Telling Bob Dylan’s Singular Story

A Complete Unknown 3

Maybe you’ve seen A Complete Unknown, the Bob Dylan biopic by James Mangold. Even if you haven’t, you’ve probably heard mention of it. This isn’t the first time that a movie has tried to dip into Dylan‘s life and tell his singular story.

In 2005, Martin Scorcese‘s documentary No Direction Home, Dylan himself spoke at length about his life and career. The soundtrack was a goldmine for previously unreleased music. But it felt like it was made by and for people who were already fans.

Two years later came the biopic I’m Not There by Todd Haynes in which 6 different actors – Cate Blanchett among them! – played Bob Dylan. The songs on the soundtrack were Dylan originals covered by other artists.¹ This provocative patchwork was an ambitious attempt to portray the way Dylan may well have seen himself as he has moved through the years.

Even though Scorcese and Haynes prepared the ground for A Complete Unknown, this new film has a wide intergenerational appeal all its own. The movie dives into the music and performance, zigzagging energetically through a five-year period in 2 hours and 20 minutes.

As a teenager in 1973, I didn’t have any of these movies to help my Dylan quest so I found myself having to use whatever resources were available. Luckily for me, at the same time Dylan kick-started his career again, rather like wheeling out a motorcycle left in the garage for a little too long and trying it out again on different roads.

Let’s take up the story where I left at the end of at the end of a previous post.

Bootlegs and pirate’s treasure

I was a year away from turning 18 and not many people I knew were interested in Dylan, so exploring his catalogue and reading about him felt like a personal project of sorts. Dylan wasn’t background music or dance music, and if people listened to him, it was one song at a time. He wasn’t easy to share but, as I couldn’t stop mentioning him, schoolfriends at St Mark’s started to bring me pieces of luck unhoped for.

One example was when Chester Kamen², with whom I shared many musical adventures growing up, invited me along to a record shop he knew in London which sold Jimi Hendrix bootlegs. This was live material, unavailable elsewhere. He had also seen some stuff by Dylan. That was the first of numerous nerve-tingling trips to the same address. It felt like crossing a line to get something otherwise unobtainable. Obviously, you couldn’t just walk in and ask to buy a bootleg recording as they were illegal.

First, you looked at the official albums by the artist you were interested in, and then you looked meaningfully at the shop-owner and asked what else he had. It wasn’t necessary to say more than that, as he generally got the message. He would then look around to see who else was in the shop, before reaching, literally, under the counter, and pulling out his secret stock of rare recordings. It was like opening a pirate’s treasure chest. On that first day, I bought a copy of Bob Dylan‘s 1962 Gaslight Recordings, the intensity of which overwhelmed me.

As the months passed, I would return for one of two more, becoming particularly enamoured of the electric set from what claimed to be the London Royal Albert Hall Concert in May 1966. Famous for the hostility of the crowd reaction, including the shout of “Judas!” before the performance of Like a Rolling Stone³, the bootleg was a recording taken direct from the sound-desk. It was of the same high quality as the official release which finally came out in 1998.⁴

Lucky strike with a classic single

Out of the blue came another stroke of luck – completely legal this time – when another classmate, Tim Maher, said he had come across a Dylan single at home in some neglected corner of the family record collection. What was it called ? I Want You. Was he sure ? Sure he was sure. Could I hear it ? Tim brought the record into class the next day. I thanked him, said I would listen to it at home and then give it back. Give it back ? He wouldn’t hear of me giving it back. I could have it! His parents were happy to get rid of it. As you can imagine, I was only too glad to be of service.

Once I got home and played the thing, I realized the importance of what he had given me. On Side A, I Want You sounded like a different mix to the version I knew from the Greatest Hits album. This one had the guitar up front. I compared the two versions just to check my memory wasn’t playing tricks with me, and found it wasn’t.⁵  The Cutting Edge archives released in 2015 would later confirm just how many versions there were of so many songs from the same period.

But there was more. On Side B of that same single came the live version of Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues recorded in Liverpool on May 14, 1966, with its tortured vocal that made Dylan sound as if he was about to break. Astounded, I played it over and over. I couldn’t believe how much more emotionally charged it was than the “Royal Albert Hall” version from the same tour, which was the only other version I knew then. When I thanked Tim the next day, he was chuffed I liked it, but he couldn’t have known how happy I was.

That single was the start of a series of fortunate events which would happen over the next 12 months or so. Uncle Bob was news again. It started when Christmas 73 came around. The recently published Writings and Drawings of Bob Dylan was the most important thing in my stocking. After marvelling over the contents, including quirky draft versions of famous songs, as well as the line drawings, I wondered about the title. Was this it ? The Complete Works? How could it be over?

Playful Planet Waves

Then, in January 1974, came Planet Waves, Dylan‘s first full album of new pieces for 4 years. Announced only days before its release, it sounded good. He had recorded it with The Band, whose beautiful, raggedy playing I knew from my precious “Royal Albert Hall” bootleg and songs heard from Great White Wonder. I liked the album cover which I was shown by a teacher at my school who bought it when it came out.

