614 Bob Dylan and the Band - The Basement Tapes (1975)

 614 Bob Dylan and the Band - The Basement Tapes (1975)

Studio/Compilation album - Americana



About the Act:

Bob Dylan is a singer/songwriter/artist who is one of the most influential and successful songwriters in the world ever. He has had an enormous cultural impact, especially in his native America. He started in 1961 as a folk singer coming out of the beat generation, and annoyed a lot of his fans when he embraced electric instruments in 1965/6. He toured and recorded with his band "The Band". He explored country music in the early 70s, became a Born-Again Christian in the late 70s and produced several Christian-related albums. His career has meandered a bit since then but he is still active.

About the Album:

This was an unintentional album. In 1966, Bob Dylan had a motorcycle accident, which took him out of action for a while, particularly he couldn't go on tour (a load of dates had to be cancelled). He spent quite a bit of 1967 holed up, and making fairly casual recordings with the band who had accompanied him on his previous tour, the Hawks, who later were renamed The Band. They started recording in Dylan's house, and then moved to the basement of the house that The Band were occupying (Big Pink). Starting by recording cover songs, they moved on to original compositions, mostly by Dylan, but sometimes with contributions from others. In total, over that period, they recorded over 100 songs.

In October 1967 Dylan, presumably in better health, relocated to Nashville to record a studio album (with a different band). A tape of 14 of the basement tapes songs, originals, was created and copyright registered, and then distributed to other musicians as demos, in the hope that some of them would take on some of the songs. This did happen, notably Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger and The Trinity recorded "This Wheel's On Fire" and Manfred Mann recorded "Quinn The Eskimo", both of which were hits.

It seems inevitable that these recordings then started to emerge in Dylan bootlegs. He is guessed to be the most bootlegged artist ever. Eventually, recognising the appetite amongst Dylan's fans for this material, his record company got permission from Dylan to release some of the recordings. 16 of the tracks are remastered in a studio, with added overdubs. To these are added 8 tracks by The Band (recorded without Dylan) and the collection is released. That is this album.

My History with this Album:

None

Review:

One of these songs is very familiar to me, mostly through a version sung by Adrian Edmondson, and used as the theme for the TV comedy Absolutely Fabulous. This Wheel's on Fire. Although the Wikipedia page for the album, and another for the song, don't say so, it seems as if this song may be about Dylan's Motorcycle crash, in which one of the wheels exploded.

The origins of this album are interesting, and I can see how this would be a significant album for Dylan fans. I have no opposition to Dylan, and in fact quite a bit of respect, but I would not count myself as a fan. For me, then, this is just a collection of songs to be listened to.

They are quite simply recorded. The style is that kind of Dylan space of folk, country, blues, and most definitely songs. I particularly enjoyed Clothes Line Saga for its juxtaposition of the everyday and the large events. There is some solid song writing here, which is not a particular surprise, I guess. I found it a decent listen.

Because of the nature of the origins, this feels like a compilation rather than a deliberate and crafted album. That's OK. All in all, I reasonably enjoyed it.

7.2/10


Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/6BOlD6UGUg45IsUXPSplkY

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiqWX7AXe4iRr9qpqzw8Q2AO4b2ZSoxIb

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Basement_Tapes



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