Author and playwright Oliver Trager has written essential works on Bob Dylan and the Grateful Dead.  With Bob Dylan releasing a new installment in his Bootleg Series Vol 11, L4LM decided to ask Oliver to weigh in on the subject.  This entry in the series focuses on the 1967 sessions with Bob Dylan and the Band.  Robbie Robertson has stated that initially Dylan told the group, “I need to make up some songs for the publishing company for other people to record.” Eventuallly some of this music was released in 1975, on a two record set entitled The Basement Tapes.  Columbia Records included some songs from these sessions, along with demos the Band had recorded without Dylan.  They had been circulating underground as one of the first widely circulated ‘bootleg’ recordings from the era.  The new release features songs left off of the initial release. It may be purchased as a ‘complete’ six CD set, or a two disc set for the more causal listener. The author shares his insights, and also delves into Dylan’s relationship with the Grateful Dead for us. Trager also explains the dynamic between Dylan, and Grateful Dead elder statesman Jerry Garcia.  

 
L4LM:  Would you please tell us a bit about the books you have done?
 
Oliver Trager: My three books — The American Book of the Dead: The Definitive Grateful Dead Encyclopedia (Simon & Schuster, 1997), Dig Infinity! The Life & Art of Lord Buckley (Welcome Rain Publishers, 2002) and Keys to the Rain: The Definitive Bob Dylan Encyclopedia (Billboard Books, 2004) — are all, to one extent or another, investigations and celebrations of the titular artists. I am particularly fascinated with the transmutation and reinvention of folk traditions and these instincts seem particularly evident in the artistic expressions of Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead and Lord Buckley. The Dead and Dylan books are just what they appear to be: encyclopedias that include entries for every album, song recorded for commercial release or performed that lay out the literary and/or its historical roots, how it fits into the artist’s canon, etc. The Lord Buckley book is a straight biography of this neglected American artist best known for his hip semantic monologues drawn from the classics, history, myth, legend etc.
 
 
  

L4LM:  How would you rank Dylan as a songwriter in the history of
rock and roll; and would you please comment regarding his effect on our culture?

Oliver Trager: I suppose it can all be boiled down to a simple before and after paradigm. Before Dylan, there were virtually no singer/songwriters and certainly none that were drawing on the insane range of influences that he was. So, all merits of the songs themselves aside, his significance cannot be underestimated. Really, this is not something that can be accurately judged in the present era. Who in Elizabethan England would have thought that the plays written by that rube from the Stratford-Upon-Avon sticks would be being performed some hundreds of years hence? And, to turn it around, how many Dylan fans can hum you a bar of a Gershwin or Porter tune? Personally, I doubt there are many. Point is: tough my opinion is irrelevant, I have a hard time fathoming that Dylan and his ginormous legacy won’t continue to touch the human soul for centuries to come.

L4LM: The new Bootleg Series takes us to Woodstock, the Band, and
the sessions at Big Pink. What are your thoughts on that period in
Dylan’s writing?

Oliver Trager: Dylan’s so-called “motorcycle accident” — overblown or not — may have been the best thing to happen to him. It got him off the road, out of NYC, into the arms of a woman who loved him, engendered a family, and brought him back to the roots of the music that originally informed him with a quintet of fine musicians and supportive souls. Despite the scores of songs recorded during this period, there are not, in the grand scheme of things, really all that many original Dylan compositions in the batch. The original songs that did emerge tend towards the antic and surreally comic with wonderfully crazy abstruse lyrics, character, scenarios, etc. I’m thinking of “Yea Heavy! And a Bottle of Bread,” “Apple Suckling Tree,” “Quinn, The Eskimo,” “Goin’ to Acapulco,” “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” and the ghostly/enigmatic “I’m Not There.” But there are decidedly serious songs here too — “I Shall Be Released” and “Tears of Rage Come to Mind.” What I find most interesting about the Basement Tapes is not the original songs in and of themselves but how Dylan & the Hawks make it all sound so original, even songs that are decades if not centuries old. I am also struck by the odd, singular sound of the whole enterprise: Greil Marcus’s Old Weird America rendered in all its mysterious gloom and glory. Finally, as yet another testament to Dylan’s ability to reinvent himself, it is rather amazing that these tapes were made not even a year and a half after his ’66 English tour when he was performing and living on the wild, mercurial edge. He sounds so relaxed, laid back, happy and, perhaps most notably, friendly. The latter not an attribute one would associate with ’65-’66 persona. In the BT songs, one can hear more of what is coming (John Welsey Harding and Nashville Skyline) than what came before.

L4LM: Any thoughts on the way the Band’s influence may have affected Dylan,
and how they seem to have been in closer access to him than many others
were allowed into his sphere?

Oliver Trager: Well, Bob trusted them, they shared similar tastes and interests so a cross-pollinated influence seems to have been transpiring.

