Blood on the Tracks
Stripped-down songs recorded in New York, with half redone in Minneapolis over the Christmas week.
Bob Dylan, 1975
- Released
- January 1975
- Recorded
- 16-19 September and 27-30 December 1974
- Studio
- A&R Recording, New York City, and Sound 80, Minneapolis
- Label
- Columbia
- Producer
- Phil Ramone and Bob Dylan
- Length
- 51:46
Dylan dropped the idea of an electric band and settled on stripped acoustic arrangements. Eric Weissberg's group was dismissed after one day. His brother David Dylan heard a test pressing and thought it too stark, so Dylan re-recorded five songs in Minneapolis with local musicians. Neither Ramone nor Dylan was credited as producer on the original release.
It went to number one in the US, Canada and New Zealand, and to four in the UK. In the US it went double platinum. Reviews were mixed at first: the NME's Nick Kent thought the accompaniments often sounded like practice takes. Robert Christgau later called it a mature and assured record. Rolling Stone ranked it 16th in 2003 and ninth in 2020.
Track listing
- Tangled Up in Blue5:42
- Simple Twist of Fate4:19
- You're a Big Girl Now4:36
- Idiot Wind7:48
- You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go2:55
- Meet Me in the Morning4:22
- Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts8:51
- If You See Her, Say Hello4:49
- Shelter from the Storm5:02
- Buckets of Rain3:22
Personnel
- Bob Dylan vocals, guitar
- Chris Weber Minneapolis sessions
- Kevin Odegard Minneapolis sessions
- Peter Ostroushko Minneapolis sessions
- Gregg Inhofer Minneapolis sessions
- Billy Peterson Minneapolis sessions
- Bill Berg Minneapolis sessions
- Eric Weissberg New York sessions
- Charles Brown III New York sessions
- Buddy Cage New York sessions
- Thomas McFaul New York sessions
- Tony Brown New York sessions
- Richard Crooks New York sessions
- Philip Rabinowitz engineer, New York
- Paul Martinson engineer, Minneapolis
More from Bob Dylan
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), The Times They Are a-Changin' (1964), Bringing It All Back Home (1965), Highway 61 Revisited (1965), Blonde on Blonde (1966), John Wesley Harding (1967), The Basement Tapes (1975), Desire (1976), Time Out of Mind (1997), The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: The "Royal Albert Hall" Concert (1998), Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020)
Sources
- Blood on the Tracks, Wikipedia