Bob Dylan was a force to be reckoned with during one album: ‘Nobody dared counter what he was doing’

Bob Dylan may be a legend of studio and stage but on one album he was a force to be reckoned with. Session musicians who worked with the veteran songwriter, now 85, shared how Dylan was in the studio when recording Blood on the Tracks. The 1975 release saw Dylan detail some of his angriest songs up to that point, with standout track Idiot Wind highlighting that not all was well in his personal life. While he would claim in his autobiography, Chronicles, that the songs were based on short stories by Anton Chekov, those who worked on the album with Dylan paint a very different picture.

Glenn Berger, who sat in on the first day of sessions with Dylan and engineer Phil Ramone, said the mood was very different at that time. Dylan had marked his comeback to the stage with The Band just seven months prior to Blood on the Tracks and while those shows offered up rock-friendly renditions of some of his greatest hits, the mood in the studio couldn’t have been further from that feeling.

Engineer Ramone reportedly offered Dylan no guidance on how to record his album during the New York recordings, Uncut reported. The sessions were so tense that Dylan would scrap the project and re-record much of Blood on the Tracks in Minneapolis. Dylan’s brother had reportedly stepped in to suggest re-recording the songs after listening to rough tapes of his work in New York.

The Ramone sessions saw Dylan engage with his work “like a concert performance” according to keyboardist Thomas McFaul, who was drafted in to the sessions in New York. He said: “There was no guidance at all from Phil Ramone, and Dylan’s approach was more like a concert performance than a recording session. He would ‘perform’ the song and if he didn’t like it, he would stop and say, ‘We don’t like that, erase it.’ Dylan used the royal ‘we’.”

Despite Dylan referring to himself as a collective it appeared there was little to no challenging his behaviour in the studio from Ramone. His assistant, Berger, said: “So Dylan is playing, and everyone is aware of the clacking of his buttons on the guitar. Phil was afraid to hit the talkback and tell him. Nobody dared counter what
he was doing.”

The reason for that may be that the session players could only hear Dylan in their headphones and in isolation. Nobody else could hear their work when performing, nor could they hear themselves. Only Dylan could be heard, and there seemed to be no way of challenging that in the studio. McFaul noted it “mattered less what we played” than what Dylan was performing at the time.

The New York sessions would ultimately be scrapped but some fans believe these recordings are much stronger than the Minneapolis tapes which were eventually released. Dylan’s 1975 masterpiece was initially recorded with a focus on acoustic material but was redone at the request of his brother. Later versions and studio cuts were compiled on The Bootleg Series: More Blood, More Tracks, which was released in 2018.

Some fans have since suggested the versions featured on the fourteenth instalment of The Bootleg Series are stronger than the original recordings. A user posting to the r/BobDylan subreddit wrote: “Am I the only one who prefers The Bootleg Series Vol. 14 recordings over the original Blood on the Tracks album?”

Those responding to the post were split on which they preferred, suggesting both had merit. One user suggested it may be hard to convince of More Blood, More Tracks, being better than the original version given the historic nature of Blood on the Tracks. They wrote: “It’s fascinating to consider… better? Depends on what I’m going through, you know?

“Currently listening to the solo version of Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts and it makes my life. So does listening to all the variations of Buckets of Rain. I love listening to the evolution of Shelter From The Storm, both in mood and lyrically… But in no case would anything be possible without loving the album first.”

But some have agreed with the original poster, suggesting the acoustic sound benefits the songs, giving them a “more melancholic and raw” feel. Fans of More Blood, More Tracks, pointed to Idiot Wind as an example of the changes.