Oh man! This CD is just terrific!! I guess I need to write more though to turn out a decent review. Where to begin. "No Direction Home: The Soundtrack" is the 7th volume in Bob Dylan's archival Bootleg Series and is also the soundtrack for Martin Scorsese's excellent PBS documentary of the same title. The double CD is chronologically sequenced and features 28 recordings, 26 of them previously unreleased and rare, (most from between 1961 and 1966), including "When I Got Troubles," which is supposedly the first song Dylan ever taped. Many of the tracks are alternate takes of his classic songs, along with some surprise live versions, like "Chimes of Freedom" and "When The Ship Comes In." What a phenomenal body of work created in just six years! This is a superb retrospective of that time.
Disc 1 covers Dylan's early period, 1959 to 1965, from his last year as a Minnesota high school student through his years as the brilliant young troubadour, master folk singer, people's poet and the voice of protest in America. In 1960, Dylan dropped out of college and moved to New York, where legendary folk singer Woody Guthrie was hospitalized with a rare disease of the nervous system. Dylan visited with his idol regularly in the hospital and performed his signature tune, "This Land Is Your Land," soon after arriving in Manhattan. The CD features the Guthrie anthem, recorded live as well as "Song To Woody." Other outstanding cuts on the first CD include: "Sally Gal," adapted from "Sally Don't You Grieve" by Woody Guthrie, ("Freewheelin' Bob Dylan"), "Masters of War" and "Blowin' in the Wind" - Dylan's own protest songs, and alternate takes of "Don't Think Twice" and "It's All Over Now Baby Blue." I haven't heard "Dink's Song" in years and that's here too as is an early version of the old folk favorite "Rambler, Gambler." A great CD!!
Disc Two, however, is even more amazing - it ROCKS!! Here is Dylan's electric, raucous version of "Maggie's Farm," the one that tore-up the 1965 Newport Folk Festival....with hostility. He came onstage in a funky orange shirt and black leather, carrying an electric guitar, and proceeded to play music that was not folk. He performed "Like a Rolling Stone," this CD's final cut, (the Manchester 1966 version), right after "Farm," and when he began "It Takes a Train to Cry," the purists threw him out of the genre. Exit acoustic, enter electric! That's when Bob Dylan became an ex-folk singer and a modern day cultural icon, an artist who greatly influenced the music of his own and later generations...and he continues to do so. "Visions of Johanna" (with full band) is also featured here, as is the emotional "Ballad of the Thin Man," the almost psychedelic "Tombstone Blues," and alternate studio takes of "Leopard-Skin Pill-box Hat," and "Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again."
You don't have to be a hardcore Dylan fan to appreciate this album. It is exceptional. Every track is special. And the CDs come with a 58-page liner booklet that includes rarely and formerly unpublished photos, essays and track-by-track analysis. A must have CD(s)!
JANA