Bob Dylan: Fragments

Jan 25, 2024

Bob Dylan: Fragments – Time Out Of Mind Sessions (1996-1997) – The Bootleg Series, Vol. 17

(Columbia Records / Legacy Recordings )

CD | LP | DL

Released on 27 January 2023

BUY HERE

Fragments is the latest chapter in the Bootleg Series which digs deep into the archives of Bob Dylan to reveal a whole series of previously unreleased recordings including studio outtakes, alternate versions and live performances. This time the focus is on the multiple Grammy award-winning album Time Out Of Mind, originally released in 1997. Ian Corbridge gets immersed for Louder Than War and once again finds an almost unparalleled collection of riches from an album considered by many to be one of Dylan's finest.

There is little doubt that Time Out Of Mind is an album which has a very significant place both in the life of Bob Dylan and the collections of his fans, myself included, having always regarded it as one of his greatest bodies of work. To give this some context, Dylan had not released an album of original material for seven years since Under The Red Sky in 1990 and many were casting doubts on his ongoing longevity as a creative artist. And it appears that Dylan himself may have shared some of this doubt, having talked openly through those years about having enough songs to sing, perhaps questioning or even justifying the need not to write many more. But fortunately, in the snowy winter of 1996, Dylan finally found a spark of inspiration, perhaps fuelled by his desire to plunder the archives of his peers from which he originally gained so much stimulation at the start of his career, and all that was about to change.

With a new creative force behind him, Dylan put pen to paper on his farm in Minnesota and crafted a whole batch of new songs focused on love, betrayal and loss, and, perhaps just as significantly, old age and mortality. And when the mortality of so many significant figures has blighted the music industry over recent times, this seems such an opportune time to revisit and re-evaluate this Dylan album given that it was released at a time when he had his own brush with death.

It has been well-documented that in between writing and recording the songs for Time Out Of Mind and eventually releasing them in September 1997, Dylan was diagnosed with histoplasmosis pericarditis, an inflammation of tissue around the heart, which led to Dylan's hospitalisation in what some feared could be a fatal condition. Fortunately, Dylan recovered and was back on tour within two months. But it remains a great irony that such a collection of songs so focused on age and the passing of time was written immediately before such a serious episode in Dylan's life.

Other significant facts surround Time Out Of Mind as an album. It was the first album where Dylan had recorded demos before the completion of the album. It was the first album on which Dylan had allowed any producer, in this case Daniel Lanois, who had also produced the magnificent album Oh Mercy in 1989, to use sound effects on his vocals. Dylan also used more than one drummer throughout the recording process. And, perhaps most significantly of all, it was the last time Dylan used another producer, choosing to self-produce all subsequent albums under the name of Jack Frost.

The album saw Dylan return to a more brooding blues sound from the depths of Mississippi and Louisiana, with inspiration provided by some of Dylan's heroes like Charley Patton and Slim Harpo, who Dylan insisted Lanois listened to before producing the album. Lyrically the album is like an odyssey built around a single character starting with the search for a former lover in Love Sick, through to the epic 16-minute version of Highlands, a song most likely inspired by the work of Scottish poet Robert Burns, which focuses on what comes after death, albeit with plenty of humour and magnificent wordplay thrown in the mix.

This collection, which stretches to 5 CDs in the full box set, covers not just the 11 songs which were released as the original album, but also those songs which missed the cut, some of which made it onto subsequent releases. As with previous Bootleg Series releases, this provides the listener with a real insight into the whole process of developing and recording the songs, and that whole journey towards the final product that we have enjoyed for so many years. However, whilst there will be an inevitable and understandable focus on the new outtakes and alternate versions of the songs on discs 2 and 3, the significance of the 2022 remix should certainly not be overlooked.

The question is, how can you improve on a multiple Grammy award-winning album? Well, the intention of the remix by Michael H. Brauer, who also did a great job in remixing the iconic 1966 ‘Royal Albert Hall’ bootleg for Bootleg Series 4, was not to replace the original but to offer an alternative. What he did do was focus on recreating the intimate atmosphere within the recording sessions themselves, finding the sound that they actually heard in the studio at the time, thereby removing many of the effects and processing that were added by Lanois later on in the recording process.

The impact of the remix is simply stunning to my ears, adding such clarity to the sound and bringing to the fore so many of the players who were buried deep in the original mix. It also showcases Dylan's vocals and phrasings far more than I can recall on almost any recording of Dylan's I have ever heard. I am in no doubt that Dylan's search for a live feel and a raw and direct sound has finally been realised, if indeed that is what he wanted. It is so hard to pick out a specific highlight from the remix as all the songs sound so immense but perhaps the beautiful rendition of Standing In The Doorway is the one that shines through most potently for me, as Dylan continues to search or lament for his lost loved one. The riotous rockabilly of Dirt Road Blues also leaps from the grooves like I have never heard it before.

