The Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964, Concert at Philharmonic Hall
| The Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964, Concert at Philharmonic Hall | |||||
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| Live album by Bob Dylan | |||||
| Released | March 30, 2004 | ||||
| Recorded | October 31, 1964 | ||||
| Genre | Folk, folk rock | ||||
| Length | 104:12 | ||||
| Label | Columbia | ||||
| Producer | Steve Berkowitz and Jeff Rosen | ||||
| Bob Dylan chronology | |||||
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| Bob Dylan Bootleg Series chronology | |||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   [1] |
| Music Box | [2] |
| Pitchfork Media | 9.1/10[3] |
| Tiny Mix Tapes | [4] |
| NME | 10/10[5] |
The Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964, Concert at Philharmonic Hall is a complete recording of Bob Dylan's October 31, 1964 "Halloween" show at New York's Philharmonic Hall. It was released in 2004.
The set list was dominated by Dylan’s protest songs, including "The Times They Are a-Changin’," "A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall," and "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll". Joan Baez, a major supporter of Dylan's in his early career, duets with Dylan on three songs, as well as singing another alone ("Silver Dagger"). However, Dylan performed these songs alongside early versions of three songs from the soon-to-be-recorded Bringing It All Back Home. New compositions like "It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)" and "Mr. Tambourine Man" showed Dylan moving in a new direction, becoming more immersed in evocative, stream-of-consciousness lyrics and moving away from social, topical songwriting. Even as he was moving in this new direction, Dylan was still portrayed as a symbol of the civil rights and anti-war movements, and the Halloween concert of 1964 caught Dylan in transition.
The album debuted on the Billboard 200 album chart on April 17, 2004 at number 28. It spent 4 weeks on the chart. It also reached number 33 in the U.K.
Preparing The Bootleg Series Vol. 6
When Dylan and Sony began planning for The Bootleg Series Vol. 6, they weren't sure what to release. Steve Berkowitz, an A&R head at Sony Music who worked on all the Bootleg Series discs with Dylan's office, stresses that Dylan's office is behind the brainstorming and decision-making for the Bootleg Series, not Sony. Concerts held at Carnegie Hall and New York's Town Hall, both in 1963, were considered for The Bootleg Series Vol. 6, according to Berkowitz, but they were ultimately rejected.
The Halloween concert of 1964 had been previously bootlegged on vinyl and CD, but those releases were incomplete and taken from poor dubs of the soundboard tapes. The Bootleg Series Vol. 6 presented the entire concert for the first time from the original master tapes.
The set was well received by most critics, with NME's Rob Fitzpatrick giving it the magazine's highest rating (a 10 out of 10) and called it "utterly brilliant."
In 2016, the set was reissued by the Audio Fidelity label as "Live 1964", on two 5.1 multi-channel SACDs.
Track listing
All songs written by Bob Dylan, except where noted
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Personnel
- Bob Dylan — vocal, guitar, harmonica
- Joan Baez — vocal on "Mama, You Been on My Mind," "Silver Dagger," "With God on Our Side," and "It Ain't Me, Babe"
- Production personnel
- Tom Wilson — original recordings supervisor
- Steven Berkowitz, Jeff Rosen — producers
- Michael H. Brauer, Nat Chan — mixing engineers
- Greg Calbi — mastering engineer
