Starting today, and for a week, discs 1 and 2 of Bob Dylan's Bootleg Series Volume 8: Tell Tale Signs can be heard (and with the right gear, downloaded) as a free online stream on National Public Radio's Web site. It will be available there until Oct. 7, when the album is officially released. It's here!
I'm listening right now, and wishing the sour taste of the rip-off 3rd CD had never obtruded, because the music, the art of this song & dance man, is of undimmed fascination. There's always something weirdly perilous-but-exciting about hearing a new Dylan album for the first time - even when it's a compilation of outtakes, as here.
It's been delicious listening today. It's interesting to me that many of the songs seem warmer and softer than than the versions that were released. I'm someone who became interested from the back pages of Dylan's career, meaning that I started with the recordings from the 80s and 90s, and worked my way to the earlier stuff. I'm know I'm going to enjoy listening to this release a lot.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your book. What a great immersion for someone who got into Dylan just a year ago. Mind you, I've been making up for lost time since then...
Come on, Michael Gray! We want your reaction to the 2 discs' worth of tracks so far available.
ReplyDeleteMy own two-penneth: The two pre-released ones, Dreamin' and Mississippi, have grown on me more and more, to the extent that I now rate them among the best of this latest Bootleg Series, particularly Mississipi. Of the ones I heard for the first time via NPR (Bob bless 'em), I love Can't Wait, Most of the Time, & Born in Time the most. So far. Red River Shore has left me underwhelmed, maybe due to weight of expectation, maybe it'll grow on me. Wish they had left Huck's Tune (a duff song from an even duffer movie) and Cross the Green Mountain off, surely they had better stuff than these? And we all already had them. Same goes for Cocaine Blues. Like the live Lonesome Day Blues though. Ok, enough. What do you think?
After listening to Tell Tale Signs I've decided that both Don Was and Dan Lanois should be striped naked covered with hot tar and feathers, and then set on fire. Pat Ford
ReplyDelete