Did you happen to order this year's most talked-about big box set? By that, I mean the complete 18-CD edition of Bob Dylan's The Cutting Edge 1965-1966: The Bootleg Series Volume 12? If you did, I'd advise you to sit down while reading this and start checking your email now!
The folks at Columbia Records have a very special Christmas present for those who purchased the big Bob box: a free digital download of an additional 208 tracks from the period chronicled in the box set. Yes, that's 208 tracks and more than 10 hours of previously unreleased Bob Dylan music from his storied 1965 tours including 14 complete concerts (both acoustic and electric) plus never-before-released recordings from Dylan's television performances, hotel rooms, and other far-flung venues! Yes, that's a whopping, entire digital box set coming your way...
The following performances are all included in this collection:
February 17, 1965 (Les Crane Show, WABC-TV Studios, New York City, New York)
March 27, 1965 (Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, Santa Monica, California)
April 30, 1965 (The Oval, City Hall, Sheffield, England)
May 1, 1965 (Odeon, Liverpool, England)
May 2, 1965 (De Montfort Hall, Leicester, England)
May 5, 1965 (Town Hall, Birmingham, England)
May 6, 1965 (City Hall, Newcastle, England)
May 7, 1965 (Free Trade Hall, Manchester, England)
May 8, 1965 (Savoy Hotel, London, England)
May 9, 1965 (Royal Albert Hall, London, England)
May 10, 1965 (Royal Albert Hall, London, England)
June 1, 1965 (BBC Studios, London, England)
July 24, 1965 (Contemporary Songs Workshop, Newport Folk Festival, Freebody Park, Newport, Rhode Island)
July 25, 1965 (Newport Folk Festival, Freebody Park, Newport, Rhode Island)
August 28, 1965 (Forest Hills Tennis Stadium, Queens, New York)
September 3, 1965 (Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles, California)
October 29 or 31, 1965 (Back Bay Theater, Boston, Massachusetts)
October 30, 1965 (Bushnell Memorial Hall, Hartford, CT)
December 4, 1965 (Berkeley Community Theatre, Berkeley, California)
The good people at the Dylan fan site Expecting Rain have a complete track listing for this set at this link! These live performances are exclusively downloadable in 320 Kbps MP3 format to purchasers of the 18-CD edition of The Cutting Edge by redeeming a special code that will be sent to you via email!
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Oh my God.....I'm in shock....What a fine gesture from Sony !!!! Now where's my e-mail....
Sony are sneaky bastards. Notice the live tracks are from 1965 and not 1966. By releasing them like this they keep the copywrite that would have expired at the end of the month - exactly 50 years - making all these live tracks available to everyone for free. Now this won't happen. Expect the same thing to happen next year for every live recording from 1966. Still this is a great bonus for those who got the 18 cd set. Can't wait for a proper release of all the 66 live recordings, esp the Aust shows.
Downloading 209 tracks right now. Thank you Bobby Dylan!
The downloads include 14 takes of Keith Butler yelling "Judas!"
I don't believe you. You're a liar! 🙂
A nice gesture from Sony, with the added benefit of extending copyrights.
nice gesture, but not everyone has 600 bucks to spend on the 18 disc set
I guess not that many people are buying this 18CD set. To me it shows the set is too expensive. Sony now offers this extra music to sweeten the pot. The problem for me is the bonus is only compressed mp3 files. Although there seems to be a lot of music, I question the quality of the recordings. Are they bootleg quality? Are they audience recordings? How much repetition is in the music? It's a bonus for those who bought the set before the offer however I don't want to spend $600.00 to find out the newly offered extras aren't up to my standards. It would be interesting to find out what the bonus tracks sound like. I like Bob Dylan but I have my limits on what to buy and for how much.
Not too many people are buying it. Only 5000. What a coincidence!!
I guess they'll start showing up on E-Bay for twice as much now that they've sold the 5,000. I like Bob Dylan but I have my limits on what to buy and for how much.
You probably know by now the answer to your question about quality of the bonus audio tracks that were emailed links. I would have bought the Collectors Edition if i had the money but i didn't and i was hoping to get the De Luxe edition as a christmas present, but that didn't happen. Finally, now (a month or so ago), i stumble on a recording of the Sept. 3 1965 Hollywood Bowl concert on You Tube. Of special importance to me because i was at that concert when i was 16, and it was super moving to listen to (and to download and possess) that concert. The audio quality of the recording is great. It's not studio production quality, it's got imperfections, but it also has the excitement and what it was like to be there, for the audience, and for Dylan, he talks some with the audience, with humor and warmth, and interacts and sounds like he's having a good time. to find it on you tube, it has the name Elston Gunn.
