Various Artists - A Musical Tribute to Woody Guthrie, Carnegie Hall, New York City, 1-20-1968

In October 1967, one of the all-time musical greats, Woody Guthrie, died at the age of 55. His health started declining in the late 1940s, and in 1952 he was diagnosed with Huntington's Disease, which causes a gradual decline in motor skills and mental abilities. He was hospitalized continuously from 1956 until his death. From the early 1960s onward, Bob Dylan regularly visited him in the hospital and sang songs for him, but so did Pete Seeger and many other folk singers.

Back in the 1960s, musical tribute concerts weren't really a thing yet, but Guthie was such a towering figure that there actually were three such concerts. I plan on posting all three eventually. This is the natural way to start, since it came first chronologically.

This concert was officially released in full as the album "A Tribute to Woody Guthrie, Part 1," in 1972. In 1970, another tribute concert for him happened, and that was eventually released as "A Tribute to Woody Guthrie, Part 2." Then, decades later, highlights from the two were combined onto one CD simply called "A Tribute to Woody Guthrie." 

Normally, I wouldn't post something that has been officially released in full. But I think in this case I can made a more listenable album by subtraction. What I mean is, the 1968 concert was a combination of songs that were sung and spoken word/poetry that was read, going back and forth between the two. I think the songs have a lot of relistening value, but I don't want to hear the spoken word parts that often. So I deleted almost twenty tracks of that, keeping just the music. If you want the full version, the official album is for you.

In removing those tracks, I was careful to manage the applause at the end of each song, since the spoken word part often started while the cheering was still going on. In some cases, I was able to fade the cheering down to bring it to a natural end. But when it was too short for that, I pasted in some cheering from the ends to other songs.

Now, let's get to the music, which consists entirely of songs written by Woody Guthrie, or cover songs he was closely associated with. This concert is most famous due to the appearance of Bob Dylan and the Band. It was important for several reasons. This was Dylan's first public performance since his motorcycle accident a year and a half earlier. It seems he wasn't actually that seriously injured in that accident, and it certainly didn't take him years to recover. But he'd been living a fast and crazy life of stardom and wanted to step away from all that for a while, and the accident gave him an excuse to go into seclusion. After this concert, Dylan basically went back into seclusion for another year or so. But he considered Woody Guthrie so important to his life that he made this rare public appearance during that time anyway.

Also important was the fact that Dylan was backed by the Band. Most members of the Band had backed him on a 1966 tour, and then during his "Basement Tapes" studio sessions in 1967. But at the time of this concert, they still hadn't made a name for themselves... both figuratively and literally! Since they literally didn't have a name to call themselves yet, for this concert, they were billed as "The Crackers," weirdly enough. Later in 1968, the Band would release their first studio album, "Music from Big Pink," to great critical acclaim. They would continue to back Dylan on other projects, including the 1969 Isle of Wight Festival concert and a 1974 tour. This concert was critical to their early career as well as their evolving musical connection with Dylan.

By the way, in addition to playing three songs with the Band, Dylan sang on two others: "This Train Is Bound for Glory" and the finale, "This Land Is Your Land." His voice is just one of many on the finale. As for "This Train Is Bound for Glory," he sang a verse on his own. Unfortunately, the album only included about a 30-second long snippet of that song, and his part wasn't included. I didn't include that snippet since I found it frustrating to only have a bit of the song. I'm guessing there was a flaw with the recording for much of the song.

The other stars of the concert were some of the biggest names in folk music at the time: Arlo Guthrie (Woody Guthrie's son, who had just hit it big with "Alice's Restaurant" in 1967), Judy Collins, Pete Seeger, Odetta, Richie Havens, and Tom Paxton. (I was asked the other day if I could post something by Pete Seeger. I couldn't think of anything worth posting. But then I remembered this concert.)

If you want to know more about this concert, here's an article in Rolling Stone Magazine about it that came out just a month after it took place:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/bob-dylan-turns-up-for-woody-guthrie-memorial-197917/

This album is 56 minutes long.

01 Oklahoma Hills (Arlo Guthrie)
02 So Long, It's Been Good to Know Yuh [Dusty Old Dust] (Judy Collins)
03 Curly Headed Baby (Pete Seeger)
04 Ramblin' Round (Odetta)
05 Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad (Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie & Judy Collins)
06 Pretty Boy Floyd (Tom Paxton)
07 I'd Rather Drink Muddy Water (Richie Havens)
08 Plane Wreck at Los Gatos [Deportee] (Judy Collins)
09 Vigilante Man (Richie Havens)
10 Pastures of Plenty (Tom Paxton)
11 Grand Coulee Dam (Bob Dylan & the Band)
12 Dear Mrs. Roosevelt (Bob Dylan & the Band)
13 I Ain't Got No Home (Bob Dylan & the Band)
14 Roll On Columbia [Edit] (Judy Collins)
15 Jackhammer John (Pete Seeger & Richie Havens)
16 Biggest Thing That Man Has Ever Done [The Great Historical Bum] (Tom Paxton)
17 Union Maid (Judy Collins & Pete Seeger)
18 This Land Is Your Land (Will Geer, Arlo Guthrie, Odetta & Everyone)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/NrqpTP2Z

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/eas3q5bnIYHEX6d/file

What a historic photo for the cover! From left to right, that's Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, and Arlo Guthrie. I found a bunch of photos from this concert, but all of them were in black and white. I picked this one, and then colorized it with the Kolorize.cc program. It did a really good job, including picking the colors. I only had to make a few fixes in Photoshop.

Bob Dylan & the Band - Chicago Stadium, Chicago, IL, 1-4-1974

In September 2024, a big box set of the Bob Dylan and the Band 1974 tour was released. Called, "The 1974 Live Recordings," it's a whopping 27 CDs in size. It includes all the soundboard and multitrack recordings that could be found from that tour. Way back in 1974, just a few months after the tour ended, a double album called "Before the Flood" was released, compiling songs from several concerts from the tour. I never liked that album much, for reasons I'll explain in a minute. So I decided to pick what I consider the best concert from this box set and make some changes that arguably makes this superior to what is on the box set.

I have two issues with the "Before the Flood" album. First, I usually prefer full concerts, warts and all, to live albums selected from multiple concerts. And second, it seemed to me that Dylan was just going through the motions, playing his "greatest hits" to please the large crowds without much enthusiasm on his part. 

It turns out that's exactly what happened. Dylan had been in seclusion pretty much since his 1966 motorcycle accident. He'd only done one full concert in all the years since then (at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1969), plus a handful of guest appearances. The public demand to see him on tour was immense. Add to that the fact that his backing band in 1966 were just a bunch of unknowns, but had since been deemed "the Band," and had some hits and critically praised albums of their own. They were a big concert draw in their own right, so to see them back Dylan was extra special. The resulting tour was one of the biggest and most hyped tour in rock and roll up until that point, selling out everywhere.

