Maps of Music

Blood on the Tracks (1975)

Where the lyrics of Blood on the Tracks take you, and where it was really made.

The songs were read as a record of Dylan's broken marriage, yet Dylan denied they were autobiographical.

Key places

Where the sessions began (1974)

Recording site A&R Recording Studios — Dylan started recording the album at A & R Recording Studios in New York City on September 16, 1974. The room was the former Columbia Records Studio A. The first New York takes were later replaced on the official album. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Re-recording in Minneapolis (1975)

Recording site Sound 80 — Dylan re-recorded five of the album's songs at Sound 80 in Minneapolis at the end of December 1974. The new takes were completed in two days. The New York version from the original test pressing was released later, in 2019. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Concert where the cover photo was taken (1974)

Album cover Maple Leaf Gardens — The front cover photograph by Paul Till was taken with a telephoto lens at a concert at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto on January 10, 1974. Till later solarized and hand-colored the image, but the final cover used a retouched and recolored print instead. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Blood on the Tracks: fifteenth studio album by Bob Dylan
• Released 20 January 1975 by Columbia Records
• Marked Dylan's return to Columbia after two albums on Asylum Records
• Five tracks recorded in New York and five in Minneapolis
• Songs linked to tensions in Dylan's personal life, including his estrangement from his then-wife Sara
• Dylan has denied that the songs were autobiographical

Background

• Spring 1974: Dylan took art classes from painter Norman Raeben in New York
• Summer 1974: began writing songs in three small notebooks
• Relationship with Columbia employee Ellen Bernstein, which Clinton Heylin described as the beginning of the end of Dylan's marriage
• Considered recording with an electric band, including Mike Bloomfield, then chose stripped-down acoustic arrangements
• 2 August 1974: signed with Columbia Records, giving him increased control over his own masters

Recording

• Sessions began at A & R Recording Studios, New York City, on 16 September 1974
• A & R was the former Columbia Records ‘Studio A’, where Dylan had recorded six albums in the 1960s
• Producer Phil Ramone said Dylan moved between songs as if they were part of a medley
• Eric Weissberg and Deliverance were dropped after one day because they could not keep up with Dylan's pace
• Dylan's brother David urged a change, saying the overall sound was too stark
• December 1974: Dylan re-recorded five songs at Sound 80 in Minneapolis over two days
• Released to stores on 20 January 1975

Cover

• Front cover image is a heavily edited photograph by Paul Till
• Photo taken with a telephoto lens at a Maple Leaf Gardens concert in Toronto, 10 January 1974
• Ron Coro retouched the profile and recolored the print for the final art

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota; raised in Hibbing, Minnesota.
• Moved to New York City in January 1961 to pursue a music career.
• Signed to Columbia Records after playing harmonica on Carolyn Hester's album; debut album Bob Dylan released in 1962.

Members

• Solo artist; backed over the years by bands including the Hawks/the Band, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and his touring band led by bassist Tony Garnier.

Career

• Breakthrough with The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963); protest songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" became anthems for the civil rights and antiwar movements.
• Went electric with Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited (1965) and Blonde on Blonde (1966), provoking controversy among folk fans.
• Motorcycle accident in 1966 led to nearly eight years without touring; Basement Tapes recorded with the Band.
• Converted to Christianity in the late 1970s and released gospel albums; won Album of the Year Grammy for Time Out of Mind (1997).
• Has toured since 1988 on the Never Ending Tour; won an Academy Award and ten Grammy Awards; awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Initially received mixed reviews from critics
• Rolling Stone ran two assessments, one praising the album and one calling the making of it shoddy
• NME's Nick Kent found many accompaniments trashy, nearly like practice takes
• Crawdaddy's Jim Cusimano found the instrumentation incompetent
• The Village Voice's Robert Christgau called it Dylan's most mature and assured record

Reappraisal

• Later viewed by critics as one of Dylan's best albums
• Salon.com's Wyman called it Dylan's only flawless album and his best produced
• Critical biographer Bell wrote that it might count as one of the best things Dylan ever did
• Novelist Rick Moody called it the truest, most honest account of a love affair on tape
• Rob Sheffield said it became a benchmark album for Dylan in the years that followed

Records

• Number 1 on the Billboard 200
• Number 4 on the UK Albums Chart
• Single ‘Tangled Up in Blue’ peaked at number 31 on the Billboard Hot 100
• RIAA triple platinum for at least three million copies sold in the United States
• Inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2015
• Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums: number 16 in 2003, number 9 in the 2020 revision
• Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums (2000, third edition): number 7

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Dylan's son Jakob Dylan described the songs as being about his parents.
• Dylan told an interviewer in 1985 that the album did not pertain to him, and he said in 1975 he did not write confessional songs.
• In his 2004 memoir Chronicles, Vol. 1, Dylan said the songs were inspired by the short stories of Anton Chekhov.
• The original New York test pressing was released in 2019 as a limited vinyl-only Record Store Day edition.
• Public Enemy referenced the album in their 2007 Dylan tribute song ‘Long and Whining Road’.
• In 2018 a film adaptation was announced, directed by Luca Guadagnino.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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