This article needs additional citations for verification .(September 2010) |
Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II | ||||
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Greatest hits album by | ||||
Released | November 17, 1971 | |||
Recorded | 1962–1971 | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 77:31 | |||
Label | Columbia | |||
Producer | ||||
Bob Dylan chronology | ||||
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Singles from Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II | ||||
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Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [1] |
Christgau's Record Guide | A [2] |
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [3] |
MusicHound Rock | 3/5 [4] |
The Rolling Stone Album Guide | [5] |
Tom Hull | A− [6] |
Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II, also known as More Bob Dylan Greatest Hits, is the second compilation album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on November 17, 1971 by Columbia Records. With Dylan not expected to release any new material for an extended period of time, CBS Records president Clive Davis proposed issuing a double LP compilation of older material. Dylan agreed, compiling it himself and suggesting that the package include a full side of unreleased tracks from his archives. After submitting a set of excerpts from The Basement Tapes that Davis found unsatisfactory, Dylan returned to the studio in September 1971 to recut several Basement songs, with Happy Traum providing backup.
The final package included one previously uncollected single, "Watching the River Flow", an outtake from the same sessions, "When I Paint My Masterpiece"; one song from Dylan's April 12, 1963 Town Hall concert, "Tomorrow Is a Long Time", and three songs from the September sessions, "I Shall Be Released", "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere", and "Down in the Flood". The remaining tracks were drawn from existing releases.
In 2003, this album was released along with Dylan's two other Greatest Hits compilations in one four-disc set, as Greatest Hits Volumes I–III.
As with The Basement Tapes and the Beatles' 1962-1966 , all the selections could fit on a single 80-minute CD, but were nevertheless released on two CDs to match the LP.
The album package was designed to capitalize on the publicity surrounding George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh, about to be released as a film and album. The photograph on the album cover is a cropped version of a photo taken during Dylan's performance at the concert by the film's still photographer, Barry Feinstein. [7] The uncropped photo, which appeared as a two-page spread in the booklet included in the album Concert for Bangla Desh (sic), also contained George Harrison, who was standing to Dylan's right. The album cover is similar to the previous volume, Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits , which utilized Rowland Scherman's 1965 photo. Reaching #14 in the US and #12 in the UK, Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II is now certified five times platinum in the US, making it one of Dylan's best-selling albums.
"In one sense, 1971 and 1972 might both be considered 'lost' years," writes Dylan biographer Clinton Heylin. [8] Neither year would produce an album, at least not an album entirely composed of newly recorded material. [8]
Between March 16 and 19, 1971, Dylan reserved three days at Blue Rock Studios, a small studio in New York's Greenwich Village. According to Heylin, "These sessions were to be produced by Leon Russell of Mad Dogs and Englishmen fame. Only two originals were recorded—'Watching the River Flow' and 'When I Paint My Masterpiece'—but both confronted the same subject matter, a continuing dearth of inspiration, in a refreshingly honest fashion." [8]
"When I Paint My Masterpiece" was also recorded by The Band, who would release their version first on Cahoots . Dylan's recording from Blue Rock would only see release on Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II.
"Watching the River Flow" was issued as a single in June 1971, backed by "Spanish Is the Loving Tongue", which had been recorded during the New Morning sessions.
Months later, Dylan would agree to release a second "greatest hits" compilation, provided he could compile it himself, issue it as a double album, and include several older compositions which he had written but never issued himself. To accommodate this last condition, Dylan took it upon himself to hold a recording session at Columbia's Recording Studios in New York. On September 24, 1971, in Columbia's Studio B, Dylan recorded four songs with his friend, Happy Traum.
"He felt there were some songs that he had written that had become hits of sorts for other people, that he didn't actually perform himself," recalls Traum, "and he wanted to fit those on the record as well...So we just went in one afternoon and did it, it was just the two of us and the engineer, and it was very simple...we chose three [songs] on the spot and mixed them...in the space of an afternoon...Sometimes I wasn't even sure if it was a final take until we would just finish and Bob would say, 'Okay, let's go and mix it.'"
"Crash On The Levee (Down In The Flood)", "You Ain't Going Nowhere" and "I Shall Be Released" were recorded and selected for the compilation. "Only a Hobo", an early composition dating back to 1963, was also considered for inclusion but ultimately was left unreleased until 2013's The Bootleg Series Vol. 10 – Another Self Portrait (1969–1971) .
