Music
Rare Bob Dylan concert album gets release date
by Ciaran Thompson
February 16, 2011
Two weeks before the release of his Freewheelin’ sophomore album, Bob Dylan performed at Brandeis University’s First Annual Folk Festival in Waltham, Massachusetts on May 10, 1963. A recording of the concert was recently discovered by Rolling Stone co-founder Ralph Gleason and now it will be released on CD, vinyl and digital download via Columbia/Legacy on April 12.
Described by Dylan scholar Michael Gray as “the last live performance we have of Bob Dylan before he becomes a star,” the album features the 21-year-old singer/songwriter performing tracks such as “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues,” “Ballad Of Hollis Brown,” “Masters of War,” “Talkin’ World War III Blues,” “Bob Dylan’s Dream,” and “Talkin’ Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues.”
The performance was originally released as a limited time offer, however it is now being reissued in response to popular demand. The physical release will contain liner notes by Gray.
“It’s a small miracle this recording exists,” Gray writes. “Clearly a professional recording … (t)he Bob Dylan performance it captured, from way back when Kennedy was President and the Beatles hadn’t yet reached America, wasn’t even on fans’ radar … It reveals him not at any Big Moment but giving a performance like his folk club sets of the period: repertoire from an ordinary working day… Dylan has leapt a creative canyon with this material.”
