Review:
Wow!! What a labor of love project! Wonderland is stepping up to the plate lately to hit a few home runs! Well, let's get all of the negatives about this release said and done and over with so that we can get to the praises. The main emphasis for this release is the Witmark Demos. For the Dylan neophyte, Bob was asked to leave his original publisher, Duchess Music, by manager Albert Grossman; and to sign with Witmark and sons. The reason being, that Witmark was an arm of Warner Brothers. The job of a publisher is to get the writer's music into the hands of a recording artist. Grossman believed that Witmark would be far more successful at this than Dylan's original publisher. These recordings are the demos that Dylan made in the office of his new publisher over the two year period of which he was signed. Looking over the tunes, one can spot a couple that would have cemented Dylan into the pages of Rock&Roll history had he never written another song. There were also some minor hits here, some more obscure titles, and a couple of throw-aways. The performances are not spectacular, for the most part, because the publisher is not interested in performance, only content. Nevertheless, there are some gems here, and the entire body of songs belongs in the collection of every person that calls them self a "Dylan collector". These demos have circulated among collectors since the 1960's, but they were rarely traded as a complete package that included all songs. Paul Cabel lamented that fact in his 1978 book about Dylan's unreleased recordings. Fact is, though, the recordings have since been packaged together for several years, and they fit nicely on only two discs. The remainder of the material, some interesting and some abysmal, has also seen several releases. So the bottom line is that there is nothing new here. There are a couple of very minor grammatical errors in the typed information that can easily be forgiven. The discs themselves are silk screened with a sterile, generic black and white look that this Label uses for all releases. The package is presented as a long-box. There is an entire generation now that has no clue what that is, but originally, all CD releases came in the long box. However, as it is no longer in style, some might find the storage of this title in a separate place from the CD collection to be another detriment. OK.. I've been trying to hold back this enormous grin while listing the negatives... because... the fact is... This has got to be one of the more beautiful looking packages ever created. There is a full length booklet included in the box that is simply stunning. It lists all track information, and the full length black and white photos are simply to die for. On top of that, the box photo and book front are in full color, and the photos are just breath-taking. We're not listing this as a must have item, because the material is available on other must have releases... but this package would be a sweet addition to any size collection. It is a must have for the completeist, and for the collector that doesn't already own the material on other releases. The gold titles of the package have been added by us for identification, and bobsboots.com has released individual jewel case inserts that can be used in standard jewel boxes. They are linked from the bottom row of front and back cover links above. The recordings are as good as any of the commonly circulating tapes, and there were only 500 of these mouth watering babies produced, so jump onto this one with both feet. Careful not to drool on the cardboard.
© 2008 CD Pinkerton - bobsboots.com