A few lyrical revisions were made on "You Ain't Going Nowhere", the most notable being a reference to Roger McGuinn. "Pack up your money, pull up your tent McGuinn, you ain't going nowhere". McGuinn's band, The Byrds, had successfully recorded "You Ain't Going Nowhere" on their landmark album, Sweetheart of the Rodeo , and they even issued their recording as a single. Country musician Marty Stuart has also recorded this song. According to McGuinn in the liner notes to the 1997 reissue of Sweetheart of the Rodeo, Dylan singled him out in these lyrics for bungling Dylan's original Basement Tapes lyrics on the Byrds version of the song in which McGuinn sings "Pack up your money / Pick up your tent" instead of "Pick up your money / Pack up your tent" as Dylan had.
The previously unreleased "Tomorrow Is a Long Time" was also included, with the track taken from a recording of Dylan's April 12, 1963 Town Hall concert.
This section may contain material not related to the topic of the article .(March 2023) |
In addition to the material added to Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II, Dylan recorded a single, "George Jackson." An incarcerated black activist, George Jackson died on August 21, 1971. After reading a newspaper article about his death, Dylan quickly wrote an elegy for Jackson and rushed a small band into Blue Rock Studios to record it the following day. He recorded two versions, one following a simple acoustic arrangement, another with a full-band arrangement. Dylan also recorded another original composition, the country-flavored "Wallflower". Both versions of "George Jackson" were issued on the two sides of a single released on November 12, 1971. The single penetrated the Top 40, peaking at #33 on the Billboard Hot 100. The "Wallflower" recording was set aside and would later be released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991 , but was recorded, with Dylan's backing vocal, for Doug Sahm's 1973 recording Doug Sahm and Band .
Dylan gave three significant concert performances in 1971, which were professionally recorded and eventually released.
The first two came on August 1, at Madison Square Garden for a benefit concert organized by George Harrison. Dylan was not scheduled to perform, but Harrison convinced him to make a surprise appearance. Dylan performed a set at both the afternoon and evening shows, backed by Harrison on lead guitar, Leon Russell on bass, and Ringo Starr on tambourine. A selection of his performances was issued on the Grammy-winning The Concert for Bangladesh, issued on December 20, 1971.
The third and final performance actually came during the first hour of 1972, when he made a surprise appearance at The Band's New Year's Eve concert at New York's Academy of Music. Dylan appeared sometime after midnight and performed four songs backed by The Band: "Crash on the Levee (Down in the Flood)", "When I Paint My Masterpiece", "Don't Ya Tell Henry" and "Like a Rolling Stone". Clinton Heylin would later describe Dylan's appearance as "a return to some approximation of peak performing powers." [9] The concert was recorded by Phil Ramone and later mixed and compiled as The Band's Rock of Ages . However, Dylan's set would have to wait until May 2001 for official release, when it was included as part of an expanded, remastered CD edition of Rock of Ages.
The UK edition has a different tracklist from that given below. "Positively 4th Street" replaces "She Belongs to Me" as the first track on disc two. ("Positively 4th Street" was missing from the 1967 UK Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits , where "She Belongs to Me" replaced it.) On side four, "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue", which had also appeared on the 1967 UK Greatest Hits album as one of the two extra tracks, is replaced by "New Morning" as track 2. [10]
No. | Title | Source | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "Watching the River Flow" | A-side single (June 1971) | 3:32 |
2. | "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" | The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963) | 3:36 |
3. | "Lay Lady Lay" | Nashville Skyline (1969) | 3:14 |
4. | "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" | Blonde on Blonde (1966) | 7:06 |
Total length: | 17:28 |
No. | Title | Source | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight" | John Wesley Harding (1967) | 2:37 |
2. | "All I Really Want to Do" | Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964) | 4:02 |
3. | "My Back Pages" | Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964) | 4:21 |
4. | "Maggie's Farm" | Bringing It All Back Home (1965) | 3:49 |
5. | "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here with You" | Nashville Skyline | 3:21 |
Total length: | 18:10 |
No. | Title | Source | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "She Belongs to Me" | Bringing It All Back Home | 2:46 |
2. | "All Along the Watchtower" | John Wesley Harding | 2:30 |
3. | "The Mighty Quinn (Quinn the Eskimo)" | Self Portrait (1970) | 2:43 |
4. | "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" | Highway 61 Revisited (1965) | 5:25 |
5. | "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" | The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan | 6:47 |
Total length: | 20:11 |
No. | Title | Source | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "If Not for You" | New Morning (1970) | 2:38 |