Unfortunately, whoever booked the tour set up a punishing schedule, with two shows per days sometimes and almost no days off. As the tour went on, Dylan started to lose the power of his voice. He often resorted to shouting the songs more than singing them. Furthermore, he played fewer and fewer rarities as the tour went on, ending up with just his biggest crowd pleasers by the end. Unfortunately, the "Before the Flood" album is drawn from the end of the tour. But most Dylan fanatics are more interested in the beginning of the tour, when Dylan and the Band were excited instead of weary, Dylan was singing great, and they weren't afraid to play unusual songs.

But there are more problems with the box set. One is that some of the concerts were not professionally recorded in full, due to technical difficulties or negligence or the like. Another is that although the Band played many of their own songs in every concert on the tour, the box set contains absolutely NONE of those. 

The very first concert on the tour took place in Chicago on January 3, 1974. That one, plus the next one, also in Chicago, on January 4th, are the most interesting ones to me, in terms of the set list as well as the quality of the performance. But there's a pretty good sounding audience bootleg for the January 4th show, but only a very poor sounding bootleg for January 4th. So I decided to post the January 4th concert. 

I used the audience bootleg to fill in the missing Band songs, all ten of them (tracks 7-12 and 21-24). The sound quality on these isn't as good, and you'll probably notice that right away. But I still think they sound very listenable. I used some tricks with the UVR5 and MSVEP audio editing programs to make them sound a little better. For instance, I got rid of most of the crowd noise in the middles of sounds, generally only keeping the cheering at the starts and ends of songs. 

Another problem with this concert is that five of the Dylan songs were missing (probably due to technical problems). Those were: "Lay, Lady, Lady," "All Along the Watchtower," "Forever Young," "Something There Is about You," and "Like a Rolling Stone." Luckily for my purposes, all five of these songs happened have been performed the night before, even though there were many differences in the two set lists. So, for those five songs, I used the versions from January 3rd, since the sound quality was significantly better than the audience bootleg from the Fourth.

There was yet another problem with this concert recording. Namely, for both the January 3rd and 4th recordings, virtually all of the applause was quickly faded out at the ends of songs. This would have resulted in the loss of all banter between songs, but it so happened Dylan and the members of the Band almost never said a word between songs, so there probably wasn't anything lost there. However, it sounded annoying to me to have the applause cut off. So I did some editing, patching in extra applause after virtually every song, except for the Band ones, since they were sourced differently. It seems whoever was recording the concerts cut the applause off like that for all the early dates in the tour. Maybe it was to save on recording tape, I don't know.

Because it had been so long since Dylan had gone on tour, many of the songs were being played for the first time on these two Chicago nights. For instance, even though "All Along the Watchtower" had been written way back in 1967, and Dylan would go on to perform that song in concerts more than any other (2300 plus and growing as I write this), he'd never played it in concert before this. Others had only been done rarely. For instance, "Hero Blues" and "Song to Woody" had only been performed a couple of times back in 1962 and/or 1963. Dylan and the Band released a new studio album right as the tour was starting, called "Planet Waves." They only played a few songs from the album on tour though, and they gradually dropped out of the set lists as the tour went on. But this concert has "Tough Mama," "Something There Is about You," and "Forever Young," plus the outtake "Nobody 'Cept You." Additionally, "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" had only been released the year before on a movie soundtrack, and was being played for the first time as well.

If you're a Dylan fanatic, you should get the entire box set. If you're not though, I'd easily recommend this over the "Before the Flood" album, even though the Band songs sound a little worse.

This album is an hour and 57 minutes long.

01 Hero Blues (Bob Dylan & the Band)
02 Lay, Lady, Lay (Bob Dylan & the Band)
03 Just like Tom Thumb's Blues (Bob Dylan & the Band)
04 It Ain't Me, Babe (Bob Dylan & the Band)
05 Tough Mama (Bob Dylan & the Band)
06 Ballad of a Thin Man (Bob Dylan & the Band)
07 Stage Fright (Bob Dylan & the Band)
08 The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (Bob Dylan & the Band)
09 King Harvest [Has Surely Come] (Bob Dylan & the Band)
10 Long Black Veil (Bob Dylan & the Band)
11 I Shall Be Released (Bob Dylan & the Band)
12 Up on Cripple Creek (Bob Dylan & the Band)
13 All Along the Watchtower (Bob Dylan & the Band)
14 Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat (Bob Dylan & the Band)
15 Knockin' on Heaven's Door (Bob Dylan & the Band)
16 The Times They Are A-Changin' (Bob Dylan & the Band)
17 Love Minus Zero-No Limit (Bob Dylan & the Band)
18 The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll (Bob Dylan & the Band)
19 Nobody 'Cept You (Bob Dylan & the Band)
20 It's Alright, Ma [I'm Only Bleeding] (Bob Dylan & the Band)
21 Rag Mama Rag (Bob Dylan & the Band)
22 When You Awake (Bob Dylan & the Band)
23 The Shape I'm In (Bob Dylan & the Band)
24 The Weight (Bob Dylan & the Band)
25 Forever Young (Bob Dylan & the Band)
26 Something There Is about You (Bob Dylan & the Band)
27 Like a Rolling Stone (Bob Dylan & the Band)
28 Maggie's Farm (Bob Dylan & the Band)

https://www.imagenetz.de/m9B4n

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/4v5gopbk

second alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/3yBhONV52L7qIXC/file

Luckily, the cover photo comes from one of the two Chicago concerts in January 1974, though I'm not sure which one. It probably was this one though, because the first night had a bunch of furniture on stage to try to create a homey atmosphere, but that was dropped by the second show.

Woodstock '94, Winston Farm, Saugerties, NY, 8-12-1994 to 8-14-1994 - Day 2, Part 5: The Band

The next act at the Woodstock '94 Festival is the Band.

The Band were one of the few acts that played both at the original Woodstock Festival in 1969 and at this 25th anniversary one. However, their popularity diminished somewhat in the intervening years because they lost two out of the five original members. Robbie Robertson, the band's main songwriter, left in the later 1970s. Singer Richard Manuel died in the 1980s. That left just singers Rick Danko and Levon Helm plus keyboardist Garth Hudson of the original five. Three new band members were replacements.

This is kind of a strange set because in my opinion it seems like a spot to put various acts from the original Woodstock era but weren't popular enough to have their own sets. Roger McGuinn joined in at least one song and sang lead vocals on "Knockin' on Heaven's Door." Hot Tuna then took over and performed the famous acoustic instrumental "Embryonic Journey" by themselves. (They first did it when they were a part of Jefferson Airplane.) Then they collaborated on the song "Java Blues" with the Band. Later on, Bruce Hornsby joined for at least two songs, "The Weight" and "Willie and the Hand Jive." Note that it's very possible that these guest artists stayed to take part in more songs. But I was too lazy to watch the YouTube video of this set to check. Perhaps someone else can tell me.

