Blood on the Tracks

Personnel: Bob Dylan (vocals, guitar); Kevin Odegard, Chris Weber (guitar); Buddy Cage (steel guitar); Peter Ostroushko (mandolin); Gregg Inhofer (keyboards); Paul Griffin (organ); Tony Brown, Billy Peterson (bass); Bill Berg (drums); Eric Weissberg & Deliverance.
Includes liner notes by Pete Hamill.
Issued for Record Store Day in the spring of 2019, this LP is an exact replica of the impossibly rare withdrawn test pressing of Blood on the Tracks from December of 1974. After Bob Dylan recorded the set at A&R Studios in New York with Eric Weisberg & Deliverance, he was unsatisfied. The emotional intimacy and vulnerability proved too revealing and vulnerable. He played a test pressing for his brother, producer David Zimmerman, back in Minnesota, who encouraged him to re-record five of the songs with local musicians in order to liven it up. Dylan withdrew the album he'd handed in, leaving only five test pressings, making it the scarcest of Dylan rarities. He cut new versions of five songs -- "Tangled Up in Blue," "You're a Big Girl," "Idiot Wind," "Lily, Rosemary & the Jack of Hearts," and "If You See Her, Say Hello." While the officially issued 1975 offering included selections from both sessions, this LP contains the ten original tracks cut in New York. ~ Thom Jurek