Bob Dylan And The Band – The Basement Tapes (1975) [MFSL 2012] {SACD ISO + FLAC 24bit/88.2kHz}

The official release of The Basement Tapes — which were first heard on a 1968 bootleg called The Great White Wonder — plays with history somewhat, as Robbie Robertson overemphasizes the Band’s status in the sessions, making them out to be equally active to Dylan, adding in demos not cut at the sessions and overdubbing their recordings to flesh them out. As many bootlegs (most notably the complete five-disc series) reveal, this isn’t entirely true and the Band were nowhere near as active as Dylan, but that ultimately is a bit like nitpicking, since the music here (including the Band’s) is astonishingly good. The party line on The Basement Tapes is that it is Americana, as Dylan and the Band pick up the weirdness inherent in old folk, country, and blues tunes, but it transcends mere historical arcana through its lively, humorous, full-bodied performances. Dylan never sounded as loose, nor was he ever as funny as he is here, and this positively revels in its weird, wild character. For all the apparent antecedents — and the allusions are sly and obvious in equal measure — this is truly Dylan’s show, as he majestically evokes old myths and creates new ones, resulting in a crazy quilt of blues, humor, folk, tall tales, inside jokes, and rock. The Band pretty much pick up where Dylan left off, even singing a couple of his tunes, but they play it a little straight, on both their rockers and ballads. Not a bad thing at all, since this actually winds up providing context for the wild, mercurial brilliance of Dylan’s work — and, taken together, the results (especially in this judiciously compiled form with its expert song selection, even if there’s a bit too much Band) rank among the greatest American music ever made.

Tracklist:
01. Odds And Ends
02. Orange Juice Blues (Blues For Breakfast)
03. Million Dollar Bash
04. Yazoo Street Scandal
05. Goin’ To Acapulco
06. Katie’s Been Gone
07. Lo And Behold!
08. Bessie Smith
09. Clothes Line Saga
10. Apple Suckling Tree
11. Please, Mrs. Henry
12. Tears Of Rage
13. Too Much Of Nothing
14. Yea! Heavy And A Bottle Of Bread
15. Ain’t No More Cane
16. Crash On The Levee (Down In The Flood)
17. Ruben Remus
18. Tiny Montgomery
19. You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere
20. Don’t Ya Tell Henry
21. Nothing Was Delivered
22. Open The Door, Homer
23. Long Distance Operator
24. This Wheel’s On Fire