fan equally versed and interested more generally in late 20th century American music would only smile and thank the Good Lord for the gift of this song."[134] Of The Band's version of "Don't Ya Tell Henry", he writes, "True, the argument could be made that Robertson was way outside his brief in including this on the two-LP set, as this wasn't from Woodstock or '67, and has no Dylan on it. ... But it is a song from the Basement Tapes era and it swings like a randy sailor on shore leave in a bisexual bar. So give Robbie a break."[135]

By 1975, Dylan showed scant interest in the discographical minutiae of the recordings. Interviewed on the radio by Mary Travers, he recalled, "We were all up there sorta drying out ... making music and watching time go by. So, in the meantime, we made this record. Actually, it wasn't a record, it was just songs which we'd come to this basement and recorded. Out in the woods..." Heylin commented that Dylan seemed to be "dismiss[ing] the work as unfinished therapy".[132]

Themes

Although The Basement Tapes reached the public in an unorthodox manner, officially released eight years after they were recorded, critics have assigned them an important place in Dylan's development. Michael Gray writes, "The core Dylan songs from these sessions actually do form a clear link between ... two utterly different albums. They evince the same highly serious, precarious quest for a personal and universal salvation which marked out the John Wesley Harding collection—yet they are soaked in the same blocked confusion and turmoil as Blonde On Blonde. 'Tears Of Rage', for example, is an exact halfway house between, say, 'One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)' and 'I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine'".[131]

Singer-songwriter David Gray commented that the great achievement of The Basement Tapes is that Dylan found a way out of the anguish and verbal complexity that had characterized his mid-sixties albums such as Blonde on Blonde. "It's the sound of Dylan letting his guard down. 'Clothes Line Saga' and all those ridiculous songs, he's obviously just making it all up, they were having such a great time. The sound of The Band is so antiquated like something out of the Gold Rush and Dylan fits in because he's this storyteller with an ancient heart. At the time everything he did was so scrutinised, yet somehow he liberated himself from all that and enjoyed making music again. You hear an unselfconscious quality on this record which you don't ever hear again."[136] "He mocks his own inertia and impotence", writes critic Mike Marqusee, "but with a much gentler touch than in Blonde on Blonde. In place of that album's strangled urgency, Dylan adopts a laconic humor, a deadpan tone that speaks of resignation and self-preservation in the face of absurdity and betrayal."[137]

Robert Shelton has argued that The Basement Tapes revolves around two sets of themes. One group of songs is "tinctured with the search for salvation": "I Shall Be Released" (on the demo, but not on the album), "Too Much of Nothing", "Nothing Was Delivered", "This Wheel's On Fire", "Tears of Rage" and "Goin' To Acapulco".[138] "'Nothing' and 'nowhere' perplex and nag" in these songs, he writes. "The 'nothing' echoes the artist's dilemma: death versus life, vacuum versus harvest, isolation versus people, silence versus sound, the void versus the life-impulse."[139] A second group, comprising "songs of joy, signaling some form of deliverance", includes most of the remaining songs in the collection.[138]

In his sleeve notes for the 1975 release of The Basement Tapes, Greil Marcus wrote, "What was taking place as Dylan and The Band fiddled with the tunes, was less a style than a spirit—a spirit that had to do with a delight in friendship and invention." He compared the songs to fabled works of American music: "The Basement tapes are a testing and a discovery of roots and memory ... they are no more likely to fade than Elvis Presley's 'Mystery Train' or Robert Johnson's 'Love In Vain.'"[61]

In 1997, after listening to more than 100 basement recordings issued on various bootlegs, Marcus extended these insights into a book-length study, Invisible Republic (reissued in 2001 under the title The Old, Weird America). In it, he quotes Robertson's memory of the recording: "[Dylan] would pull these songs out of nowhere. We didn't know if he wrote them or if he remembered them. When he sang them, you couldn't tell."[18] Marcus calls the songs "palavers with a community of ghosts. ... These ghosts were not abstractions. As native sons and daughters they were a community. And they were once gathered in a single place: on the Anthology of American Folk Music".[140] A collection of blues and country music recorded in the 1920s and 1930s, the Anthology—compiled by Harry Smith and originally released by Folkways Records in 1952—was a major influence on the folk music revival of the 1950s and the 1960s. Marcus suggests that Dylan's Basement Tapes shared with Smith's Anthology a sense of alchemy, "and in the alchemy is an undiscovered country".[18]

