Dylan Down Under | Bob Dylan | The Band | Sid Griffin
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Dylan Down Under
by American Way Staff
Dylan Down Under
A new book takes us behind the scenes
and into the basement with Bob and the Band. By Bob
Mehr
By early 1967, Bob Dylan's controversial turn from
acoustic folk to electric rock, along with the epochal
world tours of 1965 and 1966, had left him damaged,
dazed, and ravaged by drugs. So Dylan retreated to his
new family home near Woodstock, New York, and under the
guise of his mysterious and now infamous motorcycle
accident, he disappeared from public view. In
Woodstock, with an ensemble of backing musicians known
as the Band, Dylan began a series of informal recording
sessions. The songs would eventually leak out to the
public and come to be known collectively as the
Basement Tapes, the most famous bootleg in history.
Four decades (and an official, if somewhat incomplete,
release in 1975) later, author Sid Griffin shows us why
the myths about and the magic of those recordings
endure. In Million Dollar Bash: Bob
Dylan, the Band, and the Basement Tapes, Griffin
notes that Dylan's work was - as always -
revolutionary. It portended a return from the
outrageous excesses of the psychedelic era, presaged
the country-rock and Americana movements, and
influenced everyone in the pop world, from the Beatles
on down. Combining historical material and interviews
with longtime Dylan confidants, Griffin, himself a
noted songwriter as well as the leader of both the Long
Ryders and Coal Porters, has created a true fan's
delight and a remarkable road map to these historic
recordings. |
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