Search - :: Live at the Gaslight 1962

Steve S. (Steve) from HOUSTON, TX
Reviewed on 8/7/2006...

This was recorded in 1962 and captures Dylan in an intimate performance during his creative peak.

Very enjoyable, turned my head around

Christopher Bushman | Portland, OR USA | 09/30/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Although some might consider this statement heresy, I have to admit that I have long been a major fan of Bob Dylan The Rocker and less enthusiastic about the early folk stuff. Perhaps I am just getting older and wiser but lately I have begun to appreciate pre-electric Bob and this set has much to do with it.



Gaslight really is like a time machine to another time and place and proves a very rewarding journey. As others have said, Hard Rain and Cocaine are really special but the whole set is a gem.



One other thing: I often get cynical about the dubious necessity of "Remastering" that the record companies employ to sell us the same records over and over again. However, the state of the art audio technology employed for this release, the Zeppelin live CD and DVD from a few years ago, Kurt Cobain's cassette demo's from the Nirvana box and other recent archival releases truly is a wonder. Live At The Gaslight 1962 shouldn't sound this good, but it does."

Younger than that Now

matthewslaughter | Arlington, VA USA | 09/29/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This one has been floating around Dylan bootleg circles for years (and is reported to have been, in one variation, the first-ever bootleg compact disc!). As one previous reviewer notes, this disc, presently available at Starbucks coffeeshops, is not complete. We can speculate why some tracks are left off (most notably an early version of the stark "The Ballad of Hollis Brown") ... maybe Dylan did not think some of the performances were worthy of official release.



Despite the incompleteness of the track-listing on this Columbia release, it is a very vital piece documenting Dylan's transition from folkie-interpreter to powerhouse songwriting. An early performance of "A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall" shows just how much he had evolved as a singer, guitar player and songwriter in just under a year after the recording of his self-titled debut album for Columbia in late 1961 (which had only one self-penned track, "Song to Woody"). The version of "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" is quite early, as the lyrics are improperly sung and different from the take issued on "Freewheelin'" in 1963. Also, the arrangements of the powerful anti-war song "John Brown" and the traditional "Cocaine" differ here from ones on other bootleg recordings. The closing cuts on the disc, most notably the incomplete "West Texas" and the eight-minute "Barbara Allen," show Dylan to be nearly as strong an interpreter of old traditional songs as he would later become as a songwriter. This is the kind of disc that both Dylan novices and hardcore Dylanologists can enjoy (though neither will heap tons of praise on it)."