bob dylan / the band: the basement tapes

album rating: ★★★★☆

Genre

Roots rock, Americana, and alternative country. Recorded in secret in the summer of 1967 — eight years before its official release - The Basement Tapes captures Dylan and the Band at their most uninhibited and musically exploratory, blending folk, country, blues, and gospel in an atmosphere of creative freedom that Greil Marcus later described as an encounter with "a kind of old, weird America."

Release

Released on June 26, 1975, by Columbia Records, as a double LP in a gatefold sleeve. Two-thirds of the 24 tracks feature Dylan backed by the Band; the remaining eight feature the Band alone. The recordings were made during Dylan's recovery from a motorcycle accident at his home in Woodstock, New York, and subsequently in the basement of Big Pink - the Band's rented house in West Saugerties, New York.

Production

Produced by Bob Dylan and the Band. The original 1967 recordings were made by Garth Hudson. Mixing for the 1975 release was completed at Village Recorders and Shangri-La Studios, California. 

Reception

The album reached number seven on the Billboard 200 and was certified platinum by the RIAA. Critical response was mixed on release — some reviewers felt the recording quality was uneven — but subsequent reassessment has been overwhelmingly positive. Rolling Stone ranked it No. 296 on its 2023 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Bob Dylan / The Band

Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941, Duluth, Minnesota) is the most celebrated songwriter in the history of American popular music, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (2016), and a central figure of the 1960s folk revival and its evolution into rock. The Band - formed as the Hawks in Toronto in the early 1960s under the leadership of Ronnie Hawkins - became Dylan's touring group in 1965 and, following his motorcycle accident, settled near him in Woodstock to collaborate on what became the Basement Tapes. Their own debut album, Music from Big Pink (1968), drew directly on the spirit of those sessions. The Band recorded five studio albums between 1968 and 1975 before their farewell concert — The Last Waltz (1976), filmed by Martin Scorsese — brought the era to its celebrated close.

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crash on the levee (down in the flood)

the band: music from the big pink

album rating: ★★★★☆

Genre: Roots rock / folk rock / country rock / Americana / gospel / R&B. Music from Big Pink is the debut studio album by The Band — the Canadian-American group formed by guitarist Robbie Robertson (Toronto, 1943–2023), drummer and singer Levon Helm (Marvell, Arkansas, 1940–2012), pianist and singer Richard Manuel (Stratford, Ontario, 1943–1986), bassist and singer Rick Danko (Simcoe, Ontario, 1942–1999) and multi-instrumentalist Garth Hudson (Windsor, Ontario, 1937). The album takes its title from a rented pink clapboard house in West Saugerties, New York — 'Big Pink' — where Danko, Manuel and Hudson were living, and where much of the music had been composed after a long period of basement recording with Bob Dylan (the material that would eventually become The Basement Tapes, 1975). The album's music is a synthesis of country, rock, folk, gospel, classical, R&B and blues that had no direct precedent in 1968 popular music and was immediately felt as a rebuke to the psychedelic maximalism then dominant. Three songs are written or co-written by Dylan ('Tears of Rage', 'This Wheel's on Fire', 'I Shall Be Released'); the rest are by Robertson, or collaborations within the group. 'The Weight' became their most famous song and a cultural landmark. The cover painting is by Bob Dylan.

Label: Capitol Records (USA), released 1 July 1968.

Producer: John Simon.

Recording studios: A&R Recording Studio (also known as A&R Studios), 799 Seventh Avenue, New York City (primary sessions, early 1968); Capitol Studios, Hollywood, Los Angeles (additional sessions); Gold Star Studios, Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles.

Critical reception: Music from Big Pink is one of the most historically significant debut albums in the history of rock music. Al Kooper's rave review in Rolling Stone ended with the words: 'This album was recorded in approximately two weeks. There are people who will work their lives away in vain and not touch it.' Eric Clapton cited the album as what convinced him to dissolve Cream. George Harrison credited it as a major influence on his solo direction. In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked it number 34 on its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. The 50th Anniversary edition received a Metacritic aggregate score of 99/100, indicating universal acclaim. It is widely cited as Year Zero for Americana as a genre and musical sensibility.

Commercial success: Music from Big Pink was not an immediate blockbuster — it peaked at number 30 on the US Billboard Pop Albums chart in 1968 — but its cultural influence was incalculable. Its stature grew steadily over the following decades through word of mouth, critical reappraisal and the Band's legendary performance of 'The Weight' at Woodstock (1969). In 2020, it was named to the Library of Congress National Recording Registry. It has been continuously reissued, most recently in an acclaimed 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition (2018).

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the weight

i shall be released

the weight

easy rider scene