Another Dylan bootleg series coming next month.

Columbia Records will release another in its Bob Dylan bootleg series August 27 covering material from one of his more controversial periods during which he recorded Self Portrait, a collection of mostly cover tunes done in a Tin Pan Alley fashion, and New Morning, one of his more under-appreciated albums.

Called The Bootleg Series, Vol. 10 — Another Self Portrait (1969-1971), the 2-disc set will contain 35 previously unreleased recordings, demos and alternate versions of songs he recorded during the sessions for Self Portrait and New Morning.

But the real lure of rhe collection will be the fact that it will also contain the entire concert Dylan performed with The Band Aug. 31, 1969, at the Isle of Wight music festival.

Here’s the track list


Disc 1
1 Went To See The Gypsy (demo)
2 In Search Of Little Sadie (without overdubs, Self Portrait)
3 Pretty Saro (unreleased, Self Portrait)
4 Alberta #3 (alternate version, Self Portrait)
5 Spanish Is The Loving Tongue (unreleased, Self Portrait)
6 Annie's Going To Sing Her Song (unreleased, Self Portrait)
7 Time Passes Slowly #1 (alternate version, New Morning)
8 Only A Hobo (unreleased, Greatest Hits II)
9 Minstrel Boy (unreleased, The Basement Tapes)
10 I Threw It All Away (alternate version, Nashville Skyline)
11 Railroad Bill (unreleased, Self Portrait)
12 Thirsty Boots (unreleased, Self Portrait)
13 This Evening So Soon (unreleased, Self Portrait)
14 These Hands (unreleased, Self Portrait)
15 Little Sadie (without overdubs, Self Portrait)
16 House Carpenter (unreleased, Self Portrait)
17 All The Tired Horses (without overdubs, Self Portrait)


Disc 2
1 If Not For You (alternate version, New Morning)
2 Wallflower (alternate version, 1971)
3 Wigwam (original version without overdubs, Self Portrait)
4 Days Of '49 (original version without overdubs, Self Portrait)
5 Working On A Guru (unreleased, New Morning)
6 Country Pie (alternate version, Nashville Skyline)
7 I'll Be Your Baby Tonight (Live With The Band, Isle Of Wight 1969)
8 Highway 61 Revisited (Live With The Band, Isle Of Wight 1969)
9 Copper Kettle (without overdubs, Self Portrait)
10 Bring Me A Little Water (unreleased, New Morning)
11 Sign On The Window (with orchestral overdubs, New Morning)
12 Tattle O'Day (unreleased, Self Portrait)
13 If Dogs Run Free (alternate version, New Morning)
14 New Morning (with horn section overdubs, New Morning)
15 Went To See The Gypsy (alternate version, New Morning)
16 Belle Isle (without overdubs, Self Portrait)17 Time Passes Slowly #2 (alternate version, New Morning)
18 When I Paint My Masterpiece (demo)


Bob Dylan & The Band
Isle of Wight - August 31, 1969
1 She Belongs To Me
2 I Threw It All Away
3 Maggie's Farm
4 Wild Mountain Thyme
5 It Ain't Me, Babe
6 To Ramona/ Mr. Tambourine Man
7 I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine
8 Lay Lady Lay
9 Highway 61 Revisited
10 One Too Many Mornings
11 I Pity The Poor Immigrant
12 Like A Rolling Stone
13 I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
14 Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)
15 Minstrel Boy
16 Rainy Day Women #12 & 35

New Dylan album, North American Tour

If you're a big Bob Dylan fan, as I am, you may want to know that he will release the 35th album of his career, Tempest, Sept. 11. It is interesting to note that The Tempest was the name of the last play Shakespeare ever wrote. Could Dylan, who is now 71 years old and still tours constantly, be hinting at something here?

He will also kick-off a North American tour Oct. 5 in Winnepeg with Mark Knopfler on the bill with him. The first time I heard Knopfler sing was when Dire Straits' Sultans of Swing was initially being played on FM radio and I thought at the time he sound remarkably like Dylan.