Legacy

While removed from the public's gaze, Dylan and The Band made music very different from the recordings of other major artists. Andy Gill writes, "Musically, the songs were completely at odds with what was going on in the rest of the pop world, which during the long hot summer of 1967 was celebrating the birth of the hippie movement with a gaudy explosion of 'psychedelic' music—mostly facile paeans to universal love draped in interminable guitar solos."[141] Patrick Humphries itemizes the ways in which Dylan's songs dissented from the dominant ethos of rock culture: "While the rock world vented its spleen on parents and leaders, Dylan was singing privately about parental fidelity. While George Harrison was testifying that life went on within and without you, Dylan was taking his potatoes down to be mashed. While Mick Jagger was 2,000 light years from home, Dylan was strapping himself to a tree with roots."[142]

This aspect of the basement recordings became obvious when Dylan chose to record his next album, John Wesley Harding, in Nashville in late 1967. The songs on that record, according to Howard Sounes, revealed the influence of Dylan's daily reading of both the Bible and the Hank Williams songbook.[143] And its sound came as a shock to other rock musicians. As producer Bob Johnston recalled, "Every artist in the world was in the studio trying to make the biggest-sounding record they possibly could. So what does [Dylan] do? He comes to Nashville and tells me he wants to record with a bass, drum and guitar."[143] Dylan summed up the gap: "At that time psychedelic rock was overtaking the universe and we were singing these homespun ballads."[144]

Marqusee describes how the basement recordings represented Dylan’s turning his back on his reputation for importing avant-garde ideas into popular culture: "At the very moment when avant-gardism was sweeping through new cultural corridors, Dylan decided to dismount. The dandified, aggressively modern surface was replaced by a self-consciously unassuming and traditional garb. The giddiness embodied, celebrated, dissected in the songs of the mid-sixties had left him exhausted. He sought safety in a retreat to the countryside that was also a retreat in time, or more precisely, a search for timelessness."[145]

When The Band began work on their debut album, Music From Big Pink, in a New York studio in January 1968,[146] they employed a recording technique similar to the one they had become familiar with during the Basement Tapes sessions. As Robertson described it, "We used the same kind of mike on everything. A bit of an anti-studio approach. And we realized what was comfortable to us was turning wherever we were into a studio. Like the Big Pink technique."[147] That technique influenced groups including The Beatles, writes Griffin, who calls their Twickenham Get Back sessions in early 1969 an effort to record "in the honest, live, no frills, no overdubs, down home way that The Hawks/Band did for the Basement Tapes".[147]

"Listening to The Basement Tapes now, it seems to be the beginning of what is called Americana or alt.country," wrote Billy Bragg. "The thing about alt.country which makes it 'alt' is that it is not polished. It is not rehearsed or slick. Neither are The Basement Tapes. Remember that The Basement Tapes holds a certain cultural weight which is timeless—and the best Americana does that as well."[148] Their influence has been detected by critics in many subsequent acts. Stuart Bailie wrote, "If rock'n'roll is the sound of a party in session, the Basement Tapes were the morning after: bleary, and a bit rueful but dashed with emotional potency. Countless acts—Mercury Rev, The Cowboy Junkies, Wilco, The Waterboys—have since tried to get back to that place."[149]

For Elvis Costello, The Basement Tapes "sound like they were made in a cardboard box. I think [Dylan] was trying to write songs that sounded like he'd just found them under a stone. As if they sound like real folk songs—because if you go back into the folk tradition, you will find songs as dark and as deep as these."[18]

In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine ranked The Basement Tapes number 291 on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.[150] In a special issue devoted to Dylan's work, Q magazine awarded the record five stars, its highest rating, commenting that "Dylan's work is by turns haunting, hilarious and puzzling—and all of it taps into centuries of American song".[151]

Other released Basement Tape songs and A Tree With Roots

Columbia has issued four additional 1967 recordings by Dylan from Big Pink since The Basement Tapes in 1975: take 2 of "Quinn the Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)" on Biograph in 1985,[152] "I Shall Be Released" and "Santa Fe" on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991 in 1991[153] and "I'm Not There (1956)" on the I'm Not There soundtrack in 2007.[154] In the early 1970s, Dylan released new recordings of four Basement Tape–era compositions: a performance of "Quinn the Eskimo" from the Isle of Wight Festival on August 31, 1969, appeared on Self Portrait,[155] and October 1971 recordings with Happy Traum of "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere", "I Shall Be Released" and "Down in the Flood" appeared on Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II.[156]

