Search - Bob Dylan :: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack (The Bootleg Series Vol. 7)

Master of Space and Time

Laurence Upton | Wilts, UK | 01/24/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Surely Bob Dylan is a master of space and time, existing simultaneously on several chronological planes. There is his innovative Theme Time Radio show, his art exhibitions and autobiography, new albums, experimental films exploring themes of space and time, his never-ending tour of live performances, his advertising appearances and a steady stream of previously unreleased material from different stages of his career. Perhaps there really are seven Bob Dylans, as implied by Todd Haynes in his recent film discourse on Dylan through space and time, I'm Not There [2007].



Martin Scorsese's 2005 film No Direction Home takes a more documentary approach to the same themes, exploring the scintillating period between 1959 and 1966, and using a wealth of little seen and heard material as illustration. To complement the film, this 2CD set of nuggets from the vaults, No Direction Home: The Soundtrack, doubles as Volume 7 in the esteemed Bootleg Series.



Martin Scorsese appears to have been given unprecedented access to the Dylan archives and along with a variety of demos and live recordings has chosen a number of choice outtakes from The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, Another Side Of Bob Dylan, Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde.



These include an early version of Mr Tambourine Man with Ramblin' Jack Elliott, a drumless version of She Belongs To Me, a different arrangement of It Takes A Lot To Laugh when it was still known as The Phantom Engineer and take one of Desolation Row with just Al Kooper on guitar and Harvey Brooks on bass guitar. Many of these tracks were known about by Dylan collectors, circulated on tapes and bootlegs, but usually in poor quality copies, rather than the official, excellent first generation stereo masters used here.



For me, the sessions for Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde are the most fascinating of all Dylan's work in the sixties and finally being able to hear these outtakes properly added a magnificent new perspective to that classic period. Fresh performances of the familiar earlier songs, such as Blowin' In The Wind and A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall, demonstrate his artistic development and maturity during those mercurial years. The CD begins with a home tape recording fragment made in Hibbing when Dylan was just eighteen, and concludes with the legendary "Royal Albert Hall" performance of Like A Rolling Stone. This and Song To Woody (from the album Bob Dylan) are the only two tracks to have been previously released.



That these 40-50 year old recordings still speak to current generations with the level of popularity that they do is yet further evidence of Dylan's time out of mind mastery."

Magnificent! "...He is spoon-feeding Casanova the boiled gut

Docendo Discimus | Vita scholae | 02/19/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"More of a companion to the Martin Scorsese picture than a traditional soundtrack, the seventh volume of Bob Dylan's magnificent "Bootleg Series" consists of 28 tracks of which 26 are previously unreleased.



There are early home recordings here, live performances, and plenty of alternate takes which offer a different perspective on Dylan's ground-breaking 60s output. Disc one presents the young Bob Dylan in his acoustic folk mode, while disc two is a showcase for his powerful mid-to-late 60s rock n' roll.

You'll find Dylan's version of "Man of Constant Sorrow" here, grittier and more defiant than Rod Stewarts well-known rendition. A passionate "Chimes of Freedom" from the 1964 Newport Festival. Unusually slow, intimate and almost mellow performances of "Blowin' in the Wind" and "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall", both recorded live in New York in 1963. A crisp, energetic "When the Ship comes In", and early takes of "Mr Tambourine Man" and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue".



And those who prefer Dylan the rocker to Dylan the folk singer will delight in the quality of the alternates and live recordings on disc two, from the furious "Maggie's Farm" to "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, it Takes a Train to Cry" in its original up-tempo blues-rock guise from back when it was to have been titled "Phantom Engineer".

The disc opens with a slower, drum-less (and absolutely lovely) version of "She Belongs to Me", one of many the highlights of this collection, along with the wonderful alternate take of "Just like Tom Thumb's Blues", a tough, slide guitar-driven "Highway 61 Revisited", "Leopard-skin Pill-box Hat" played as a slow, thumping, bluesy grind, and a sparse, organic "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again".



Many of these alternates are just as good as the takes originally issued, and some are, in my never appropriately humble opinion, even better. This lean, mean version of "Visions of Johanna" is markedly heavier and more powerful than the one from "Blonde on Blonde", and "It Takes a Lot to Laugh..." and the even more up-tempo "Tombstone Blues" are delivered with a tremendous, burning urgency. Oh, and we get a beautiful, soulful "Desolation Row" with electric guitar and the fabled line "he is spoon-feeding Casanova the boiled guts of birds"! (The originally issued version had "...spoon-feeding Casanova to get him to feel more self-assured".)



Disc two ends with one of only two previously released recordings, the majestic eight-minute "Like a Rolling Stone" from the legendary "Royal Albert Hall" concert (which actually took place in Manchester on May 17, 1966). We've heard it before, but it still amazing, probably the most powerful eight minutes of rock n' roll I've ever heard.



"No Direction Home" shows bob Dylan evolving from an eighteen-year-old folk singer to an incredibly productive, original and visionary composer and lyricist. The early folk songs are vibrant and intense, you can hear the sincerity and immediacy in Dylan's nasal voice. And the rock songs hit harder than almost anything else from that period...the instrumentation on each song is perfect, nothing less, whether it's just a couple of guys with a guitar, or a driving, incendiary blues-rock ensemble with searing electric guitars, thudding drums, and a clanging blues-n'-boogie piano.



This is just one more proof, if proof was indeed still needed, of Robert Allen Zimmerman's incredible impact on popular music. Cultural icon and everything aside - he is just a tremendous songwriter, plain and simple."

Once Again, For The Aficionados

Alfred Johnson | boston, ma | 03/22/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I have spilled no little ink on the question of the value of various bootleg products, genuine basement tapes, fake basement tapes, etc. that have come out of over the years detailing the career of the premier folk troubadour of his times, Bob Dylan. The core of my argument is that if you have limited cash resources, time or energy (or, heaven forbid, aren't all that into him) then getting copies of his earlier albums rather than some of the more esoteric compilations is the way to go. That said, I recently touted the virtues of Volumes 1-3 (in one set) of this bootleg series for those with a little extra money to spend. While the current bootleg volume, the soundtrack to "No Direction Home", is certainly historically important it does not measure up in importance to the previously mentioned set. If you have to make a choice here get the DVD rather than the CD.



Of course the problem with the DVD is that, as with most documentaries the music is incidental so that while you get a feel for the music of early Dylan, only occasionally do you get to see a clip that runs through the whole song. Thus, if the DVD whets your appetite to hear more then you need to decide on getting the early albums or this CD. So it will really depend on whether you are an aficionado or not. However, for those who already have the early albums this is a pleasant addition to the collection. Plenty of alternate versions of classics like "Desolation Row", "Visions Of Johanna", "Just Like Tom Thumbs Blues", "Masters Of War", and some early things that round out the CD and DVD like an early tribute to Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" and a very early Dylan song "I Got Troubles". What is not to like, right?

"