The Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964, Concert At Philharmonic Hall:Bob Dylan

The Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964, Concert at Philharmonic Hall is a complete recording of Bob Dylan's October 31, 1964 "Halloween" show at New York's Philharmonic Hall. It was released in 2004.

The set list was dominated by Dylan’s protest songs, including "The Times They Are a-Changin’," "A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall," and "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll". Joan Baez, a major supporter of Dylan's in his early career, duets with Dylan on three songs, as well as singing another alone ("Silver Dagger"). However, Dylan performed these songs alongside early versions of three songs from the soon-to-be-recorded Bringing It All Back Home. New compositions like "It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)" and "Mr. Tambourine Man" showed Dylan moving in a new direction, becoming more immersed in evocative, stream-of-consciousness lyrics and moving away from social, topical songwriting. Even as he was moving in this new direction, Dylan was still portrayed as a symbol of the civil rights and anti-war movements, and the Halloween concert of 1964 caught Dylan in transition.

The album debuted on the Billboard 200 album chart on April 17, 2004 at number 28. It spent 4 weeks on the chart. It also reached number 33 in the U.K.

Contents

 [hide] *1 Preparing The Bootleg Series Vol. 6

• 2 Track listing
• 3 Personnel
• 4 References

Preparing The Bootleg Series Vol. 6

When Dylan and Sony began planning for The Bootleg Series Vol. 6, they weren't sure what to release. Steve Berkowitz, an A&R head at Sony Music who worked on all the Bootleg Series discs with Dylan's office, stresses that Dylan's office is behind the brainstorming and decision-making for the Bootleg Series, not Sony. Concerts held at Carnegie Hall and New York's Town Hall, both in 1963, were considered for The Bootleg Series Vol. 6, according to Berkowitz, but they were ultimately rejected.

The Halloween concert of 1964 had been previously bootlegged on vinyl and CD, but those releases were incomplete and taken from poor dubs of the soundboard tapes.The Bootleg Series Vol. 6 presented the entire concert for the first time from the original master tapes.

A few critics, including biographer Clinton Heylin, were dismissive. "I’ve never rated [the Halloween show] as a performance," Heylin explained in a phone interview. "Dylan is very focused when he comes to doing the new songs...But the old material, he’s completely and totally bored with. It’s not a good performance. He’s clearly stoned...The concert was a real landmark, not in the positive sense, but in the negative sense because it looked at the time like Dylan was going off the rails."

However, the set was well received by most critics, with NME's Rob Fitzpatrick giving it the magazine's highest rating (a 10 out of 10) and called it "utterly brilliant."

Track listing

All songs written by Bob Dylan, except where noted

Disc one

1. "The Times They Are a-Changin'" – 3:29
2. "Spanish Harlem Incident" – 3:07
3. "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues" – 4:06
4. "To Ramona" – 6:01
5. "Who Killed Davey Moore?" – 4:46
6. "Gates of Eden" – 8:32
7. "If You Gotta Go, Go Now (Or Else You Got to Stay All Night)" – 4:06
8. "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" – 11:26
9. "I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)" – 4:01
10. "Mr. Tambourine Man" – 6:33
11. "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" – 7:44

Disc two

1. "Talkin' World War III Blues" – 5:52
2. "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" – 4:34
3. "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" – 6:57
4. "Mama, You Been on My Mind" – 3:35
5. "Silver Dagger" (Traditional) – 3:47
6. "With God on Our Side" – 6:17
7. "It Ain't Me, Babe" – 5:11
8. "All I Really Want to Do" – 4:01

Personnel

• Bob Dylan – vocals, guitar, harmonica

Additional personnel

• Joan Baez – vocals on "Mama, You Been on My Mind", "Silver Dagger", "With God on Our Side", and "It Ain't Me, Babe"
• Steven Berkowitz – production
• Jeff Rosen – production