Then, from what I can tell, the Band left the stage and were replaced by Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead, along with bassist Rob Wasserman. But as far as I could tell, this was essentially a separate set led by Weir with the Band no longer there until the final song, even though it wasn't billed as such. So I've made that portion into a separate album. 

This portion works as a complete concert without the Weir and Wasserman part. In fact, at nearly two hours, it was one of the longest sets of the festival. I believe only the Santana and Aerosmith sets were longer.

This album is an hour and 49 minutes long.

01 talk (Band)
02 Caldonia (Band)
03 talk (Band)
04 Remedy (Band)
05 Blind Willie McTell (Band)
06 It Makes No Difference (Band)
07 Atlantic City (Band)
08 Rag Mama Rag (Band)
09 Caledonia Mission (Band)
10 Crazy Mama (Band)
11 Baby Don't You Do It [Don't Do It] (Band)
12 Knockin' on Heaven's Door (Band & Roger McGuinn)
13 talk (Band)
14 Embryonic Journey [Instrumental] (Hot Tuna)
15 talk (Band)
16 Java Blues (Band & Hot Tuna)
17 talk (Band)
18 The Weight (Band with Bruce Hornsby)
19 Mystery Train (Band)
20 talk (Band)
21 Stuff You Gotta Watch (Band)
22 Stage Fright (Band)
23 Ophelia (Band)
24 Life Is a Carnival (Band)
25 talk (Band)
26 Willie and the Hand Jive (Band with Bruce Hornsby)
27 The Shape I'm In (Band)
28 The Genetic Method [Instrumental] (Band)
29 Chest Fever (Band)
30 talk (Band)
31 [I Don't Want To] Hang Up My Rock 'n' Roll Shoes (Band)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/qH7hsGtv

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/oKAumoCg85DPHlK/file 

alternate:

https://www.imagenetz.de/iviN3

I don't know all the people in the cover photo, but that's Roger McGuinn in glasses on the left, and Rick Danko of the Band on the right. It's from this exact concert.

SNACK Benefit, Kezar Stadium, San Francisco, CA, 3-23-1975, Part 8: Neil Young, Bob Dylan & the Band

This is the eighth and last major act to perform for the 1975 SNACK benefit concert in San Francisco. In my opinion, it's the most interesting one, because it was a very rare collaboration between Neil Young and Bob Dylan, with three members of the Band assisting for good measure.

It's not entirely clear how this collaboration came about. Only Neil Young was billed as the final act for the concert. Promoter Bill Graham later said that Young and the Doobie Brothers were the biggest draws. Bob Dylan seemed to a last minute addition because this group probably didn't practice much. I'm guessing the Band members joined due to their connection with Dylan. They'd never played with Young before, as far as I know, but they'd been Dylan's most frequent backing back from 1966 all the way until a big tour in 1974. Only three members of the Band were there though: Levon Helm, Rick Danko, and Garth Hudson. That meant Robbie Robertson and Richard Manuel were missing. But the key thing was that Helm was there, because he was the lead vocalist on most of the songs by the Band. And indeed he sang lead on a couple of the songs here.

According to Rolling Stone Magazine's account of the concert, Dylan wasn't expected by the crowd whatsoever. When he showed up on stage, very few people recognized him until Bill Graham introduced the band members. Then a huge roar went up, naturally, since he was arguably the biggest name of all the acts in the concert.

But what's curious is that one normally would have expected Dylan to dominate the set, but for this concert he seemed content to be just one member of a group. For most of the songs, he just played guitar and/or harmonica, and sang backing vocals some. He only sang lead on two of the nine songs, his "I Want You" and "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," which was inexplicably renamed "Knockin' on the Dragon's Door" for this concert only. He also sang lead on some of the verses for the traditional song "Will the Circle Be Unbroken," but he forgot how a verse went, so the song finished more as an instrumental.

Young sang lead on three songs: "Are You Ready for the Country," "Lookin' for a Love," and "Helpless." "Lookin' for a Love" wouldn't be released until it appeared on the "Zuma" album towards the end of the year. This was its concert debut. The Band dominated the singing on "Ain't That a Lot of Love," "Loving You Is Sweeter than Ever," and "The Weight." "Helpless" flowed directly into "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" (er, "Dragon's Door") in an interesting way.

Unfortunately, there was one very big problem with the audio of this set that I think has prevented it from being much better known: Bob Dylan's microphone was turned off or malfunctioned for the entire set! As a result, he was practically inaudible at times. The only reason he could be heard at all was because he was singing in a particularly shouty style (perhaps because he noticed the microphone problem?) and his voice was picked up somewhat by some of the other nearby microphones.

Luckily, in this day and age there are things that can be done to fix this. Using the UVR5 audio editing program, I did my best to boost Dylan's voice up to normal levels as much as possible. However, in some cases there wasn't enough there to do any boosting. For "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" (sorry, "Dragon's"), and "Will the Circle Be Unbroken," I was able to get by with just boosting. It doesn't always sound great, but it's way better than previous versions. 

However, I had a lot more trouble with "I Want You." His voice was nearly totally gone for the first verse. So I found a soundboard of him singing the song from 1976 and pasted his vocals in for that part. But for the bridge and the second and third verses, I was able to get by with just boosting the existing vocals. The choruses were also a problem. Rick Danko sang backing vocals, and that was picked up very loudly, totally drowning out Dylan. So again I used that 1976 version and pasted in Dylan singing on the choruses, trying to match it with Danko's timing. I think the end result more or less works, but you can tell the difference in style between the 1976 parts, where he was singing the song normally, and the parts from this concert, where he was much more shouty. 

So that's why the three songs with Dylan lead vocals all have "[Edit]" in their titles. With "Will the Circle Be Unbroken," the last verse didn't have a chorus following it due to Dylan forgetting the words, so I pasted in the chorus from earlier in the song.

I'm afraid there are probably other songs where Dylan sang backing harmonies that are now totally lost due to the microphone problem. In such cases, his quiet voice would have been totally drowned out by whomever happened to be singing lead. Oh well.

It's too bad that Dylan and Young in particular didn't collaborate more, but at least we have this. 

This album is 36 minutes long.

