The Bootleg Series Vol. 9: The Witmark Demos 1962-1964

As a collection of the publishing demos Bob Dylan recorded in the first three years of his recording career, The Witmark Demos is an undeniably significant piece of history. Not only do these recordings--solo acoustic, like the albums he was making at the time--capture early, raw versions of everything from “Masters of War” to the Big Bang of modern songwriting, “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” they also unearth a bounty of tunes that Dylan never recorded. But while most of these tracks have only been heard before on bootlegs (hence the series title), the vast majority of the non-album songs have turned up elsewhere in one form or another, many appearing in different versions on the first installment of The Bootleg Series way back in 1991. And in the harsh light of day, none of the previously unheard compositions are particularly earth-shattering, so there are few revelations here. After all, this was the period in which Dylan--just 21 in 1962--was only beginning to define his style and establish his songwriting genius. The most obvious exponents of that genius were obvious enough to merit inclusion on his studio albums, and as for the tunes that didn’t make the cut, real clinkers are pretty much nonexistent, but so are undiscovered gems.