The Dylan Week in Review
Bob Back in the Studio, 1961 Master Reels Surface and Outlaw Tour Takes New Turns!
Debut‑album master reels surface — and vanish
Over the past few days, high‑quality transfers of Bob Dylan’s first Columbia sessions briefly appeared online. According to multiple posts on Expecting Rain, the uploads contained master reels with working takes, false starts, count‑offs, and producer John Hammond’s on‑mic directions—more than 40 outtakes in circulation, with a combined run time reported around 112 minutes (the tape boxes list “about 2.5 hours”). Several ER users confirmed they purchased and downloaded WAV files while they were available; others mirrored short clips to YouTube before SME copyright claims took them down.
A helpful forum reconstruction traced the material to a long‑running thread about Steven Adler and tapes that once surfaced via auction; it also noted that “Tape 1” had been quietly parked on an audio platform months ago, while “Tapes 2 and 3” appeared through a separate storefront. Within days, the storefront links were pulled. (For background and a careful write‑up, see this summary: Bob Dylan’s first recording session — From the master reels on Nightly Moth.)
Two takeaways:
Provenance feels credible, and the sound (where briefly heard) suggested true session reels with period anomalies (a steady high tone on part of Day 2 that could be corrected in transfer).
Rights are complicated. Even if certain elements are out of copyright in parts of the world, the reels contain material issued on the original album and on Bootleg Series Vol. 1–3, enough for rights‑holders to act quickly.
Is this a harbinger of the fall Bootleg Series focused on “very early material” (often nicknamed The Villager)? Industry chatter points that way—there’s even a widely shared note quoting a journalist that a Bootleg Series release of “very early material” is slated for fall ’25.
Check out the great “He Was a Friend Of Mine” take at min 19:25 before John Hammond stopped him due to “a couple of frogs in the throad”….
Two Days in a Studio
Amid the Outlaw dates, White Lake Studios (Colonie, NY) issued a press note stating that Bob Dylan and members of his band spent two days at the facility, Aug. 5–6, 2025, with sessions conducted discreetly. No details on repertoire or purpose were disclosed.
Speculation in the Dylan community has been running high since news broke that Bob and his band spent two full days in a rather unusual recording studio — accompanied by an immediate press release. That in itself is odd; such a move feels far from Bob’s usual cloak-and-dagger approach to new material.
It seems unlikely that an entirely new album would be tracked in just two days, especially if the main sessions were to take place elsewhere. A more plausible explanation might be a one-off recording — perhaps for a film, a special soundtrack, or even a private performance such as a milestone birthday event.
What could that mean? Given Bob’s active Rough and Rowdy Ways touring this fall, a brand‑new album drop in 2025 feels unlikely, especially given the probable relase of a new (rumored) Bootleg Series this fall. A 2026 project—or material prepared in parallel—is plausible.
What’s your thoughts? Comment below.
Outlaw Music Festival Updates
Setlists on Leg 3 have been anything but static:
“Positively 4th Street” suddenly returned in the setlist, but this time as an opener at Saratoga Springs, New York— (It has also appeared mid‑set before, but Bob did not seem to be satisfied with the arragement so he dropped it again for a couple days).
For the two most recent dates, Bob opened with “Masters of War,” its first appearance as an opener since 1963 and the song’s first return to the live set since 2016. Reactions have been intense—some hear it as a pointed choice in a fraught moment; others simply as Bob reclaiming a cornerstone.
“Soon After Midnight” re‑entered the set last night in Hershey, leaving Positively 4th Street out again for now:
Next stops:
We have one more show in the 3rd leg of the 2025 Outlaw Music Festival tonight in Syracuse, New York, at the Empower Federal Credit Union Amphitheater at Lakewood, before we head into a break until the last leg kicks off again in Bangor, Maine on September 5.
Rest of the 2025 Outlaw Tour:
If you’re attending any shows, send a short review and any standout observations to info@daily-dylan.com—we’ll feature a selection.
Housekeeping
Paid readers: if you’d like us to chase specific seats or try upgrades for the fall European tour, our Ticket Support Service continues (and has already placed several readers in excellent locations).
Our Spare Tickets Corner will be back, soon!
Simply incredible that recordings from the first session suddenly appeared this week!
They sound fantastic from what I have listened to so far. 1961 !
Incidentally, If there was supposed to be a working hyperlink to the "nightly moth" (great name!) article in your post, then it didn't work for me. I will search for it independently but you might want to fix it, if that's what you intended.
Regarding the Outlaw Tour and Masters of War. It's interesting to speculate. How Bob chooses his setlists has been an interesting question to me for the longest time. If he introduces a song about jeans in the remainder of the tour, then we will know he definitely pays attention to what's going on :)
So many great things going on right now ~ thank you for finding it all out, and sharing with us 🫶