Rock me Mama, fourth time around
I mentioned recently that three Bob Dylan albums had been released in 2023. Well, a fourth one snuck in, mid-December-time. Ah, another cynical Dylan marketing maneuver, you all presume. Au contraire, I reply. I’m guessing Dylan has little interest in his legacy albums; a shrug or nod at best, I imagine, when Jeff Rosen (Dylan’s manager) suggests the releases to him.
The latest one was released as part of the ‘Copyright Extension’ series, now an annual necessity where after fifty years unreleased material becomes public domain (in Europe only). Called The 50th Anniversary Collection, they are extremely limited – and hence extremely collectable – CD or LP sets released by Sony Music since 2012 to prevent unreleased material being released by third parties.
The latest release is a 28-track CD, called 50th Anniversary Collection 1973, of outtakes from the soundtrack to Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, my favourite OST (Original Soundtrack) ever. If the soundtrack itself – aside from the magnficant Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door – sounds rough and ready (and mostly instrumental), the outtakes are even more so. Nevertheless, I’ve always loved the elegiac quality of the film and its music, and, like Leonard Cohen’s songs featuring in Altman’s superb anti-western McCabe and Mrs Miller (though the music wasn’t written for the movie), film and music are beautifully intertwined.
I actually got an email about the release a few days before Expecting Rain or Rolling Stone reported it, though I was already too late to buy a copy from Badlands for £20. Copies went immediately onto eBay or Discogs for upwards of £500. What a skank. If Sony Music released more than 200 copies, more of us would be able to buy it for a reasonable price. I would rather have paid £20 for it, but I’m not ashamed to say I downloaded it free almost immediately on mp3, like I have done with all the other releases (with the exception of Bob Dylan 1970 in 2020, which initially came out as a limited edition but released more widely due to popular demand – presumably because of the inclusion of the George Harrison sessions. I had to chuckle at those who had paid £500 for the Copyright Collection CD only for it to be officially released for £14.99).
The album is not dissimilar to the bootleg Peco’s Blues (there’s a Reddit discussion somewhere with the exact differences), which I’ve owned for years, and it’s always been one of my favourite Bob Boots, partly due to the inclusion of Rock Me Mama (included on the 50th Anniversary Collection 1973), one of Dylan’s catchiest numbers no one’s heard of. Or maybe you have.
A classic unfinished Dylan throwaway, one can imagine him strumming Rock me Mama in front of a campfire in Mexico (though it was a soundstage in Burbank, California). It would have remained unfinished and unheard if a member of the Americana band Old Crow Medicine Show hadn’t picked up a copy of Peso’s Blues in London in the 1990s and played it to his bandmate Ketch Secor.
25 years after Dylan strummed the chorus, Secor from Old Crow Medicine Show added some verses and turned the song into Wagon Wheel, now an Americana staple, covered numerous times by singers including Nathan Carter and Darius Rucker. The song has taken on a life of its own.
The CD includes an alternative version of Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, numerous renditions of the song Billy, and Sweet Armadillo, also revived and completed by Old Crow Medicine Show.
Finally, I’m obviously going to repeat the story of my one of two biggest missed barn-gains ever. I was in Sister Ray early one morning in November 2013 flicking through D for Dylan as I do when I came across the 50th Anniversary Collection 1963 (6 LP set) for £30. I don’t know, it seemed expensive at the time, I probably had no money, I didn’t buy it and now it goes for £500.
Previously on Barnflakes
Twelve Bob Dylan instrumentals
Modern love
Billy the Kid: right or wrong?
Top 10 Movie Soundtracks
Top 10 Westerns