Dylan’s restored basement tapes with The Band set for debut

Christopher Palmeri | Bloomberg August 27, 2014

LOS ANGELES, California — Bob Dylan’s famous recording from 1967 with the group that became The Band will be released in a newly restored CD set in November.

“Bob Dylan’s The Basement Tapes Complete: The Bootleg Series Vol. 11” was compiled from restored original tapes, many found only recently, Columbia Records/Legacy Recordings said Tuesday in a statement. The collection will include a six-CD set and a separate two-CD collection dubbed “Raw.” Both will be released on Nov. 4.

The recordings were made following the singer’s 1966 motorcycle accident, according to Columbia. Dylan, now 73, joined the future members of The Band, Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson and later Levon Helm, in the basement of a small house in West Saugerties, New York, and taped more than 100 songs.

Hudson worked with producer Jan Haust to restore the tapes, which had deteriorated over time and include some recordings that have only recently been discovered.

The Basement Tapes first began appearing as a bootleg album called “Great White Wonder” in 1969. The music was commercially unavailable until 1975, when Columbia released 16 songs on “The Basement Tapes” album, which also also included eight numbers by The Band.

The six-CD main set includes Dylan classics such as “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “It Ain’t Me, Babe,” along with The Band’s “I Shall be Released.”

Columbia, part of Sony, also plans to issue “The Basement Tapes Raw” as a three-LP set on 180-gram vinyl, Columbia said.

The package will compete with “Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes,” a 20-song collection of songs Dylan hadn’t finished at the time of the original Basement Tapes recordings.

Produced by T. Bone Burnett and due to be released by Universal Music Group on Nov. 11, it will feature the work of contemporary singer-songwriters including Elvis Costello and Marcus Mumford.