So, after i heard that and tripped out on it and mused about the widely reported booing at the Forest Hills concert on August 28, '65, i got a craving to hear a recording of that concert. On Expecting Rain, i learned that there are two and possibly three recordings of that concert and that the one that came in emailed bonus tracks with the Collectors Edition is marred by tape bleeding through so that the audio has interference from another recording, which is distracting when you're listening. While googling the concert to try to find something downloadable, i did find one and was able to listen to the whole concert, so happily, it was wonderful to hear that historic performance. It is not the same recording as the one with the tape bleed, it has a different audio problem which is that there is fairly prominent static noise that plays throughout the concert, obviously not doing the ability to hear any good, yet still i could enjoy listening to it, you can hear the audience, i hardly hear any booing, just a couple of isolated places but not interrupting the concert, i hear a lot of cheering, i hear a lot of audience silence as they were listening to the lyrics, the ones from Highway 61 Revisited had never been heard before, Ballad of a Thin Man, Desolation Row, omg, amazing, hearing those for the first time, it was the same thing at the Hollywood Bowl, the album was released in the 6 days between the two concerts, but i doubt many people had heard it yet.
This stuff is very historic. You can hear audience laughter at many lyrics. You can hear it at both concerts, people quietly listening, very attentive, and then hearing a lyric and cracking up, like "one hand is tied to the tightrope walker, the other is in his pants," audience cracks up, other lines too, can't remember now. At first i was wondering 'Why are they not applauding during the intro to Desolation Row???, the way you would expect when a great song is started (like they applauded at the beginning of It's Ain't Me Babe for example). Then, after that, i read on wikipedia that those songs hadn't been heard yet by the people in the audience, no wonder they didn't applaud in recognition. but they listened, real close. i think it was pretty much the same band at both concerts and the same track list, except that Gates of Eden and It's All Over Now Baby Blue might be switched. something was.
Bottom line, audio bad on both Forest Hills recordings (or maybe a third), Hollywood Bowl good, great, just not perfect to someone who might be looking for that. To me it's perfect. I haven't heard the Forest Hills recording that has the tape bleed. I would be annoyed and distracted by that i'm pretty sure, but i am told that it is remastered or something so that other than the bleed through of another recording, the sound is good, much better than the static one.
i ended up here because i was looking for information about what came with the bonus downloads and this discussion has exactly the info i was looking for. What inspired this is that a few days ago, i bought the Cutting Edge Collectors Edition in mp4 format on eBay for $50, all 18 CDs, all that music, but it's just digital files that come on a thumb drive, and i am ecstatic, i never heard all this stuff before and it's....beyond words. it came with the mp4s all in the sequence that they are in on the album CDs, and i went through and sorted them all into folders by CD, in sequence. They are all in my iTunes and at my fingertips, and i am in Dylan heaven. the place to be for a lifelong Dylan 'appreciator' to put it mildly because words can't adequately express that either.
So, what did not come with what i got for $50 is the emailed tracks and the 45rpm vinyl tracks, and the documentation (hard cover book, etc). I feel no regret, just joy. but i am on a mission to learn what tracks were on the downloads and to be on the look out for them for download. So far, all i have that i know of are those first two full electric set concerts, worth more to me than any money.
thanks for to this discussion for the link to the complete track list of the downloads.
Most of this material would never have been free to anyone, nor even available through any bootleg or public domain copy, because it was locked away in SONY vaults. Bootleggers have been trying to get this stuff (the soundboards from England) out for nearly 50 years but never could even hear them, let alone release them
Bob, your guess is wrong, it is nearly sold out, and will likely sell out this coming week.
Kevin, for Sony that's good news. Whether they sell 1 or 5000, it's too rich for me even with the bonus. At least people who bought it previously or buying now for the extra got more than they did in the original release.
Has anyone heard these tracks yet? The performances are terrific but the audio quality is variable, to put it mildly -- from nice clean soundboard recordings, to cheap-mic-held-aloft-from-the-back-row bootleg grade. Not to look Sony's gift horse in the mouth, but just figured it should be understood what they're "giving away", partly in the interest of copyright extension.
I bought the box from a company in United Kingdom because it wouldn't let me order it on the official site.now how do I get my download?
I got mine from a online shop in the uk who ordered it from bobdylan.com.how do I get my download code???
Pity the people who afforded to buy the 18CD set are not sharing the special code for the bonus with others who could not afford the high price but did go for the 6CD set which was not cheap either. Remember, to live outside the law you must be honest ...
I got mine from a online shop in the USA who ordered it from bobdylan.com.how do I get my download code???