73 talk by Bill Graham (Neil Young, Bob Dylan & the Band)
74 Are You Ready for the Country (Neil Young, Bob Dylan & the Band)
75 Ain't That a Lot of Love (Neil Young, Bob Dylan & the Band)
76 talk (Neil Young, Bob Dylan & the Band)
77 Lookin' for a Love (Neil Young, Bob Dylan & the Band)
78 Loving You Is Sweeter than Ever (Neil Young, Bob Dylan & the Band)
79 I Want You [Edit] (Neil Young, Bob Dylan & the Band)
80 The Weight (Neil Young, Bob Dylan & the Band)
81 Helpless (Neil Young, Bob Dylan & the Band)
82 Knockin' on the Dragon's Door [Knockin' on Heaven's Door] [Edit] (Neil Young, Bob Dylan & the Band)
83 Will the Circle Be Unbroken [Edit] (Neil Young, Bob Dylan & the Band)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17209136/VA-SNCKBnefitKzarStdumSnFrncscoCA197508NilYungBbDylnthBnd_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/msdWqABs

For this set, due to the big names involved, I found some more photos from this exact concert, including a couple of color ones. But the one I liked the best was a black and white one. So again I colorized it with the Palette program. Then I used the color ones as a guide to get the colors of the clothes right.

UPDATE: On October 7, 2024, I upgraded the photo with the use of the Krea AI program.

The Band - Wembley Stadium, London, Britain, 9-14-1974

Here's a concert that was brought to my attention by musical associate MZ. Apparently, this has been kicking around on the Internet for years (and you can even find video of it on YouTube), but it passed my attention. There isn't much live music with high sound quality for the Band between about 1971 and their final concert, the Last Waltz, in late 1976, so this helps fill that gap.

This concert was a pretty big deal, mainly because of the headlining act, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (CSNY). This was CSNY's sole concert in Europe for their big 1974 reunion tour. Furthermore, the opening acts were pretty great as well, with Jesse Colin Young, the Band, and Joni Mitchell. Good audio exists for the CSNY set, but it wasn't a good one musically, as they were too high on drugs and were having increasing ego clashes near the end of their tour. I've posted a CSNY concert from only a few days earlier in New York that's much better. I've never seen any sign of the Jesse Colin Young or Joni Mitchell sets existing with high quality, but for some reason the Band one does, so here it is.

The Band was already in a looking back mode in 1974. Earlier in the year, they went on a long concert tour with Bob Dylan, mostly going over the great music they did together back in the 1960s. There are some excellent sounding recordings from that tour, but the Band mostly backed Dylan on his songs and did relatively few of their own. For this show, they mostly played songs from their first three albums, "Music from Big Pink," "The Band," and "Stage Fright." Their most recent album, "Moondog Matinee," came out a year earlier and was an all-covers album. They did only one from that, "Mystery Train." But they also did a cover, "Hard Times (The Slop)" that they apparently never recorded in the studio. Otherwise, it was pretty much all classic originals, one after another.

The sound quality is excellent, since this is a soundboard, augmented by a second source. There's not much audience cheering at the end of songs (even though they played a huge stadium venue here), but that happens sometimes with soundboards. There's also basically no banter between songs, but I think they just weren't an act that talked much.

This concert is an hour and 16 minutes long.

01 Introduction (Band)
02 Hard Times [The Slop] (Band)
03 Just Another Whistle Stop (Band)
04 Stage Fright (Band)
05 The Weight (Band)
06 The Shape I'm In (Band)
07 Loving You Is Sweeter than Ever (Band)
08 The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (Band)
09 Across the Great Divide (Band)
10 Endless Highway (Band)
11 Smoke Signal (Band)
12 I Shall Be Released (Band)
13 The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show (Band)
14 Mystery Train (Band)
15 The Genetic Method - Chest Fever (Band)
16 Up on Cripple Creek (Band)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15896062/TBnd_1974_WemblyStdiumLondnBrtain__9-14-1974_atse.zip.html

 I couldn't find any good photos of the entire group from this concert. I considered taking a screenshot from one of the YouTube videos of this concert, but the quality is rather low. (I believe two of the songs from this are on the DVD of the band's box set "A Musical History," so if anyone has that in high quality, please let me know. Maybe I could get a better photo from that.) Weirdly though, I did find good photos of four of the individual band members from this exact concert, so I used those. That's Richard Manuel on the top left, Rick Danko on the top right, Garth Hudson on the bottom left, and Robbie Robertson on the bottom right. Ironically, the one left out because there's no good photo is Levon Helm, who sang a majority of the lead vocals.

The Band - Islands - Alternate Version (1977)

Having just posted my alternate version of the Band album "Northern Lights - Southern Cross," I might as well post the last album of theirs that I've made an alternate version for, "Islands."

I post a lot of stray tracks albums here, and that's essentially what the official album "Islands" is. Robbie Robertson, the band's main songwriter, disbanded the group in 1976, with their last concert (called "The Last Waltz") taking place near the end of the year. However, they still owed one more studio album to their record company. So they cobbled together some older outtakes and a few leftover new songs and made the album. 

Given that background, it's no surprise that it's considered one of their weaker albums. It's also rather short, at only 35 minutes. That said, there are some very good songs on it, as well as some forgettable ones. Plus, there were some other songs done around that time that can be added to strengthen it quite a lot. 

There are ten songs on the official version of the album. I've removed three of them: "Street Walker," "Ain't That a Love of Love" (a cover), and the instrumental "Islands." Instead, I've added seven songs, making this a significantly longer album.

The first added song here is "Twilight." It's a very good song, but for some reason was only released as a single in 1976. It's puzzling why it wasn't included on "Islands," especially since the album was short. 

Three more songs come from the soundtrack to the movie "The Last Waltz." The vast majority of that triple album consists of the concert performed in 1976 with lots of famous guests. But there were some studio tracks included as well. Some are remakes of older songs that don't fit here. But there are three really good previously unreleased ones: "Out of the Blue," "Evangeline," and "The Well." Logically, those should have gone on "Islands." But it seems the Band had troubles with their record company. "The Last Waltz" was put out by a different record company, and the songs going on that album probably had to do with that record company dispute.

Another added song is "Home Cookin'." It was unreleased at the time, but was released much later on the box set "Across the Great Divide." 

Finally, there are two songs that come from a bootleg of a recording session: "Hard Times" and "Steppin' Up in Class." These are both covers. Eric Clapton was recording a studio album in 1976, and he had the Band play on a couple of his songs. So these are outtakes from that, which means Clapton plays on them too. The vocals to the song "Steppin' Up in Class" were somewhat buried in the mix, so I used the audio editing program X-Minus to make them clearer and cut out some rambling parts.

The official version of "Islands" is just a so-so album. But I think this version is much stronger.

This album is 49 minutes long.

01 Twilight [Single Version] (Band)
02 Out of the Blue (Band)
03 Evangeline (Band with Emmylou Harris)
04 The Well (Band)
05 Hard Times (Band with Eric Clapton)
06 Home Cookin' (Band)
07 Right as Rain (Band)
08 The Saga of Pepote Rouge (Band)
09 Livin' in a Dream (Band)
10 Knockin' Lost John (Band)
11 Georgia on My Mind (Band)
12 Steppin' Up in Class [Edit] (Band with Eric Clapton)
13 Christmas Must Be Tonight (Band)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15910375/TBnd_1977_IslndsAlternate_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, I simply used the official cover. But I wanted it to be somewhat different, to show this is an alternate versions. So I made two changes. One, I zoomed in a little more, so there's less black area around the edges. And two, I made the letters of "The Band" in the middle mostly see-through. (I used some Photoshop tricks to fill in that area with more sunset colors.)