There will only be one Texas stop on the tour and that will be (lucky us) Nov. 1 at the Verizon Theater in Grand Prairie. As I recall, the last time Dylan played the area it was right across the street from the Verizon, at the baseball stadium there. Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp shared the bill with him that time. That show happened to fall on my birthday.

Just saying.

“Blood on the Tracks”: The Movie

Just heard that a couple of (I guess) savvy Brazilian producers have purchased the movie rights to Bob Dylan’s landmark 1975 album Blood on the Tracks. Now I know the album, which ranks alongside Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde as the best of Dylan’s brilliant career, is almost confessional in nature, with Dylan accepting the traumatic breakdown of his marriage. Be that as it may, two songs in particular, Tangled Up in Blue and Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts, could be made into movies of their own , neither of which would bear any similarity to the other.

Probably nothing will ever come of this project — I, for one, hope it doesn’t. I mean, there are certain things, even in our pop culture, that are just plain sacred.

It was 50 years ago today, Bob taught the world how to play

Today marks the 50^th anniversary of the release of Bob Dylan’s first album for Columbia. For all the success, for all the honors Dylan has received during the last half-century, it is interesting to note the first album never once cracked Billboard’s Top 200 selling album chart during the year in which it was released.

Although Dylan became known for the songs he wrote (there are 375 covers of Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind alone), it is also interesting to note the first album contained only two original compositions, a tribute to Woody Guthrie and Talkin’ New York. However, at the same time, it is also important to remember that at the time of this album’s release, the so-called "folk music revival" that was rolling emphasized interpretation over composition. The major artists of the revival included non-composers Joan Baez and Peter, Paul & Mary.

One of the myths surrounding this album is Dylan’s version of House of the Rising Sun inspired the Animals to record the song. Actually, that inspiration came from Josh White’s recording.

In the last 50 years, no single artist has had a bigger influence on popular Music than Bob Dylan. He was the reason the Beatles’ lyrics became more sophisticated. His launched the singer-composer movement and the genre known as progressive country. Even his Subterranean Homesick Blues is credited by many as being the first rap song.

And it all began 50 years ago today.

Good Night to The Muse

These days I understand Ernie Gammage is a Very Important Person with the Parks and Wildlife Commission, but I will always remember him fondly as the bass player and a vocalist for the Austin-based Mother of Pearl back in the 1970s. At one point, just about half his bandmates were getting married around the same time and I asked him if this fact concerned him at all. He said "No. I'm looking forward to all the great songs they will write when their marriages break up."

I thought of what Ernie told me when I learned today that Suzan "Suze" Rotolo died at the age of 69 following a long illness. If you are not familiar with the name you might be familiar with the songs she inspired, songs like Boots of Spanish Leather, Tomorrow Is a Long Time and Don't Think Twice. Yes, for a short time in the early 1960s, she was Bob Dylan's lover and muse. She was also a class act, never once capitalizing on her association with Dylan. In fact, in his book Chronicles, Dylan talked more about Rotolo than she ever did about him.

She is probably best known as the answer to the question "Who's that girl with Bob Dylan on the cover of the Freewheelin' album?". She and Dylan met backstage after one of his concerts. The moved into an apartment together on Fourth Street (the Freewheelin' picture was taken on Jones Street in February 1962.) Just a few months later, she broke with Dylan to spend the summer with her parents in Italy. She returned to him however, but the romance ended when he began seeing fellow folksinger Joan Baez.

Rotolo led her own life after her brief but passionate affair with Dylan as a teacher, painter and illustrator. In 1970 she married Italian filmmaker Enzo Bartoccioli and they had one son Luca. She lived in Greenwich Village her entire life.

She was the child of extremely left-wing parents and she herself engaged in many civil rights activities in the early 1960s. She is credited with introducing Dylan to those causes which led to the writing of some of his most inspired early folk songs.

Joni Mitchell calls Dylan a fake

Ya think she may be upset because her music has been largely ignored this century?

What could be a worse idea than Steven Spielberg remaking "Harvey"?

