Volume 17 of the acclaimed Dylan series takes a fresh look at the masterpiece Time Out Of Mind 25 years after its initial release and traces its creation. Beginning with previously unreleased song versions from the 1996 Teatro sessions featuring Dylan (vocals, guitar, piano), Daniel Lanois (guitar, organ), Tony Garnier (bass) and Tony Mangurian (drums, percussion) and ending with (also unreleased) live recordings from 1998-2001
When "Blind Willie McTell" debuted on the original Bootleg Series Vols. 1-3, few believed that Dylan could have shelved such a hair-raising song. That version was an intimate affair with Dylan and Knopfler. Here in its place is a full-band version that sacrifices none of the power of the acoustic rendition. The singer offers a series of rueful observations, concluding each verse with "Nobody can sing the blues like Blind Willie McTell." As he returns again and again to the ghost of the late bluesman who inspired Dylan, he makes an argument for the timelessness and sad necessity of the genre: "Well, God is in his Heaven/And we all want what's His/But power and greed and corruptible seed/Seem to be all there is/I'm gazing out the window/Of the St. James Hotel/And I can tell you one thing/Nobody can sing the blues like Blind Willie McTell." The song melds past and present, and connects the "hellfire and brimstone" threads of Dylan's gospel years with his earliest, most starkly blues-influenced work. It was a masterpiece that didn't make the cut for Infidels.
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"Neighborhood Bully," controversial at the time for its bitingly-delivered defense of Israel's security stance, is heard in a more freewheeling, loose take. (Shortly after the song's release, Dylan denied this interpretation to Rolling Stone's Kurt Loder. He insisted that "I'm not a political songwriter. 'Neighborhood Bully,' to me, is not a political song, because if it were, it would fall into a certain political party. If you're talkin' about it as an Israeli political song--in Israel alone, there's maybe 20 political parties. I don't know where that would fall, what party.") Political songwriter or no, Dylan didn't shy away from the big issues on his mind. The jagged, frenetic blues "Union Sundown" seems to advocate for American industry ("Well, it's sundown on the union/And what's made in the U.S.A./Sure was a good idea/'Til greed got in the way") while employing dry sarcasm worthy of Randy Newman to illustrate another crime of society: "All the furniture, it said 'Made in Brazil'/Where a woman, she slaved for sure/Bringing home thirty cents a day to a family of twelve/You know, that's a lot of money to her..." He's equally political (sorry, Bob) on "Julius and Ethel," a sympathetic rock-and-roll look back at the Rosenbergs, the American couple convicted of, and executed for, spying on behalf of the Soviet Union. This track doesn't have the overdubs present on the widely-bootlegged version.
The Empire outtakes range from delightful throwaways ("Straight A's in Love," inspired by the 1959 Johnny Cash tune and in that Sun Records style) to lost classics (the Sam Shepard co-write "New Danville Girl," an embryonic version of the epic "Brownsville Girl" on 1986's Knocked Out Loaded). Two alternates of "When the Night Falls from the Sky" feature Steven Van Zandt and Roy Bittan, with the "fast version" particularly giving an idea as to what Dylan would sound like fronting the E Street Band. The two takes here differ from the one issued on The Bootleg Series Vols. 1-3 and (quite obviously) from the dance-styled version on the original album. (Note that this curated presentation doesn't include all of the previously bootlegged outtakes; that includes a persuasive stab at Allen Toussaint's "Freedom for the Stallion.")
In addition to the 5CD Deluxe Edition box, Springtime in New York is available in unique 2CD and 2LP highlights collections. (A 4LP distillation was available only through Third Man Records as part of that label's ongoing Vault subscription series.) All iterations have been produced by Jeff Rosen and Steve Berkowitz and mastered by Mark Wilder, Steve Addabbo, and Chris Shaw. The CD box, the most lavish of the sets, is packaged in a style similar to that of the previous such boxes. The heavyweight slipcase contains two hardcover books. The first, at 104 pages, is not only copiously illustrated with photos (Bob with Dinah Shore! Bob with Liberace!) and memorabilia (international picture sleeves, advertisements, album art, tape boxes, and much more) but boasts Damien Love's exemplary essay and detailed track-by-track liner notes. The second book contains the discs as well as the credits and personnel for each track.
Clearly, the well hasn't run dry for this long-running series. The music on Springtime in New York is among the most captivating to emerge from the seemingly endless Dylan vaults. Bob might agree: good times never seemed so good.
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