In 2005, the Band compilation A Musical History was released, which includes the 1967 Woodstock Band recordings "Words and Numbers", "You Don't Come Through", "Caledonia Mission", "Ferdinand the Imposter" and "Will the Circle Be Unbroken".[82] In 1968, The Band re-recorded "This Wheel's on Fire", "Tears of Rage", "I Shall Be Released" and "Caledonia Mission" in studios in New York and Los Angeles for Music From Big Pink.[157] Versions of other Band Basement Tape compositions, recorded in various locations between 1967 and possibly 1975, appear on Across the Great Divide[158] and A Musical History,[82] and as bonus tracks on the 2000 reissues of Music From Big Pink and Cahoots.[157][159] Live versions by The Band of various Basement Tapes songs have also been issued: "I Shall Be Released" on Before the Flood;[160] "Caledonia Mission" and "This Wheel's On Fire" on Rock of Ages, with "I Shall Be Released", "Down in the Flood" and "Don't Ya Tell Henry" appearing on the album's 2001 reissue;[161] "I Shall Be Released" on The Last Waltz and "This Wheel's On Fire" on the 2002 box set release of the album;[162] "I Shall Be Released" and "Don't Ya Tell Henry" on Live at Watkins Glen;[163] and "Ain't No Cane on the Brazos" recorded live at the Woodstock Festival in August 1969, on Across the Great Divide.[158]

On March 31, 2009, Legacy Records issued a remastered version of the original 1975 Basement Tapes double album, which critics praised for its improved sound quality.[164][165] According to reviewer Scott Hreha, there was "something about the remastering that makes it feel more like an official album—the earlier CD version’s weak fidelity unfairly emphasized the 'basement' nature of the recordings, where it now possesses a clarity that belies its humble and informal origins."[165]

In the early 1990s, a virtually complete collection of all Dylan's 1967 recordings in Woodstock was released on a bootleg 5-CD set, The Genuine Basement Tapes. The collection, which contains 108 songs and alternate takes, was later remastered and issued as the 4-CD bootleg A Tree With Roots.[21] Greil Marcus showed the set to Garth Hudson, who declared, "They've got it all."[166] Nonetheless, a handful of basement songs not available on A Tree With Roots or other bootlegs have been documented, including The Band's "Even If It's a Pig Part I" (which has circulated in fragmentary form) and "Even If It's a Pig Part II",[166] and Dylan's "Wild Wolf"[167][168] and "Can I Get a Racehorse" (copyrighted as "You Own a Racehorse").[169][170]

Track listing

All songs by Bob Dylan, except where noted

Side one
  1. "Odds and Ends" – 1:47
  2. "Orange Juice Blues (Blues for Breakfast)" (Richard Manuel) – 3:39
  3. "Million Dollar Bash" – 2:32
  4. "Yazoo Street Scandal" (Robbie Robertson) – 3:29
  5. "Goin' to Acapulco" – 5:27
  6. "Katie's Been Gone" (Manuel, Robertson) – 2:46
Side two
  1. "Lo and Behold" – 2:46
  2. "Bessie Smith" (Rick Danko, Robertson) – 4:18
  3. "Clothes Line Saga" – 2:58
  4. "Apple Suckling Tree" – 2:48
  5. "Please Mrs. Henry" – 2:33
  6. "Tears of Rage" (Dylan, Manuel) – 4:15
Side three
  1. "Too Much of Nothing" – 3:04
  2. "Yea! Heavy and a Bottle of Bread" – 2:15
  3. "Ain't No More Cane" (Traditional) – 3:58
  4. "Crash on the Levee (Down in the Flood)" – 2:04
  5. "Ruben Remus" (Manuel, Robertson) – 3:16
  6. "Tiny Montgomery" – 2:47
Side four
  1. "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" – 2:42
  2. "Don't Ya Tell Henry" – 3:13
  3. "Nothing Was Delivered" – 4:23
  4. "Open the Door, Homer" – 2:49
  5. "Long Distance Operator" – 3:39
  6. "This Wheel's on Fire" (Danko, Dylan) – 3:52

