My Site

Filene Center
Wolf Trap Farm Park For The Performing Arts
Vienna, Virginia
24 August 1997

• Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar)
• Bucky Baxter (pedal steel guitar & electric slide guitar)
• Larry Campbell (guitar)
• Tony Garnier (bass)
• David Kemper (drums & percussion)

This is also included on the bootleg set, The Genuine Bootleg Series Take 3
This is a bootleg that took the first 3 volumes of Dylan’s official Bootleg Series as it’s mold, they pick the “best” obscure Dylan material and try to presents it in a chronological context. They sometimes pick some very strange takes, it has to be said.

And it has this incredible live version of Blind Willie McTell with great sound, I’ve played it hundreds of times. It is fantastic!

Well, I heard that hoot owl singing
As they were taking down the tents
The stars above the barren trees
Were his only audience
Them charcoal gypsy maidens
Can strut their feathers well
But nobody can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell

See them big plantations burning
Hear the cracking of the whips
Smell that sweet magnolia blooming
See the ghosts of slavery ships
I can hear them tribes a-moaning
Hear that undertaker’s bell
Nobody can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell

There’s a woman by the river
With some fine young handsome man
He’s dressed up like a squire
Bootlegged whiskey in his hand
There’s a chain gang on the highway
I can hear them rebels yell
And I know no one can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell

Well, God is in His heaven
And we all want what’s His
But power and greed and corruptible seed
Seem to be all that there is
I’m gazing out the window
Of the St. James Hotel
And I know no one can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell

-Egil & Hallgeir