Bob Dylan & The Band - The Basement Tapes (2LP, Reissue)

Description

The Basement Tapes is an album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan and The Band. It was released on June 26, 1975, by Columbia Records and is Dylan's 16th studio album. Two-thirds of the album's 24 tracks feature Dylan on lead vocals backed by The Band, and were recorded in 1967, eight years before the album's release, during sessions that began at Dylan's house in Woodstock, New York, then moved to the basement of Big Pink. While most of these had appeared on bootleg albums, The Basement Tapes marked their first official release. The remaining eight songs, all previously unavailable, feature The Band without Dylan and were recorded between 1967 and 1975.

During his 1965–1966 world tour, Dylan was backed by The Hawks, a five-member rock group who would later become famous as The Band. After Dylan was injured in a motorcycle accident in July 1966, four members of The Hawks came to Dylan's home in the Woodstock area to collaborate with him on music and film projects. While Dylan was out of the public's eye during an extended period of recovery in 1967, he and the members of The Hawks recorded more than 100 tracks together, incorporating original compositions, contemporary covers, and traditional material. Dylan's new style of writing moved away from the urban sensibility and extended narratives that had characterized his most recent albums, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde, toward songs that were more intimate and which drew on many styles of traditional American music. While some of the basement songs are humorous, others dwell on nothingness, betrayal and a quest for salvation. In general, they possess a rootsy quality anticipating the Americana genre. For some critics, the songs on The Basement Tapes, which circulated widely in unofficial form, mounted a major stylistic challenge to rock music in the late sixties.

When Columbia Records prepared the album for official release in 1975, eight songs recorded solely by The Band—in various locations between 1967 and 1975—were added to 16 songs taped by Dylan and The Band in 1967. Overdubs were added in 1975 to songs from both categories. The Basement Tapes was critically acclaimed upon release, reaching number seven on the Billboard 200 album chart. Subsequently, the format of the 1975 album has led critics to question the omission of some of Dylan's best-known 1967 compositions and the inclusion of material by The Band that was not recorded in Woodstock.

Release Info

Label: Columbia 88985451751
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue
Country: UK & Europe
Released: 2017
Genre: Rock
Style: Folk Rock

Tracklist

A1 Odds And Ends
A2 Orange Juice Blues (Blues For Breakfast)
A3 Million Dollar Bash
A4 Yazoo Street Scandal
A5 Goin' To Acapulco
A6 Katie's Been Gone
B1 Lo And Behold!
B2 Bessie Smith
B3 Clothes Line Saga
B4 Apple Suckling Tree
B5 Please, Mrs. Henry
B6 Tears Of Rage
C1 Too Much Of Nothing
C2 Yea! Heavy And A Bottle Of Bread
C3 Ain't No More Cane
C4 Crash On The Levee (Down In The Flood)
C5 Ruben Remus
C6 Tiny Montgomery
D1 You Ain't Goin' Nowhere
D2 Don't Ya Tell Henry
D3 Nothing Was Delivered
D4 Open The Door Homer
D5 Long Distance Operator
D6 This Wheel's On Fire