2. | "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" | Bringing It All Back Home | 4:13 |
3. | "Tomorrow Is a Long Time" | Previously unreleased (live at Town Hall, New York City, April 12, 1963) | 3:01 |
4. | "When I Paint My Masterpiece" | Previously unreleased (recorded March 16–18, 1971) [11] | 3:22 |
5. | "I Shall Be Released" | Previously unreleased (recorded September 24, 1971) | 3:01 |
6. | "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" | Previously unreleased (recorded September 24, 1971) | 2:41 |
7. | "Down in the Flood" | Previously unreleased (recorded September 24, 1971) | 2:46 |
Total length: | 21:42 |
Year | Chart | Position |
---|---|---|
1971 | Billboard 200 [12] | 14 |
UK Top 75 [13] | 12 | |
Spanish Albums Chart [14] | 21 |
Blonde on Blonde is the seventh studio album by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released as a double album on June 20, 1966, by Columbia Records. Recording sessions began in New York in October 1965 with numerous backing musicians, including members of Dylan's live backing band, the Hawks. Though sessions continued until January 1966, they yielded only one track that made it onto the final album—"One of Us Must Know ". At producer Bob Johnston's suggestion, Dylan, keyboardist Al Kooper, and guitarist Robbie Robertson moved to the CBS studios in Nashville, Tennessee. These sessions, augmented by some of Nashville's top session musicians, were more fruitful, and in February and March all the remaining songs for the album were recorded.
"Mr. Tambourine Man" is a song written by Bob Dylan, released as the first track of the acoustic side of his March 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home. The song's popularity led to Dylan recording it live many times, and it has been included in multiple compilation albums. It has been translated into other languages and has been used or referenced in television shows, films, and books.
"Blind Willie McTell" is a song written and performed by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Named for the blues singer of the same name, the song was recorded in the spring of 1983, during the sessions for Dylan's album Infidels; however, it was ultimately left off the album and did not receive an official release until 1991, when it appeared on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 1961–1991. It was also later anthologized on Dylan (2007).
"My Back Pages" is a song written by Bob Dylan and included on his 1964 album Another Side of Bob Dylan. It is stylistically similar to his earlier folk protest songs and features Dylan's voice with an acoustic guitar accompaniment. However, its lyrics—in particular the refrain "Ah, but I was so much older then/I'm younger than that now"—have been interpreted as a rejection of Dylan's earlier personal and political idealism, illustrating his growing disillusionment with the 1960s folk protest movement with which he was associated, and his desire to move in a new direction. Although Dylan wrote the song in 1964, he did not perform it live until 1988. However, during his 1978 tour, his band played a brief instrumental version of it as Dylan took the stage.
The Best of The Byrds: Greatest Hits, Volume II is the third greatest hits album by the American rock band the Byrds, but only the second to be released in the United States, since the earlier The Byrds' Greatest Hits Volume II had only been issued in the UK. The album was released in the U.S. by Columbia Records on November 10, 1972 in lieu of any new Byrds' product during that year. It spent a total of thirteen weeks on the Billboard Top LPs & Tapes chart and peaked at number 114.
"All I Really Want to Do" is a song written by Bob Dylan and featured on his Tom Wilson-produced 1964 album, Another Side of Bob Dylan. It is arguably one of the most popular songs that Dylan wrote in the period immediately after he abandoned topical songwriting. Within a year of its release on Another Side of Bob Dylan, it had also become one of Dylan's most familiar songs to pop and rock audiences, due to hit cover versions by Cher and the Byrds.
"Just Like a Woman" is a song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan from his seventh studio album, Blonde on Blonde (1966). The song was written by Dylan and produced by Bob Johnston. Dylan allegedly wrote it on Thanksgiving Day in 1965, though some biographers doubt this, concluding that he most likely improvised the lyrics in the studio. Dylan recorded the song at Columbia Studio A in Nashville, Tennessee in March 1966. The song has been criticized for sexism or misogyny in its lyrics, and has received a mixed critical reaction. Some critics have suggested that the song was inspired by Edie Sedgwick, while other consider that it refers to Dylan's relationship with fellow folk singer Joan Baez. Retrospectively, the song has received renewed praise, and in 2011, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Dylan's version at number 232 in their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. A shorter edit was released as a single in the United States during August 1966 and peaked at number 33 on the Billboard Hot 100. The single also reached 8th place in the Australian charts, 12th place on the Belgium Ultratop Wallonia listing, 30th in the Dutch Top 40, and 38th on the RPM listing in Canada.
