In the “bobcats Assemble” thread, @dai and others rhapsodise about the masterpieces left off the official released canon. As a Bob lightweight (only the 13 LP’s plus Greatest Hits comps) I would genuinely love to see your top candidates for a deep-cut greatest hits LP.
Thanks for your attention to this matter!
As a guide to my tastes, “Blind Willie McTell” from (checks notes) “The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 1961–1991” is in my top ten Bob songs, and I’d love to assemble a playlist of other gems.
Please, have at it, tell me what I’ve missed ===>
As a non-Bobcat, I would also be interested to see what songs are suggested by the, er, deep-cut specialists!
1969, Kensington Market. Five pounds (where on earth did I find five pounds?) handed over to Frantic Fred, purveyor of low-class drugs and high-class Bootlegs.
Rush back to disgusting student’s flat in Earls Court where I play GWW for the next week. I listened to Hezekiah Jones for, oh, three hundred times.
The Bank of England Inflation calculator indicates your £5:00 spent in 1969 is worth £73:61 in today’s money.
Memory says a regular LP was around £2. GWW was both illegal and a triple album so I guess a fiver was a relative bargain. Still no idea how a penniless hippy student found such riches. Did I have a “special arrangement” with Frantic Fred? Things were different back then
I bought the ‘official’ Italian bootlegs of the Great White Wonder bootleg. I believe the Italians had a fairly flexible view of bootlegs.
A listening project a few years ago was every Bob album. From his low period (after BOTT through to Time out of Mind) here are some cuts which though for real bobcats not obscure are from very much lesser albums.
Changing of the Guards – Street Legal
Gotta Serve Somebody – Slow Train coming
What Can I do for you? – Saved
Every Grain of Sand – Shot of Love
Sweetheart Like You – Infidels
Tight Connection to My Heart – Empire Burlesque
Brownsville Girl – Knocked Out and Loaded
10,000 Men – Under the Red Sky
Hard Times – Good as I been To You
Looking at the playlist I made now I could not I guess find one track worth listening to again from Down In The Groove or World gone Wrong. Sure someone will say these are there favourite bob albums.
Not an absolute favourite but I like World Gone Wrong a lot, more than Good As I Been to You. Delia especially is gorgeous. Much harder to make the case for Down in the Groove though.
I don’t hate Down in the Groove. A good song from that is Death is not the End. I also prefer World Gone Wrong to Good as I Been to You
Gotta Serve Somebody (from an excellent album) won a Grammy so that’s probably not a “deep cut”
I first heard a version of Death Is Not The End sung by The Waterboys at Salford University before His Bobness released it, I knew it was a Bobness tune because Mike Scott said it was
I first heard a version by Nick Cave – I assume it’s the same song…?
Thanks very much Moseley, but I’m specicially after tracks that didn’t appear on a released LP.
Not to say I won’t listen to the above at some point 👍
Also, if I read the OP correctly, you’re after “masterpieces” – not just any old tripe left off the official canon…
Blind Willie McTell (as you namechecked above) is undoubtedly a masterpiece, but not released until the Bootleg Series got up and running
Never on an official album, four that stand out to me:
Carribbean Wind
Abandoned Love
Positively 4th Street … although released as a single
and the already mentioned Blind Willie McTell
There are many more but my head’s just recovering from a biopsy
👍
Get well soon.
Positively 4th Street appears on some compilation albums – the 12th Bootleg includes three versions of it, it’s on Biograph, and there’s a GH Vol 111 variant that went out in Oz that has it as the first track.
It’s deffo a stand-out track, as @Pyramid says – the opening line is a sure fire introduction to grab one’s attention! Well worth seeking out if you don’t have it.
/nerd mode
Was also one of his biggest hits reaching no. 8 in the UK charts so despite not appearing originally on an album it is hardly a “deep cut”
Can You Please Crawl Out of Your Window was also a standalone hit, but compiled less since I think
And also get well soon!
Thank you MC & Dai, I’m OK now and awaiting the results
Music is my medicine, never let’s me down
Yep, I have that one, on the greatest hits comps I mentioned. ‘Tis indeed a belter.
The stripped down version of Mississippi from Tell Tale Signs (Bootleg series 8) is essential.
That is niiice.
Left off Shot of Love (originally), released as a B side
…and featuring Ringo!
I think he’s on the other side of the single “Heart of Mine”, but maybe this too?
Prime choice from late period Bob … from 1989s Oh Mercy comes Most Of The Time
As Bob is now 84 I think Oh Mercy classifies as mid period, he was a mere boy at 48
Indeed, just rethought that and was coming back to edit … 1989 is 37! years ago
Sorry RD that’s on a released album. It’s like shouting into the void sometimes on ‘ere 😉
Aside from Blind Willie McTell the other genuinely great songs that only appeared later on the Bootleg series are Series of Dreams and Red River Shore. Think both would be in my Bob top 10. And sometimes Red River Shore is my favourite song of his.
I shall investigate tomorrow, ta.
It’s a little overlong but again, niiice.
This is lovely:
It was on 1973’s Dylan, sung in his Lay Lady Lay voice with a barbershop quartet as backing, but nobody listened to that.
Another Self Portrait (Bootleg 10) is brilliant, by the way.
I should do a Review
I know I said I wasn’t a proper fan, but I should have said that ASP is the only Bobboot I have, so I know this one. And it is a really good collection, innit.
It’s full of treasure. His voice is great and his guitar playing is right on the money almost throughout. It’s amazing how much good music he made…
Railroad Bill is a great track…
Last Thoughts On Woody Guthrie (from Bootleg Series 1-3).
Not a song, but an astonishing prose-poem that sounds like stream of consciousness but was undoubtedly crafted and refined to the nth degree, delivered in a breakneck, passionate oration. Still amazes me on every listen.
Has anyone suggested Up to Me yet..? That’s a great song.