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The recordings that took place during 1967 in the quiet backwaters of upstate New York, near the town of Woodstock, probably represent Bob Dylan's most productive song writing period to date. In March of 1967, almost nine months after falling from his motorcycle, Dylan recommenced music-making and in May/June he began recording informal sessions with the Hawks - soon to become The Band - in the "Red Room" at his Byrdcliffe home. The distractions of family life soon became too much however and the musicians relocated to the unremarkable pink painted property that would come to be known as 'The Big Pink'. Dylan would later tell Rolling Stone, "That's really the way to do a recording, in a peaceful, relaxed setting in somebody's basement. With the windows open... and a dog lying on the floor." Working in their makeshift studio became a daily ritual and between June and late October '67, the musicians committed well over a 100 songs to tape. The sessions, which would become known as "The Basement Tapes", produced a kaleidoscope of American music and more. Alongside the tracks composed by Dylan, the musicians summoned up cowboy songs ('Cool Water'); sea shanties ('Bonnie Ship The Diamond'); blues (John Lee Hooker's 'I'm In The Mood'), country (Hank Williams and lots of Johnny Cash) and several traditional songs ('The Trees They Do Grow High', 'Hills Of Mexico'). Guitarist Robbie Robertson told Greil Marcus: "[Dylan] would pull these songs out of nowhere. We didn't know if he wrote them or if he remembered them. When he sang them you couldn't tell." This CD compilation collects together the originals - or the version that Dylan likely knew - of 26 of the tracks recorded during this sublime period of creativity, undertaken while the majority of American and British act were dabbling in acid fuelled psychedelia, the majority of which today sounds nothing but dated.

Track Listing