Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		4.0

Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 27, 2015

At least some fans of rock ‘n’ roll will know that February 3, 1959 was, as Don McLean termed it in his epochal American Pie, “the day the music died,” meaning it was the day the plane carrying Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson and pilot Roger Peterson crashed in Iowa, killing them all. My hunch is very few of those fans could identify what July 29, 1966 might be, but I can pull a “McLean” and give a hint by saying it was the day the music was severely injured. Perhaps it might be slightly more accurate to say it was the day the music was alleged to have been severely injured, but if one subscribes to that thesis, then one has to also assume that a certain Mr. Robert Allen Zimmerman, better known as Bob Dylan, may have prevaricated somewhat in his account of devastating motorcycle accident in which he supposedly broke several vertebrae, an injury which gave the already somewhat reclusive superstar a convenient excuse to drop out of (to paraphrase Dylan’s cohort in sixties’ folk, Joni Mitchell) “the star maker machinery behind the popular song.” Because there are no actual records of the accident and no ambulance was evidently called to the scene, some have doubted that it ever took place, but in a way, that’s really not the important point. The fact that Dylan pretty much “dropped out” in mid-1966, not really surfacing in publc (aside from in dribs and drabs) for the next several years has given rise to a whole mythology about what he was going through at the time and (not to put too fine a point on it) how he managed to keep himself busy. That second query was partially answered once Dylan’s vast array of demos recorded in the wake of the motorcycle fracas began leaking out, with several of the 1966 and later tunes becoming rather sturdy chart vehicles for other acts covering them (Manfred Mann took “Mighty Quinn” all the way to Number One on some charts, but other artists had substantial hits of their own with Dylan penned tunes written during this time period). The Basement Tapes was a first release (in 1975, years after its recording) of this material recorded at a home near Woodstock that Dylan was holed up in at the time. That ultimately led to both The Genuine Basement Tapes and the subsequent The Bootleg Series Volume 11: The Basement Tapes Complete, releases which sought to further codify and present the results of Dylan’s supposedly hermetic creative phase. Playing out as a somewhat more contemporary sidebar to all of this non-studio recording (none of which was ever really meant to be released as a bona fide commercial product) was a 2014 project put together at the behest of legendary producer T Bone Burnett, who had come into possession of a box of handwritten lyrics (and/or snippets) written by Dylan around 1967 and then promptly forgotten about (Dylan himself is on record—no pun intended—in Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued as never having set eyes on these after the day he wrote them decades ago).

Burnett did something fascinating with the material, something that in a way echoes the way such vaunted theater writing gurus as Lehman Engel or Wesley Balk help to foster writers in that idiom. Workshops like the Engel BMI outings will often “assign” a scene to various teams of writers, telling them, for example, to come up with a song for a certain moment in a non-musical play which is supposedly being musicalized. Each team then goes off to their respective corners and crafts their material, at which point the entire class listens to what is often completely disparate and stylistically variant approaches to the same dramatic impetus. Burnett had it a bit easier, in that he had a box of Dylan lyrics at his disposal, and he simply gave copies to the participants, which included Elvis Costello, Rhiannon Giddens, Taylor Goldsmith, Jim James and Marcus Mumford. Each of those accomplished musicians then wrote their own tunes to the pre-existing words, bringing the combined results of their efforts to a joint recording project, where they then both collaborated on forging “merged” ideas for certain songs, while also offering their own versions of any given tune.

Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued is an often fascinating documentary which captures the mad rush of this collaborative spirit as these previously unconnected musicians meet and begin hammering (dulcimer or otherwise) out the shape of their material. There are wonderful moments sprinkled throughout the documentary, including great confessional moments (one particpant admits to being “s**t scared” at the thought of collaborating not just with the in studio musicians, but with Dylan as a lyricist). The best sections are montages which show how brilliantly different the various artists’ versions of Dylan lyrics are.

Burnett turns out to be a fairly crafty producer, as is shown in some of the “backstage” material where he deliberates about how “democratic” he wants the project to be. Perhaps surprisingly given artistic temperaments in general, there are no huge egos on display in the documentary, and indeed everyone seems to realize they’re participating in a very special situation, one unlikely to be repeated in their careers. (The fact that there are obviously cameras capturing their every comment may have “helped” everyone to be on their best behavior.) Ironically, not all of the tunes recording during this whirlwind sessions have yet found their way to market, though the first batch, entitled Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes, arrived in late 2014 and climbed to 23 on the Billboard album charts (it did significantly better on niche charts like the US Folk Album listing). That means that there are, if not outright “lost” songs still out there, at least “not quite found” (yet) songs with the Dylan imprimatur still waiting to be heard.

Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Eagle Vision (an imprint of Eagle Rock Entertainment) and Universal Music Group with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer (largely) in 1.78:1. All of the contemporary footage centered around the recording and performances at Los Angeles' iconic (round) Capitol Records building looks appealingly sharp and well detailed, even if some darker elements lack substantial shadow detail. Close-ups, typically during things like first person confessionals or artists trying to work out tunes as they read Dylan lyrics, offer excellent fine detail. The documentary has some archival footage of Dylan, some of which looks fairly ragged (see screenshot 2). There are also what appear to be "recreations" of various situations (like the original recording sessions at Big Pink, the house outside of Woodstock), which have been intentionally "distressed" and "grained" to give the appearance of archival footage.

Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued features both a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track as well as an uncompressed LPCM 2.0 stereo iteration. Perhaps because this is not a performance video per se and instead tends to feature mere snippets of tunes, the 5.1 track doesn't really offer the same sense of immersion and low end "oomph" that true concert videos typically offer. That said, there is substantial breathing space in the 5.1 track when music is being played. Both tracks offer excellent support for the spoken elements (which include a lot of Dylan voiceovers). Fidelity is fine and dynamic range rather wide when one takes the music into account.

Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Bonus Tracks: (1080p; 24:20)

  Diamond Ring

  Down on the Bottom

  Hidee Hidee Ho #16

  Kansas City

  Six Months in Kansas City

  The Whistle is Blowing

Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

As a record (sorry, can't seem to stop) of a really fascinating project, Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued offers a rather compelling window in a most unusual creative collaboration. As a document of the completed tunes, the piece is a bit more frustrating, as the bulk of the material here is presented in dribs and drabs. That said, the montages segueing between various versions of the same Dylan lyrics are really interesting, at least for those of us who may write music ourselves (but I suspect even for "casual" listeners). Technical merits are generally excellent, and Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued comes Highly recommended.