The Beatles were the greatest pop-rock band of all time, and The Beach Boys ran them a close second. The Rolling Stones, when the stars were aligned correctly, could lay down sublime and awesome rock and roll. I would respectfully suggest that The Texas Tornados were the greatest beer-joint sawdust-on-the-floor rock and roll dance band of all time. But the most consistently great all-around rock and roll band of all time was The Band.

If you want incontrovertible evidence of this, check out the new box set Live At the Academy Of Music 1971, which collects performances from a legendary four-concert gig The Band played in New York City as the 70s got under way.

The Band represented a stunning collection of musical talent. Robbie Robertson, one of the greatest of all rock guitarists, was also a fine songwriter. Richard Manuel, Levon Helm and Rick Danko were all brilliant vocalists who played multiple instruments. Helm was one of the greatest rock drummers of all time, and Danko one of the greatest rock bass players of all time. Garth Hudson was a supernaturally gifted keyboard player who could also double on various horn instruments.

Their musical virtuosity and taste resulted in studio albums that can be appreciated as art-rock, but they were at heart a touring band — with years on the road backing up rock legends like Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan.  (Dylan joined them for four numbers at the last of the Academy Of Music concerts.) They knew how to tear down a house, how to get people to drink alcohol and dance.

Their live recordings demonstrate this conclusively. They had so much mileage on the road as an ensemble that they could play on the edge of control, knowing that they’d never lose it — that the collective genius of the group would always find a groove. For the Academy Of Music gig they hired Allan Toussaint, the legendary New Orleans songwriter and arranger, to write horn charts for about half of the numbers, and hired the best New York session horn players to execute them. Toussaint’s genius, and the superlative craft of the horn players, and the musical confidence of The Band allowed these horn parts to blend perfectly with the hurtling in-the-moment electricity of the concerts.

It’s thrilling to experience this dynamic mix of mastery and improvisation at work. So listen to Live At the Academy Of Music 1971 and spend a little time in rock and roll heaven.

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“You are infinitely precious to me. You can’t do anything wrong. There is nothing to fear”

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Click on the image to enlarge.

In going through the tracks on the new Dylan set Another Self Portrait, I divided them into 19 treasures and 16 curiosities.  I made a playlist of the treasures, which will fit on a single CD — and a fine one, too.

Here’s the tracklist:

1 Pretty Saro
2 Annie’s Going To Sing Her Song
3 Only A Hobo
4 Minstrel Boy
5 Railroad Bill
6 Thirsty Boots
7 This Evening So Soon
8 These Hands
9 House Carpenter
10 If Not For You [Alternate Version]
11 Wallflower [Alternate Version]
12 Days Of ’49 [Without Overdubs]
13 I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight [Live]
14 Highway 61 Revisited [Live]
15 Copper Kettle [Without Overdubs]
16 Bring Me A Little Water
17 Tattle O’Day
18 Went To See The Gypsy [Alternat…
19 When I Paint My Masterpiece [D…

“Bring Me A Little Water”, a traditional song, is identified as an outtake from the New Morning sessions though it’s hard to imagine how it could ever have fit onto that album.  Dylan’s lusty rendition here suggests that he might have just wanted to sing it with a good back-up ensemble.  A treasure, happily included here.

From the evidence of the alternate versions included in this collection, Dylan seems to have been perplexed about how to present the original material on New Morning.  They are for the most part simple, lyrical, heartfelt songs, but he tried in a number of instances to tart them up with overblown orchestral accompaniments.  This version of “Sign On the Window” is case in point — the sobbing strings all but drown the beautiful, emotional vocal, which is the same track used on the album but in a simpler arrangement.  Fortunately, he made the right choices in the end.  This misstep is a curiosity, at best.

“Tattle O’Day” is a nonsense song from the folk repertoire — Dylan sings it deadpan, as he sings his own nonsense songs.  A modest treasure.

“If Dogs Run Free” is an alternate version of the song on New Morning.  Dylan sings a melodic chorus here, whereas in the album version he half speaks it, as he does the rest of the lyrics.  A curiosity.

The version of “New Morning” here has been gussied up with a wildly miscalculated horn accompaniment.  Why did Dylan go for effects like this on the early versions of his New Morning songs?  Did he not trust their simplicity, his ability to infuse them with presence by means of his vocals alone?  It’s a mystery.  A curiosity.

On this version of “Went To See the Gypsy”, Dylan has progressed a ways from the demo version also included in this collection.  The lyrics have been significantly refined.  This is a slower, graver rendition than what made it onto New Morning, trying harder for an air of mystery and portentousness.  Dylan struck a better balance on the album version, letting the images in the lyrics speak for themselves, but this version is instructive as an insight into the deep meaning the song seems to have had for Dylan — whatever it was.  A treasure.

“Belle Isle”, a folk standard, was one of the more enjoyable tracks on Self Portrait — a simple song that Dylan seemed to take simple pleasure in.  It’s presented here without the album overdubs and is neither more nor less enjoyable than the album version — a curiosity.

