Tulip Frenzy

“When there’s too much of nothing/it can cause a man to weep,” sang Dylan on one of the greatest songs on possibly his greatest — if incomplete — collection.  And so we have, over the years, wept when faced with only the two-disk, 1975 official version of The Basement Tapes by Dylan and the Band.  Sure, we’ve bought the 6-cd bootleg, and gloried in some of the snippets, half-songs, the Johnny Cash covers.  But it’s not the same thing as having a relatively high-fi version.

Today came the blessed email from bobdylan.com announcing The Basement Tapes Complete: The Bootleg Series Vol. 11 to be released November 4.  

This is even more welcome than the forthcoming release by Elvis Costello, Jim James, T Bone Burnett and others of their Wilco-does-Woody-like recording of music made from Basement Tapes-era lyrics that Dylan handed over to them.

We will finally get to wallow in rock’s greatest trove of music thus far denied an official release.  And on this day we are so pleased to have new music from Ty Segall, the New Pornographers, and Robyn Hitchcock to listen to, the notion that the autumn will only get better is too much news to handle.  Please, whatever you do, don’t tell us the Stones are finally going to release the live album from their ’72 tour.  We wouldn’t be able to take it.

This entry was posted on August 26, 2014 at 4:48 pm and is filed under Music with tags Bob Dylan and the Band, The Basement Tapes, The Basement Tapes Complete. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.