Bob Dylan making a Christmas album, that's what. But from what I'm hearing, His Bobness (who appeared in concert earlier this evening with John Mellencamp and Willie Nelson in Grand Prairie), has recorded four Christmas songs at Jackson Browne's studios in Santa Monica, Calif., and plans to release his Christmas album -- well, you know when he'll release it. The songs he's recorded so far are Must Be Santa, Here Comes Santa Claus, I'll be Home for Christmas and, hold on for this one, O Little Town of Bethlehem. Frankly, I would rather he finally authorize the CD release of Dylan than to continue with this idea.

Please, Mrs. Henry, Mrs. Henry, Please

Had to share this picture I ran across of Bob Dylan's 1966 concert tour when he was backed up by a band then known as the Hawks but later became known, of course, as just The Band. The concert was split into two sets. The first set was Dylan performing alone with an acoustic guitar and his ever-handy harmonicas. In the second set, Dylan abandoned the acoustic guitar for a Fender Telecaster and was joined by the Hawks for a searing electric set. For the most part, audiences loved the first set and hated the second, calling Dylan a traitor for abandoning the acoustic roots that had made him a music icon. (It must also be remembered that acoustic folk music as championed by the likes of Joan Baez and Peter, Paul & Mary was far more popular then than it is today.) Because of this constant heckling while the band was on stage, drummer Levon Helm dropped out as the tour left for its European leg. Dylan recruited Mickey Jones (pictured here) to replace him, paying him $750 a week plus expenses.

After Helm returned to the Hawks, Jones joined Kenny Rogers and the First Edition and played with them for 10 years. Since then he has made a living as an actor. His screen credits include the roles of Turk in Tin Cup and Monty Johnson in Sling Blade.

I must also add that Levon Helm has just released a new album called Electric Dirt.

As for me, I'm stuck in Mobile with the Memphis blues again.

Dylan highly honored to be an almost real Texan

The current issue of Rolling Stone contains the following quote attributed to Bob Dylan, which needs no explanation or amplification (and, if it does, you won't get it from me):

"I think you really have to be a Texan to appreciate the vastness of (the state) and the emptiness of it. But I'm an honorary Texan. George Bush, when he was governor, gave me a proclamation that says I'm an honorary Texan. As if anybody needed proof. It's no small thing. I take it as a high honor."

I can't help it, I must pose the question. Is it really that much of an honor to be an honorary citizen of an empty state?

Dylan-Nelson-Mellencamp tour coming to a ballpark near you

This tour that I said last month was a possibility is now definite and will be coming to that new baseball park in Grand Prairie that's right next to the race track on a very special day, August 7.
The complete tour schedule:
GCS Ballpark, Sauget, Ill., July 2
Coveleski Stadium, South Bend, Ind., July 4
Slugger Field, Louisville, Ky., July 8
Fifth Third Field, Dayton, Ohio, July 10
Classic Park, Eastlake, Ohio, July 11
CONSOL Energy Park, Washington, Penn., July 13
Coca-Cola Park, Allentown, Penn, July 14
New Britain Stadium, New Britain, Conn., July 15
Centennial Field, Essex Junction, Vt., July 17
Alliance Bank Stadium, Syracuse, N.Y., July 19
McCoy Stadium, Pawtucket, R.I., July 21
First Energy Park, Lakewood. N.J., July 23
Ripkin Stadium, Aberdeen, Md., July 24
Harbor Park, Norfolk, Va., July 25
Durham Bulls Athletic Park, Durham, N.C., July 28
Smokies Park, Sevierville, Tenn., July 29
The Dell Diamond, Round Rock, Texas, Aug. 4
Whataburger Field, Corpus Christi, Texas, Aug. 5
QuikTrip Park, Grand Prairie, Texas, Aug. 7
Camelback Ranch, Glendale, Ariz., Aug. 11
Cashman Field, Las Vegas, Nev., Aug. 12
Chukchansi Park, Fresno, Calif. Aug. 14
Banner Island Park, Stockton, Calif., Aug. 15