If the space between posts continues to grow, they will all highlight Bob Dylan. With the Bootleg Series Vol. 9: Witmark Demos, 1962-1964 officially in hand, my hands are tied. Another batch of Dylan brilliance spins in the CD drive, bringing clarity to the rough bootlegs that illustrate the budding songwriter.
Heavily bootlegged, Dylan demoed these tracks for other songwriters to cover - and cover they would. All his early classics lie here, plus different takes from the earlier Bootleg volumes. That might dissuade all but hardcore Dylan fans, but I couldn't imagine a better primer of his early work. Many tracks never received proper releases, but they fit snugly against When the Ship Comes In or Masters of War.
DSO long ago supplied me with bootlegged versions of these recordings, but they don't touch the sound quality present on most tracks. For proper release, they received a thorough studio scrubbing, which shows on all but a handful of ragged tracks.
Depending on your flavor, the prizes are myriad. I longed for a better recording of Tomorrow is a Long Time, and this remastered version delivers. Dylan never issued a proper studio version of Tomorrow, letting other artists (Elvis Presley, Judy Collins, Sandy Denny) interpret him.
The lyrics are among Dylan's sharpest and most poignant. The song just improves life after line, but it all comes back to the name-giving lines "If tomorrow wasn't such a long time, then lonesome would mean nothing to you at all."
I first heard Dylan perform Farewell as the intro to a surprisingly confrontation 1963 episode of Studs Terkel's Wax Museum. The bootleg version lacks none of its intimacy and pain.
For protest songs, The Death of Emmett Till is among Dylan's darkest, a stunning retelling of a black teen murdered for talking to and allegedly whistling at a married white woman in 1955 Mississippi. All Over You is a bawdy, light-hearted tune, and with 47 tracks to choose from, the weakest links don't stand out.
The only disappointment came on the last track, a nearly garbled version of I'll Keep In With Mine that pales against the Biograph version. Other tracks are slightly fragmented, like Let Me Die In My Footsteps.
Say what you will about amazon.com, but I have few complaints after their Witmark Demos pre-order came with In Concert: Brandeis University 1963. Previously unreleased, the seven-song show is a solid bonus. Dylan played two short sets of his early protest songs at the Brandeis Folk Festival. It's more historical document than a great show, but it proves it worth with the always delightful Talking World War III Blues.
Missing the Brandeis show won't damped the impact of Dylan, his guitar and harmonica setting out as a songwriter. The Witmark Demos succeed as both as a historical document and an excellent selection of Dylan wisdom.
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