Bob Dylan - Rolling Thunder Rarities, Part 2 (1976) | Albums That Should Exist

Bob Dylan - Rolling Thunder Rarities, Part 2 (1976)

Paul says: Bob Dylan put on the celebrated "Rolling Thunder Revue" tour with some other famous musicians in two parts. The first part was mostly in November 1975. Then there was an extensive break and the second part took place in April and May 1976. So I used that clear division to make two albums of Dylan's Rolling Thunder rarities. The first part had all 1975 rarities and this one has all 1976 rarities.

Like Part 1, I've collected all the unusual songs here. Note that I did not include exceptionally good performances of frequently performed songs. Instead, I only included rare cover versions or originals where the arrangement and/or lyrics were dramatically changed. Part 1 mostly consists of covers, but this part mostly consists of drastically changed originals. Note that Dylan radically changed the lyrics to "If You See Her, Say Hello" for the version I posted in Part 1, and then radically changed them again for the version here.

Also like Part 1, this includes both studio outtakes (mostly from tour rehearsals) and live performances. It so happens that most of these songs are studio outtakes, except for the last four. They generally come from another set of rehearsals to get ready for the second leg of the tour.

The 1975 portion of this tour has been well represented on official albums, thanks to the album "The Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Bob Dylan Live 1975, The Rolling Thunder Revue" and "Bob Dylan – The Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1975 Live Recordings." The latter release consists of 14 CDs! By contrast, the only official release for the 1976 portion is the live album "Hard Rain." But all of that is taken from a single concert, and nothing here is from that. 

As a result, everything here is officially unreleased. However, the sound quality is generally very good to excellent, since most of this is from studio outtakes, plus soundboard concert bootlegs. Note that a bunch of songs have "[Edit]" in their titles, because I made big edits to those. In cases, like "Tangled Up in Blue," the rehearsal versions stopped and started again, and I merged the parts together to create one coherent version. In other cases, I boosted low vocals or edited out rambling bits that started or ended songs.

This album is an hour and five minutes long.

01 The Water Is Wide (Bob Dylan with Eric Clapton & the Band)
02 The Ballad of Hollis Brown (Bob Dylan)
03 You Angel You [Edit] (Bob Dylan)
04 Isis (Bob Dylan)
05 Seven Days [Edit] (Bob Dylan)
06 Going Going Gone [Edit] (Bob Dylan)
07 I Threw It All Away (Bob Dylan)
08 Rita May [Edit] (Bob Dylan)
09 Tangled Up in Blue [Edit] (Bob Dylan)
10 If You See Her, Say Hello [1976 Lyrics Version] (Bob Dylan)
11 Railroad Boy (Bob Dylan & Joan Baez)
12 Deportee [Plane Wreck at Los Gatos] (Bob Dylan & Joan Baez)
13 Gotta Travel On [Edit] (Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Roger McGuinn & Joan Baez)

part II here