L4LM: The Band in some ways reminds one of the Grateful Dead, who Dylan also toured with. Can you compare the two groups a bit?

Both groups had the smarts to indulge their interests in the traditions from which they sprung. On a basic level, while the Band generally drew on the South, the Dead were, naturally given their San Francisco roots, drawn to western themes. But essentially, were are talking about the same thing: recognition of American roots music has a legitimate fountainhead for the conjuring of new material. The Band was, however, limited by their musicianship which could be dynamic on stage but really no match for what the Dead were capable of on a good night. Robbie Robertson, while great, was no Jerry Garcia, Rick Danko no Phil Lesh etc.

L4LM:  What was Dylan’s tour and working relationship like with the Grateful Dead?
Did you enjoy the work together?
 
Oliver Trager: I attended a couple of the Dylan/Dead shows in ’87. Foxboro & and Giants Stadium and while I had fun and though the music pretty good for such large venues, I then and there swore off stadium shows. The rehearsal tapes for the shows are, on the other hand, illuminating, compelling fare — a kind of Basement Tapes unto themselves.

L4LM:  The Bootleg Series has offered some pristine tracks that have easier access than collecting boots. What are your favorite installments of Dylan’s Bootleg Series releases?
 
Oliver Trager: Just about all the Bootleg Series releases have had something to offer. I’m not particularly sensitive to pristine remastering myself having been reared musically w/scratchy, hissy bootleg Dead and Dylan tapes or old Charlie Parker records. Along with the original Vol 1-3, I am particularly fond of the Rolling Thunder release and “Tell Tale Signs” which had all kinds of interesting material — “Dreaming of You” I thought particularly awesome. Also, the way it allowed to chart the evolution of a song like “Mississippi” over the years as Dylan developed, refined and toyed with that song.

L4LM: Were there any releases that you did not particularly like?  Any may I ask
if the price of some of the deluxe sets sits with you (such as the 6 disc set this time, as compared with the 2 disc set)?
 
Oliver Trager: Neither the ’64 Carnegie Hall or the “No Direction Home” companion set really rock my boat but they may have more to do w/my long term familiarity with that material. The prices are crazy and while I appreciate the smaller scale, less expensive option, I’d like to see Columbia de-exclusivfy and pare down the operation along the lines of what the Dead have done. How about two Bootleg Series releases a year — one live, one studio — without all the overdone packaging. $20 a pop. As far as suggestions: ’76 Rolling Thunder, a ’79/’80 gospel show, something from the ’81 tour. These were fertile performing periods and it shows on the circulating pirate catalogue with fine shows.

L4LM:  What songs from the Basement Tapes stand out to you?
 
Oliver Trager: Other than the original material mentioned above or not, “Joshua Gone Barbados,” “Bonnie Ship the Diamond,” “One Kind Favor,” “Jelly Bean,” “Wildwood Flower,” “Ain’t No More Cane”
 
L4LM:  Are there any tracks you could live without?
 
Oliver Trager: No. Even the less successful items are part of the quilt.

L4LM:  What releases would you like to see that have not come out in the Bootleg Series yet?
 
Oliver Trager: Along with what I listed in #8, I’d love to see an older, ’61-’62 era recording that includes a Dylan version of Lord Buckley’s “Black Cross.” Gaslight ’62 for example would be the one I’d choose for its mix of folk songs and Dylan’s first original material. I say this for both selfish reasons (it would be good publicity for my efforts to spread Lord Buckley’s immaculately hip gospel) and because those early performances have their charms and indications of Dylan’s evolving if nascent genius.
 
L4LM; Can you please speak a bit on the relationship between Dylan and Jerry Garcia, and the deep admiration they seem to have had for one another?
 
Oliver Trager: Fellow travelers seem to know, admire and love one another by instinct. And that they were both the center of so much unwanted cult-of-personality insanity projected upon their sensitive beings might have drawn them towards one another even more. And there seemed to be zero competition there too. Jerry and the Dead covered many a Dylan song and all the choices were good. Dylan’s choice of Dead tunes, however, though way comparatively smaller, not so interesting. The magic pot of traditional folk songs performed by both always interesting.
 
-by Bob Wilson
 
Bob Dylan - The Basement Tapes Complete: The Bootleg Series Vol. 11

Columbia Records/Legacy Recordings has released Bob Dylan’s The Basement Tapes Complete: The Bootleg Series Vol. 11 on November 4. Compiled from meticulously restored original tapes – many found only recently – this historic six-disc set is the definitive chronicle of the artist’s legendary 1967 recording sessions with members of his touring ensemble who would later achieve their own fame as The Band.

The Basement Tapes Raw: The Bootleg Series Vol. 11, a two-disc version of highlights from the deluxe edition, was also released on November 4.

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