Bob Dylan: The Bootleg Series

* 1st song on Vol 5/1975 should shut up forever anyone who still thinks "Dylan can't sing"

* "Wallflower" - one of his most underrated songs, David Bromberg's version is great

I adore that vol 5 version of 'Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You' - track one, even using the phrase 'Rolling Thunder'. Thrills!

If you want to hear great acoustic Bob, you can't beat the three songs on Before the Flood: Don't Think Twice, It's Alright Ma and Just Like A Woman. All three are the best versions of those songs, and beat the piss out of the Royal Albert Hall acoustic stuff.

i'm also happy for the recently uprooted love of "shes your lover now". i about break everytime it just quits like that. Vol. 7 proves that the blonde on blonde sessions, though interesting, don't quite pack the punch of the final versions. i can't imagine what would have become of syln. the vol. 2 version is rough, but warm. b o b has a late night frosty glow. it coulda been better or worse.

the vol. 2 version of santa fe is great, better than the genuine basement tape's version....it makes you need to belt along with it.

i've gone on week long binges with each of the live records. Rolling Thunder got me to like "The Hurricane". The "It's Alright Ma" from 1964 brought back the almost crushing power of that song for me. And I still get chills with the 66 version of "Like A Rolling Stone".

all said, i love this series. i think it provides a brilliant look into how grand the dylan universe is.

dunno about "FA" but "MYBOMM" was covered by a few people--as the Scorsese doc makes clear, his publisher made sure his songs got covered.

I've had the the first box for a few years and been meaning to pick up vols. 4-7. Some faves from it that haven't been mentioned much:

Seven Curses (I'm sucker for mystical revenge/stolen virginity/evil lawmen/wronged man folklore stuff)
Sitting On A Barbed Wire Fence ("She's turnin' me into an old man/and man, I ain't even 25!")
If Not For You (It's prettier than the official version)
Nobody 'Cept You (Good call kornrulez)
Seven Days (Since i dig this and the rolling thunder biograph tracks, how urgent is it for me to pick up Vol.5? And also is the 1st version w/the dvd worth tracking down?)
Foot of Pride (The homesick blues, nearly 20 years of schoolin' later, and still on the day shift)
Tell Me (Bob can do Pop)

Xpost
thanks for answering my question before I posted it. that sounds cool.

-- Matos-Webster Dictionary (michaelangelomato...), October 6th, 2005.

Most notably and beautifully by Rod Stewart.

1st Disc Standouts:
"Hard Times in New York Town"
"House Carpenter" (Is this a cover or an original? It's become one of my Dylan favorites)
"Talkin' Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues"
"Rambling, Gambling Willie"
"Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues"
"Who Killed Davey Moore?"
"Last Thoughts On Woody Guthrie" (if for nothing else, those ending lines:

"You'll find God in the church of your choice
You'll find Woody Guthrie in Brooklyn State Hospital

And though it's only my opinion
I may be right or wrong
You'll find them both
In the Grand Canyon
At sundown"

Sung with such beauty, control, and weight, I can't get over it. Devastates me every time.

Listened to some Live 64, did not think much of it really. But I shall persevere.

Crawl Out Your Window is on Biograph, I think, Pinefox. Should you wish, I could copy it for you when I rescue it from "storage". I also have a J. Hendrix version recorded for the BBC Light Programme.

glockenspiel!

It's a cover - it's a ridiculously old trad song. A great version is on Harry Smiths' Anthology of American Folk Music.

seconded; amazing song/performance, totally spellbinding

Madness. I can't really say if it's the best disc but it's definitely the one I've listened to most. 'Foot of Pride','Every Grain', 'Blind Willie McT', 'Angelina', 'Seven Days' = throwaway??

So classsssssic.
Also turned me on to "St James Infirmary", from which the melody is lifted. Checl out Bobby Blue Bland's version if you have the chance.

Vol. 1-3 I heard before a lot of the albums, and it's the thing that made me obsessive about Dylan. Had a 90 cassette of tracks, mostly discs 1 & 2, that I completely wore out that summer and beyond. It started with "Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie". Upon hearing the original version of say "If Not For You" without the "Ready George?" and a certain wobbly reckless energy of a lot of the tracks on 1-3, the originals sounded rather polished or staid. "Santa Fe" is another good example. Even "Idiot Wind" at the end of Vol. 2 is more biting and mean than the album vers.

