My review of Bob Dylan in Brighton: dylanrevisited.com/2025/11/09/b...

Bob Dylan at the Brighton Centre was truly lovely. It’s hard to create at atmosphere in a crappy aircraft hanger venue, but the lack of anything to see meant I found myself listening with my eyes shut for most of the set - accompanied by the most divine onstage chemistry.

Blowin' In The Wind has been and always will be an anthem for one thing: enjoying an ice cold can of bud.

That perfect melodic introduction to a perfect pop single, and so indelibly of that year. It was completely part of everything in the charts then. (Says one who was there.)

Fuelled by spite and filled with quotable insults, Bob Dylan's 1965 single Positively 4th Street is a pugnacious and very hummable lyrical assault. Check out my short revisit to that knockout one-off: dylanrevisited.com/2025/11/05/p....

If you're enjoying Through the Open Window, you might like my revisit to the 1962 show at Gerde's Folk City where Bob Dylan played Blowin' in the Wind for the first time. The full set is on Disc 3 of Bootleg Vol. 18.

From Samatha Harvey's excellent Orbital...if cosmic time was a calendar year, all this happened in the last second before midnight on Dec 31st. Nice to see Bob in there. And Johnny Cash.

🙂Wot I really want!

Nice way to start the week

What Ray has done here is magnificent - a brilliant read-along as you listen to the new Bootleg Series release. I'm currently halfway through Disc 1 and thoroughly enjoying it - the Madison tapes are great. Sound quality of the 1961 Gaslight Tape is great - would have loved more than two songs.

On April 16th 1962, Bob Dylan played a short set at Gerde's Folk City in New York, where he debuted three new songs that he would soon record for his second album, The Freewheelin’. One of them would become perhaps the most significant he ever wrote. 🧵

Inbox buzzing with Bob today. Received my mobile ticket for Brighton and notification that my Bootleg vol 18 vinyl is on the way. The times they are exciting.

Happy #NewMusicFriday Bob Dylan, Through the Open Window, the Bootleg Series Volume 18. Out Oct. 31. Honored to write this essay about it for @hotpress.com Thanks to Sean Wilentz for the conversation. www.hotpress.com/opinion/bob-... Portrait of Bob Dylan and Suze Rotolo © Don Hunstein / Sony.

In the latest episode of the Dylan Revisited podcast, I explore the extraordinary number of songs that Bob Dylan wrote over a three-year period from 1961-63 but never officially released until The Bootleg Series Vol. 1. #bobdylan #bootlegseries Links to follow 👇

In his Bob Dylan Day-By-Day book, Clinton Heylin calls this “one of his most legendary performances.” But the legend, such as it is, comes solely from reports from those who were there. No tape has ever been heard…until now. The first of four never-heard Dylan tapes I listened to at the Archives:

With vol. 18 of The Bootleg Series coming at the end of October, the new episode of the Dylan Revisited podcast goes back to the beginning. Download my revisit to The Bootleg Series Vol. 1 to explore outtakes and live recordings from three remarkable years of Bob Dylan's early career. LINKS 👇

New Dylan Bootleg Series 18 Promo Video youtu.be/XO4KHrdGBnk?...

The annual @docnrollfilms.bsky.social celebration of the latest and great music documentaries kicks off this week. Screenings of some superb films will be happening in London, Dublin and Brighton. Check out the website for full line-up and schedule: www.docnrollfestival.com/films/

Beautiful show in Stockholm. Two guitar intros with extended play on River Flow. Highlights for me Made Up My Mind and outstanding Desolation Row with some melody play. Strong strong vocals after a song or two. Musicians killed as always. Audience A+++

I revisited Bob Dylan's short but significant set at The Riverside Church in July 1961 and explored his relationships with Suze Rotolo and Danny Kalb. My two-part revisit starts here: bsky.app/profile/dyla...

I saw Bob Dylan play tonight in Helsinki. My dad's been a fan since his teens and would play Dylan songs on his guitar and sing them for me and my sister as lullabies. As I grew up I had the choice of becoming a fan or a hater, and chose the former. I worried that seeing him in concert now would 1/2

Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour resumes in Helsinki in a few hours! On his LAST fall European tour, Bob tried four different arrangements of "My Own Version of You" in four different genres. Reupping a medley I made for the newsletter last year - the first verse from each to compare

Wild story. I grew up around the corner from Riverside Church, went to Sunday school, was confirmed there. wasn't until college that I learned of the deep Dylan connection. I do remember the radio station area in the basement w a light up sign that said "on air". But by the 80s it was shut down.

