GREAT WHITE WONDER – Overview
There were some dreams though that were not meant to be. Not long after I first got to college at North Carolina State University (probably in late 1969), one of the big record stores in Raleigh, the Record Bar (which was within walking distance of the campus) had several tables set up in the middle of the store that were piled high with bootleg albums. I had never heard of such a thing before, so I snapped up four right away, including two by my man Bob Dylan: the famous Great White Wonder double-album set, plus John Birch Society Blues (also on the G.W.W. Records label).
I loved those bootleg albums and played them all the time, as did Dylan fans everywhere. It was actually not until I bought the “legitimate” 1975 release of the G.W.W. music as The Basement Tapes that I realized that most people were not enamored, as I was, with the songs that Dylan had recorded early on that never made it onto any of his albums. Obviously, what most people loved were the later electric songs that he recorded in 1967 with The Band, because that is what is on The Basement Tapes.
(April 2012)