Vol. 4 opened my eyes in a big way to the pre-'66 material, as I'm sure it did for a lot of people. I actually prefer disc 1, particularly the devestatingly sad "Desolation Row" and Dylan's expressive harp playing thoughout. Almost like he's testing the audience with his harp playing, similar in aggression to part 2 "Play it fucking loud". I find the guitar playing on disc 1 tattered, like he means it, it all fits the mood nicely.

Vol. 5 I bought when it came out and only listened a handful of times. Need to return to it. I remember it sounding very punk rock, though.

Vol. 6 is the 1964 disc, right? Never bought that.

Vol. 7 don't have yet.

but anyway, i love the bootleg series' one and all, but part of me wishes that Dylan (or Columbia) would do like Elvis Costello and just reissue the albums each with a bonus disc of outtakes/live stuff/etc. Of course they just did that big SACD reissue series a few years ago, so that's unlikely to happen any time soon.

The fall reissues have an extra disc, but as they mostly have Peel sessions, they are pointless if you have that "Ah, the Fall Peel Sessions box set, you guys" set.

Latest discoveries:

'Tangled Up In Blue' - a centrepiece of the set to me when I first heard it - is it in E, and the LP version in G?

'Call Letter Blues' is doing more for me than before: some poignancy in the words.

I have never loved 'Idiot Wind' but am now impressed by the relative tenderness of this (NYC?) version as vs the LP.

The bootleg 'If You See Her' is a lot better than the LP's, surely.

Is 'Golden Loom' the first time Bob and Emmylou H sang together? Assuming it's her.

It's funny how that is country, then 'Catfish' is blues. I have always thought 'Catfish' kind of unimportant, but actually I like the depth of its sound, the reverb around those slides and harmonicas.

Is the barking dog the reason that this 'Every Grain of Sand' was not used? I like this song a lot considering that it's religious.

The whole set is an amazing way to take a rapid-fire time-tour through Dylan's career, hearing the flavour of one year (those Desirous violins) for a track or two before the next sound comes along.

Unlike PJM, I like Live 1964 a lot.

This glockenspiel rumour remains mysterious to me.

But christ, so many great things: 'Barbed Wire Fence', 'Train To Cry', '... Go Now' on bootleg 2. Peerless!

Correct! (The tour with the Band in 1974.)

Also this was posted on another forum - great info:

On October 5, 2023 Clinton Heylin read from his new book at the Pigeon Loft at The Robin Hood in Pontefract, West Yorkshire. The reading was followed by a Q & A, during which Heylin was asked about the future of the Bootleg Series. Now, this being Heylin, you have to take what he said with a huge pinch of salt, but the gist of what he told the audience is this:

- At least two more Bootleg Series sets that were overseen by Jeff Rosen [note: producer/curator of the Bootleg Series] are planned. Jeff Rosen's role is winding down.
- After that the Bootleg Series will no longer be a Dylan office project and it will be up to Sony, because they now own the rights to the recordings [note: acquired from Dylan in early 2022].
- The Tulsa Archive owns the actual recordings [note: the physical objects on which the recordings were captured – tapes and hard drives]. The people at Tulsa store, restore, transfer/digitize and catalog the recordings. Every time Sony want to release something from the vault (since they now own the rights to do so) they have to pay Tulsa for the transfers of the recordings. [note: The publishing rights to the songwriting are a separate thing, they were sold to Universal in 2020.]
- It is unclear which path Sony will take with future releases: big deluxe sets or more affordable, smaller CD sets.
- Heylin says that "Jeff Rosen has a blind spot for 1978."*
- The 1978 material includes a dozen unreleased songs. [note: According to Michael Chaiken from the Tulsa Archive they also have the Street Legal "piano demos".]
- "The Complete Budokan" was a project by Sony Japan and had nothing to do with Jeff Rosen.

*This contradicts what Rob Stoner posted on Facebook in 2020: "The Rundown rehearsals are killer. I remixed and edited many of them for Jeff Rosen and they'll be out eventually. Bob and I came up with some wack arrangements, most of which have never been heard."

