In 1974, Bob Dylan released the album Blood On The Tracks, which many consider to be not only one of his finest efforts, but one of the greatest singer-songwriter albums ever made. It has enjoyed great popularity and acclaim for decades, but many do not realize that the album they know and love is not the album as originally intended.
Literally on the eve of the LP’s release, Dylan decided he was unhappy with most of the tracks (which he’d cut in NYC), and demanded his label Columbia stop the records being shipped to stores, recall them, recycle the vinyl by melting it down and destroy the covers. He then had his brother David hastily arrange a new recording session in a small Minnesota studio, at which Dylan was backed by a handful of top players from that area, none of whom had heard this material and none of which he’d ever met before he walked in the door to record.
The tracks which he recut (essentially live-in-the-studio) would go on to replace the NYC versions he was unhappy with, and he also took this opportunity to alter some of the lyrics, making them less personal and specific to his own disintegrating marriage, and instead more ambiguous and universal - which may ultimately have helped the album to touch so many people as deeply as it has.
This record marked a dramatic shift in Dylan’s approach to lyrical composition, as well as to his vocal style and guitar work. It was something of a shocking transition at the time even to those who had followed his creative output closely.
Years later, Bob told a journalist that as far as the sound of the album went, he had been listening to the record Sundown by his friend the Canadian songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, and was trying to approximate something of the aural vibe of that release in his own way.
As legend has it, about a dozen copies of the original vinyl pressing of the album had already been sold in stores before the recall orders came though, and these are insanely valuable collectors’ items.
This is a straight digital transfer (scratches, surface noise and all) of a bootleg repressing of those missing versions. Only one of these recordings has ever been officially released, over a decade later on the pioneering multi-record retrospective Biograph, which basically created the modern-day LP/CD boxed-set.
These NYC sessions were recorded in a peculiar style that Dylan has often utilized throughout his career, in which he simply sits down in the studio and begins to “run through” the tunes in front of the assembled musicians with the tape going. They are usually expected to pick up on the feel, tempo and arrangement of these songs “on the fly” without much - if any - direction or explanation from Dylan as to what he wants.
That’s why so many Dylan studio recordings find the backing musicians coming in at different times throughout the song. They’re actually watching and waiting till they have an idea of the key and chord changes before they attempt to join the proceedings.
Then, if they make it through a take without any major, obvious mistakes, and Dylan is pleased with his own performance, the backing musicians often find to their surprise that Bob will move on, that song is never returned to again, and what they assumed was an initial rough rehearsal or merely a demonstration of how the tune goes has now inexplicably become the final, finished version which will appear on the completed album.
Several of the musicians on these NYC sessions were actually fired after just a couple of days because they could not “keep up” with this approach and Dylan felt they were slowing down and cluttering up the process.
With that in mind, pay particular attention to his vocal performance and the sympathetic interplay between the NYC studio musicians (including Eric Weissberg on banjo and guitar, Tony Brown on bass, the great Buddy Cage on steel guitar, Barry Kornfeld and Charles Brown, III on guitar, Richard Crooks on drums and Paul Griffin on organ and keyboards) and Dylan, who’s playing the main acoustic guitar and harmonica live, but may have overdubbed organ and mandolin afterwards as well.
You’ll notice an annoying rhythmic “clacking” sound throughout many of the tunes. That’s the noise of the plastic buttons on Dylan’s jacket sleeve knocking against his acoustic guitar as he strums. While most engineers would have stopped the session and insisted Dylan remove the jacket, Bob was attempting to cut everything on the first take, and was unconcerned with the sonic faux pas.
I think that anyone who’s never listened closely to Dylan (or folks who know this album in its final state inside and out) will likely enjoy taking this unauthorized peek at the great record that never was.
Happy New Year.
