Marketing & Controlling "Bob Dylan"

After my last post, I listened to the Rolling Thunder Review concert that is on Wolfgang's Vault and noticed that someone was conspicuously absent--that is, Bob Dylan's set was missing. Nothing they had written about the show indicated it was gone--in fact, a third of it was dedicated to describing Bob's set. So was it put up and then taken off? It seems like that might be the case. Or possibly Dylan owned it outright and they didn't put it up at all, but the archivist didn't know and wrote the review anyway. Just four years ago, Dylan's Bootleg Series volume 5 was released and it covered this very time period, using songs from the concerts they have available on Wolfgang's Vault. And Dylan's people are so good about staking claim to his recordings that I wouldn't be surprised if they beat Wolfgang's Vault to the punch. Or, if this isn't the case, then they made the Vault take the files down. See, Dylan's people aren't schmucks--they're very bright businesspeople. He's looked at the bottom line ever since he began his career--his first manager, the notorious Albert Grossman, was the kind of guy who talked about money when all the folkies were discussing socialism and hippies were gushing about free love. Even Dylan described him as "a Colonel Tom Parker figure."

Now the title of my post isn't meant to be facetious. Rather, I was wanting to demonstrate that Dylan had a keen eye on his legacy and he's going to control what people see of the marketable figure "Bob Dylan" through the years. You can read this blog about how his deal with XM Radio was struck, in which the producer of the show (an XM employee) talks about how impressed he was with Dylan's operation. Another example is the massive archives of music that Dylan must have, which he's begun to open recently with the Bootleg Series. There's so many periods of his career, and so many albums whose outtakes haven't been heard, that the 6 volumes (coming to 13 CDs of music) that have been released don't seem enough to Dylan fans. After all, there is the holy grail of all bootlegs, regardless of artist--the so-called "Basement Tapes" that he recorded with The Band during his period of recovery and renewal in Woodstock--that has yet to be released, if they ever will be.

I think it's masterful, the way Dylan is keeping his fans waiting--it's just like how a great artist knows how long to wait before the encore--releasing just enough that he can't be accused of holding out, but not releasing so much that the market is glutted and the music loses its significance. This has happened to other bands who have a large amount of recordings in their vaults--two notables being The Dead and Pearl Jam. Both have released so much that it doesn't matter anymore when they release another (I mean, what's Dick's Picks up to now--volume 30?--oops, I'm wrong, it's volume 36). I mean, I was just blown away when Dylan released his memoirs, the Scorsese documentary Don't Look Back, and the 6th volume of the Bootleg Series in the same year--what some bands might find happening once every five years or so, Dylan's done just once in his career. While some people complain that Dylan isn't giving enough, I think he's giving just enough to keep things interesting.