If Heylin is right and there will not be an additional release covering 1978, then the only still unreleased projects on Jeff Rosen's most recent list of future Bootleg Series sets as outlined in an interview with rollingstone.com (February 3, 2023) are "The Villager/pre-fame recordings" and the "Oh Mercy" sessions. If Sony release a 1974 Live Recordings set it will not involve Jeff Rosen – again from rollingstone.com (February 3, 2023): 1974 tour with the Band – Could we see a huge box set of recordings from that tour? “That’s going to be up to Sony,” says the source. “We’ll see what they want to do.”

The glaring omission of course is anything with substantial NET material and not just a handful of selections, but I think they covered that in earlier interviews - basically it's not something Bob wants while he's 1) still touring and 2) still alive.

(Also it was mentioned that a lot of their own NET recordings don't sound great, which is why they used actual audience bootlegs for certain officially released tracks.)

Always first read that as NFT

Have they tapped into the Desire studio sessions any more than what they included on Biograph and the original Bootleg box?

The Desire sessions are the big gaps in his archives, with many masters from those sessions MIA

Always first read that as NFT

You're A Bored Ape Now

The only outtake I know from the xpost Desire sessions: another reminder of how crazy he can be, to leave songs/tracks this good in the can, man, esp. considering some of the stuff that did make the cut---I like Maria Muldaur's cover even better:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv_ERkjVej8

^^The Dylan version of that one is on the first bootleg set, alongside "Catfish", which he gave to Rolling Thunder accomplice Kinky Friedman. "Abandoned Love" (which the Everly Bros. covered in the '80s) appeared earlier on Biograph, and another song called "Rita May" appeared earlier still on the live "Suck Inside of Mobile..." single in '76 (and inspired a cover by Jerry Lee Lewis in '79).

It's interesting that all the known surviving Desire outtakes all had notable contemporary-ish covers.

“Abandoned Love” is a cool-ass song

Imagine writing a tune like that, and lyrics like this, and it doesn’t even make the album!

Oh, and then there's "Seven Days", which appeared briefly during the Rolling Thunder tour with a live take appearing on the first Bootleg box.

Studio "Rita May"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdJ0xLV1ULI

Only live version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fizmkogBv50

Imagine writing a tune like that, and lyrics like this, and it doesn’t even make the album!

...and furthermore only playing it live once before taking it into the studio...and then never ever playing it again!

Thanks for all that! Because of the Jerry Lee-style "To Be Alone With You," I'd thought "Rita May" was from the Nashville Skyline sessions---always enjoyed JL's version(s)(studio/live).
I knew "Abandoned Love" was in the early-middle 70s, didn't know it was from Desire---here's the best audio of that impromptu live performance I've heard:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNeZVC2sn4A

In case that goes away, dig poster Swingin' Pig's notes, incl quotes, especially:

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Nov 20, 2018
Some Dylanologists say this is Bob's best live performance. Although I personally don't think it's his very best, I can understand why some think so. It's a positively breathtaking moment of his career. Furthermore, the song itself if probably one of my favorite Dylan songs. In my opinion, it was a huge mistake to leave off Desire.

There are a lot of versions on YouTube, but I thought they were all very bad quality; the hiss in the background was unbearable. I ripped this version off of a bootleg disc, then cleaned up the lossless audio as best I could.

Here's a very interesting account by Joe Kivak of the night it was recorded at The Other End (now The Bitter End), a little club in Greenwich Village:

"On a Thursday night in July 1975, I headed out to see Ramblin' Jack Elliott at The Bitter End in New York City. Because I wanted to learn his technique, I got there early enough to get a seat near the front so I could watch him play guitar. After the first set, a P.A. announcement told us we were welcome to stay for the second set if we honored the two-drink minimum. As the lights flashed on and I got up to leave, I glanced around the club and was stunned to see Bob Dylan seated toward the back with Jack, wearing the same striped tee shirt and leather jacket he had on in a photo with Patti Smith on the cover of the then-current Village Voice.

Naturally, I sat right back down. There was absolutely no way I was leaving at that point. Soon, others began to notice him, too, so Jack and Bob left their seats and went backstage. But when the engineer set up another microphone, we knew Bob was going to sit in. The electricity in the room was tangible as the club began filling up with more bodies. Finally, Jack came out and started his set. After a couple of songs, he began "With God on Our Side." After the first few lines, he turned his head toward the back of the stage and said, "Bob, you want to help me out on this?" The place went nuts as Dylan walked onstage. I can still see that shy look on his face as he nervously squinted out into the audience. He was so nervous, in fact, that he didn't notice that the capo on his guitar was crooked and buzzing badly.

