Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan recording sessions

40 years ago: Bob Dylan: Blood On The Tracks, 4th Recording Session, 19 September 1974

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blood-on-the-tracks-album-cover

On the 3th recording session for Blood On The Tracks on September 18th, Dylan only tried 2 takes on Buckets of Rain. The 4th recording session (on  September 19, 1974) was a way more important story….

Here are some quotes, facts & music….

If any of Dylan’s record albums deserve to be singled out as a “masterpiece” (and I’ve avoided this because how can one leave out ‘Blonde On Blonde’? ‘Highway 61 Revisited’? ‘Hard Rain’?), it is the one that most successfully combines conscious, deliberate creation (composition) with spontaneous expression (performance) – 1974’s ‘Blood On The Tracks’
~Paul Williams (Performing Artist 74-86)

..Dylan.. succeeded in producing an album that stoked up his genius quotient nearly ten years after he was thought to have left it by the roadside. And he had done it by reinventing his whole approach to language. Gone were the surrealistic turns of phrase on Blonde On Blonde, gone was the ‘wild mercury sound’ surrounding those mystical words. In their place was a uniformity of mood, a coherence of sound, and an unmistakable maturity to the voice…. He had never sung better.
~Clinton Heylin (Behind The Shades)

 

Albums involved:

ALBUM Release date CODE
Blood On The Tracks 1975-01-17 BOTT
Biograph 1985-11-07 BIO
The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3
(Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991		 1991-03-26 TBS1-3
Blood On The Tracks – Test pressing  Nov 74 BOTT-TP
Jerry Maguire – Soundtrack 1996-12-10 JMS

bob dylan 1974

Studio A, A & R Recording, New York City, New York
September 19, 1974, 7 pm-03am

Produced by Bob Dylan
Engineers: Phil Ramone & Glenn Berger (“Phil & Lenn”)

  1. Up To Me
  2. Up To Me
  3. Buckets Of Rain
  4. Buckets Of Rain
  5. Buckets Of Rain
  6. Buckets Of Rain – BOTT & BOTT-TP
    Life is sad
    Life is a bust
    All you can do is do what you must
    Spotify:

    youtube:
  7. If You See Her, Say Hello – BOTT-TP
  8. Up To Me
  9. Up To Me
  10. Up To Me
  11. Meet Me In The Morning
  12. Meet Me In The Morning
  13. Buckets Of Rain
  14. Tangled Up In Blue
  15. Tangled Up In Blue
  16. Tangled Up In Blue – BOTT-TP (or 15)
  17. Simple Twist Of Fate
  18. Simple Twist Of Fate
  19. Simple Twist Of Fate – BOTT & BOTT-TP
    ‘Simple Twist of Fate’ is another absolutely extraordinary performance. Where ‘Tangled Up In Blue’ is bright, bouncy, jangly, ‘Simple Twist Of Fate’ is soft and warm and mournful. Dylan’s voice is.. gentle and rounded.
    ~Paul Williams (Performing Artist 74-86)
    Spotify:

    Vimeo:
  20. Up To Me
  21. Up To Me – BIO
    In its own way ‘Up To Me’ is as masterful an achievement as ‘Tangled Up In Blue’, using much the same technique to create a well-crafted juxtaposition of ‘what I know to be the truth’ and what ‘I’m projecting’.
    ~Clinton Heylin (Still On The Road)
    Spotify:

    Dailymotion:
  22. Idiot Wind
  23. Idiot Wind
  24. Idiot Wind
  25. Idiot Wind – TBS1-3
    Spotify;

    myvideo.de:
  26. You’re A Big Girl Now
  27. Meet Me In The Morning
  28. Meet Me In The Morning
  29. Meet Me In The Morning
  30. Meet Me In The Morning
  31. Meet Me In The Morning
  32. Meet Me In The Morning
  33. Tangled Up In Blue
  34. Tangled Up In Blue
  35. Tangled Up In Blue

“[The real] wonder is in the spaces, in what the artist’s left out of his painting. To me, that has always been the key to Dylan’s art. To state things plainly is the function of journalism; but Dylan sings a more fugitive song: allusive, symbolic, full of imagery and ellipses, and by leaving things out, he allows us the grand privilege of creating along with him. His song becomes our song because we live in those spaces. If we listen, if we work at it, we fill up the mystery, we expand and inhabit the work of art. It is the most democratic form of creation”
~Peter Hamill (liner notes to BOTT)

 

Musicians: 

  • Bob Dylan (guitar, vocal)
  • Tony Brown (bass)

Related articles @ JV:

References:

-Egil

8 thoughts on “40 years ago: Bob Dylan: Blood On The Tracks, 4th Recording Session, 19 September 1974”

  2. Anton,

    Joni Mitchell is an insufferable pain in the ass. She’s been attacking Dylan for years now, non-stop. She’s a mess, both physically and artistically. She’;s stinks up the “The Last Waltz” and was a big bore on Rolling Thunder. I hear she’s got some kind of disease now. Suits her right.

    1. king cramsey,

      I had a hard time approving your comments.. Don’t like your two last sentences. Please be a little more “delicate” next time around.

      -Egil (who doesn’t like Joni Mitchell’s comments about Dylan either)

  3. Because Joni Mitchell states an opinion there is no rational reason to call her an “insufferable loudmouth.” That is just mean and stupid and though I am a much much huger fan of Bob Dylan than I am of Joni Mitchell when I hear this kind of rhetoric it makes me think you might be insecure about Bob Dylan’s artistry. Otherwise why you would even bring it up.

  4. By the way, as an aside, this album pretty much crushes everything that insufferable loudmouth Joni Mitchell says about Dylan being a plagerist, about his songs not being constructed carefully, about the fact he is always playing a persona, and so on.

    Lines in “Up to Me”, like the one starting “The only decent thing I did when I worked as postal clerk/was to haul your picture down off the wall near the cage where I used to work” and “Now the Union Central is pullin’ out/the orchids are in bloom/I’ve only got me one good shirt left and it smells of stale perfume” are so brilliant because they shouldn’t work, but they do, and they combine humor, longing and a guy who pretty much can outwrite anyone when it comes to lyrics.

  5. It’s too bad that Dylan didn’t find a different arrangement for “Up to Me”, as it sounds much the same as “Shelter from the Storm”, and I’m guessing that’s why it was kept off the album. Then again, “She Belongs to Me” and “Love Minus Zero” sound alkike, and no one’s complianing about both of them being on the same record.

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