Tell Tales of Tell Tale Signs Tales

A year ago, last June, I woke up to an email from Jeff Rosen asking me if I'd be interested in writing the notes to an upcoming Bootleg Series. Of course I wrote him right back and said, I'd love to.

A year ago, last June (writing in August 2009) , I woke up to an email from Jeff Rosen asking me if I'd be interested in writing the notes to an upcoming Bootleg Series.  Of course I wrote him right back and said, I'd love to.

Then I waited.  Turns out he emailed me at like 6 in the morning and caught a flight to England.  Late that night he responded by email from the UK.

A few days later he was back -- (and him flying all over the place turned out to be a constant scenario) -- and called me up about midnight on a Sunday night, and started playing me tracks over the phone, including the acoustic "Mississippi," and of course "Red River Shore," and some of the other studio outtakes. 

Two days later the first disc arrived.  He was still in the compilation process, and the other two arrived two days later.  We talked briefly about what he wanted, and he had a couple of points he wanted me to make, particularly about Bob as a blues singer.  The first thing I did was ask for musician credits.

The next few days were just chaotic, constant emails back and forth, not only with Jeff, but others at Special Rider and others at Columbia. 

The musician credits never came, some song titles were wrong, and worst of all with the exception of the Live Bonnarro stuff, and the Niagra Falls "Highwater," either the dates were wrong, or not there at all. 

One song, "Wagoner's Lad," wasn't even in the years of the set, and it was the exact same track as the one on the huge Dylan covers boots, right down to the edit.  I quickly realized it was the debut of the song, which I saw at the Tower Theater, right outside of Philly.  I immediately called the office, and then had to track Jeff down in L.A.