Their first song was "Pretty Boy Floyd," with Bob singing harmony and his guitar buzzing right along. Then Jack started "How Long Blues." After the first verse, he looked at Bob in a way that seemed to ask him to sing a verse. Bob simply shook his head and mouthed something inaudible. When the song finished, however, Dylan began strumming his guitar. But since it was still buzzing, he asked Jack to trade instruments with him [this can be heard in the video at . At that moment, everyone in the room was in a trance; it's not every day one gets to hear an impromptu Bob Dylan performance in a tiny club. After a couple of lines, we realized he was performing a new song, with each line getting even better than the last. The song was "Abandoned Love," and it still is the most powerful performance I've ever heard.

Ramblin' Jack started strumming along in the beginning, but he soon realized the rarity of the moment and stopped and stepped to the side. As Bob sang, the nervousness so evident earlier vanished completely. He was so moving. There he was, hitting us with new material, with everyone hanging on his every word. It was an incredible feeling to be in that small club listening to Bob Dylan perform a new song. We all felt we were watching history in the making. After he finished, he returned to his seat near the back of the club and quietly watched the rest of the show. Jack appeared so speechless and overwhelmed by Dylan's performance that he started his next song with Bob's buzzing guitar.

Later, as we began filing out into the night onto Bleecker Street, we could see Bobby Dylan through the outside windows, leaning over his table and deep in conversation with someone, the candle in front of him highlighting his face. It's a moment I'll never forget."

Enjoy this gem while you can!

And speaking of xpost going back to the beginning for the end of The Bootleg Series, here's another Swingin' Pig

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1ZlUjQ2bQ0

As promised, here is the complete "Minnesota Party Tape 1961", a mysterious bootleg with a colorful history. It shouldn't be confused with the "Minnesota Hotel Tape" (also recorded at Beecher's home but several months later) or the "Minnesota University Tape" (recorded a year earlier). However, these tapes go by many different names, so I recommend you look over Olof's files if you're interested in Dylan's timeline: http://www.bjorner.com/DSN00020%20196.... According to his database, this tape was recorded at an unidentified coffee house at Minneapolis, MN in May 1961.

Below is a tracklist with timestamps, and below that is an amazing backstory about "Bonnie, Why'd You Cut My Hair?" told by Jaharana Romney (wife of Hugh Romney/Wavy Gravy), formerly Bonnie Beecher, the subject of this song.

TRACKLIST:
0:00 - Ramblin' Round (W. Guthrie)
4:15 - Death Don't Have No Mercy (G. Davis) [Amazing rendition, wish he finished it]
6:40 - It's Hard To Be Blind (trad.)
9:35 - This Train Is Bound For Glory (B.B. Broonzy, arr. by W. Guthrie)
12:50 - Harmonica solo [Fun little jig to wake you up in the morning]
16:44 - Talkin' Fish Blues (W. Guthrie)
22:56 - Pastures Of Plenty (W. Guthrie) ["I learned this from Woody", Dylan says, referring to his meeting with him in January 1961. Can't tell what he says after that--Can anyone transcribe it?]
29:05 - This Land Is Your Land (W. Guthrie)
33:00 - Two Trains Runnin' (M. Morganfield)
36:14 - Wild Mountain Thyme (trad.)
39:00 - Howdido (W. Guthrie)
40:45 - Car, Car (W. Guthrie)
42:55 - Don't Push Me Down (W. Guthrie)
44:37 - Come See (W. Guthrie)
47:09 - I Want My Milk (W. Guthrie)
50:17 - San Francisco Bay Blues (J. Fuller)
52:57 - A Long Time A-Growin' (trad.)
57:32 - Devilish Mary (B.L. Hawes)
59:13 - Railroad Bill (trad.)
1:03:26 - Will The Circle Be Unbroken (A.P. Carter)
1:04:30 - Man Of Constant Sorrow (trad.)
1:07:40 - Pretty Polly (trad.)
1:13:12 - Railroad Boy (trad.)
1:16:00 - James Alley Blues (R. Brown)
1:19:35 - Bonnie, Why'd You Cut My Hair?

