Duke Silver wrote:I might've mentioned this in another thread somewhere, but I'm spending the year going through Dylan's discography chronologically. Initially I didn't think of it as being all that ambitious, but I just mapped it out and holy shit--it's actually going to take the whole year. Any Bobophiles have any suggestions of where I might benefit from compressing or expanding the outline below? I'm trying to group things by "era" (or at least time period) as much as possible.
Any books I might enjoy? I have Chronicles, The Recording Sessions (I forget the author), Levon's book. Others? Movies? Unreleased/hard to find shit?
January (1961-1964)
Bob Dylan
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
The Times They Are A'Changin'
Another Side of Bob Dylan
Bootleg 1: Rare & Unreleased
Bootleg 6: Live 1964
Bootleg 9: The Witmark Demos
February (1965-1966)
Bringing It All Back Home
Highway 61 Revisited
Blonde on Blonde
Bootleg 4: Live 1966
March (1967)
Bootleg 11: Basement Tapes Complete
John Wesley Harding
April (1969-1970)
Nashville Skyline
Self Portrait
New Morning
Bootleg 10: Another Self Portrait
May (1973-1974)
Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid
Dylan
Planet Waves
Before the Flood
June (1975-1976)
Blood on the Tracks
Desire
Bootleg 5: The Rolling Thunder Revue
Basement Tapes 1975
July (1978-1981)
Street Legal
Slow Train Coming
Saved
Shot of Love
August (1983-1988)
Infidels
Empire Burlesque
Knocked Out Loaded
Down in the Groove
Dylan & the Dead
September (1989-1993)
Oh Mercy
Under the Red Sky
Good As I Been to You
World Gone Wrong
MTV Unplugged
Bootleg 8: Tell Tale Signs
October (1997-2006)
Time Out of Mind
Love and Theft
Modern Times
Bootleg 8: Tell Tale Signs
November (2009-2015)
Together Through Life
Tempest
Shadows in the Night
December
Christmas in the Heart
Don't Look Back fits in February; it's a great companion piece to Bootleg 4 (aka
Royal Albert Hall).
Nice call putting Bootleg 11 in March.
I'm probably in the minority thinking that you can skip both of the
Portrait albums in April, but surely you can skip one.
June could be a quiet month: I don't think Bootleg 5 adds much to
Desire and having seen a bunch of the Rolling Thunder shows, I found the recording to be really disappointing and not reflective of the shows I saw (though part of the point of the "revue" was its ever changing cast and nature).
Basement Tapes '75 is a great album by itself but won't add anything if you've recently listened to the new, complete release. That leaves June a little light. You could do worse than to fill the time with repeated listenings to
Blood on the Tracks, a truly great album.
I'll be curious to see what you have to say about July.
FWIW, I think
Oh Mercy belongs w/ your August albums. I'd make room for it by throwing
Dylan & the Dead overboard. I confess I've never heard the whole thing through, but then again, I've never had any desire to.
Assuming you move
Oh Mercy there's not much to say about September, except maybe you should spread August over 2 months, lol. Full disclosure: 4sooner would not be the only one to vehemently disagree w/ me and he generally knows whereof he speaks. Bootleg 8 is clearly the keeper in that group, by a long mile.
October's a great month but might start sounding a little stale/same crunched together like that. If you spread them out a little I suspect you'll enjoy them more.
From what I know of it, I think
Shadows in the Night fits better in December than November.
I've probably left out a book or 2 that I really like. If something jogs my memory I'll let you know.
Happy listening!
All opinions and commentary in my posts are solely my own and are made in my personal capacity.