Bob Dylan's 1967 Basement Tapes sessions have been mythologized for decades, and now you can take a tour of the recordings' upstate New York roots with “The Dude” himself, Jeff Bridges, as your guide.
In conduction with the release of the massive box set “The Basement Tapes Complete: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 11”, Legacy Recordings have released a 3-minute mini-documentary in which Bridges lays out the history of the sessions.
“From The Village to The Basement,” available on BobDylan.com, is a time-lapse montage more than 12,000 photos which begins at the Washington Square Hotel in Greenwich Village, and tracks upstate, as congested traffic, taxicabs and “Selfie” billboards give way to lush, rolling hills and big blue skies. It ends at the West Saugerties, New York house known as the Big Pink. It was there that Dylan and members of The Band (then known as The Hawks) recorded the wildly eclectic and raw Basement Tapes in 1967.
Meant to be used solely as demos and sketches, fans demanded to hear the tracks, helping spawn the earliest rock bootlegs.
Watch it here:
“The Basement Tapes Complete” compiles 118 previously unreleased recordings including 31 recently unearthed tracks. It's now available.