Actually, this album is already a very good one, one of their best. But there are a few stray tracks from that time period one can add to make it even better. I removed one so-so song, "Ring Your Bell." Then I added three songs originally from "The Basement Tapes:" "Ain't No More Cane," "Don't Ya Tell Henry," and "Bessie Smith."
Now, you may well ask, "Why the heck add those three? 'The Basement Tapes' are a collection of songs Bob Dylan and the Band recorded in 1967." That's true, except for those three songs I mentioned. I believe there's been kind of conspiracy about the origins of these songs. In 1975, Robbie Robertson, the main songwriter for the Band, was given the task of putting "The Basement Tapes" together. Even though the vast majority of the songs were written and sung by Dylan, apparently Dylan wasn't interested in being involved in putting the archival album together.
My theory is that Robertson saw an opportunity to beef up the percentage of Band songs by recording a few new ones and pretending they were from 1967 with the others. That way, "The Basement Tapes" were seen as more of a collaborative effort between Dylan and the Band, when in fact the vast majority of songs were Dylan's. As it was, eight of the 24 songs on the album were by the Band. Without those extra three, it would have been a partly five by the Band compared to 19 by Dylan. (Many, many more excellent Dylan songs not included, enough for me to have made a double album that I've posted here called "More Basement Tapes.")
I'm supported in my theory by an account by engineer Rob Fraboni. He was intimately involved in the production of "The Basement Tapes" in 1975. He claims the three songs I mentioned were in fact recorded in 1975, plus one more, a cover of the Chuck Berry song "Going Back to Memphis," which remained unreleased. Fraboni also says the Band overdubbed many vocal and instrumental parts to other Basement Tapes songs at that time, again making them sound more like collaborative efforts instead of Dylan-dominated ones.
The song "Don't Ya Tell Henry" was written by Dylan, and a version was recorded in 1967 as part of the Basement Tapes sessions. But it was a sloppy, drunken version with Dylan on lead vocals. It seems the Band basically took the song for their own by recording a 1975 version with Band members doing the lead vocals.
"Ain't No More Cane" is a traditional song. But it has a similar story in that Dylan sang the lead on it in the actual Basement Tapes sessions. The Band liked both of these songs, and performed them in concert as far back as the Woodstock Festival in 1969. The 1975 version again has Band members doing the lead vocals instead of Dylan.
"Bessie Smith" is a greater mystery. The Band never played it in concert, so it could have been written as late as 1975, even though it fits in perfectly with other Basement Tapes songs.
If that's what they did, that's fine with me. "The Basement Tapes" are a great album, including the newly recorded Band songs and overdubs and all. But what's silly is that the pretense continues that those songs were recorded much earlier. For instance, in 2000, an expanded version of the 1971 Band album "Cahoots" was released. "Bessie Smith" was added to it, and the liner notes state it was recorded in 1970. But it's the only song on that re-release that lack any recording details. Similarly, when the Band box set "Across the Great Divide" was released in 1994, the liner notes claim that "Don't Ya Tell Henry" and "Ain't No More Cane" were recorded in an "unknown studio" on an unknown date in either 1967 or 1968.
Those three songs are literally the only ones with such vague recording details, and they're also the exact ones that Fraboni claims were actually recorded in 1975. I believe Fraboni, especially since the motive of wanting to secretly beef up the Band's involvement in the Basement Tapes makes perfect sense. If that's the case, then these three songs were recorded around the same time as the "Northern Lights - Southern Cross" ones and belong as bonus tracks or the like with that album. So that's why I've included them here.
This album is 48 minutes long.
I've included "Twilight" as a bonus track. The sound quality is just as good as the others. The reason it's a bonus track is because this is an early version. The song would be released as a stand-alone single in 1976, and in my opinion that version is very different, more rocking, and better. So I'm including that in my alternate version of the Band's "Islands" album.
01 Ophelia (Band)
02 Forbidden Fruit (Band)
03 Ain't No More Cane (Band)
04 Acadian Driftwood (Band)
05 Jupiter Hollow (Band)
06 Don't Ya Tell Henry (Band)
07 Rags and Bones (Band)
08 Bessie Smith (Band)
09 Hobo Jungle (Band)
10 It Makes No Difference (Band)
Twilight [Early Version] (Band)
https://www.imagenetz.de/kbFqL
For the album cover, I used the exact same photo as that on the official cover. However, I zoomed in more, allowing the band members and the fire to be larger. I also redid the lettering, using the same font and color.