Danny Kalb and Bob Dylan first met in Madison, Wisconsin, where the latter had stopped on his journey from Minnesota to New York in early 1961. Kalb was a student at the city’s university but that didn’t last long after hanging out with Bob. 🧵

They were once connected, before the Atlantic started forming …

Tremendous take on the old spiritual Gospel Plough by @robertplant.com that finds landfall somewhere between the Atlas and Appalachians. www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeMQ...

Fascinating thread😎

“She was the most erotic thing I’d ever seen…fair skinned and golden haired…The air was suddenly filled with banana leaves.” That’s how Bob Dylan described meeting Suze Rotolo at the Riverside Church in 1961. Her version of events was…well, it was less Dylan-esque. 🧵

Birdland was amazing. Jackson’s TV guitar on Break It Up also terrific

Patti Smith at the London Palladium was phenomenal. So many highlights but witnessing the poetic torrent of Birdland will stay with me. She was tender, ferocious, charismatic and adorably dorky. A true rock star.

Well la-di-da. RIP Diane Keaton.

Diane Keaton. London, 2016

Take heed, take heed of the Western winds…a song that makes me instantly sad every time I hear it no matter what. But there is beauty in its sadness.

Clearly a tad less marvellous than the originally released version, except for a beautiful, distinctively light-hearted (perhaps, in context, philosophically light-hearted) harp solo in the middle:

New track from the upcoming Bootleg v. 18 - posted recently by Bob Dylan's official YT channel. Outtake of Boots of Spanish Leathers from the Times album sessions. Guitar sounds brighter and higher in the mix. Song is still glorious. www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wep...

“I learned this from Woody. He said I sung it better than anybody.” In May 1961, Bob Dylan returned to his home state and basically showed off about his relationship with Woody Guthrie. Check out my revisit to the Minnesota Party Tape: dylanrevisited.com/2025/10/04/t...

On the latest episode of the Dylan Revisited podcast, hear me talk about how the hope in the title track of The Times They Are a-Changin' is not matched by the rest of the record’s darker narratives of injustice and heartbreak. Links to follow...

The Bootleg Series Vol. 18 is coming on October 31st with home tapes, live recordings and outtakes from Bob Dylan's early career. To get in the mood, I'm revisiting unofficial bootlegs from this period, starting with May 1961's Minnesota Party Tape. dylanrevisited.com/2025/10/04/t...

RSD

These are the songs originally slated for inclusion in the first Bootleg Series but didn't make the final cut

I revisited The Bootleg Series Vol. 2 and enjoyed its selection of outtakes and alternate versions from Bob Dylan's mid-60s-70s Even if much of the material has since appeared in subsequent Bootleg collections. My three-thread revisit starts here: bsky.app/profile/dyla...

The latest episode of the Dylan Revisited podcast is out now. Listen now to revisit the peak and completion of Bob Dylan’s protest phase on The Times They Are a-Changin'. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/d...

One of those I revisit from time to time & always find myself thinking ‘I’d forgotten how good this is’ it was a revelation hearing the BOTT tracks for the first time , esp Idiot Wind, the tonal shift from the ‘official’ version was remarkable & I couldn’t wait to hear the rest of the songs.

I think the album TUIB has a unique sound to it, whereas the New York version sounds like … the New York versions of all the songs. So if we could only keep one in a time capsule, I go with the album take.

This was the first version of Tangled Up In Blue I ever heard, and I still feel it's far superior to the final album recording.

Still essential

While Bootleg Vol. 2’s alternate takes of songs from Bob Dylan’s mid-60s electric era were interesting, they lacked the mystique of the outtakes from Blood on the Tracks. The collection’s unreleased New York versions from that album were a glimpse into a parallel universe. 🧵

Bob Dylan video message to Martin Carthy at a tribute this evening (Sep 27) 🎥 with many many thanks to plansfail for recording

Another great thread, well worth a few minutes of your time.😎🎶👍