The Band - Northern Lights - Southern Cross - Alternate Version (1975)

Putting the Wild Honey Orchestra tribute concert to the band together the other day put me in the mood for more music from the Band. So here's something directly from them. It's my alternate version of their 1975 album "Northern Lights - Southern Cross."

Actually, this album is already a very good one, one of their best. But there are a few stray tracks from that time period one can add to make it even better. I removed one so-so song, "Ring Your Bell." Then I added three songs originally from "The Basement Tapes:" "Ain't No More Cane," "Don't Ya Tell Henry," and "Bessie Smith."

Now, you may well ask, "Why the heck add those three? 'The Basement Tapes' are a collection of songs Bob Dylan and the Band recorded in 1967." That's true, except for those three songs I mentioned. I believe there's been kind of conspiracy about the origins of these songs. In 1975, Robbie Robertson, the main songwriter for the Band, was given the task of putting "The Basement Tapes" together. Even though the vast majority of the songs were written and sung by Dylan, apparently Dylan wasn't interested in being involved in putting the archival album together. 

My theory is that Robertson saw an opportunity to beef up the percentage of Band songs by recording a few new ones and pretending they were from 1967 with the others. That way, "The Basement Tapes" were seen as more of a collaborative effort between Dylan and the Band, when in fact the vast majority of songs were Dylan's. As it was, eight of the 24 songs on the album were by the Band. Without those extra three, it would have been a partly five by the Band compared to 19 by Dylan. (Many, many more excellent Dylan songs not included, enough for me to have made a double album that I've posted here called "More Basement Tapes.")

I'm supported in my theory by an account by engineer Rob Fraboni. He was intimately involved in the production of "The Basement Tapes" in 1975. He claims the three songs I mentioned were in fact recorded in 1975, plus one more, a cover of the Chuck Berry song "Going Back to Memphis," which remained unreleased. Fraboni also says the Band overdubbed many vocal and instrumental parts to other Basement Tapes songs at that time, again making them sound more like collaborative efforts instead of Dylan-dominated ones.

The song "Don't Ya Tell Henry" was written by Dylan, and a version was recorded in 1967 as part of the Basement Tapes sessions. But it was a sloppy, drunken version with Dylan on lead vocals. It seems the Band basically took the song for their own by recording a 1975 version with Band members doing the lead vocals.

"Ain't No More Cane" is a traditional song. But it has a similar story in that Dylan sang the lead on it in the actual Basement Tapes sessions. The Band liked both of these songs, and performed them in concert as far back as the Woodstock Festival in 1969. The 1975 version again has Band members doing the lead vocals instead of Dylan.

"Bessie Smith" is a greater mystery. The Band never played it in concert, so it could have been written as late as 1975, even though it fits in perfectly with other Basement Tapes songs.

If that's what they did, that's fine with me. "The Basement Tapes" are a great album, including the newly recorded Band songs and overdubs and all. But what's silly is that the pretense continues that those songs were recorded much earlier. For instance, in 2000, an expanded version of the 1971 Band album "Cahoots" was released. "Bessie Smith" was added to it, and the liner notes state it was recorded in 1970. But it's the only song on that re-release that lack any recording details. Similarly, when the Band box set "Across the Great Divide" was released in 1994, the liner notes claim that "Don't Ya Tell Henry" and "Ain't No More Cane" were recorded in an "unknown studio" on an unknown date in either 1967 or 1968. 

Those three songs are literally the only ones with such vague recording details, and they're also the exact ones that Fraboni claims were actually recorded in 1975. I believe Fraboni, especially since the motive of wanting to secretly beef up the Band's involvement in the Basement Tapes makes perfect sense. If that's the case, then these three songs were recorded around the same time as the "Northern Lights - Southern Cross" ones and belong as bonus tracks or the like with that album. So that's why I've included them here.

This album is 48 minutes long.

I've included "Twilight" as a bonus track. The sound quality is just as good as the others. The reason it's a bonus track is because this is an early version. The song would be released as a stand-alone single in 1976, and in my opinion that version is very different, more rocking, and better. So I'm including that in my alternate version of the Band's "Islands" album.

01 Ophelia (Band)
02 Forbidden Fruit (Band)
03 Ain't No More Cane (Band)
04 Acadian Driftwood (Band)
05 Jupiter Hollow (Band)
06 Don't Ya Tell Henry (Band)
07 Rags and Bones (Band)
08 Bessie Smith (Band)
09 Hobo Jungle (Band)
10 It Makes No Difference (Band)

Twilight [Early Version] (Band)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700645/TBND1975_NrthrnLghtsSuthrnCrssAltrnate_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I used the exact same photo as that on the official cover. However, I zoomed in more, allowing the band members and the fire to be larger. I also redid the lettering, using the same font and color.

The Wild Honey Orchestra - Tribute to Music from Big Pink and the Band, Alex Theatre, Glendale, CA, 3-25-2017

Here's yet another Wild Honey Orchestra (WHO) tribute show. This time, the focus was on the Band. It was mainly billed as a tribute to the Band's classic 1968 album "Music from Big Pink." But they also managed to play all the songs from their classic 1969 album "The Band," as well as plenty of other songs from around that time period. Surprisingly, though, there were no songs from 1967's "The Basement Tapes" that the Band did with Bob Dylan (except for the three on "Music from Big Pink"). It's very possible that's the target for a different WHO tribute show.

Songs one through 12 consist of "The Band" album played in order. Songs 13 to 20 are other good Band songs, mostly from the early 1970s. Songs 21 to 30 consist of the "Music from Big Pink" album. Then two more songs were played. The last song, "I Shall Be Released," is also from the "Music from Big Pink" album, but was held back because it made for a good final encore.

The concert had a special guest: Garth Hudson. He was the keyboard player for the entire duration of the Band's existence. While most members of the Band were talented lead vocalists, Hudson was not. So he didn't sing lead for any of these songs. However, there were a couple of instrumental showcases for him, especially "The Genetic Method," as well as an unnamed piano solo instrumental. Additionally, I believe he played on many or most of the other songs. Plus, a couple of songs at the end were sung by his wife, Sister Maud Hudson.

Otherwise, the songs were done by many of the same "usual suspects" who performed in most of the other WHO concerts. However, this one had more unique guests than some of the others I've posted here. In particular, they got a very big name by having Jackson Browne sing a couple of songs. Other notables who generally weren't in the other WHO shows I've posted include: Carlene Carter, Peter Case, Victoria Williams, Van Dyke Parks, and Brenda Holloway. 