"He came to my apartment and said, 'It's an emergency! I need your help! I gotta go home an' see my mother!' He was talking in the strangest Woody Guthrie-Oklahoma accent. I don't know if she was sick, but it was an unexpected trip he had to make up to Hibbing and he wanted me to cut his hair.' He kept saying, 'Shorter! Shorter! Get rid of the sideburns!' So I did my very best to do what he wanted and then in the door come Dave Morton, Johnny Koerner, and Harvey Abrams. They looked at him and said, 'Oh my God, you look terrible! What did you do?' And Dylan immediately said, 'She did it! I told her just to trim it up a little bit but she cut it all off. I wasn't looking in a mirror!' And then he went and wrote that song, 'Bonnie, why'd you cut my hair? Now I can't go nowhere!' He played it that night in a coffeehouse and somebody told me recently that they had been to Minnesota and somebody was still playing that song, 'Bonnie, Why'd You Cut My Hair?' It's like a Minnesota classic! And so I've gone down in history!"
~Jaharana Romney (Bonnie Beecher)

"Bonnie, Why'd You Cut My Hair?" is one of the earliest recorded Dylan originals, only preceded by a few tracks recorded from 1958-1960.

Credits to Olof Björner for information and backstory.

Peace & Love,
~SP

As speculated: “Sony Entertainment this year will be releasing a box set of 1974 Dylan/Band tour concerts.”

Per Harvey Kubernik: https://www.musicconnection.com/kubernik-robbie-robertson-testimony-autobiography/

I forget which Dylan thread gets used the most. Here’s drummer Jon Wurster re 2 recent Dylan gigs he saw , and Dylan on the St Patrick’s Day show doing a song he hadn’t done live in 20 years . An Irish folk song

https://www.flaggingdown.com/p/notes-from-the-road-in-north-carolina

I think the “Overrated” thread is most used for general purposes…

Is there a Dylan site, comparable to Sugar Mountain for Neil Young, which documents the performance history of all songs? I know about boblinks.com but it doesn't go into that level of detail.

the official site!

Thanks, I'd never have thought to look there...

Setlist.fm also has Dylan concert information

Irish folk song “The Roving Blade”

https://www.setlist.fm/stats/songs/bob-dylan-1bd6adb8.html?songid=5bcf6314

https://www.flaggingdown.com/p/guitarist-jj-holiday-talks-bob-dylans

Guitarist Jj Holiday and the bassist and drummer of the Plugz rehearsed a bunch with Bob Dylan 40 years ago and backed him on David Letterman. Holiday talks about the experience in this long q and a

You should post that to this thread as well: Bob Dylan's punk period

On producing the Hard Rain concert, incl. dealing w film crew:

The TV people grabbed our local carpenter. I'd known him since he was 12 years old. They started berating this guy about, they needed some table [built]. He didn't have any lumber available to build them a little table. They’d seen some scrap lumber around and said he should go get it. They pointed to what they thought was scrap plywood. He cut it all up and built them a little table.

Somebody right before showtime, “Wurpel! Wurpel!” “What?”

“Who the fuck cut up Bob Dylan's paintings of Christ?”

Furthermore:

Then the other craziness that was going on: this was Passover. Barry Imhoff comes running up to me. “Look, motherfucker, we need a blender. We need it right now."

Of course, when you're in the middle of producing a fairly substantial show and it's crazy anyway and there are lots of nuts running around, when somebody says they need a blender, it's not the top priority on your list. Barry Imhoff just went absolutely crazy because I wasn't being responsive to this request. I finally said, “What is it for?” He goes, “It's for the seder.”

I said to Barry, "Barry, I've been through a few seders in my life. I remember bones, and I remember horseradish. I don't remember a blender."

That really pissed him off. I said, “I'll find a blender, but what's it really for?" I think it was for daiquiris. The daiquiris at the seder.

Ah yes, the seder tradition handed down for generations: the daiquiris.

It was a circus, but it probably wasn't the worst show circus I've ever seen. One of my clients for years was Willie Nelson.

Details on the copyright protection box set for the 1974 tour have been posted. 27 CD's with each show squeezed into one disc by cutting out the Band's sets. Not everything was recorded - some songs are incomplete recordings and I noticed one show missing a few of Dylan's numbers - but these are from the best sources known to exist.