From what I had learned about Dylan’s discography, the artwork was clearly done by the same artist as the cover of Self Portrait, who was Bob himself. You could make out that same eye for features. My teacher said it was great that Dylan was recording again, and making music with The Band. Just like old times. It was cool to be able to talk about all this naturally to somebody who was also a fan. But another thought crossed my mind : did I want to listen to the same records as my teachers ? This was something I would have to accept for the time being.

There was an up side to Planet Waves which I really liked. The cajun swing of On a night like this, the single released from the album, sounded fresh. There was a good energy to the music.

The group sound, especially Robbie Robertson’s guitar on Going Going Gone, was masterful. Dirge had echos of Ballad of a Thin Man, with highly charged lyrics balanced by a simple piano-guitar arrangement. Dylan was in good voice too, I thought, and more playful than when he had been knocking on heaven’s door. The album got some positive reviews, radio airplay and even modestly charted. It also spawned two versions of Forever Young of which Conor McPherson, creator of the magnificent stage musical Girl from the North Country has recently said : “It’s almost like a hymn, that song. It could be sung at a wedding or a funeral or a baptism or any of those things.“

Before The Flood Tour

More importantly, the release of the album coincided with a 40-date North American Stadium Tour by Bob Dylan and The Band, starting on January 3^rd in Chicago and finishing on Valentine’s Day at the LA Forum in Inglewood. Naturally it was a sell-out. The music papers were full of reviews as the tour progressed, generally positive.

Before The Flood, the live album of the tour which came out in June 1974⁶, was made up mainly of recordings from the Inglewood concerts. It was a big moment for me, hearing songs I knew from Dylan‘s vast repertoire in new versions, discovering The Band as a band. Most Likely You’ll Go Your Way And I’ll Go Mine, which I’d never heard before, opened all the album in great style.

What did the original version sound like I wondered ? It wasn’t playing on the radio, I didn’t know anyone who had a copy of it, so when I had saved enough money I sent off for a copy of Blonde On Blonde from the unbeatably priced Virgin Mail Order service. Dylan was back on song.

Love on the tracks

My final year at secondary school began in September 1974. It had been a great summer because I had well and truly fallen in love, having met Sylvie from Toulouse, who was just as interested in music as I was. In spite of the distance between our cities, we had seen similar artists live – Rory Gallagher and The Who were just two examples. She pointed out to me the importance of Neil Young and Leonard Cohen, and I did the same for the young Bruce Springsteen and, naturally, Uncle Bob. Music was a recurring theme in our letters, especially as Sylvie was able to get US import versions of new albums before they officially appeared in the UK.

Blood on the Tracks was released in January 1975. The songs were so good, it was unreal. It is now seen as a turning-point recording in Dylan‘s career. The writing flowed again, and the 1974 tour had certainly helped the strength and phrasing of his singing compared to Planet Waves. Even on his own scale of achievements, Dylan had moved to another level, managing to create something new. These were songs about love and relationships, about people older than me, but I had somebody my own age to share it with. She also got a copy of the album before I did. My search for Bob Dylan was no longer the solitary experience it had been at the beginning. I liked that.

Times have changed

So that’s the story. Since that first step with Scaduto‘s biography⁷ to the release of Blood on the Tracks, in just 3 years, I had tuned into an artist who everybody seemed to know by name, but who had disappeared from view. I had seen him metamorphose into a new version of himself. In autumn 1975, when I started at Keele University, Dylan was a natural reference again. In fact, Bob seemed to be everybody’s uncle – an older, wiser voice. And he’s managed to keep it that way ever since.

I feel lucky to have been through the strange cycle of discovery that I have tried to describe here. And I think anyone who didn’t know about Dylan until recently is just as lucky. 2025 is a perfect moment to pick up on his songs and enjoy them as new music.

A Complete Unknown has come along and changed the times, presenting Dylan as a young man. Timothéé Chalamet‘s amazing performance, plus his active promotion of the film since its release, have done a lot to reinforce this. It is no longer music of the past for the nostalgic, but something to inspire musicians in the present who are starting out and maybe struggling to make a living. The message is : don’t be afraid to be different, open your eyes and ears to find the right associates, be open to new influences and work hard.

Oh yes, and don’t let social networks distract you. In the world of A Complete Unknown, nobody had a mobile phone.

1. I’m Not There full tracklist with artists is waiting for you here. ↩︎
2. More on Chester Kamen in a recent post and … in a not so recent post. ↩︎
3. It was finally revealed that the concert in question took place at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester on May 17, 1966, and not in London. A Complete Unknown transfers the cry of Judas to Newport 1956. Not so much a case of rewriting the legend, so much as extending it. ↩︎
4. The 36-CD set of the 1966 World Tour was not yet a twinkle in a record company’s eye. ↩︎
5. The version of I Want You I knew was in fact Take 5 of the song; the single version I had been given was Take 5b with a guitar overdub. The full session is available on YouTube. ↩︎
6. 50 years on, a completely remastered version of the recordings from the 1974 tour was released on 20th September 2024. ↩︎
7. Whatever happened to this book? It was there one day, then gone the next. ↩︎