The source for this is the same as the others I've posted, which means the recording has the same plusses and minuses. The main plusses are that the sound quality is excellent, and all the songs are here. The main negative is that none of the banter between songs is included, unless one counts the comments made at the ends of songs while the audience was still clapping. Another minus was that the applause usually cut off early, right after those comments. So I patched in more applause from other songs for the vast majority of the songs.

This concert is unusually long, even by the standards of the other WHO shows I've posted. It's two hours and forty minutes long.

Unfortunately, this is the last WHO show I plan on posting, until I come across more worthy recordings. I did find a recording of the 2014 show, which was a tribute to the Beatles albums "Revolver" and "Abbey Road." However, it's a rough audience bootleg and I don't find it listenable.

01 Across the Great Divide (David Baerwald with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
02 Rag Mama Rag (Jerry Riopelle with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
03 The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (Carlo Nuccio with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
04 When You Awake (Peter Holsapple, Skylar Gudasz & Van Dyke Parks with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
05 Up on Cripple Creek (Carlo Nuccio & Fuzbee Morse with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
06 Whispering Pines (Continental Drifters with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
07 Jemima Surrender (Gary Eaton with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
08 Rockin' Chair (Victoria Williams & the Continental Drifters with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
09 Look Out Cleveland (Jeff Young with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
10 Jawbone (Chris Price & David Goodstein with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
11 The Unfaithful Servant (Carlene Carter with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
12 King Harvest [Has Surely Come] (Terry Reid with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
13 Stage Fright (All Day Sucker with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
14 When I Paint My Masterpiece (Steve Wynn & Van Dyke Parks with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
15 All la Glory (Rob Laufer & Van Dyke Parks with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
16 Ophelia (Sarah Kramer with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
17 4% Pantomime (Luther Russell & Rob Laufer with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
18 Life Is a Carnival (David Goodstein with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
19 The Shape I'm In (Keith Allison with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
20 Get Up Jake (Nick Guzman & Danny Henry with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
21 Tears of Rage (Syd Straw with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
22 To Kingdom Come (Louise Goffin & Julianna Raye with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
23 In a Station (Plainsong [Iain Matthews & Andy Roberts] with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
24 Caledonia Mission (Jackson Browne with Susan Cowsill & the Wild Honey Orchestra)
25 The Weight (Continental Drifters & Jackson Browne with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
26 We Can Talk (Cindy Lee Berryhill, Victoria Williams & Syd Straw with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
27 Long Black Veil (Steve Barton with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
28 The Genetic Method - Chest Fever [Edit] (Garth Hudson & Bebopalula with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
29 Lonesome Suzie (Luther Russell with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
30 This Wheel's on Fire (Peter Case with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
31 Piano Solo [Instrumental] (Garth Hudson with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
32 It Makes No Difference (Skylar Gudasz with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
33 Baby Don't You Do It [Don't Do It] (Sister Maud Hudson & Steve Wynn with the Wild Honey Orchestra)
34 I Shall Be Released (Robert Levon Been & Sister Maud Hudson with the Wild Honey Orchestra)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/CyE5aN1a

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/drqH2SrG67EuPl3/file

alternate:

https://www.imagenetz.de/hyk6k

The cover art is entirely based on promotional art for the concert. I cropped some things out and resized other things to make a rectangular poster fit into a square space.

The Band - Woodstock Festival, Max Yasgur's Farm, Bethel, NY, 8-17-1969

In 2019, all the music from the famous three-day-long 1969 Woodstock Festival was officially released.  It was called, "Woodstock - Back to the Garden: The Definitive 50th Anniversary Archive." That's great, but it was a huge box set, containing a few dozen CDs, and it was only made available in limited numbers for one time only. Apparently, exactly 1969 copies were officially available to be sold, to mark the year of the concert. Of course, all of those were sold, and it's been out of print since then.

In the years prior to that, the complete Woodstock sets of some famous artists were officially released on a wider basis, and even more came out around the time of that box set. Here are the artists that I believe have had their performances released on individual albums:

Santana
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Janis Joplin
Sly and the Family Stone
Jefferson Airplane
Joe Cocker
Johnny Winter
Butterfield Blues Band
Jimi Hendrix

I don't want to post the sets from any of those artists, since they are easy to get. But the rest of the festival is very hard to find, and now that it's been a year since the release of that already out of print box set, it seems that's all that is likely to come out. So I want to post the sets of some other artists that I like. (I've already posted the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young set.) One great thing about that festival is that the whole thing was recorded in soundboard quality, so we have excellent recordings from a time we might not otherwise have them.

So here's another Woodstock performance, from the Band. There is one really great live album by the Band from relatively early in their career, "Rock of Ages." But even that comes from concerts at the very end of 1971. In mid-1969, their set list was very different. Their second album - "The Band" - was due to be released only a few weeks after this concert, but they didn't play any songs from it. So their concert set list was largely based on their landmark 1968 album "Music from Big Pink," plus a couple of Motown covers ("Don't Do It" and "Loving You Is Sweeter than Ever"). But most intriguingly, they did a couple of songs from "The Basement Tapes," recorded in 1967, that wouldn't get released until 1975: "Don't Ya Tell Henry" and "Ain't No More Cane." (Note that I included both of those exact performances on my Band stray tracks album "The Basement Tapes.")

The concert is 48 minutes long. It's well performed, and as I said, the sound quality is great. The only odd thing, in my opinion, is there was virtually no talking from anyone in the Band, except for a couple of "thank yous" at the ends of songs. There doesn't seem to be the usual emcee announcement at the start or the end either, though there is one before their encore.

01 Chest Fever (Band)
02 Don't Do It [Baby Don't Do It] (Band)
03 Tears of Rage (Band)
04 We Can Talk (Band)
05 Long Black Veil (Band)
06 Don't Ya Tell Henry (Band)
07 Ain't No More Cane (Band)
08 This Wheel's on Fire (Band)
09 I Shall Be Released (Band)
10 The Weight (Band)
11 talk (Band)
12 Loving You Is Sweeter than Ever (Band)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700631/TBND1969a_WodstckFestivlNY__8-17-1969_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo comes from the concert in question. Unfortunately, it only shows four of the five members of the Band.

The Band - Cahoots - Alternate Version (1971)

The first two albums by the Band - "Music from Big Pink" and "The Band" - are considered all-time classics. Their third album, "Stagefright," is pretty good. But their fourth album, "Cahoots," is widely seen as a disappointment, and I agree. It has a few excellent songs, but some clunkers too. This is my effort to "fix" "Cahoots" by replacing those clunkers with some stray tracks from that same year.

Here are the four songs I've removed: "Where Do We Go from Here," "Shoot Out in Chinatown," "The Moon Struck One," and "Thinkin' Out Loud." They're just okay and forgettable, and not up to the high standards the Band set with their first three albums. I also rejected some stray tracks from the time period. For instance, "Move Me," an "original" written by Rick Danko, in fact is so very similar to the 1970 King Floyd hit "Groove Me" that the Band surely would have lost a lawsuit if they'd tried to release it at the time. Even the title is hardly changed!

