The new movie about Bob Dylan, A Complete Unknown, focuses on the controversy of his going electric at the Newport Folk Festival in July of 1965. Dylan was the darling of the new folk scene in the early ’60s and was heralded as the voice of the generation. His poetic songs of injustice galvanized the anti-war and civil rights movements of the time. When Dylan chose to go electric, many viewed it as heresy for abandoning the purity and non-commercial aspects of folk. What often gets lost in this debatable topic is that the move in fact launched Dylan’s long career as a peerless and dogged performer.
Although acknowledged as one of the most, if not the most, important songwriter of the rock era, Dylan is a road-dog, who has performed and played with countless group configurations. His mid-’60s electric period was marked by controversy, but he and his backing group The Band (formerly the Hawks and comprised of Canadians Robbie Roberston, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson, and American Levon Helm) are one of the most successful collaborations between a rock artist and a backing group of musicians.
Although their time together on the road in the 1960s was often met with scorn by the folk crowd (loosely chronicled by Dylan in his songs “Maggie’s Farm” and “Positively Fourth Street,” to name two), they were making exciting music that could fit into Dylan’s description of music that he called that “wild mercury sound.” The difficulty of performing this music night after night in the face of mounting derision caused one of the members of The Band, drummer Levon Helm, to quit by the fall of 1965.
When Dylan had his motorcycle accident in the summer of 1966, it brought a close to that chapter of his career that saw him release three monumental albums in a row (Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited in 1965 and Blonde on Blonde in 1966), but also resulted in his getting off the “wild mercury” caravan of raucous music, alcohol and drug abuse, as well as his tendency at this time toward self-doubt and fury.
Dylan then came off the road, retreated into the comfort and isolation of family life in rural and bucolic Woodstock, New York but quickly returned to playing with The Band in the basement of the house in Woodstock that would come to be mythically known as “Big Pink.” It was there that Dylan wrote dozens of songs that were at first widely bootlegged but then officially became the double album The Basement Tapes released in 1975. That album was later reissued in 2014 as The Bootleg Series Vol. 11: The Basement Tapes Complete in various expanded configurations.
Dylan wouldn’t play live again until late in August of 1969 at the second of the three original Isle of Wight Festivals. It would take until 1974 until he would tour again. Surprisingly, his backing group would once again be The Band. This time, however, Dylan and The Band would be hailed as conquering rock heroes, returning to rapturous fans.
While over the years, there had been talk that Dylan and /or members of The Band thought too many people were coming just to witness some kind of rock music sighting akin to seeing a comet, anyone who has heard either official recordings of these shows, first released as the double album Before the Flood, or from the avalanche of bootlegs through the years, can attest that the music was something special and not just hype.
The Bob Dylan and The Band tour took place between January 3, 1974 and February 14, 1974. There were 40 shows, spread out over 30 dates at 21 different cities. All the shows were in the US, except for stops in Canada in Montreal and Toronto. In some cases, there were dates where there were afternoon and evening shows. The shows were produced by Bill Graham.
There are two recent releases to commemorate that historic tour. There is The 1974 Live Recordings, a 27-CD box set from Columbia’s Legacy reissue label and Bob Dylan’s The 1974 Live Recordings: The Missing Songs From Before The Flood from Third Man Records. The Third Man release is a Vault Package (#61) from Third Man and only available to subscribers. It’s a three-LP vinyl set, pressed on green vinyl and housed in a trifold package. It also includes a 7-inch single of “Blowin’ in The Wind”/”Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine),” also on green vinyl and a newly published 20-page tour booklet. None of the tracks, except for the recording of “Blowin’ in The Wind,” have ever been officially released before.
This release also differs from the Before The Flood release in that there are no performances exclusively of The Band. Along with Dylan and The Band performances, there are solo Dylan performances. Many of these solo performances include songs from Dylan’s early folk period. At the time, these much older songs still resonated, as the Watergate scandal was unfolding.
One of the highlights is Dylan solo singing “Song to Woody” which he had not performed since 1962. “Hero Blues,” an outtake from The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan sessions, is given an electric workout here. “Mama, You’ve Been on My Mind,” is an outtake from Another Side of Bob Dylan. A Planet Waves outtake, “Nobody ‘Cept You,” is another rarity. Planet Waves, released on January 17, 1974, in the middle of the tour, was the one and only studio album Dylan and The Band recorded. Other Planet Waves songs included here include “Something There Is About You,” “Tough Mama,” “Wedding Song,” and “Forever Young.”
There were many songs performed by Dylan live for the first time on that tour, including “All Along The Watchtower,” “Forever Young,” and a song that was often used as the opening and closing song of the shows, “Most Likely You Go Your Way (and I’ll Go Mine).” Some of the other gems are “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat,” “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues,” “Girl from the North Country,” and “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry.”
The sound quality of these shows is outstanding. The interplay between Dylan and The Band is a magical musical meeting of the minds unrivaled in matching a solo performer and a self-contained group. Dylan felt the only other time anything like this ever came close for him was his 1986 tour with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, a tour that has not had any official live releases and that fans breathlessly await.
Given that four of the five members of The Band have passed on, the music here has an added poignancy. Fifty years later, Dylan is still on the road, headed to another show, but the winter of ‘74 shows captured here will stay forever in the hearts and musical souls of those who saw them live.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A+
