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Bob Dylan has always been incredibly prolific, only releasing a fraction of what he records. Such a policy has made him a prime target for bootleggers over the years, finally prompting this sanctioned 1991 triple-disc dive into the Dylan vaults. It consists of rare tracks, unreleased outtakes, early versions of classics ("Times They Are a-Changin'", "Like a Rolling Stone", "I Shall Be Released"), and alternate versions that sometimes cut the originals ("Idiot Wind"). A measure of Dylan's depth is his list of discarded songs ("She's Your Lover Now", "Blind Willie McTell", "Series of Dreams") that would be the crown jewels of most catalogues. These 58 tracks serve as a shadow history of one of our most important artists. --Ben Edmonds
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
73 of 77 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
This box set of The Bootleg Series volumes 1-3 is the cornerstone, heart, and soul of my personal Bob Dylan collection. The 58 tracks on these CDs were, are, and always will be a Dylan fan’s dream come true; prior to 1991, fans were forced to go deep underground in wild efforts to come up with bootlegged copies of this type of never-released Dylan material (and there is a lot of it). The tracks in this box set cover Dylan’s first thirty years as a performer, stretching from 1961 to 1991. The variety of material here is incredibly diverse in style as well as format. Among these rare and previously unreleased songs can be found folk music, satirical protest songs, rock & roll as Dylan defined it, blues, a tinge of country, and more; there are demos, early live coffeehouse performances, concert performances, home recordings, rehearsal tapes, outtakes, and alternate takes, and concert performances. Some of the songs are incomplete: Suze (The Cough Song) ends after Dylan starts coughing, another song ends when Dylan stops and says his voice is gone, and a few seem to end in midstream for no obviously discernible reason. In one track, you hear a dog barking in the background intermittently. One is not a song at all; Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie is a poem Dylan wrote in honor of Guthrie, giving us seven minutes of spoken words from this normally reticent musical legend.
Among the most amazing things about these recordings is the knowledge that Dylan rejected many of these songs for his albums. These are songs the vast majority of singers can only hope to match once in their lives, yet Dylan often held songs back because he didn’t feel they were quite right or performed the way they needed to be performed. The list of such outtakes is too long to list here, but several of them are, to me, some of the best songs Dylan ever wrote and recorded: Farewell, Angelina; She’s Your Lover Now; Nobody ‘Cept You; You Changed My Life; Need a Woman; Foot of Pride; Blind Willie McTell; and Series of Dreams (which did find its way on to the Greatest Hits Volume 3 collection). Without a doubt, though, the most amazing and most mysterious song of Dylan’s career is Angelina, a breathtaking work of art unlike anything else Dylan has written or performed. Some of the alternate takes here are fascinating as they differ significantly from the released versions, especially If Not For You and When the Night Comes Falling From the Sky. I could write a paragraph about every one of these 58 tracks, but luckily John Bauldie has already taken care of this for me in the booklet that accompanies the CDs. This booklet features not only a number of fascinating pictures and a list of the musicians playing on each song; it includes a fairly definitive description of the history of every single track. The back of the box is itself a treasure trove of information, listing the recording date of each track and identifying its source (and, if it is an outtake, it lists the album it was cut from).
As great a songwriter and musician as Bob Dylan is, this collection gives you insight into the man that cannot be found in his studio recordings and concert performances. Bob Dylan has dropped and forgotten more amazing songs than most performers will ever even look at. I really can’t say enough about this collection and how truly amazing it is. I’ve owned this box set for twelve years now, and the music is just as fascinating and awe-inspiring today as it was back in 1991. These are recordings no Dylan fan can do without.
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
This collection is of course indispensable, outstanding, mind boggling! However the best bits on volume 1 have been rendered unlistenable by the addition of phoney 1991 digital reverb by Mark Wilder and Tim Geelan. Did you chaps never bother to listen to the records around that period? Bob Dylan, Freewheelin', Times, Another Side? They were dry as a bone. What were you thinking?? Why didn't you add a few break beats while you were at it? Were your ego's so big that you had to put your little stamp on these important recordings? Oh dear. I demand a remix
25 of 27 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
This 3-cd collection of outtakes basically sums up Bob Dylan. It's spans 30 years from his folk beginnings, to his rock star days, his religous phase and finally into the recent present with Dylan still writing classic poetic songs. The music on this collection is great, some of it outstanding. I find it hard to beleive that songs like "Let Me Die In My Footsteps" and "Series Of Dreams" were left off albums. None of the music is filler, the songs which are on other albums already are stripped down versions here and are all the better for it. Gone are the terrible 80's disco sounds in "When The Night Comes Falling From The Sky" and we can see what a great rocker it is. We also get many rare recordings such as Dylan and George Harrison practicing "If Not For You" which Harrison would use a few months later on his masterpiece "All Things Must Pass" LP. Yes, it's all here, this is a Dylan collection which you'll return to again and again, it's just full of surprises.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Bootleg Volumes 1-3: Bob Dylan - Bob moves in mysterious ways, his...
After a long career which has famously been `Bootlegged' many times, Bob Dylan has now decided to do what the fans have wanted all along and started to release previously archived... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Victor
The real Essential Bob Dylan
There are some absolute gems in here. Never mind the unreleased stuff, there are some verions of known album tracks in here that are hair on the back of the neck stuff "tangled up... Read more
Published 20 months ago by Joe from Carstairs
Superb collection of lesser known gems.
You may have a lot of the studio albums, but this is something different. Lots of these songs are just so fresh and moving, the fact that you may not know them makes them even... Read more
Published on 28 May 2010 by Marc Penrose
excellent!
If you are a Bob Dylan fan you should already own this, if you dont you are missing a fantastic selection of Bob Dylan tracks!Afew of wich have never been released before
Published on 29 Aug 2009 by Mrs. Debra Westmore
Good stuff, but...
...why did they not include 1971's 'George Jackson' and the 1976 B Side 'Rita May'?? It's infuriating, as these tracks are still unavailable (legally) on any Dylan compilation , to... Read more
Published on 10 May 2009 by Mr. C. M. Humphries
Accoustic v Electronic
I always thought that I preferred the accoustic side of Bob Dylan until I owned this set.A lot of the numbers I was familiar with but it was the 2nd disc which I really liked. Read more
Published on 8 May 2009 by Grand Smoky
outstanding, essential.
This is an absolutely essential purchase for anyone that calls themselves a fan of Bob Dylan. Be really smart though, and wait till you can get it for under a tenner, like I did. Read more
Published on 28 April 2008 by Neil
At a bargain price
The mind boggles when you think of what people paid for bootlegs of mainly horrible quality.
But you begin to notice especially during the acoustic period how Dylan even... Read more
But you begin to notice especially during the acoustic period how Dylan even... Read more
Published on 13 Dec 2007 by Richard
Beat the boots?
In 1969 Columbia Records issued Nashville Skyline and followed it a year later with Self Portrait. For many Dylan fans weaned on his earlier material this new direction seemed... Read more
Published on 13 July 2007 by Hog of Steel
How can I only give this FIVE stars?
This album is stunningly good. I was suspicious, at first, that it was going to be, at least on the third disc, a motley collection of relatively unexceptional live versions of... Read more
Published on 13 Mar 2003 by "pjroyle"
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