To replace these songs, the most obvious contender is "Endless Highway." This is a great original song that was played a lot in concert by the Band in the 1970s, but no studio version of it was released at the time. It turns out a studio version was recorded in 1971, but apparently just after "Cahoots" was released.

I've also added three fun cover versions. The Motown hit "Baby Don't You Do It (Don't Do It)" was recorded in the studio, and was a concert staple for the Band, but the studio version wasn't released at the time either. "(I Don't Want to) Hang Up My Rock and Roll Shoes" and "Loving You Is Sweeter than Ever" are songs the Band also played in concert, and both were released on the "Rock of Ages" live album that was recorded in 1971 and released in 1972. I've found unreleased performances of both songs that came from the same series of concerts that were recorded for the "Rock of Ages" album. Both are fantastic soundboard recordings that no doubt were considered for the live album. I've managed the remove the audience noise so well that they sound just like studio versions.

I've sprinkled the replacement songs throughout the album, because "The River Hymn" is still a natural album closer.

I've also included another cover song, "Slippin' and Slidin'" as a bonus track. It's a live version that was released on the "A Musical History" box set. The reason it's only a bonus track is because it dates from 1970, not 1971. It arguably belongs with the "Stagefright" album.

With four songs removed and another four songs added, the album ends up being about the same length, at 45 minutes long. In my opinion,  it's a much stronger album after these changes, one that might even compare to their great first two. I suppose the group wanted all original songs, but chief songwriter Robbie Robertson was losing his inspiration around this time, as could be seen by the fact that it would be four more years before they put out another album of originals. They would have done much better to include more cover versions.

01 Life Is a Carnival (Band)
02 When I Paint My Masterpiece (Band)
03 Last of the Blacksmiths (Band)
04 4% Pantomime (Band & Van Morrison)
05 [I Don't Want To] Hang Up My Rock and Roll Shoes (Band)
06 Smoke Signal (Band)
07 Volcano (Band)
08 Baby Don't You Do It [Don't Do It] (Band)
09 Endless Highway (Band)
10 Loving You Is Sweeter than Ever (Band)
11 The River Hymn (Band)

Slippin' and Slidin' (Band)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700654/TBND1971_ChootsAlternte_atse.zip.html

The album cover is simply the unchanged original cover.

Bob Dylan & the Band - Isle of Wight Festival, Isle of Wight, Britain, 8-31-1969

This is something that has been officially released, is still in print, and I haven't made any changes. That's unusual for me. But I'm posting it here because it's only available as a bonus disc for the deluxe version of Bob Dylan's "Bootleg Series No. 10: Another Self Portrait," and it should be much better known. It definitely deserves its own release.

This is a remarkable concert for Dylan, mainly because it was the ONLY full concert he performed after getting in a motorcycle accident in 1966 until 1973. That's six years right in the heart of the peak of Dylan's career (I'd consider his main peak from about 1963 to 1976, though he's had other peaks since then). That also makes it the only concert when he sang in his smooth "Lay, Lady, Lay" voice. Plus, the whole concert is done with the Band backing him. And, thanks to the official release, the sound quality is excellent.

I'm too young to have lived through the time of this concert, but from what I understand, it was a very, very big deal at the time. The famous Woodstock festival was held pretty much right in Dylan's backyard in upper New York state in the hopes that that would encourage Dylan to make an appearance. But he didn't, and played this concert instead. All the Beatles except Paul McCartney showed up to watch Dylan, alongside many other celebrities. Dylan's return to the stage was so a big deal that one journalist later claimed it "inflated into the gig of the decade." Given its importance to Dylan's career and the 1960s counterculture movement as a whole, it's practically criminal that the official release has been buried as a bonus disc on a super deluxe edition release only.

Here's a Wikipedia article about the festival:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isle_of_Wight_Festival_1969

I guess at the time the concert was a bit disappointing simply because expectations were so sky-high. (For instance, it was widely rumored that the Beatles would join him on stage, which they did not.) But in retrospect, I think it was a great show. Definitely every Dylan fan should give it a listen, which is why I'm posting it here.

By the way, four performances from the concert - "Like a Rolling Stone," "The Mighty Quinn," "Minstrel Boy," and "She Belongs to Me" - were included on Dylan's 1970 album "Self Portrait." They fit much better being heard in context of the whole concert.

01 talk (Bob Dylan & the Band)
02 She Belongs to Me (Bob Dylan & the Band)
03 I Threw It All Away (Bob Dylan & the Band)
04 Maggie's Farm (Bob Dylan & the Band)
05 Wild Mountain Thyme (Bob Dylan & the Band)
06 It Ain't Me Babe (Bob Dylan & the Band)
07 To Ramona (Bob Dylan & the Band)
08 Mr. Tambourine Man (Bob Dylan & the Band)
09 I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine (Bob Dylan & the Band)
10 Lay Lady Lay (Bob Dylan & the Band)
11 Highway 61 Revisited (Bob Dylan & the Band)
12 One Too Many Morning (Bob Dylan & the Band)
13 I Pity the Poor Immigrant (Bob Dylan & the Band)
14 Like a Rolling Stone (Bob Dylan & the Band)
15 I'll Be Your Baby Tonight (Bob Dylan & the Band)
16 The Mighty Quinn [Quinn the Eskimo] (Bob Dylan & the Band)
17 Minstrel Boy (Bob Dylan & the Band)
18 Rainy Day Women No. 12 and 35 (Bob Dylan & the Band)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15106892/BobD_1969b_IsleofWghtFestival__8-31-1969_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I used a photo of Dylan at the concert. For some reason, there was practically a forest of microphones and microphone stands in front of him, at least a dozen. So I chose a rare photo that didn't have him buried behind all that. I also edited the photo to move some of the microphones further from his face. The lettering comes straight from a poster for the concert.

Bob Dylan & the Band - More Basement Tapes - Non-Album Tracks (1967)

In 1967, Bob Dylan and the Band recorded a huge amount of music that would become known as "The Basement Tapes." None of it was released at the time. But a two album compilation was released in 1975, and is included on many best albums of all time lists. A few songs were released here and there, such as "The Mighty Quinn" or "I'm Not There," but only a few.

Then, in 2014, the archival box set "The Bootleg Series Vol. 11: The Basement Tapes Complete" came out. It's huge! It contains 138 recordings of 115 different songs, the vast majority of them previously unreleased. That totals over six and a half hours of music. All that is great, but it's actually too much of a good thing for me, unless I'm in a rare mood to take a really deep dive into this phase of Dylan's career.

