"Blood on the Tracks" the untold story

Just to clarify and reiterate, only one of the five New York tracks pulled from the album has been officially released. It's "You're a Big Girl Now" which can be found on Biograph and even then it was given a new, cleaner mix. Compare it to the five New York tracks that they kept on the album, they took out a noticeable bit of the ambiance and echo.

The Bootleg Series 1-3 does not have any of the New York tracks pulled from the album. It only has rejected alternate takes, usually earlier ones that are missing overdubs. Bauldie's liner notes misidentifies the alternate take of "Idiot Wind" as the one used on the original NY acetate, describing an organ dub that isn't heard at all on the one that is featured on The Bootleg Series.

 

All of this is exactly right.

A deluxe Blood release that includes the bona fide acetate takes would complete the story perfectly.

 

Dylan's vocals on the master takes from NY are definitely better than the officially released alternates from the same NY sessions.

I only had the released version of Blood on the Tracks for many years, but when I got a hold of the NY version, it grew on me fast, and it's now my favorite. Strange that this thread got bumped, I was listening to this again the last few days. Dylan's singing on the NY version is possibly his least mannered, least affected ever. It really suits the exposed, personal nature of these songs. Think about, most of his performances were play-acting, as he was changing his voice from album to album. I love that about Dylan, but it's stunning to hear none of that on the NY version. When people do Dylan parodies, they never base their parodies on what you hear there.

 

Yes, the writer is me.

 

You summarized this especially well. It's precisely because the NY "Idiot Wind" vocals are so understated that I prefer it to the vitriolic Minneapolis version that turned up on the official release. Sometimes I like milk chocolate, sometimes I like dark chocolate....

 

"The original NY Sessions of BOTT, if released the way they were, would have been much more intense and would have made the record even better."

Disagree. Granted, there are some aspects of the NYC originals I prefer to their Mnpls counterparts. But if BOTT had been released without the Sound 80 tracks, we would have had ten songs in the same key, at roughly the same tempo, with roughly the same arrangement, clocking in at nearly an hour. Not exactly the best route to the "classic" status the official album has so deservedly earned. I mean, the NYC version of "Lily" gets awfully tedious, IMHO.

(Just thinking out loud here...Fast forward 25 years to Love & Theft. Love the old-time pop stuff, love the blues & rock stuff — but I would NOT have preferred that L&T be 60 minutes of one or the other.)

Make no mistake, BOTT was a "statement" record for Dylan. I think he wanted to make a record as strong as his 60s stuff as he possibly could — something that the previous year's Planet Waves, for all its little charms, was not.


"A deluxe Blood release that includes the bona fide acetate takes would complete the story perfectly."

Absolutely!!!

 

It'd be tough to find a single concert that really featured the BOOT songs as it's centerpiece. He'd already moved onto DESIRE by the time he toured again (though the second Rolling Thunder tour does feature a bit of a resurgence for BOOT material, including the incendiary "Idiot Wind" that was featured on HARD RAIN). But a bonus disc that includes a compilation of BOOT songs from over the years--with their numerous lyrical rewrites and completely revamped arrangements--could be very cool. Offhand, "Tangled Up In Blue," "Simple Twist of Faith," and "If You See Her Say Hello" are all songs that were rewritten almost completely at one time or another, and it'd be great to get something that puts these versions all in one place.

So I'd love to see a 3CD set. DISC ONE: Original album plus any electric outtakes DISC TWO: NY Sessions version plus acoustic outtakes DISC THREE: Live and rehearsal versions.

 

I obviously don't think the NY version is monotonous or tedious, I prefer it, but from a commercial perspective, re-recording the album probably helped him. Look how long it took anyone to notice Pink Moon, released less than three years before Blood on the the Tracks. Skeletal and similar in feel, it didn't make waves and completely dropped off the map. It's a miracle it came back the way it did, attaining "classic" status decades after the fact. Dylan's too much of a sacred cow for that to happen to anything he does, but the MN re-recordings made the album a solid #1 hit, one that fit perfectly with the platinum selling singer-songwriter albums of the time.

 

I would love to read a more detailed account of the studio sessions of this album. I bet there is a great story to be told about making Blood On The Tracks. This was still pretty interesting.
Thanks for posting.

 

I'm interested in these alternate session versions ...

 

Well put

 

Got my fingers crossed that this will happen in my lifetime.

 

It's difficult for me to imagine Blood On The Tracks without the, to me, definitive Minneapolis versions of "Tangled Up In Blue" and "If You See Her, Say Hello". I find the Minneapolis versions of these two tracks superior in every way to the New York session versions (both the scrapped acetate takes and the rejected alternate takes that were released on The Bootleg Series Vols. 1-3).

On the other hand, I think the NYC takes of "idiot Wind" (both the alternate take and the acetate version) are superior to the Minneapolis version. I don't have any strong preference for either the NYC or Mpls versions of "Lily, Rosemary & The Jack Of Hearts" and "You're A Big Girl Now".

I agree that a deluxe reissue of the album with all of the relevant outtakes (including multiple takes) would be a valuable addition to the ongoing Bootleg Series. I think that a "Legacy Edition" reissue of BOTT was scheduled back in the early 2000s, but was cancelled in favor of the (now-aborted) hybrid SACD Dylan reissue campaign. I thought I read somewhere that Bob's Chronicles autobiography grew at least partially out of his efforts to write liner notes for the expanded BOTT reissue, as well as a similar "Legacy Edition" reissue of Oh Mercy that was also cancelled.