Fifteen Song Preview of Another Self Portrait by Bob Dylan

A preview consisting of fifteen songs from Bob Dylan’s forthcoming album Another Self Portrait (part of his Bootleg Series) is available on the NPR website. (The two-CD version of the album will contain 35 previously-unreleased tracks.) That NPR link also has features a short and very good piece by Ann Powers on the release.

Nowhere is Dylan’s ability to see the whole patchwork tapestry of our musical culture more evident than in the music he made in the very early 1970s, when he was running from his own burdensome greatness and jumping into the great scrap heap of American musical tradition.

It continues to be amusing to play “think back” games with this. E.g.: Think back to 1970, and imagine telling someone who hated Self Portrait (i.e. virtually everybody) that in forty years time there were going to be outtakes from this album released to great acclaim …

Personally, I’m not even going to listen to all of the previews; I’ll wait to have the actual release in my hands. But I have listened to “Working On a Guru,” with George Harrison, which is fun, and the piano-and-vocal version of “When I Paint My Masterpiece,” which I think is quite lovely.

……