Technically it's not a Bootleg Series installment, but content-wise it's close enough.

Here's the "single":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fARvPSxdkZM

Also:

In honour of the 15-year anniversary of the Vault, Third Man Records have announced its 61st Vault package, Bob Dylan’s The 1974 Live Recordings: The Missing Songs From Before The Flood.

In all honesty, the Chicago and maybe the Philadelphia shows are enough for me (i.e. the first four shows of the tour). I'd probably be fine with the two Chicago shows - ideally, they would've reissued the tour opening show in its entirety (probably about 100 minutes with the Band's sets included) and have that as a standalone. But that's nitpicking, I never thought we'd get any soundboards from those early shows, so this is a godsend.

It still ain't cheap, but honestly the price point surprised me. Especially considering how much they were asking for that 4-disc Budokan thing last year.

The Budokan thing was a full-on bells'n'whistles Japanese import tho.

Oh I know, totally different thing I get it. Still.

Finally - wasn't sure if a recording this good even existed, so this was one of the remaining holy grails for me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lr01DhpBDA

Not a perfect recording - I'm guessing a cassette recording and it has some distortion in spots - but at least it's a soundboard recording and not an audience recording from far away.

Hopefully they have a tape of the following night's performance that's equally good if not better. For my money, that may be the best live rendition of this song he's ever done.

yah the box set has the next night.

https://www.flaggingdown.com/p/a-show-by-show-listening-guide-to

On a lunch break quickie, just listened to some of 20-track The 1974 Live Recordings Sampler on Spotify, starting with several of the songs not on Down In The Flood, where they would have fit for sure, incl. startling speediness, though no bellowing here, and every word comes through: "Something There Is About You," "Wedding Song" (unabashed and bashing, guitar like bongos near the end, but not too loud, for me, anyway), "The Ballad of Hollis Brown" I'm tempted to call proto-rap, but in '74 terms, it's got that Waylon Jennings-associated marching "eat-shit" tempo---with incisive guitaRR fills x flying words--just in case we got a little too happy with that, next up is "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll," just a tad slower, pain of imagery coming through, solo guitar again strong but not too loud---and having acoustic and electric renditions back and forth, track to track is part of the very effective zig-zag sequencing here, also incl. subsets of idiosyncratic love ballads and other things whisked away like layers ov table cloths.
Mind you, a lot of Down In The Flood's staples, "Watchtower" etc., are on here as well, from whatever nights and venues---but damn.

Stupid Amazon (I know I know, but I got a birthday gift card that was the only reason I could afford this thing in the first place) bumped the delivery of my box set out like 3 weeks.

thanks, Dow! that sounds great. wonder where my Third Man order is.

FYI, while I was digging for updates about my shipping, I saw folks on reddit saying that Third Man said they'll be shipping theirs out within the next two weeks.

thanks! may break down and stream.

Not a perfect recording - I'm guessing a cassette recording and it has some distortion in spots - but at least it's a soundboard recording and not an audience recording from far away.

Hopefully they have a tape of the following night's performance that's equally good if not better. For my money, that may be the best live rendition of this song he's ever done.

I'll have to take that back - now that I can hear him more clearly on this soundboard recording, it's clear he flubs quite a few words, so it's a shakier performance, but the song's third performance (at the early show on Jan. 6 at the Spectrum in Philly) sounds like the best one. Still a soundboard cassette with some annoying distortion in one spot, but Dylan sounds even more vulnerable and exposed and just nails it - worthy of being deemed a master take had they ran a multitrack recorder for this show.

This is nice - apparently taken from a U-Matic copy of the broadcast master used by the BBC's Old Grey Whistle Test. Basically it's an official low-generation copy that was sent to another broadcaster elsewhere in the world that leased the program. (It's the same Hard Rain concert video that Dylan originally made for NBC in the U.S.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kL5tG4W5wsE

The Hard Rain LP wasn't really "soundtrack" of the TV special, as sometimes assumed, but anyway, several keepers: incl. performances from other gigs. but anyway some def. keepers: rangy rockin' "Memphis Blues Again," and even "Lay Lady Lady" (rippling, "Let's take a chaaance, who real-ly cares/something something, let's go up-stairs..."). Non-tentative "Oh Sister" (far better thane-take studio original, which Emmylou said she was quite or maybe totally unfamiliar with), up-tempo with slide guitar "Shelter From The Storm"---

