The music of Bob Dylan is widely credited with introducing the concept of the box set to the CD era with the 1985 release Biograph (Columbia C3K 38830, reissued as C3K 86568). Further Dylan box sets have followed including 1991's The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare and Unreleased): 1961-1991 (Columbia C3K 47382, reissued as C3K 65302), 2003's limited edition catalog reissue box simply collecting 15 individually-available hybrid Super Audio CD editions of his catalog (Columbia 90615), and most recently, the career-spanning Dylan (Columbia 88697 11420 2-S1).
Well, in an interview on Wednesday with John Fleming, arts critic for Florida's St. Petersburg Times, Sony/Legacy reissue guru Didier C. Deutsch let slip a bit of Bob-related reissue goodness that The Second Disc couldn't allow to remain unnoticed. Deutsch was being interviewed about Sony's terrific new Masterworksbroadway.com website, dedicated to reissues of the Sony catalog of Broadway cast recordings (culled from the libraries of Columbia, RCA, Arista and other associated labels) and a well-designed site worth checking out for reissue enthusiasts. While Deutsch has his eye on developing new reissues from this rich library of cast albums, he told Fleming of his most recent project for Sony: a 40-CD Bob Dylan box set.
Nothing else about this project is known, although it's fair to guess that it may be a catalog collection a la controversial, recently-announced sets from Elvis Presley and Miles Davis, with a hefty pricetag to boot. But with Bob Dylan involved, there may be some twists in the offing, and this may finally mean remastering has been completed for the rest of the former Mr. Zimmerman's extensive catalog. The Second Disc promises to be among the first to report back as soon as new developments on this potentially-exciting project arrive.
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This could be awesome, and expensive!
Sounds like something I'll want, but not at the price they'll be asking... It would be nice to get some obscure material like "George Jackson" reissued, however, so I will hope for the best.
And I'll say it again... Sony/Legacy needs to start pumping out complete, historic live shows from their biggest artists: Dylan, Joel, Springsteen, and SRV chief amongst them.
Interesting...let's crunch the numbers. Dylan's entire official catalog encompasses roughly 800-850 individual tracks (including numerous one-off soundtrack/compliation contributions, guest duets, multiple live versions, etc--I say roughly because some would count--or not count--several dozen or so assorted promo/VHS/DVD/radio program/CD-ROM/streaming bobdylan.com/iTunes-exclusive tracks as well) which would be hard-pressed to appear on only 40 discs...still, setting aside the rarities, Dylan has released 33 studio albums (34 if one counts "The Basement Tapes") 7 live albums (8 if you count the 30th Anniversary set, 9 if you count the Japan only "Live 1961-2000" disc) and eight volumes of the Bootleg Series on 14 discs...on the other hand, 40 CD's can hold roughly 52 hours of music...hmm...the $200 Dylan iTunes catalog offering included (according to wikipedia) 763 songs totalling roughly 56 hours worth of music, but I believe it contained duplicates of tracks as they appeared on Dylan best-of's...Conceivably, then, this could be essentially Dylan's entire catalog--or, at least, the portion of Dylan's entire catalog that Columbia has officially released on CD so far.
Given enough time, I can try to come up with a more exact running time for Dylan's core career catalog, but 40 CD's sounds as though it's in the ballbark.
RE ". . . but I believe it contained duplicates of tracks as they appeared on Dylan best-of’s ....."
This is, indeed the case. Every 'Best Of. Greatest Hits' and 'Essential Dylan' was included as well as a special 'The Collection' which was, wait for it, a squeezed down compilation from 'The Collection' so the total correctly given by Wikipedia [763] is correct but was inflated with duplicates. As for the rare material it had already been available on soundtracks, Tribute Discs and the like - every track had, one way or another been available to the public and the astute Dylan collector.
I, personally would have to see more than fancy packaging and 'George Jackson' (Available on 'Biograph' and included in the iTunes collection]
or whatever to pay out what would be, in the UK, at any rate, a vastly overpriced collection.