The "Minnesota Hotel Tape"
December 22 1961, Minneapolis, MN, Home of Bonnie Beecher


Ever since I heard the two tracks of this tape on the No Direction Home soundtrack that are, as they write in the booklet, from the original mastertape, I had the idea of doing a remaster of the complete recording. The major point was, that the rumor that the circulating version was running a bit too slow was now proven by the two newly released tracks.

So this version here runs at the correct speed. I also ran a minimal tape-hiss filter, removed a few crackles and used a slight high-pass filter to fresh the sound up. Both channels were normalized befer the editing.
But judge yourself from the mp3-samples below.
I used the Bootleg "The Minnesota Tapes" as the surce. All extraction and editing was made with "Wave Purity Professional", a professional and expensive software, designed to restore old vinyl-recordings.
NO official source used!
Flac'd with FLACFronted.


Tracklist:
1.  Candy Man (Trad. arr. Rev. G. Davis)
2.  Baby, Please Don't Go (Big J. Williams)
3.  Hard Times In New York Town
4.  Stealin' (Trad. arr. Memphis Jug Band)
5.  Poor Lazarus (Trad.)
6.  I Ain't Got No Home (W. Guthrie)
7.  It's Hard To Be Blind
8.  Dink's Song (Trad.)
9.  Man Of Constant Sorrow (Trad.)
10. Talking about East Orange
11. Naomi Wise (Trad.)
12. Wade In The Water (Trad.)
13. I Was Young When I Left Home
14. In The Evening (L. Carr)
15. Baby, Let Me Follow You Down (E. von Schmidt)
16. Sally Gal
17. Gospel Plow (Trad.)
18. Long John (Trad.)
19. Cocaine (Trad.)
20. VD Blues (W. Guthrie)
21. VD Waltz (W. Guthrie)
22. VD City
23. VD Gunner's Blues (W. Guthrie)
24. See That My Grave Is Kept Clean (Blind L. Jefferson)
25. Ramblin' Round (W. Guthrie)
26. Black Cross (J. S. Newman arr. L. Buckley)

Total running time: 80:18 (with a slight over-burn it fits on a single CDR)


notes about the recording:

Probably the most famous hometape of Dylan. It was part of the first bootleg at all, the Great White Wonder. The quality is near perfection what caused a realeasing on numerous bootlegs. Taped by Tony Glover. The Guthrie influence can still be heard very well. Interesting is, that the couple of "own" compositions (tracks 3, 7, 13, 16 and 22) are all adapted to already existing songs:
- Hard Times In New York Town: adapted to Ketty's Farm (Trad.)
- It's Hard To Be Blind: adapted to It's Hard To Be Poor (Trad.) and There Was A Time When I Was Blind (Rev. G. Davis)
- I Was Young When I Left Home: adapted to 900 Miles (Trad.)
- Sally Gal: often called to be adapted to Sally, Don't You Grieve (W. Guthrie) and Ramblin' Round (W. Guthrie)
- VD City: definite source not known. Dylan learnd the Guthrie's VD songs probably from Ramblin' Jack Elliot ("I suppose I taught Bobby a few of my songs. Those old VD songs by Woody that nobody wanted the young kids to know, he picked them up from me ..." - Shelton p104) but VD City is not one of the four VD songs assinged to Guthrie: VD Blues, VD Gunner's Blues, VD Waltz (performed by Dylan on this tape) and VD Seaman's Last Letter (from a manuscript of the McKenzie's, no recording known). So VD City is eighter written by Dylan, or Ramblin' Jack Elliot got it from elsewhere or even wrote it himself.

These tracks were until now only available in minor soundquality (exept track 8 & 13).

Enjoy!