The Band – The Basement Tapes - Non-Album Tracks (1967-1969)

Note that this is The Basement Tapes by THE BAND, not by Bob Dylan. or Bob Dylan with the Band!

The Band released two classic albums in 1968 and 1969 – Music from Big Pink and The Band. But really, they made three albums’ worth of classic music in those years. This is the third.

All or nearly all of these songs had their origins in the Basement Tapes sessions with Dylan in the summer of 1967. But just as Dylan didn’t officially release any of these songs around that time, the Band didn’t either. Then, in 1975, the Band’s main songwriter Robbie Robertson put together an acclaimed double album, The Basement Tapes, containing songs from that time by both Dylan and the Band. The problem is, Robertson fudged things a little. It seems, in order to make the Band’s role seem larger, three of the Band songs put on that album were actually recorded in 1975, and overdubs were added to others.

But it turns out his fudging wasn’t really that bad, because two of those three songs were actually played by the Band at Woodstock in 1969 (the Band’s first public concert as their own unit), showing they weren’t first written or done in 1975 (one of them, Ain’t No More Cane, is a cover). Only the song Bessie Smith doesn’t seem to have a version from the 1960s, so that one isn’t included here. (I put it on a 1970s Band album that I hope to post at a later date.)

Many of the songs the Band did in the Basement Tapes sessions with Dylan were redone by them in sessions for their first or second albums. It’s hard to tell just what was recorded when, due to a continuing cover up that still fudges things to hide the Band’s 1975 overdubs and re-recordings. (The Band’s 2005 box set implausibly claims some versions of these songs were recorded at unknown locations at unknown dates.) That said, most of these versions appear to be outtakes from the Big Pink album, and thus not actually from 1967. The songs below are ordered roughly by when they were recorded, but only very roughly, due to all the confusion.

The two songs from Woodstock were edited to remove crowd noise.  Due to those songs and another from 1969, this album could have been released with these versions in late 1969. (It was a different time – Creedence Clearwater Revival released THREE great studio albums in 1969!)

I left off one Music from Big Pink outtake – "If I Lose" – because I simply thought it was weak, a cover of a very generic country song. Plus, without it, the album is 44 minutes long, which was near the maximum typical length for that time.

This album is 43 minutes long.

01 Katies's Been Gone (Band)
02 Orange Juice Blues [Blues for Breakfast] (Band)
03 Yazoo Street Scandal (Band)
04 Ferdinand the Imposter (Band)
05 Ruben Remus (Band)
06 Words and Numbers (Band)
07 You Don't Come Through (Band)
08 Long Distance Operator (Band)
09 Baby Lou (Band)
10 Key to the Highway (Band)
11 Get Up Jake (Band)
12 Don't Ya Tell Henry (Band)
13 Ain't No More Cane (Band)

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Note that the original album cover for this album was made for this site by PJ at the "Alaums I Wish Existed" website. It was based on a black and white photo of the Band standing by the "Big Pink" house near Woodstock, New York. But about two years after I first posted this, I got an urge to change the covers to color. Changing that one would be a pain in the rear for technical reasons, so I chose a totally different color photo. It was taken in 1968, apparently as part of a photo shoot session for their "Music from Big Pink" album.

Here's the original, for anyone who prefers that cover.