So we've talked on here about Dylan's People intimating that this Series per se may be coming to an end, but I still hold out hope for more expanded reissues of original releases, having for instance just read wiki on the Empire Burlesque sessions--just so many songs along the way; some are still among thee missing:

As Clinton Heylin reports, Dylan recorded in sporadic sessions, as had become his norm, rather than "block-booking studio time" and recording in one concentrated period. The result was "an unprecedented expenditure of" time for recording a Dylan album, from July 1984 to March 1985 (although The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan had been recorded over a similarly long period)
....During one session between July and September 1984 (at the Power Station), Dylan demoed a song called "Go 'Way Little Boy", with Ron Wood and "cowpunk" rockers Lone Justice. Dylan and Wood also played on Lone Justice's version of "Go 'Way Little Boy", which was recorded at the same session and was ultimately released as a B-side to their single "Sweet Sweet Baby (I'm Falling)". A blues number entitled "Oh Baby" was also recorded with the same lineup but has never surfaced.
...despite positive feedback from his peers, Dylan ultimately omitted "New Danville Girl" from Empire Burlesque.
...Around this time, Dylan also revived from the Infidels sessions "Someone's Got a Hold of My Heart". "A song about being torn apart by irreconcilable demands," according to Clinton Heylin, in revision it was stripped of "just about every religious allusion from the original." Dylan retitled it "Tight Connection to My Heart" and set it aside for further overdubbing.

One final song was recorded on March 3, a brand-new composition no more than a few days old. Recorded live-to-tape with no editing, overdubbing or embellishment, "Dark Eyes" was also sequenced as the last song of the album.

"Dark Eyes" features only Dylan on guitar and harmonica. According to earlier interviews and Dylan's autobiography Chronicles, it was written virtually on demand when Arthur Baker suggested something simpler for the album's final track. Dylan liked the idea of closing the album with a stark, acoustic track, particularly when the rest of the album was so heavily produced. However, Dylan didn't have an appropriate song. He returned to his hotel in Manhattan after midnight, and according to Dylan:

"As I stepped out of the elevator, a call girl was coming toward me in the hallway—pale yellow hair wearing a fox coat—high heeled shoes that could pierce your heart. She had blue circles around her eyes, black eyeliner, dark eyes. She looked like she'd been beaten up and was afraid that she'd get beat up again. In her hand, crimson purple wine in a glass. 'I'm just dying for a drink,' she said as she passed me in the hall. She had a beautifulness, but not for this kind of world."

The brief, chance encounter inspired Dylan to write "Dark Eyes", which was quickly recorded without any studio embellishment. It is often quoted for its last chorus: "A million faces at my feet, but all I see are dark eyes."

A number of critics have noted the bizarre sources of inspiration behind some of the songs. As mentioned, some lines were lifted from old Humphrey Bogart pictures, but at least a few were taken from the sci-fi television show Star Trek. Author Clinton Heylin wrote that "one of the best couplets—'I'll go along with the charade / Until I can think my way out' (from "Tight Connection to My Heart")—actually comes verbatim from a Star Trek episode, 'Squire of Gothos'." Some[who?] say this line was originally used in the Humphrey Bogart movie Sahara, though this is erroneous.

sorry, cursor kept jumping around, should have checked more---should be

The Hard Rain LP wasn't really "soundtrack" of the TV special,since it incl. performances from other gigs. but anyway several keepers, such as

Non-tentative "Oh Sister" (far better than one-take studio original

The O Jays, "Emotionally Yours" (title track of alb)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx5L2mWFwOk

Yeah, that's a good one - the O'Jays must really love that song because they cut two different versions of that tune for the album, an "R&B" version and a "gospel" version.

Re: the Bootleg Series, the Springtime in New York mixes for the Empire Burlesque material were great, but it's a little frustrating that only ONE of the master takes was remixed ("Tight Connection"). tbf, the alternate take of "Emotionally Yours" is a better performance than the master take.

Are there any given reasons why Dylan won’t let people access those 1992 Supper Club shows that were recorded and filmed?

A version of "Ring Them Bells" showed up on Tell Tale Signs so they're apparently in releasable shape.

Dylan was re wording original material with Noel Redding in the early 90’s. None of that appears on any Bootleg sets