The Band – The Basement Tapes

After his amphetamine-fuelled world tour in 1966, Bob Dylan came off his Triumph motorcycle and he was stopped dead in his tracks. It was probably a lifesaver, because he couldn’t have kept up the pace of the fame that his mad genius had thrust him into. Holed up in his Woodstock home (and later in the basement of the legendary ‘Big Pink’ house) in 1967 with of The Band, he created the songs that saw American music pivot from Beatles influenced psychedelia to the kind of mystic roots music that created the Americana genre.

This material had circulated for years on bootlegs and songs like ‘Tears of Rage’ and ‘This Wheel’s On Fire’ had been hits for other artists. Finally in 1975, along with new material from The Band, a selection of the songs (with overdubs) were officially released as The Basement Tapes. It’s a remarkable document and for me, an overall superior listening experience to the much lauded Bootleg Series vol 11 (Basement Tapes Complete) released in 2014. I created two playlists with just the Dylan songs and just The Band songs and if these had been released in 1967 as official releases I’m sure they would stand out as career highlights in each artists’ body of work.

The 2014 Complete boxed set has a lot of filler, false starts, fragments, and just foolin’ around (it will get its own review soon). Here there is no filler and every song stands as a testament to the musical geniuses who produced them. Dylan is often hilarious in his lyrical style as he tosses off nonsense rhyming couplets that might have appeared in any folk song from the nineteenth century. Consider the lyrical simplicity of ‘Clothesline Saga’ which constitutes a perfect slice of an ordinary day.

‘I reached up, touched my shirt / And the neighbor said, “Are those clothes yours?” / I said, “Some of them, not all of them” He said, “Ya always help out around here with the chores?” / I said, “Sometime, not all the time” / Then my neighbor, he blew his nose / Just as papa yelled outside, "Mama wants you to come back in the house and bring them clothes” / Well, I just do what I’m told, so I did it, of course / went back in the house and Mama met me / And then I shut all the doors.’

Perfect!