Bob Dylan - The Bootleg Series Volumes 1 - 3

February 5th, 2008 · No Comments · Music from the Archives

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As one might imagine, someone as prolific as Bob Dylan has a lot of leftovers and outtakes laying around. Columbia has done a fairly good job trying to round up some of the key tracks and releasing these “bootleg” collections.

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There’s a ton of material on this particular three CD set and I could easily end up posting ten or fifteen tracks if I was going to share my favorites. Instead, I thought I would highlight Bob’s sense of humor as evident in the following three tunes.

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Bob Dylan - Talkin’ Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues - 04/25/62
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On June 19, 1961, Stookey (of Peter, Paul, and Mary) sat in the Gaslight reading the New York Herald Tribune, which contained an article about a Father’s Day boat cruise up the Hudson River to Bear Mountain that had gone awry due to counterfeit tickets and overcrowding. Stookey showed the story to a recent acquaintance, a 20 year old singer named Bobby Dylan who had arrived in New York from Minnesota the previous winter. “I remember handing him an article on the Bear Mountain thing,” Stookey said, “and he brought a song back the next day. Astounding.” The song was “Talkin’ Bear Mountain Picnic Disaster Blues,” which Dylan wrote in the style of his idol, Woody Guthrie. Dylan was not at that point known as a songwriter, which made the composition all the more surprising. - William Ruhlman, Peter Paul and Mary — The Early Years, Goldmine Online, 1996

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Bob Dylan - Talkin’ Hava Negeilah Blues - 04/25/62

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It’s funny how a throw-away song like this was what possibly helped Dylan get a record deal.
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Bob Dylan seems to have begun including this little ditty in his set sometime in September 1961. He certainly sang it at Gerde’s Folk City on the 26th of that month, for it is one of the songs mentioned in what was arguably the most important concert review of Bob Dylan’s career.
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In The New York Times of Friday, September 29, 1961, Robert Shelton’s piece had the three-column headline: “Bob Dylan: A Distinctive Stylist” and was not only remarkable in giving a relative unknown such prominence, but it was so enthusiastic that it seems to have led directly to Dylan’s getting his record contract with Columbia. As Dylan was later to tell Robert Shelton of his first meeting with John Hammond: “I shook his hand with my right hand and I gave him your review with my left hand. He offered to sign me without even hearing me sing!” In the review, Shelton is enthusiastic about every aspect of Dylan’s performance: “Mr. Dylan is both comedian and tragedian. Like a vaudeville actor on the rural circuit, he offers a variety of droll musical monologs…’Talkin Have Negeilah Blues’ burlesques the folk music craze and the singer himself.” - From the Columbia liner notes to The Bootleg Series, Volumes 1 - 3

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Bob Dylan - Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues - 04/26/63

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On May 12, 1963, Dylan had been booked on to “The Ed Sullivan Show.” This was network TV, maximum exposure, and Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman, was thrilled at the prospect. Sullivan himself and the show’s producer had heard Dylan perform “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues” earlier in the week and were happy for him to sing it on the show. Not so one Stowe Phelps, editor of CBS-TV program practices, who heard the song at the show’s dress rehearsal. As Bob Dylan himself recollected: “Just before I was going out to sing it they came in–and this was showtime, you know–they came in and there was this big huddle. I could see people talking about something. I was just getting ready to play, and then someone stepped up and said I couldn’t sing that song….I could have done something else but we’d rehearsed the song so many times and everybody had heard it. It always got a good response and I was looking forward to singing it. Even Ed Sullivan seemed to really like it–hahaha!”
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Dylan was unsurprisingly astonished—more so when it was suggested that he might try out a Clancy Brothers song instead. He walked out. - From the Columbia liner notes to The Bootleg Series, Volumes 1 - 3

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I just noticed Bob Dylan’s top 8 friends on myspace: Johnny Cash (yeah), Roy Orbison (ok), Simon & Garfunkel (yep), Miles Davis (hmm), Sheryl Crow (eh?), and JOURNEY??!!!

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Bob Dylan has been on tour constantly since 1988. While the current dates are all out of the United States, wait a few months and he’ll no doubt show up in a city near you.

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TUE 2/26 - Auditorio Nacional - Mexico City, Mexico

WED 2/27 - Auditorio Nacional - Mexico City, Mexico

FRI 2/29 - Arena Monterrey - Monterrey, Mexico

SAT 3/2 - Auditorio Telmex - Guadalajara, Mexico

WED 3/5 - Via Funchal - Sao Paulo, Brazil

THU 3/6 - Via Funchal - Sao Paulo, Brazil

SAT 3/8 - Rio Arena - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

TUE 3/11 - San Carlos Apoquindo - Santiago, Chile

THU 3/13 - Chateau Carreras - Cordoba, Argentina

SAT 3/15 - Velez Sarsfield - Buenos Aires, Argentina

TUE 3/18 - Hipodromo - Rosario, Argentina