"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan and featured on his Bringing It All Back Home album, released on March 22, 1965, by Columbia Records. The song was recorded on January 15, 1965, with Dylan's acoustic guitar and harmonica and William E. Lee's bass guitar the only instrumentation. The lyrics were heavily influenced by Symbolist poetry and bid farewell to the titular "Baby Blue". There has been much speculation about the real life identity of "Baby Blue", with possibilities including Joan Baez, David Blue, Paul Clayton, Dylan's folk music audience, and even Dylan himself.
"It's Alright, Ma " is a song written and performed by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan and first released on his 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home. It was written in the summer of 1964, first performed live on October 10, 1964, and recorded on January 15, 1965. It is described by Dylan biographer Howard Sounes as a "grim masterpiece".
"I Shall Be Released" is a 1967 song written by Bob Dylan.
"You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" is a song written by American musician Bob Dylan in 1967 in Woodstock, New York, during the self-imposed exile from public appearances that followed his July 29, 1966 motorcycle accident. A recording of Dylan performing the song in September 1971 was released on the Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II album in November of that year, marking the first official release of the song by its author. Earlier 1967 recordings of the song, performed by Dylan and the Band, were issued on the 1975 album The Basement Tapes and the 2014 album The Bootleg Series Vol. 11: The Basement Tapes Complete.
The Basement Tapes is the sixteenth album by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan and his second with the Band. It was released on June 26, 1975, by Columbia Records. Two-thirds of the album's 24 tracks feature Dylan on lead vocals backed by the Band, and were recorded in 1967, eight years before the album's release, in the lapse between the release of Blonde on Blonde and the subsequent recording and release of John Wesley Harding, during sessions that began at Dylan's house in Woodstock, New York, then moved to the basement of Big Pink. While most of these had appeared on bootleg albums, The Basement Tapes marked their first official release. The remaining eight songs, all previously unavailable, feature the Band without Dylan and were recorded between 1967 and 1975.
"Dignity" is a song by Bob Dylan, first released on Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume 3 on November 15, 1994, and also released as a CD single a month later. It was originally recorded in the spring of 1989 during the Oh Mercy studio sessions, but was not included on the album. It was also later anthologized on Dylan (2007).
"If Not for You" is a song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan from his October 1970 album New Morning. It was issued as the A-side of a single in Europe in early 1971. The song is a love song to Dylan's first wife, Sara Dylan. He recorded it several times in 1970; the session for the released version took place in New York in August. He also recorded the song with George Harrison on May 1, soon after the break-up of the Beatles, a session that attracted much speculation in the music press. The May recording remained unreleased until its inclusion on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 in 1991.
"Watching the River Flow" is a song by American singer Bob Dylan. Produced by Leon Russell, it was written and recorded during a session in March 1971 at the Blue Rock Studio in New York City. The collaboration with Russell formed in part through Dylan's desire for a new sound—after a period of immersion in country rock music—and for a change from his previous producer.
The Byrds' Greatest Hits Volume II is the second greatest hits album by the American rock band the Byrds. It was released in the United Kingdom and Europe on October 29, 1971, by CBS Records as a follow-up to the band's first compilation album, The Byrds' Greatest Hits. The album appeared following the band's successful appearance at the Lincoln Folk Festival in England on July 24, 1971, and according to band biographer Johnny Rogan may have been issued by CBS as a reaction to the band's previous studio album, Byrdmaniax, having failed to chart in the UK.
Bob Dylan bootleg recordings are unreleased performances by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, that have been circulated throughout the public without undergoing an official, sanctioned release. It is commonly misconceived that bootlegs are only restricted to audio, but bootleg video performances, such as Dylan's 1966 film Eat the Document, which remains officially unreleased, are considered to be bootlegs. Dylan is generally considered to be the most bootlegged artist in rock history, rivaled only by the Grateful Dead.
"Mama, You Been on My Mind" is a song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Written in 1964 during a trip to Europe, the song dealt with his recent breakup with his girlfriend, Suze Rotolo. Dylan first recorded the song in June of that year during a session for his album Another Side of Bob Dylan. However, the song was not included on the album, and Dylan's version remained unreleased until 1991. In total, in the 1990s and 2000s four versions were put out on Dylan's Bootleg Series of releases, including two live performances with Joan Baez from 1964 and 1975.
"Nothing Was Delivered" is a song written by Bob Dylan that was originally recorded by Dylan and The Band in the Fall of 1967 during the sessions that generated The Basement Tapes. The song was first released by The Byrds on their 1968 album Sweetheart of the Rodeo.