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I wasn’t quite sure how to do it and what material to use. I would have liked to do old folk songs with acoustic instruments, but there was a lot of input from other sources as to what would be right for the MTV audience. The record company said, “You can’t do that, it’s too obscure.” At one time, I would have argued, but there’s no point. OK, so what’s not obscure? They said Knockin’ on Heaven ‘s Door.
~Bob Dylan (to Edna Gundersen May 1995)

Knocking on Heaven’s Door:

The dreariest, most contemptible, phony, tawdry piece of product ever issued by a great artist, which manages to omit the TV concert’s one fresh and fine performance, ‘I Want You’, but is otherwise an accurate record of the awfulness of the concert itself, in which the performer who had been so numinously ‘unplugged’ in the first place ducked the opportunity to use television to perform, solo, some of the ballad and country-blues material from his most recent studio albums, Good as I Been to You and World Gone Wrong. That could have been magical. Instead—instead of seizing this moment and really stepping into the arena—we got the usual greatest hits, wretchedly performed in a phoney construct of a ‘live’ concert. This is what happens when Bob Dylan capitulates and lets overpaid coke-head executives, lawyers and PRseholes from the Entertainment Industry tell him what to do.
~Michael Gray (The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia)

 

Sony Music Studios
New York City, New York
18 November 1994
Second MTV Unplugged taping session

• Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar)
• Bucky Baxter (pedal steel guitar & electric slide guitar)
• John Jackson (guitar)
• Brendan O’Brien (keyboards)
• Tony Garnier (bass)
• Winston Watson (drums & percussion)

1. Absolutely Sweet Marie
2. Shooting Star
3. All Along The Watchtower
4. My Back Pages
5. Rainy Day Women #12 & 35
6. John Brown
7. The Times They Are A-Changin’
8. Dignity
9. Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
10. Like A Rolling Stone
11. Like A Rolling Stone
    
    
    —
12. Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You
13. Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You
    Audio:
    
14. Desolation Row
15. I Want You

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• Songs in bold were released on “MTV Unplugged”, Columbia 478 374 2 (CD), 11 April 1995 in Europe and 5 May 1995 in US.
• Songs in bold were also released on video “MTV Unplugged”, 5 May 1995.

 

I was hearing a lot about how Eric Clapton did Layla acoustically for Unplugged. That influenced me to do the same for Like a Rolling Stone, but it would never get played that way normally.
~Bob Dylan (to Edna Gundersen May 1995)

Check out:

• Alldylan @ Facebook
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• Bob Dylan concert videos/audios from 1990 – 1995 @ alldylan.com
• Bob Dylan: Concerts & Videos from 1996 – 1999 @ Alldylan.com
• Bob Dylan: 10 concert videos you MUST see from the 90’s
• Bob Dylan: Camera rehearsals for MTV Unplugged taping sessions, 15 & 16 Nov 1994 (Videos)
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• Karl Erik’s expectingrain.com
• Olof’s “Still On The Road“

-Egil