It is pretty well-known that the series of recordings that Bob Dylan made with The Band at \u201cBig Pink\u201d in 1967 became the first commercially successful bootleg (under the name Great White Wonder<\/i>).<\/p>\n
It is also well-known to long-time readers of the Daily Vault that I have gained a bit of a, ah, reputation for taking \u201cclassic\u201d albums and skewering them like they were so much meat on the barbecue. Fans of The Beatles (White Album)<\/i><\/a> and Sgt. Pepper\u2019s Lonely Hearts Club Band<\/i><\/a> usually wash their mouths out after saying my name.<\/p>\n So there had to be some trepidation among people (not the least including some DV panel members) when they heard who was scheduled to review The Basement Tapes<\/i>, the legitimate (if incomplete) 1975 release credited to both Bob Dylan and The Band. I can hear the comments now: \u201cOh, God, please don\u2019t tell me he\u2019s going to slander a masterpiece<\/i>!\u201d<\/p>\n Well\u2026 let\u2019s just say there\u2019s enough to praise on this set, but it\u2019s far from perfect.<\/p>\n Some critics have lambasted this release because, it is said, The Band raised their profile by re-recording backing tracks to four songs and increasing themselves in the mix. To that, I say: good.<\/i><\/b> <\/p>\n You see, for all of the passion that Dylan brought to his songwriting, his style of playing in general has to be called unstructured, as he\u2019s not afraid to cut into a bridge or extend a verse when the whim hit him during performances. I\u2019ve heard it time and time again over the Dylan albums I\u2019ve listened to. What The Band gave him was structure and form, something that Dylan\u2019s music welcomed and embraced. Tracks like \u201cApple Suckling Tree,\u201d \u201cAin\u2019t No More Cane,\u201d \u201cNothing Was Delivered\u201d and \u201cYazoo Street Scandal\u201d are proof positive of how well the partnership worked \u2013 to the point that I would go out on a limb and say that Dylan could have easily become the front man for The Band had he so chosen.<\/p>\n While Rick Danko and crew were still waiting to stamp their name on the music scene themselves as a band, the music on The Basement Tapes<\/i> shows they had nearly perfected their own sound by 1967. Listening to tracks such as \u201cTears Of Rage,\u201d \u201cToo Much Of Nothing\u201d and \u201cCrash On The Levee\u201d that all have a strong Dylan presence, the listener can hear the birth cries that would become Music From Big Pink<\/i>, and it\u2019s quite enjoyable. Likewise, the songs that put The Band right at the forefront, such as \u201cDon\u2019t Ya Tell Henry\u201d and \u201cRuben Remus\u201d feel like forgotten gems that are welcomed back to the spotlight.<\/p>\n So far, so good, right? Well, this isn\u2019t to say that The Basement Tapes<\/i> is flawless; indeed, there are several glaring ones throughout the 24 tracks of this release. (Diehard fans of Dylan or The Band could claim the release itself was flawed for leaving off performances like \u201cQuinn The Eskimo,\u201d but there are plenty of bootleg sets out there containing the \u201ccomplete\u201d set of recordings. One day, I\u2019ll get around to listening to my copy of A Tree With Leaves<\/i>.)<\/p>\n As stated before, when Dylan allows himself to become part of The Band, the results are often spectacular. When Dylan tries to just be Dylan and The Band kind of go along for the ride, things go south real quick. Tracks like \u201cMillion Dollar Bash,\u201d \u201cPlease Mrs. Henry\u201d and the absolutely abysmal \u201cClothes Line Saga\u201d are prime examples of why some songs don\u2019t need to leave the cutting room floor. Most notably, when Dylan chooses to literally speak his vocals (not combine them into his infamous sing\/speak style), the results become nearly unlistenable.<\/p>\n Some songs reach a middle ground where they\u2019re not bad, but they\u2019re nothing worth hanging in the musical version of the Louvre, either. I\u2019d love to say that tracks like \u201cOdds & Ends,\u201d \u201cLo And Behold,\u201d \u201cTiny Montgomery\u201d and \u201cGoin\u2019 To Acupulco\u201d were phenomenal\u2026 but they seemed a little too laid-back in performance (or, in the case of \u201cTiny Montgomery,\u201d vocal delivery) to rise above being merely mediocre, though not unpleasant to listen to.<\/p>\n After repeated listens to The Basement Tapes<\/i>, I do admit that the set needs to grow a bit on the listener, and the first half of the collection tends to be the hardest to get through in terms of quality, despite having the two best songs (\u201cApple Suckling Tree\u201d and \u201cTears Of Rage.\u201d) And, while one can question why a set of eight-year-old music was released when it was, I can actually see the purpose (besides finally capitalizing on the bootleg market by improving on their own product.) This set does capture an interesting musical portrait of a leader of his genre (Dylan) becoming a strong mentor (in this case, to The Band), which allowed them to grow musically without mimicking the mentor. The leader, in turn, gets the chance to grow as a songwriter and, at times, as merely a spoke in a band\u2019s collective wheel \u2013 something that, I believe, benefited Dylan in the long run.<\/p>\n Long story short, don\u2019t expect this cynic to proclaim The Basement Tapes<\/i> to be a masterpiece\u2026 but put away your tar and feathers. While there are weak moments in the collection, it turns out to be surprisingly pleasing to fans of both Dylan and The Band.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29167,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5866],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-40703","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-bob-dylan","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40703"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}