Notes

  1. ↑ For his detailed account of the Manchester concert, C. P. Lee interviewed members of the audience about the reasons for their hostility. One explained, "It was as if everything we held dear had been betrayed. He showed us what to think, I know that's a stupid thing to say but there he was marching with Martin Luther King, and suddenly he was singing this stuff about himself. We made him and he betrayed the cause" (Lee 1998, p. 154).
  2. ↑ Robertson is referring to "Banks of the Royal Canal (The Auld Triangle)" by Brendan Behan, one of the basement recordings that has been bootlegged but never officially released. The song first appeared in Behan's play The Quare Fellow, and Dylan probably learned it from Liam Clancy, who recorded it in 1965 (Barker 2008, pp. 303–305).
  3. ↑ Griffin writes that Helm's arrival in October meant that he did not play on most of the Dylan–Band 1967 Woodstock recordings, including the sixteen Dylan Basement Tapes album tracks—and it is unclear whether the drums overdubbed on "Too Much of Nothing" in 1975 were played by Helm. Griffin believes Helm drummed on eight unreleased recordings made by Dylan and The Band in the house on Wittenberg Road that Danko and Helm shared after vacating Big Pink (Griffin 2007, pp. 201, 221, 236–241). Heylin has at different times suggested that Helm might be the drummer on three tracks on The Basement Tapes: "Goin’ To Acapulco" (Heylin 1996, p. 110), "Apple Suckling Tree" and "Odds and Ends" (Heylin 2009, pp. 376–380).
  4. ↑ The songs on the demo were: "Million Dollar Bash", "Yea! Heavy and a Bottle of Bread", "Please Mrs. Henry", "Down in the Flood", "Lo and Behold", "Tiny Montgomery", "This Wheel's on Fire", "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere", "I Shall Be Released", "Tears of Rage", "Too Much of Nothing", "The Mighty Quinn", "Open the Door, Homer" and "Nothing Was Delivered" (Griffin 2007, pp. 229–230).
  5. ↑ Hoskyns notes that when Albert Grossman was shopping around for a recording contract for The Hawks in late 1967, the group instructed him to sign them under the name The Crackers—a derogatory term for poor white Southerners. The band also mischievously dubbed themselves The Honkies. It was only when Helm joined them in Woodstock that they settled on calling themselves The Band (Hoskyns 1993, pp. 143–144).
  6. ↑ Eliot married Vivienne Haigh-Wood in 1915; they separated in 1933. Critics consider their marriage central to his writing The Waste Land (Gordon 2000, pp. 147–192). Eliot married Valerie Fletcher in January 1957, near the end of his life (Gordon 2000, pp. 496–536).

