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Bob Dylan
The Bootleg Series, Volume 7
No Direction Home: The Soundtrack
(Columbia/Legacy)
The Music Box's #3 specialty package for 2005
First Appeared in The Music Box, September 2005, Volume 12, #9
Written by John Metzger
Bob Dylan’s The Bootleg Series began its life as a
three-disc box set that compiled an enlightening array of previously unreleased
leftovers, alternate versions, live cuts, and demos that spanned the fabled folk
singer’s illustrious career. Although its fourth, fifth, and sixth installments
diverged from such a wide-sweeping purpose in order to emphasize several
landmark concert performances, its latest chapter returns the collection to its
conceptual roots. Gleaning inspiration from the focused storyline of Martin
Scorsese’s forthcoming documentary No Direction Home, the 28-track set
employs a retrospective-style format that successfully paints an elaborate
portrait of Dylan’s formative years. In the process, its producers amazingly
found a whole new treasure trove of worthwhile moments — amounting to 26 of the
28 selections — to unveil.
No Direction Home: The Soundtrack opens with When I Got Troubles,
a rather raw home recording made in 1959 by a high school friend. Nevertheless,
it quickly moves forward and establishes Dylan’s well-known connections to Woody
Guthrie, the early blues, and the Greenwich Village folk scene via a pensive
cover version of This Land Is Your Land, the poignant Song to Woody,
the whirling instrumental Sally Girl, and the forlorn I Was Young When
I Left Home. Its heart, however, traces the astounding 39-month period of
personal and artistic growth that began in March 1963, just prior to the release
of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, and concluded with the discord that
surrounded his tour of the U.K. in May 1966.
Accentuated primarily by an assortment of concert performances, the latter
portion of No Direction Home: The Soundtrack’s first disc sets the stage for this magnificent transformation, while the second half of
the collection utilizes the variegated shades of his studio work in New York
City and Nashville to follow Dylan as he brings his vision to fruition.
Repeatedly striking archival gold, the compilation finds eloquence within
everything from a profoundly delivered demo of Don’t Think Twice, It’s
Alright to the shimmering luminescence of She Belongs to Me and from
an hypnotically chilling rendition of Masters of War to a revelatory
reading of Desolation Row. Standing in sharp contrast to the less-assured
singer who tackled Rambler, Gambler before a crowd of students less than
four years earlier is the authoritative Chimes of Freedom, which was
culled from Dylan’s appearance at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival. Further
highlighting his evolution is the fully electrified romp through Maggie’s
Farm that he unleashed upon an unsuspecting crowd a mere 12 months later as
well as the snarling fury of Like a Rolling Stone, which irascibly
slammed the door shut in the face of a fan who dared to call him "Judas."
Indeed, although the two discs that compose No Direction Home: The Soundtrack
take wildly different approaches, together they achieve the common goal of
effectively chronicling with pinprick accuracy the making of a legend. 
No Direction Home: The Soundtrack is available
from Amazon.com. To order, Click Here!
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Martin Scorsese's No Direction Home is available
on DVD from Amazon.com. To order, Click Here!
For Canadian orders, please
Click Here!
For UK orders, please Click Here!
Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2005
The Music Box
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