A much shorter two CD version was released as well. But the problem with that is that there's a big overlap between the music on that and the 1975 version. I grew up on that 1975 album and I know all those songs really well. What I wanted was a compilation containing the best songs of everything NOT on that album (including the few that did get released here and there on other albums over the decades), with an emphasis on Dylan's original songs. Frankly, most of those six and a half hours are Dylan and the Band running through cover versions without knowing them well. It's for serious fans only.

Since I didn't see any collection like that, I made my own, which is this one. It turns out it's nearly exactly the same length as the 1975 "Basement Tapes" double album, except it's all different songs. (Almost: I included an early version of "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" because the lyrics are almost entirely different. Plus, I included "Don't Ya Tell Henry," but this version of a Dylan original is sung by Dylan, whereas the 1975 version is sung by the Band.)

All but a few of the songs are Dylan originals. I believe the only cover versions are: "I Don't Hurt Anymore," "All American Boy," and "900 Miles from My Home." I ordered the songs in the order they were recorded, just as the box set did.

In my opinion, this album isn't as good as the 1975 "Basement Tapes," but it's a damn good album nonetheless. There are lots of songs here that could and should have been included on the 1975 one but weren't because Band guitarist Robbie Robertson put that album together and he didn't happen to fancy them. Then the songs languished in obscurity for decades, except for a lucky few. Although the 2014 box set helped, many have continued to be obscure because they were buried in a mountain of music that only serious Dylan fans have gone through carefully. This album should be as well known as Dylan's other 1960s albums.

By the way, this album is an hour and 23 minutes long, whereas the 1975 album is an hour and 17 minutes long.

01 Under Control (Bob Dylan & the Band)
02 I'm Your Teenage Prayer (Bob Dylan & the Band)
03 I Don't Hurt Anymore (Bob Dylan & the Band)
04 Baby, Won't You Be My Baby (Bob Dylan & the Band)
05 I Can't Make It Alone (Bob Dylan & the Band)
06 One for the Road (Bob Dylan & the Band)
07 I'm Alright (Bob Dylan & the Band)
08 I'm Not There (Bob Dylan & the Band)
09 You Ain't Goin' Nowhere [Take 1] (Bob Dylan & the Band)
10 I Shall Be Released (Bob Dylan & the Band)
11 The Mighty Quinn [Quinn the Eskimo] (Bob Dylan & the Band)
12 All-American Boy (Bob Dylan & the Band)
13 Sign on the Cross (Bob Dylan & the Band)
14 Get Your Rocks Off (Bob Dylan & the Band)
15 Don't Ya Tell Henry [Dylan Vocal] (Bob Dylan & the Band)
16 My Woman She's A-Leavin' (Bob Dylan & the Band)
17 Santa Fe (Bob Dylan & the Band)
18 Dress It Up, Better Have It All (Bob Dylan & the Band)
19 Minstrel Boy (Bob Dylan & the Band)
20 Silent Weekend (Bob Dylan & the Band)
21 What's It Gonna Be When It Comes Up (Bob Dylan & the Band)
22 900 Miles from My Home (Bob Dylan & the Band)
23 Wild Wolf (Bob Dylan & the Band)
24 Gonna Get You Now (Bob Dylan & the Band)
25 All You Have to Do Is Dream (Bob Dylan & the Band)
26 Any Time (Bob Dylan & the Band)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15105790/BobD_1967b_MoreBasemntTapes_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, I got lucky. It appears an alternate photo of the cover art for the 1975 "Basement Tapes" album was taken at the same photo session, and then never used. So that's what I have here, with some text added. It was a wide rectangular photo, so I had to crop some of it in order to fit it in a square space.

The Band – The Basement Tapes - Non-Album Tracks (1967-1969)

Note that this is The Basement Tapes by THE BAND, not by Bob Dylan. or Bob Dylan with the Band!

The Band released two classic albums in 1968 and 1969 – Music from Big Pink and The Band. But really, they made three albums’ worth of classic music in those years. This is the third.

All or nearly all of these songs had their origins in the Basement Tapes sessions with Dylan in the summer of 1967. But just as Dylan didn’t officially release any of these songs around that time, the Band didn’t either. Then, in 1975, the Band’s main songwriter Robbie Robertson put together an acclaimed double album, The Basement Tapes, containing songs from that time by both Dylan and the Band. The problem is, Robertson fudged things a little. It seems, in order to make the Band’s role seem larger, three of the Band songs put on that album were actually recorded in 1975, and overdubs were added to others.

But it turns out his fudging wasn’t really that bad, because two of those three songs were actually played by the Band at Woodstock in 1969 (the Band’s first public concert as their own unit), showing they weren’t first written or done in 1975 (one of them, Ain’t No More Cane, is a cover). Only the song Bessie Smith doesn’t seem to have a version from the 1960s, so that one isn’t included here. (I put it on a 1970s Band album that I hope to post at a later date.)

Many of the songs the Band did in the Basement Tapes sessions with Dylan were redone by them in sessions for their first or second albums. It’s hard to tell just what was recorded when, due to a continuing cover up that still fudges things to hide the Band’s 1975 overdubs and re-recordings. (The Band’s 2005 box set implausibly claims some versions of these songs were recorded at unknown locations at unknown dates.) That said, most of these versions appear to be outtakes from the Big Pink album, and thus not actually from 1967. The songs below are ordered roughly by when they were recorded, but only very roughly, due to all the confusion.

The two songs from Woodstock were edited to remove crowd noise.  Due to those songs and another from 1969, this album could have been released with these versions in late 1969. (It was a different time – Creedence Clearwater Revival released THREE great studio albums in 1969!)

I left off one Music from Big Pink outtake – "If I Lose" – because I simply thought it was weak, a cover of a very generic country song. Plus, without it, the album is 44 minutes long, which was near the maximum typical length for that time.

This album is 43 minutes long.

01 Katies's Been Gone (Band)
02 Orange Juice Blues [Blues for Breakfast] (Band)
03 Yazoo Street Scandal (Band)
04 Ferdinand the Imposter (Band)
05 Ruben Remus (Band)
06 Words and Numbers (Band)
07 You Don't Come Through (Band)
08 Long Distance Operator (Band)
09 Baby Lou (Band)
10 Key to the Highway (Band)
11 Get Up Jake (Band)
12 Don't Ya Tell Henry (Band)
13 Ain't No More Cane (Band)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700632/TBND1968a_ThBsemntTpes_atse.zip.html

Note that the original album cover for this album was made for this site by PJ at the "Alaums I Wish Existed" website. It was based on a black and white photo of the Band standing by the "Big Pink" house near Woodstock, New York. But about two years after I first posted this, I got an urge to change the covers to color. Changing that one would be a pain in the rear for technical reasons, so I chose a totally different color photo. It was taken in 1968, apparently as part of a photo shoot session for their "Music from Big Pink" album.

Here's the original, for anyone who prefers that cover.