Discs 2 and 3 include 25 outtakes and alternate versions of the original album tracks, all as recorded live in the studio, demonstrating once again how Dylan is constantly rewriting and rearranging songs in the studio as well as on tour. The world of Dylan never stands still. The initial recordings were made at El Teatro Studios in California with later sessions including a much larger collective of musicians taking place at Criteria Recording Studios in Miami, all due to the insistence of Dylan, who felt that the former was far too close to home for his liking. Alongside the ever-changing arrangements and tempos, varying lyrical settings are definitely the norm throughout these versions which makes the listening experience all the more interesting.

Not Dark Yet is a centre point of the album and regarded by so many fans, including myself, as one of his finest songs, and the two further versions included here are undoubtedly absolute highlights. The first is a much more upbeat version, which is great but not really in keeping with the vibe of the song, and the other aligned more with the dark and sombre feel of the album version. But, having said that, neither comes close to the superior version on the album.

This album of course provided a new addition to the Great American Songbook in the much-covered love song Make You Feel My Love and Disc 3 features a slightly more stripped-down version. Two further versions of the dark piano-led ballad Tryin’ To Get To Heaven, a song which Dylan has performed live so magnificently on many occasions, are also featured with a somewhat bluesier feel. Version one of the roadhouse rocker Dirt Road Blues is a much longer and more raucous take of the album version.

In terms of the songs which did not make the album, the one-off fragile and poignant take of Scottish ballad The Water Is Wide is a nod back to a much earlier part of Dylan's career which somehow seems to pave the way for all that is to follow. Two versions of Mississippi are included, one a more countrified version and the other offering a stronger and more swaggering feel compared with the version that ended up on the subsequent album Love And Theft released in 2001. Whether either of these are closer to what Dylan intended remains to be seen. Versions of Dreamin’ Of You, Red River Shore and Marchin’ To The City are all different to those featured on The Bootleg Series Vol. 8 released in 2008 but are nonetheless significant in their own right.

Disc 4 contains 12 previously unreleased live versions of songs on the album although most seem to be sourced from unofficial recordings which have been circulating around the Dylan community for many years so may not be anything new to the most ardent of fans. And this is not the first time Dylan has bootlegged the bootleggers. A personal highlight is the seriously brooding live version of Not Dark Yet from Sheffield in 2000, given that I attended this concert. The version of Til’ I Fell In Love With You from Buenos Aires is also raucous and totally committed and probably the best version I have ever heard of this song. As ever, these live versions allow Dylan to continue to breathe new life and meaning into every song with ever-changing arrangements on the road so are worthy additions to the collection.

Disc 5 includes 12 further outtakes and live versions previously included on The Bootleg Series Vol. 8 so will already feature in many Dylan collections. These are no doubt included here to make this a complete collection of recordings taken from this period. One particular highlight here is the highly energised, almost incendiary live version of Cold Irons Bound from the Bonnaroo Festival in June 2004 and, based on this performance, I can only wonder how good it would be to get this full show officially released at some point in the future.

Overall, this collection of songs provides a new and unique insight into the recording process behind one of Dylan's most powerful and revered albums. It also shows how Dylan developed and crafted the songs into what we have been listening to for the past 26 years, moving from the intimate and gospel-infused arrangements of the earlier sessions towards the much fuller band arrangements in Miami. Quite rightly, the emotional core of the songs focused largely on lost love has often been compared to that of Blood On The Tracks, another of Dylan's seminal and indeed defining albums.

Dylan's near-fatal illness in 1997 inevitably altered the way in which Time Out Of Mind was received once it had been released, even though the whole situation was merely circumstantial. However, with the benefit of the new remix and a whole bunch of outtakes and alternate takes contained throughout Fragments, we are now able to view this album in a completely new light. Whilst I appreciate there will be a wide range of views on this from within the Dylan community, from a personal perspective, all of this has cemented my view of Time Out Of Mind as one of the greatest albums Dylan has ever released. We can only wonder what other great riches sit within Dylan's vaults to be uncovered through future releases in the Bootleg Series.

You can pre-order Fragments here.

You can find Bob Dylan on Facebook, Twitter and his website.

~

All words by Ian Corbridge. You can find more of his writing at his author profile.

We have a small favour to ask. Subscribe to Louder Than War and help keep the flame of independent music burning. Click the button below to see the extras you get!

SUBSCRIBE TO LTW

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Δ

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Email Address*

Name