Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window (1; fragment)
Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window (single November 1965)
I Wanna Be Your Lover
I Wanna Be Your Lover (Biograph)
Jet Pilot (Biograph)
Medicine Sunday (aka Midnight Train)
Number One
One of Us Must Know (single 1966; Blonde on Blonde 1966)
Visions of Johanna (1; aka Seems Like a Freeze-Out)
Visions of Johanna (2; aka Seems Like a Freeze-Out)
She's Your Lover Now (1; aka Just a Little Glass of Water)
She's Your Lover Now (2; aka Just a Little Glass of Water)

Until the release of Planet Waves in January 1974, the entire officially available recorded output of Bob Dylan and the Band (nee the Hawks) consisted of a mere ten songs, of which only two were studio recordings. This was a major loss considering the vast amount of material that actually existed:

1. The 1965 and 1966 studio sessions listed above. Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window and One Of Us Must Know were both released as singles and the latter was also released on Blonde On Blonde in 1966.
2. The entire 1966 world tour, practically all of which was professionally recorded. Only Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues from Liverpool was released (b-side of I Want You).
3. The "basement tapes" which consisted of around five hours of (at the time) unreleased music, and probably much more yet to be discovered! None of this material appeared on any album until 1975.
4. The Woody Guthrie Memorial Concert at Carnegie Hall in 1968. All three songs performed at this show were released in 1970.
5. The Isle of Wight festival appearance in 1969. Four of these songs were released on Self Portrait in 1970.
6. A few miscellaneous surprise appearances at Band concerts, none of which have ever been released.

Actually, these 1965/1966 studio tracks were the first Blonde On Blonde sessions and give an idea of what the album would have sounded like if it had been done in its entirety with The Hawks instead of with the Nashville studio musicians. Would it have been a better album? I don't know, but it would have been very different! One of these songs did eventually wind up on the album and it doesn't sound out of place. According to Robert Shelton in No Direction Home, there was one mammoth 16 hour session that "yielded nothing". I don't know who decided that the material contained here represented "nothing", but somewhere along the line the decision was made to scrap plans for a Dylan/Hawks album in favor of the Nashville studio lineup. I don't regret that decision at all, because Blonde On Blonde is the greatest rock album of all time, but I think the finished Dylan/Hawks album would have been a pretty good album too.

The songs one by one:

Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window - A short fragment done in the slow style of the Highway 61 version and the complete fast version, originally a single and now available on Biograph. The fragment of the slow version shows great promise and would have been great if finished. The fast version is of course a classic.

I Wanna Be Your Lover - the one on Biograph is great, but the alternate unreleased version is even better and contains some of the nastiest lead guitar Robbie Robertson ever played. It's a little annoying, however, to hear Rick Danko constantly blow the obvious chord changes. Great lines like "Rasputin, he's so dignified. He touched the back of her head and he died."

Jet Pilot - For a long time I had serious doubts as to whether it belongs on this list, but now it's pretty much proven to have come from these sessions, but to me it sounds like something left over from the Highway 61 sessions. Not only do the tune and lyrics sound like an early version of From a Buick 6, the instrumentation also sounds like Kooper/Bloomfield. Anyway, this is just a fragment, but what appears on bootlegs is slightly longer than what we have on Biograph - even though it's the same version.

Number One - An instrumental. Was there ever a vocal track? The chord progression sounds too complicated to feature the standard Dylan-type vocal, but who knows? He might have been trying for a whole new thing here and then had to let it drop when the entire project moved to Nashville. Still a great track featuring the Hawks. Dylan apparently plays rhythm guitar.

One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later) - The same track that was released as a single and later on Blonde On Blonde. The stereo mix on the album is slightly different than the mono single mix, but otherwise the tracks are exactly the same. Not really part of any bootleg tape, this is included on this list for completion only.

Seems Like a Freeze-Out - There are at least two versions known, and many more attempts that are not in circulation. The two that are in general circulation are a slow version and a brighter, faster version that sounds to me more like a Nashville outtake. As for the slow version, it's really incredible! Garth's organ really steals the show and Robbie's guitar is perfect. The real surprise here is the harpsichord, probably played by Richard Manuel. Dylan plays piano on this track. Contains the "nightingale's code" line. One of the real highlights of this tape!

She's Your Lover Now - Probably the absolute greatest thing Dylan's ever recorded, now officially available on The Bootleg Series. No other Dylan recording has as much emotional impact as this one does. It's only too bad that the song comes to a sudden halt midway through the final verse, which remains unpublished. There is another version of this song with piano only, and the final verse is complete. It wasn't until I heard the full last verse that I came to realize what happened with the Hawks take and why it just crashes to a halt - Dylan screwed up the line "now your mouth cries wolf..." (a great line in itself!) which should have been "now your eyes cry wolf while your mouth says 'I'm not scared of animals like you'".

All in all, this entire tape is absolutely essential to any Dylan collection. I think it's the best studio sessions he's ever done!

UPDATE:

Since writing this, it has been determined that some of the tracks mentioned in this article were performed by a combination of Hawks members and leftovers from the Highway 61 sessions, notably Al Kooper and Paul Griffin. Refer to the sessions info for more details on who played what.

Also, in reference to released Dylan/Band material, the entire encore set with Dylan is available on the expanded remaster of the Band's Rock of Ages live album from December 31, 1971.

CDs:

• The Bootleg Series(official album)
• The Session
• Bob Dylan Live With The Band, Al Kooper And Mike Bloomfield
• Thin Wild Mercury Music
• The Lonesome Sparrow Sings

LPs:

• Seems Like a Freeze-Out
• Black Nite Crash
• Now Your Mouth Cries Whoops!
• Ten of Swords
• Barbed Wire Blues
• many others (one of the most heavily bootlegged tapes)