Customer Reviews
worth the money - By: R. Bokhamada, 02 Dec 2008 
whatever he made & still makes is worth every cent...what's good about dylan is that he never cheats his fan...
Keep those bootlegs coming, Columbia - By: Mr. A. D. Procter, 22 Nov 2008 I'll start off with a brief point. A lot of people have marked this item a poor buy because of a very different & overpriced 3cd version of it. But this is the rather cheap 2cd version, the one which is advertised here & the one which I plan to review. By the way, for the completist, there are people selling a copy of the third disc on ebay, so fret ye not!
As far as Bob Dylan is concerned, no two performances of a song should ever be the same. On this release, he proves his point & yet he also proves like Neil Young that he doesn't always release his best songs or the best versions of them. The first track kicks off with such a gorgeous version of Mississippi! I loved the released version, but the way Bob sings it is so tender here, the backing an almost a lilting & sympathetic response. Its not that its necessarily a 'better' version than the more strident one on Love & Theft. Its just completely different!! The same with Most of The Time, which sees Bob here sing it like the folk days of old instead of the swampy one on Oh Mercy. The real jewelin the crown on the first discin terms of alternative versions must go to Born In Time. This isin every way a far superior version, making the one on Under The Red Sky sound frumpy & slapdash & devoid of purpose. By far the greatest unreleased song on disc one, & maybe the best of all on the set is Red River Shore. How Time Out Of Mind would have benefitted with a song like that. I'd swap it for Make You Feel My Lovein an instant! Marching To The City, an unreleased song from the same sessions, & Dreaming Of You are also quite mindblowing. The live version of High Water is a revelation for all of those who have not seen himin person of late. Electrifying!
The second disc isn't quite as stupefying, if only because the alternative versions are not so different, although if this version of Ain't Talking had ended Modern Times, it would have made this Bobcat very happy indeed. The song 'God Knows' is also far superior to the released version. There are a few more live versions of his songs, the best being Ring Them Bells.... As far as unreleased songs go Can't Escape From You is an absolute gem, a real lost child & one I'm so glad I've heard. Its the one song that truly stayedin my head when I was working, just winding its way through my mind until I couldn't wait to get home & listen to the whole lot again. And to finish off, 'Cross The Green Mountain', previously released on a soundtrack which I hadn't heard is beautifulin the same way Workingman's Blues#2 was; an almost elegaic, frontier song that sounds so familiar yet original.
Oh, & how could he have left 32/20, the Robert Johnson song off World Gone Wrong???
Like the rest of the Bootleg series, this is just stirring, powerful stuff, & far more emotion is being relayed here thanin many of the songs he releasedin the period. Maybe he didn't want to let too much of himself go at the time. But they're here now, & I'm thankful
Clearly a five star album - By: P. KINCAID, 19 Nov 2008 How this is averaging so low is beyond me - it's the best album I've heard all year by a country mile. The alternative take of Can't Wait - magestic, unsettling, & superior to the original releasein every way - would alone make this unmissable. Add to that the alternative takes of Mississippi - his greatest song of the last decade - & the wonderful unheard track, Girl from the Red River Shore, & this is absolutely essantial. Don't listen to the naysayers - this is a great record.
"You can always come back, but you can't come back all the way" - By: Clem Feeney, 16 Nov 2008 
This is effectively a follow up to Bootleg series vol 1 - 3 (1961 - 91)
How anyone thought they could find 2 let alone 3 discs worth of recent material to compare with those glory years is beyond me. Dylan has had several peaks over the decades, but each has hit a lesser height.
Dylan's released work of the last ten years, while good, does not match the mid seventies era (Planet Waves / Blood on the Tracks / Desire), let alone the mid sixties classics. These outtakes reflect that dropin quality. There is nothing here to match "Blind Willie McTell" or "Last thoughts on Woody Guthrie" that appeared on the vol 1-3 set.
Anyway, the bad stuff first:
There is far too much filler here. The two (two!) versions of "Mississippi" are mediocre demos add nothing to my appreciation of the released version. "Series of Dreams" apppeared as a finished outtake on vol 1-3, why do we need an inferior demo on this editon? Some of the live tracks reflect Bob's inconsistency as a performer. "High Water" may have a sentimental resonance for the people of New Orleans, but it is a rotten performance.
Good stuff:
Two versions of Dignity -in two different arrangements with different lyrics (but one would have been enough!).
"Red River Shore" / "Greenbriar Shore" a Dylan original & the folk song it is based on.
"Ring Them Bells" live - a superb live performance - but why is it the only track from the four nights he recorded at the Supper Club?
The remaining tracks vary from ok to good. The finished movie songs being the better ones.
The best yet - By: Music Maven, 04 Nov 2008 The standard of the bootleg series has been consistently high - this collection demonstrates that Bob's output since Oh Mercy is as strong as anything he's donein his career.
Some suprise acoustic versions of songs (Most of the Time, originally off Oh Mercy & Mississipi from Time out of Mind), the opportunity to get Tell Old Bill & Cross the Green Mountainin a Dylan rather than a movie soundtrack collection & excellent live tracks plus Red River Shore as a completeley unrealeased song, make this a great collection.
I know people moan about the rip off 3 disk version, get the third disc elswhere & enjoy this two disc collection!
Brilliant stuff.
