Great White Wonder is the first notable rock bootleg album, released in July 1969, and containing unofficially released recordings by Bob Dylan. Several of the tracks presented here were recorded with The Band in the summer of 1967 in West Saugerties, New York, during the informal sessions that were later released in a more complete form in Dylan’s 1975 album The Basement Tapes. Much of the other material consists of a recording made in December 1961 in a Minnesota hotel room (referred to as the “Minnesota hotel tape”), studio outtakes from several of Dylan’s albums, and a live performance on The Johnny Cash Show. The album was nicknamed the “great white wonder” due to the original pressing’s plain white gatefold cover; newer pressings contain the name stamped on. This name — or variations, such as “white wonder” and “little white wonder” — would surface in later bootleg releases or in the initials “G.W.W.” that were printed on record labels or covers. (More from Wikipedia)
I dare say that I was one of the few Dylan fans who was disappointed when The Basement Tapes came out. I eagerly put on the supposed legitimate release of the classic double-LP bootleg album Great White Wonder, only to find that not a single one of the great early acoustic songs that made up most of that album were present; it was all electric songs that Bob Dylan recorded with The Band at the famous Big Pink house (and honestly, there weren’t all that many of them on Great White Wonder).
I encountered “Mixed Up Confusion” on one of the first Bob Dylan bootleg albums that I bought (though it was not Great White Wonder). However, it was not officially re-released until the box set Biograph was released in 1985. A pristine copy of the “Mixed Up Confusion” 45 brought $1,225 at auction in 2008.
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In a radio interview on New York radio station WBAI in June 1962 (which, if I am remembering this right, is included in part on Great White Wonder – or at least, one just like it is), legendary folksinger Pete Seeger described Bob Dylan as “the most prolific songwriter on the scene” and then asked Dylan about his songwriting; he replied in part: “I might go for two weeks without writing these songs. I write a lot of stuff. In fact, I wrote five songs last night [chuckling can be heard in the background], but I gave all the papers away in some place called the Bitter End” – one of the most famous music clubs in the City I might add.
(June 2013/2)
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In our own time, Bob Dylan is renowned as one of the most prolific songwriters. In an interview with Pete Seeger that is included on Great White Wonder, Dylan says casually: “I might go for two weeks without writing these songs. I write a lot of stuff. In fact, I wrote five songs last night.” I don’t know whether the first sentence or the last sentence in that quote is the most unbelievable!
(March 2015)