“Time Passes Slowly #2” is a second alternate version of the song, from New Morning, on this collection.  In this arrangement Dylan tries to rock the sweet little song.  What was he thinking?  A curiosity.

“When I Paint My Masterpiece” is a demo of the song The Band covered on their album Cahoots.  It’s wonderful, with a few amusing lyrical variants from The Band’s version.  A treasure.

So . . . of the 35 tracks on Another Self Portrait, I nominate 19 as treasures and 16 as curiosities.  All of the curiosities are fascinating, but probably of more interest to hardcore Dylan fans than to casual admirers.

“If Not For You” is an alternate take of the song which appears on New Morning.  It’s softer and more emotional than the album version, and features Dylan on piano with a somewhat perfunctory but pleasant violin accompaniment.  I have to rank it as a minor treasure, just because it shows how emotionally committed to the song Dylan was.

“Wallflower” is a terrific country ballad by Dylan, and seems infused with stronger feeling, a more authentic tenderness, than he brought to the country ballads on Nashville Skyline.  Dylan did a great version of it on the album Doug Sahm and Band, but this version is almost as good.  A treasure.

“Wigwam” is a lovely Dylan melody that he didn’t put words to — he just supplies “la de da dum”s for the vocal.  An odd number, it appeared on Self Portrait with orchestral overdubs and is featured here with just guitar and piano accompaniment.  Not much is revealed in the leaner version — it’s a pleasant curiosity.

“Days Of ’49” was one of the high points of Self Portrait — a vintage song about the Gold Rush that Dylan performed with obvious gusto.  It was released on the album with overdubs, which were perfectly fine, but it’s good to engage the vocal more intimately here.  A treasure.

“Working On A Guru” is a song Dylan recorded with George Harrison, a bluesy number with an improbable chorus about a guru.  I guess it’s some sort of satire on the blues getting mixed up with psychedelia, and the lyrics are pretty funny.  George seemed to find the whole thing amusing at any rate, in addition to laying down some spirited guitar licks.  An enjoyable curiosity.

“Country Pie” is an unfinished alternate take of a song from Nashville Skyline.  It’s a throwaway number, not all that impressive on the album and no more impressive here.  A curiosity.

“I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” was one of the two straight-ahead country songs that ended the album John Wesley Harding and pointed the way to Nashville Skyline.  The version here is the live performance with The Band at the Isle Of Wight, also appearing on the CD with the whole concert included in the deluxe edition of Another Self Portrait, which I’ve already written about here.  It’s delightful, a treasure, like all the songs from that concert.

“Highway 61”, from the same concert, is a killer.  The Band helps Dylan get back closer to the song’s musical roots in Chicago blues, lending some genuine funk to Dylan’s satirical lyrics.  A true treasure.

Like “Days Of ’49”, “Copper Kettle” was one of the gems on Self Portrait. It sounds like a venerable old folk song, and may have had older precedents, but its credited author, A. F. Beddoe, said he wrote it in 1953.  It’s a paean to making bootleg whiskey, outside the reach of the law, and Dylan sings it with a mixture of enthusiasm for the enterprise and longing for a simpler life.  This is one instance when the overdubs on the released album weakened the track — it’s much more powerful with just the superb vocal backed by guitars and piano and some organ fills.  A treasure.

As I’ve written, this new box set of songs from Dylan’s vaults is a grab-bag of curiosities interspersed with some genuine treasures.

“Went To See the Gypsy” is a curiosity — a demo of a song that appeared eventually on New Morning with sharpened lyrics and a more committed vocal. It’s interesting to hear Dylan working his way into the song here but the demo offers no revelations.

“Little Sadie” is another curiosity — the basic track of a song that appeared on Self Portrait with overdubs. Again, interesting but not revelatory.

“Pretty Saro”, a track that didn’t make it onto Self Portrait, is a treasure — an old folk ballad sweetly sung in Dylan’s Nashville Skyline croon but with deeper emotion than he mustered for anything on that earlier album. Dylan’s melodic embellishments here seem motivated by genuine feeling. It’s a lovely performance of a very sad song.

“Alberta #3” is an alternate take of a song on Self Portrait, not noticeably better but solid and enjoyable. A curiosity.

“Spanish Is The Loving Tongue”, with Dylan accompanying himself on piano, is a lesser version of the track he released as the B-side of “Watching the River Flow”, which is one of my all-time favorite Dylan performances. Hearing him work his way towards that later, definitive version ranks as another curiosity.

“Annie’s Going To Sing Her Song’ is a treasure — a strong and respectful cover of a wonderful, wry Tom Paxton song.

“Time Passes Slowly #1” is a startlingly ill-considered arrangement of one of the finest, simplest, most touching songs on New Morning. For some reason Dylan punches it out here as though he’s trying to hide its delicate lyricism. A curiosity.

“Only A Hobo” is a treasure — an impassioned 1971 performance of an impassioned song written by Dylan at the beginning of his career in his purest “homage to Woody Guthrie” mode.

