in many ways, dylan’s 1975 ‘blood on the tracks’ marks a line in the sand in his career. there is his total output before ‘blood’, and then there is everything after it. or, another way of putting it would be to note that nearly every great album he has done since then comes with a qualifier – ” maybe his best album since ‘blood on the tracks’….”. that may not be fair, but it stands as a testament as to how great the album is. it easily stands the test of time, and it is usually listed in his greatest achievements. as such, it was of great interest to me when columbia decided to pay tribute to the recording by releasing volume 14 of their great ‘bootleg series’.

as readers may know, quite a bit of history and bootlegging surrounds the story of these sessions, and so it would have been very disappointing if they hadn’t done it in the exhaustive manner offered here. if you get the deluxe version (which i did), you get six full cd’s that have every session recorded in full, in chronological order. that might be a bit much for the casual fan, so they also released a single cd with alternate versions of the songs, plus a few that didn’t make the final cut.

the first five cd’s are from the original new york sessions from september of 1974. he starts with solo acoustic versions of most of the songs, and then the assembled studio musicians take a crack at fleshing out the tunes. it becomes clear early on that he is not happy with how it sounds, and the drummer can hardly keep the time. over the next batches of takes he slowly eliminates nearly all of the musicians except tony brown on bass. it is this portion of the sessions that really intrigue me. the tone is stark, introspective and measured. the ‘idiot wind’ that finally makes it on the finished version is a raging bitter diatribe, but here the tempo is slowed down and the lyric changes and presentation have less of an accusatory tone. i never owned any of the bootleg recordings from the new york sessions, so it was such a revelation to hear some of these songs in such different arrangements (only half of the songs from the final release included versions from these sessions).

when bob’s brother david heard the recordings, he feared that it would not sell well, and convinced bob to start over on five songs with a completely different band in minnesota a few months later. whether it would have sold as originally conceived, we can never know, but the final version hit the top of the billboard chart, ending a small run of tepid sales over his previous 3 or 4 albums.

there is also a theory among dylan aficionados that the album is autobiographical, based at least in part on the fact that his marriage to sara lownds was dissolving. bob denies this, countering that the songs were based on short stories by anton chekhov. but jakob dylan has been quoted as saying that the album was ‘his parents talking’.

as for the debate as to which versions are better, it is difficult to lean one way or the other. i think i like the new york sessions, but then maybe it is just because they are fresh to my ear. but it also might have something to do with the fact that i was sampling bob’s new bourbon while taking it all in.

mrs. redeyegin prefers the minnesota sessions. but the main reason we can even have this debate is due to the power and magnitude of his artistry. he comes into the studio with a very clear notion of the structure of the songs, constantly morphs and probes, and leaves everyone else involved in the process in awe. a reviewer for the new yorker notes that to this day he is still changing the lyrics to ‘simple twist of fate’ in live performances. if you are a casual fan of bob, the single cd is really a no brainer. just go order it now. i had a few reservations about picking up the deluxe version due to the price tag, but i knew i would regret it. and now that i know how good it is, i am glad i splurged. plus you get two books, one of them including his legendary red spiral notebook with all the lyrics.

as i mentioned, this is the fourteenth volume of the bootleg series, and i have all of them. this is easily in my top three or four. keep them coming, bob.