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Monday, September 23, 2013

Still The Same Man - Volume One: Unreleased Live Recordings, Fall 1980




Still The Same Man: Volume One

Musical Retrospective Tour, 1980

Blowin' In The Wind - November 13
A Couple More Years - December 3
What Can I Do For You? - December 3
Ain't Gonna Go To Hell For Anybody - November 29
Slow Train - November 29
Just Like A Woman - November 16
Fever - November 30
We Just Disagree - December 4
Senor - November 11
The Groom's Still Waiting At The Altar - November 15
Mary From The Wild Moor - November 15
Let's Keep It Between Us - December 3
Rise Again - November 29
Caribbean Wind - November 12
In The Garden - November 11
City Of Gold - November 13

Note: Download links removed due to the release of Bob Dylan's Bootleg Series 13: Trouble No More. A revised set of unreleased gospel era content will be published in the future.

Welcome back, folks!

Compiling this has really taken some time, and to do so I listened to every extant tape of the Musical Retrospective Tour. This, as you can imagine, was a richly rewarding experience. While some tapes are of low quality, in many cases the tapes are among the finest of the era. Between sound and performance, you really can't go wrong with most of these!

Though my earlier release elsewhere was integrated to sound like a complete concert, this venture was not perfectly successful. When combined with the issues of CD-burning or MP3 conversion adding gaps between the tracks, I found it best to add fades to the collection. Hopefully you won't mind. If you only have room in your collection for one CD of 1980's Musical Retrospective Tour, this would be the set for you.

As my upcoming Still The Same Man Volume II opens with the typical "Gotta Serve Somebody" in a unique arrangement, that song is omitted from this release. Similarly, Volume II will not end with "In The Garden," as the passionate performance from 1980 was not rivaled the following year. The aim of this collection was not necessarily to present an imitation of the tour, but rather to give the listener a unified, cohesive document. In that, I hope it succeeds.

1980's remarkable arrangements of "Blowin' In The Wind," "Slow Train," and "What Can I Do For You," rank among the best renditions of these songs. "Caribbean Wind" is one of the defining performances of Dylan's career, and both "City of Gold" and "Let's Keep It Between Us" are truly lost classics. Present too are some of the more peculiar monologues of the Musical Retrospective (the discussion of Duluth's musical scene is a highlight). All are delightful, and make you rather wish he'd tell stories like these more often.

If you enjoy the tracks, I would encourage you to check out related official releases. In a bit of a twist, there are no official releases from this tour, to the best of my knowledge. This CD includes live recordings of songs originally found on the following studio records:


Next week I will post the second volume of this collection, the subject of which will be Bob Dylan's 1981 World Tour. And my goodness, that has got to be one of the finest set of tapes on record! Until then, keep yourself healthy and listen to some good tunes!

-CS

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