“Minstral Boy” is another treasure, from an earlier period than most of the songs on this collection, relevant because it represents a crude version in progress of a song that was played at the Isle Of Wight concert with The Band, issued as part of the deluxe edition of Another Self Portrait.  Dylan is singing temp or dummy lyrics in this recording, made as part of The Basement Tapes in 1967 or thereabouts.  We know from other songs laid down in the basement of Big Pink that Dylan often worked up songs this way, going for the sound of the overall song, the sound of the lyrics before wrestling them into a semblance of coherence (a process he hadn’t quite completed when he sang the song at the Isle Of Wight.)  This violates the image many have of Dylan as a poet who sets texts to music.  He is, rather, first and foremost, a songwriter — his lyrics follow his music as often as his music follows his words.

For a long time I would pull out Dylan’s album Self Portrait every few years and give it another listen, thinking, “I bet this is better than I remember it — I bet it’s a masterpiece waiting to be rediscovered.” It never was — it was just a quirky, interesting album from a quirky, interesting artist, with a lot of fine tracks and lot of less than fine tracks that didn’t quite add up to a coherent work.

I’ve just listened to it again, in the remastered version included in the deluxe edition of the new Dylan box set Another Self Portrait, which collects a bunch of songs from the Self Portrait sessions, outtakes and stripped-down versions of songs on the album, before the overdubs that were added for the commercial release.

After hearing Another Self Portrait, Self Portrait feels different to me now, because I can see where it came from — an experiment in reinvention by an artist who had reached several dead ends in his short career.  Some of the dead ends were masterpieces, like Blonde On Blonde, which couldn’t be repeated, some were experiments, like John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline, which didn’t get Dylan quite where he wanted to go.

Once you stop expecting coherence from Self Portrait, the album takes flight, in its very incoherence, in the earnestness of the restless search it represents.  The vocal performances are consistently riveting, even when they fall short of what they’re aiming for.  The song selection is fascinating, even if it doesn’t amount to a vision, much less a musical self portrait of Dylan.

It remains quirky and interesting, but is also brilliant in its way, and utterly delightful.  It dismayed those who thought it might represent where Dylan had arrived, and might remain, in 1970, but Dylan never really arrives anywhere.  He might stop in Carbondale, just to fuck with your mind — Carbondale! — but he keeps on going.  His work is always about the next stop on the line.

Every time he reaches what just has to be the end of the tracks, he consults his ghostly railroad timetable and finds a forgotten spur line that leads him somewhere else.  We couldn’t have been expected to trust in this in 1970, but now we know better — we know we can hop the Dylan freight anywhere and end up where we wanted to go all along, if we’d only known the way.

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Whenever Dylan played with The Band, magic happened. Sometimes it was rough and ragged magic — Robbie Robertson one famously said, “Dylan wanted us to play the songs, he didn’t want us to learn them” — but the roughness and raggedness, the energy exploding on the extreme edges of control, were essential parts of the magic.

Dylan played with The Band at the Isle Of Wight concert in 1969 and a remixed and remastered recording of the concert has just been released as part of the deluxe edition of the new Dylan box set Another Self Portrait.  It’s absolutely astonishing.

It’s new evidence that The Band was the greatest back-up group of all time.  When Dylan wants to rock out, as on “Highway 61”, The Band rocks him into the stratosphere.  When he wants to be tender, as on “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight”, The Band cradles him in sweet but never saccharine lyricism.

Dylan’s intellectualism could get a bit precious at times, but The Band always took him back to the roadhouses where the music he really loved was born.  When Levon Helm adds his Arkansas howl to “Highway 61”, Dylan isn’t just referencing the legendary road anymore, he’s singing a song in a joint by the side of it.  “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” is transformed from something dangerously close to a country ballad pastiche into a late-night bandstand salute to fucking.

But there is something deeper going on here.  Dylan’s acoustic set shows us an artist striving for something new in his art — for a naked emotional commitment to his material which would transcend the hipster cool of Blonde On Blonde, the intellectual sang-froid of John Wesley Harding.

When he embraced a country idiom at the end of the latter album, and then made Nashville Skyline, he was moving in that direction, but he wore the country idiom like a mask.  It wasn’t what he was really after.  He got what he was after in his vocal for Lay, Lady, Lay in this concert — something beyond the crooner’s mellifluous tone and a country-music languor, something closer to what Sinatra had mastered, the ability to sing without a mask, as Dylan once described Sinatra’s gift.

This concert is the key to Self Portrait and its expanded version Another Self Portrait.  It shows us what Dylan was searching for in the grab-bag of songs he recorded not long after the Isle Of Wight concert.  Shedding one more layer of skin, he was looking for what lay behind the “protest” songs, the hipster songs, the pastiche songs.  He wanted to perform music that smelled of beer joints, vibrated with genuine heartache, conversed on equal and intimate terms with the ghosts of the American past.

He found a bit of all that with The Band in this concert, every song of which is amazing on one level or another.  It is simply, for all its raggedness, one of the greatest live rock recordings of all time.