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Polizotti 2006, p. 8
  2. ↑ Humphries 1991, pp. 185–190
  3. ↑ Heylin 1996, pp. 82–106
  4. ↑ Helm 2000, pp. 141–142
  5. ↑ Griffin 2007, p. 40
  6. ↑ Scherman 2006
  7. ↑ Griffin 2007, pp. 46, 52–53
  8. ↑ Shelton 1986, pp. 426–427
  9. ↑ Heylin 2000, p. 268
  10. ↑ Wenner, Jann. "Interview with Jann S. Wenner," Rolling Stone, November 29, 1969, in Cott 2006, p. 143
  11. ↑ Heylin 2000, p. 272
  12. ↑ Shelton 1986, p. 376
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Sounes 2001, p. 221
  14. ↑ Heylin 1995, pp. 55–56
  15. ↑ Griffin 2007, pp. 120–158
  16. ↑ Marcus 1997, p. 72
  17. ↑ Wenner, Jann. "Interview with Jann S. Wenner," Rolling Stone, November 29, 1969, in Cott 2006, p. 151
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 18.3 Marcus 1997, p. xvi
  19. ↑ Heylin 1995, p. 58
  20. ↑ Marcus 1997, p. 240
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Marcus 1997, pp. 237–265
  22. ↑ Hoskyns 1993, p. 136
  23. ↑ Griffin 2007, p. 104
  24. ↑ Sounes 2001, p. 222
  25. ↑ Heylin 1996, pp. 107–108
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 Shelton 1986, p. 318
  27. ↑ Spencer 1985
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 Heylin 2000, pp. 283–284
  29. ↑ Hoskyns 1993, p. 137
  30. ↑ Gill 1998, p. 112
  31. ↑ Gray 2006, p. 199
  32. ↑ Gray 2006, p. 321
  33. ↑ Gray 2006, p. 197
  34. ↑ Gray 2006, p. 194
  35. ↑ Heylin 1995, p. 61
  36. ↑ Griffin 2007, p. 110
  37. ↑ Hoskyns 1993, p. 138
  38. ↑ Hoskyns 1993, p. 139
  39. ↑ Hoskyns 1993, p. 144
  40. ↑ Helm 2000, p. 156
  41. ↑ Heylin 1996, p. 110
  42. ↑ Griffin 2007, p. 228. Capitals as printed in original interview.
  43. ↑ Griffin 2007, pp. 229–230
  44. ↑ Whitburn 2004, p. 488
  45. ↑ Griffin 2007, p. 230
  46. ↑ Roberts 1999, p. 278
  47. ↑ Roberts 1999, p. 176
  48. ↑ Griffin 2007, p. 270
  49. ↑ Griffin 2007, p. 280
  50. ↑ Wenner 1968, p. 1
  51. ↑ Sounes 2001, p. 240
  52. ↑ Sounes 2001, p. 478
  53. ↑ Griffin 2007, p. 289
  54. ↑ Heylin 2000, p. 390
  55. ↑ Griffin 2007, p. 293
  56. ↑ Griffin 2007, p. 293
  57. ↑ Griffin 2007, pp. 290–295
  58. ↑ Griffin 2007, pp. 293–303
  59. ↑ 59.0 59.1 59.2 Heylin 1995, pp. 67–68
  60. ↑ Griffin 2007, pp. 294–295
  61. ↑ 61.0 61.1 61.2 Marcus 1975
  62. ↑ Griffin 2007, pp. 177, 190–221
  63. ↑ Gill 1998, p. 113
  64. ↑ Heylin 2009, p. 377
  65. ↑ 65.0 65.1 65.2 65.3 65.4 65.5 Shelton 1986, p. 385
  66. ↑ Griffin 2007, pp. 295–296
  67. ↑ 67.0 67.1 67.2 67.3 Hopkins 2000
  68. ↑ Griffin 2007, pp. 254–255
  69. ↑ 69.0 69.1 69.2 69.3 69.4 Hoskyns 1993, p. 145
  70. ↑ Shelton 1986, p. 384
  71. ↑ Griffin 2007, p. 191
  72. ↑ Heylin 2009, p. 338
  73. ↑ Griffin 2007, p. 296
  74. ↑ Bowman 2000 (1)
  75. ↑ Griffin 2007, pp. 214–215, 296–297
  76. ↑ Heylin 2009, p. 281
  77. ↑ Griffin 2007, p. 297
  78. ↑ From Hoskyns's liner notes for Music From Big Pink's 2000 reissue. Hoskyns was commissioned to write the liner notes for the 2000 Band remaster series, but Capitol Records decided not to use them and replaced them with notes written by Rob Bowman. Hoskyns's original notes have been published online: Hoskyns 2000.
