Preparing The Bootleg Series Vol. 7
The project eventually titled as No Direction Home began to take shape in 1995 when Dylan's manager, Jeff Rosen, began scheduling interviews with Dylan's friends and associates. Among those interviewed were poet Allen Ginsberg and folk musician Dave Van Ronk, both of whom died before the film was ever completed. Dylan's old girlfriend Suze Rotolo also granted a rare interview, and she later told Rolling Stone Magazine that she was very pleased with the project's results. Dylan himself also sat for ten hours in a relaxed and open conversation with Rosen in 2000.
According to Rolling Stone Magazine, an unnamed source close to the project claimed that Dylan himself had no involvement with the project apart from the interview, saying that " has no interest in this...Bob truly does not look back." However, work on the first installment of Dylan's autobiography, Chronicles, Vol. 1, did overlap production of the project, though it's unclear how much, if any, influence Chronicles may have had on No Direction Home.
Though raw material was being gathered for the project, Rosen needed someone to edit and shape it into a quality picture, and celebrated filmmaker Martin Scorsese was approached to 'direct' the documentary planned from the project. Scorsese eventually agreed and came aboard in 2001.
In the meantime, Dylan's office gathered hundreds of hours of historical film footage dating from the time covered in No Direction Home. These included a scratchy recording of Dylan's high school rock band, his 1965 screen test for Andy Warhol, and newly-discovered footage of the famous Manchester, England concert from May 17, 1966, when an angry fan called out "Judas!" just before Dylan and the Hawks performed "Like a Rolling Stone." Shot by D. A. Pennebaker, the onstage, color footage was found in 2004 in a pile of water-damaged film recovered from Dylan's vaults.
At the same time, musical recordings from Dylan's archives were also being explored for an accompanying soundtrack. As originally planned, the soundtrack included live performances featured in the film, such as Dylan's first live electric performance - "Maggie's Farm," backed by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band - at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. Producer Steve Berkowitz helped create the first multitrack mix of this performance which was ultimately used for the soundtrack, saying "it's raw, it's punk rock...There was nothing overdubbed, nothing changed. Everything in the soundtrack was mixed and mastered to sound like it sounded then." A large number of performances could not be remixed, including a 1966 performance of "Ballad of a Thin Man" which was taken from a mono recording, the only one ever made. "It's totally distorto, but I love it," says Berkowitz. "Talk about verite—it's perfect." Despite the praise, the recording appears in 'fake' stereo on the compilation.
However, as the soundtrack was compiled, it was eventually decided to include material that was not featured in the documentary, including a large number of studio outtakes that were previously unreleased.
Read more about this topic: The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack
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