Interesting concept! Thank you for the compilation! I actually just made my own compilation with the Basement Tapes songs last week. I imagined The Band put out a studio album between "The Band" and "Stage Fright". This "third" album would be entirely outtakes up to that point. According to the liner notes in "A Musical History" box set, these were all recorded with definitive dates before summer of 1969. "Katie's Been Gone" doesn't list a recording date and "Bessie Smith" lists a recording date of probably late 1968. Even if the basement Tapes album contained re-recorded versions of some songs, these were all at least written in the late 1960s. And these songs all sound like they came from the same time frame as the first two albums. So with that criteria, I came up with the following:
ReplyDelete01 Don't Ya Tell Henry
02 Orange Juice Blues
03 Bessie Smith
04 Baby Lou
05 Get Up Jake
06 Ain't No More Cane
07 Key To The Highway
08 Yazoo Street Scandal
09 Ruben Remus
10 Ferdinand The Imposter
11 Long Distance Operator
12 Katie's Been Gone
I'm not trying to steal any thunder away from your wonderful comps, I just wanted to share my ideas with you as a thank you. Please keep up the great work!
Did you see this very similar album I made already?:
Deletehttps://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-band-basement-tapes-1969.html
And see what I wrote above about "Bessie Smith." It's probably not from that era at all, even though it sounds like it should be.
Hah! Wow, we had essentially the same idea! I hadn't seen yours... when did you post that? They're so similar. It looks like you went for a chronological approach whereas I tried to make it flow like an album with two distinct sides. Awesome, man!
DeleteIf Bessie Smith was written in 1975, then Artie Traum was a time traveler. His first released version is from 1970. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlYXB49iQ9I
ReplyDeleteA bit more info here... https://theband.hiof.no/albums/happy_and_artie_traum.html
DeleteThanks for the info. Here's my theory, based on that. Bessie Smith was written in 1970, as part of working on that album. But the Band never did a version themselves. This is common when an artist does a song for someone else, to not do a version of their own. Look at the Beatles not doing versions of "World without Love" and many other songs they gave away. Anyway, then in 1975, Robertson wanted to beef up the Band involvement in the Basement Tapes, and remembered that song from the Traum album that had a Basement Tapes vibe to it, and cut a version with the Band. What do you think?
DeleteThe history of both the song and its recording are really murky with conflicting recollections, but one can definitively date the writing as no later than winter 1969, and likely even earlier. The most direct evidence come from Happy Traum writing in the liner notes to Endless Highway, the Band tribute album: "One bitterly cold Winter evening in 1969 I bumped into Robbie Robertson and Rick Danko in the cookie aisle of the Grand Union in Woodstock, a sleepy hamlet in upstate New York. I had just come from a long rehearsal with my band Happy and Artie Traum. We were one song shy of finishing our debut album for Capitol Records. Rick, Robbie and I chatted for a while in the harsh flourescent light somewhere between the Fig Newtons and Mallomars. After a while, Robbie said, "Hey, we have a song that's perfect for you guys." Rick sang a verse of Going Down The Road to See Bessie on the spot."
ReplyDeleteSo that dates the song to late 1969 but can we we go further back in time? In his book, This Wheel's on Fire, Levon Helm mentions Bessie Smith as a song he was immediately shown upon his return to the Band after his two year hiatus, which, if correct, would place the song in the fall of 1967. Later in the book, he states that "Little Bessie (in Up On Cripple Creek) is an echo of Rick's song Bessie Smith from the basement tapes." "Echo" would strange choice of words if Bessie Smith hadn't come first. So from all of the above the song probably does date from somewhere around the basement tapes/Music from Big Pink era.
The date of songwriting does not tell us when it was recorded however, and here the story gets even murkier. Engineer Rob Fraboni places the recording in 1975 but he said the same thing about Ain't No More Cane, which is definitively a Big Pink outtake. Producer John Simon couldn't place the date; calling it an "unimportant recording". The biggest source of confusion about the recording, however, has been Robbie himself. Rob Bowman's sleeve notes to boxset " A Musical History" state: "Bessie Smith may have been recorded for 'Music From Big Pink', although Robbie is fairly certain that it was cut in sessions between the first two albums, and considered for inclusion on 'The Band'." Elsewhere, however, Robbie included the song as a bonus track for Cahoots, the Band's 1971 album but that could have been because the bonus track cupboard was otherwise bare. Finally, one anomaly of Bessie Smith is that Levon Helm is not heard in the vocal mix, which suggests that the song could truly have been demoed by the Band before his fall 1967 return to the group. Among all of these possibilities, what seems most likely to me is Robbie's assertion of a 1968/69 Band recording, or perhaps a Rick and Robbie demo, with that demo undergoing possible mixing or overdubs in 1975, which would explain Rob Fraboni's recollection. In the end, however, your guess is a good as mine!