  79. ↑ Heylin 2009, p. 344
  80. ↑ Griffin 2007, p. 198
  81. ↑ Gill 1998, p. 115
  82. ↑ 82.0 82.1 82.2 82.3 82.4 82.5 Bowman 2005
  83. ↑ 83.0 83.1 83.2 83.3 Griffin 2007, pp. 298–299
  84. ↑ Ward (1)
  85. ↑ Heylin 2009, pp. 378–379
  86. ↑ Marcus 1997, p. 238
  87. ↑ Griffin 2007, pp. 220–221
  88. ↑ Heylin 2009, p. 342
  89. ↑ Marcus 1997, p. 255
  90. ↑ Gill 1998, pp. 117–118
  91. ↑ Griffin 2007, pp. 208–210
  92. ↑ Marcus 1997, p. 205
  93. ↑ Marcus 1997, p. 192
  94. ↑ Sounes 2001, p. 225
  95. ↑ Humphries 1991, p. 69
  96. ↑ Gill 1998, p. 119
  97. ↑ Marcus 1997, p. 263
  98. ↑ Griffin 2007, p. 192
  99. ↑ Ward (2)
  100. ↑ Gill 1998, p. 119
  101. ↑ 101.0 101.1 Griffin 2007, pp. 300–301
  102. ↑ Heylin 2009, pp. 332–333
  103. ↑ Griffin 2007, pp. 199–200
  104. ↑ Heylin 2009, pp. 345–346
  105. ↑ 105.0 105.1 Gill 1998, p. 120
  106. ↑ The Byrds Billboard Singles
  107. ↑ Griffin 2007, p. 271
  108. ↑ Marcus 1997, p. 243
  109. ↑ Griffin 2007, pp. 301–302
  110. ↑ Griffin 2007, p. 271
  111. ↑ Marcus 1997, p. 252
  112. ↑ Shelton 1986, pp. 384–385
  113. ↑ Griffin 2007, p. 211
  114. ↑ Heylin 2009, p. 353
  115. ↑ Marcus 1997, p. 254
  116. ↑ 116.0 116.1 116.2 116.3 Gill 1998, p. 123
  117. ↑ 117.0 117.1 Griffin 2007, pp. 255–256
  118. ↑ Hoskyns 1993, p. 313
  119. ↑ Gray 2006, p. 38
  120. ↑ Erlewine
  121. ↑ 121.0 121.1 Christgau 1975 (1)
  122. ↑ Bracket 2004, p. 262
  123. ↑ Bob Dylan and The Band: The Basement Tapes
  124. ↑ Heylin 1995, p. 55
  125. ↑ Griffin 2007, p. 304
  126. ↑ Warwick 2004, p. 358
  127. ↑ 127.0 127.1 Shelton 1986, pp. 383–385
  128. ↑ Nelson 1975
  129. ↑ Christgau 1975 (2)
  130. ↑ 1975 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll
  131. ↑ 131.0 131.1 Gray 2000, p. 9
  132. ↑ 132.0 132.1 Heylin 2000, p. 390
  133. ↑ Hoskyns 1993, p. 312
  134. ↑ Griffin 2007, p. 300
  135. ↑ Griffin 2007, p. 302
  136. ↑ Harris 2000, p. 96
  137. ↑ Marqusee 2005, p. 231
  138. ↑ 138.0 138.1 Shelton 1986, p. 384
  139. ↑ Shelton 1986, p. 385
  140. ↑ Marcus 1997, pp. 86–87
  141. ↑ Gill 1998, p. 112
  142. ↑ Humphries 1991, pp. 65–66
  143. ↑ 143.0 143.1 Sounes 2001, p. 226
  144. ↑ Heylin 2000, p. 278
  145. ↑ Marqusee 2005, p. 225
  146. ↑ Hoskyns 2000
  147. ↑ 147.0 147.1 Griffin 2007, p. 154
  148. ↑ Griffin 2007, p. 308
  149. ↑ Harris 2000, p. 80
  150. ↑ 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
  151. ↑ Harris 2000, p. 141
  152. ↑ Crowe 1985
  153. ↑ Bauldie 1991
  154. ↑ I'm Not There Original Soundtrack 2007
  155. ↑ Heylin 1995, p. 77
  156. ↑ Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II (1971)
  157. ↑ 157.0 157.1 Bowman 2000 (1)
  158. ↑ 158.0 158.1 Flippo 1994
  159. ↑ Bowman 2000 (2)
  160. ↑ Before the Flood
  161. ↑ Bowman 2001
  162. ↑ The Last Waltz
  163. ↑ Morris 1994
  164. ↑ Guttenberg 2009
  165. ↑ 165.0 165.1 Hreha 2009
  166. ↑ 166.0 166.1 Marcus 1997, pp. 236–237
  167. ↑ Heylin 1995, p. 65
  168. ↑ Dunn 2008, pp. 538–539
  169. ↑ Gould 2001
  170. ↑ Dunn 2008, p. 552

