Jeff’s Playlist: ‘The Basement Tapes’

Bob Dylan and The Band — The Basement Tapes

This 1975 release is a very good col­lec­tion of music that any Dylan/Band afi­ciona­do knows well. Take a lis­ten and enjoy.

All tracks are writ­ten by Bob Dylan, except where noted.

Side one

No.      Title    Writer(s)         Length
1.         “Odds and Ends”                                                     1:47
2.         “Orange Juice Blues (Blues for Breakfast)”         Richard Manuel 3:39
3.         “Million Dollar Bash”                                                2:32
4.         “Yazoo Street Scandal”      Robbie Robertson    3:29
5.         “Goin’ to Acapulco”                                                 5:27
6.         “Katie’s Been Gone”            Manuel, Robertson  2:46

Total length:  19:40

Side two

No.      Title    Writer(s)         Length
1.         “Lo and Behold!”                                                     2:46
2.         “Bessie Smith”          Rick Danko, Robertson       4:18
3.         “Clothes Line Saga”                                                2:58
4.         “Apple Suckling Tree”                                            2:48
5.         “Please, Mrs. Henry”                                              2:33
6.         “Tears of Rage”        Dylan, Manuel                      4:15

Total length:  19:38

Side three

No.      Title    Writer(s)         Length
1.         “Too Much of Nothing”                                           3:04
2.         “Yea! Heavy and a Bottle of Bread”                     2:15
3.         “Ain’t No More Cane”          Traditional                 3:58
4.         “Crash on the Levee (Down in the Flood)”          2:04
5.         “Ruben Remus”        Manuel, Robertson              3:16
6.         “Tiny Montgomery”                                                  2:47

Total length:  17:24

Side four

No.      Title    Writer(s)         Length
1.         “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere”                                     2:42
2.         “Don’t Ya Tell Henry”                                              3:13
3.         “Nothing Was Delivered”                                       4:23
4.         “Open the Door, Homer”                                        2:49
5.         “Long Distance Operator”                                      3:39
6.         “This Wheel’s on Fire”         Danko, Dylan 3:52

Total length:  20:38

Personnel

Bob Dylan – acoustic gui­tar, piano, vocals
Rick Danko – bass gui­tar, man­dolin, back­ing vocals
Levon Helm – drums, man­dolin, bass gui­tar, vocals
Garth Hudson – Lowrey organ, clavinet, accor­dion, tenor sax­o­phone, piano
Richard Manuel – piano, drums, har­mon­i­ca, vocals
Robbie Robertson – elec­tric gui­tar, acoustic gui­tar, drums, back­ing vocals[69]

Cover art

The art director/design con­sul­tant cred­it­ed on the 1975 album was Bob Cato. The cov­er pho­to­graph for the 1975 album was tak­en by design­er and pho­tog­ra­ph­er Reid Miles in the base­ment of a Los Angeles YMCA. It pos­es Dylan and the Band along­side char­ac­ters sug­gest­ed by the songs: a woman in a Mrs. Henry T‑shirt, an Eskimo, a cir­cus strong­man, and a dwarf [sic] who has been iden­ti­fied as Angelo Rossitto. Robertson wears a blue Mao-style suit, and Manuel wears an RAF flight lieu­tenant uni­form. Bill Scheele and his broth­er John Scheele worked with the Band from 1969 until 1976 and were present in the cov­er pho­to. Some pho­tos by John Scheele of the 1975 Hollywood YMCA pho­to shoot were includ­ed in the book accom­pa­ny­ing the 2014 release The Bootleg Series Vol. 11: The Basement Tapes Complete.

Released       June 26, 1975
Recorded       June–September 1967
Length            76:41
Label              Columbia
Producer        Bob Dylan, The Band