References

Bob Dylan
Studio albums
Bob Dylan · The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan · The Times They Are a-Changin' · Another Side of Bob Dylan · Bringing It All Back Home · Highway 61 Revisited · Blonde on Blonde · John Wesley Harding · Nashville Skyline · Self Portrait · New Morning · Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid · Dylan · Planet Waves · Blood on the Tracks · The Basement Tapes · Desire · Street-Legal · Slow Train Coming · Saved · Shot of Love · Infidels · Empire Burlesque · Knocked Out Loaded · Down in the Groove · Oh Mercy · Under the Red Sky · Good as I Been to You · World Gone Wrong · Time Out of Mind · Love and Theft · Modern Times · Together Through Life · Christmas in the Heart
Live albums
Before the Flood · Hard Rain · Bob Dylan at Budokan · Real Live · Dylan & the Dead · The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration · MTV Unplugged · Live 1961–2000: Thirty-Nine Years of Great Concert Performances · Live at the Gaslight 1962 · Live at Carnegie Hall 1963
Compilations
Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits · Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II · Masterpieces · Biograph · Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume 3 · The Essential Bob Dylan · Bob Dylan: The Collection · The Best of Bob Dylan · Blues · Dylan · The Original Mono Recordings
The Bootleg Series
Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991 · Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966, The "Royal Albert Hall" Concert · Vol. 5: Bob Dylan Live 1975, The Rolling Thunder Revue · Vol. 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964, Concert at Philharmonic Hall · Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack · Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs: Rare and Unreleased 1989-2006 · Vol. 9: The Witmark Demos: 1962–1964
Bootleg albums
Great White Wonder · In 1966 There Was · Zimmerman Looking Back · Ten of Swords · The Lonesome Sparrow Sings · The Minnesota Tapes · The Genuine Bootleg Series · The Genuine Bootleg Series Take 2 · The Third One Now · From Newport to the Ancient Empty Streets of L.A · A Tree With Roots
Concerts & tours
UK Tour 1965 · Going Electric at Newport (1965) · 1966 World Tour · Isle of Wight 1969 · The Concert for Bangladesh (1971) · Tour with The Band (1974) · Rolling Thunder Revue (1975) · Never Ending Tour (1988–present)
Films
Madhouse on Castle Street · Dont Look Back · Eat the Document · Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid · Renaldo and Clara · Hearts of Fire · Masked and Anonymous · No Direction Home · I'm Not There · 65 Revisited · The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at the Newport Folk Festival 1963–1965
Writings
Tarantula · Writings and Drawings · Lyrics: 1962–1985 · Drawn Blank · Chronicles: Volume One  · Lyrics: 1962–2001 · The Definitive Bob Dylan Songbook
Books written about Dylan
The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia · Bob Dylan, Performing Artist · Invisible Republic · The Cambridge Companion to Bob Dylan
Related articles
Albums · American folk music revival · Awards · Bob Dylan bootleg recordings · The Bootleg Series · Discography · Electric Dylan controversy · List of artists who have covered Bob Dylan songs · Related topics · Songs recorded by Bob Dylan · Songs written by Bob Dylan · Theme Time Radio Hour · Traveling Wilburys
Wikipedia book Book:Bob Dylan · Category Category:Bob Dylan  · Portal Portal:Bob Dylan  · WikiProject WikiProject:Bob Dylan
The Band
Rick Danko • Levon Helm • Garth Hudson • Richard Manuel • Robbie Robertson
Ronnie Hawkins • Bob Dylan • John Simon • Allen Toussaint • Jim Weider • Randy Ciarlante • Richard Bell • Stan Szelest
Studio albums
Music from Big Pink • The Band • Stage Fright • Cahoots • Moondog Matinee • The Basement Tapes • Northern Lights - Southern Cross • Islands • Jericho • High On The Hog • Jubilation
Live albums
Rock of Ages • Before the Flood • The Last Waltz (album) • Live at Watkins Glen • The Last Waltz (box)
Compilations
The Best of The Band • Anthology • To Kingdom Come • Across The Great Divide • The Best of The Band, Vol. II • Greatest Hits • A Musical History
Songs
"The Weight" • "This Wheel's on Fire" • "I Shall Be Released" • "Chest Fever" • "Up on Cripple Creek" • "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" • "Look Out Cleveland" • "King Harvest (Has Surely Come)" • "Stage Fright" • "The Shape I'm In" • "Life Is a Carnival" • "Don't Do It" • "Acadian Driftwood" • "Tears of Rage"
Related topics
Discography • Bob Dylan and The Band 1974 Tour • The Last Waltz • Festival Express • This Wheel's on Fire • Summer Jam at Watkins Glen • Endless Highway: The Music of The Band