Description
Million Dollar Bash tells the story of the "basement tapes", a sequence of recordings made by Bob Dylan and his associates during the psychedelic summer of 1967. Remarkably, these causal sessions kick-started the entire Americana genre and produced some of the most revered and misunderstood songs in Dylan's catalogue. The musicians he worked with became known as The Band and went on to great fame themselves.
Dylan did not release this music commercially at first. Instead, the songs emerged as cover versions by insiders with access to the tapes: This Wheel's On Fire by Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & The Trinity, You Ain't Going Nowhere by The Byrds, Mighty Quinn by Manfred Mann, and Too Much Of Nothing by Peter Paul & Mary.
Million Dollar Bash begins in 1966 with the background to Dylan's increasingly electric music. It goes on to examine the basement tapes in detail, analyzing the music, how it was made, why it was made - and, of course, who made it. While telling the story, the book considers the question that has intrigued Dylan aficionados ever since: why was the basement tapes music so different from the raw R&B and beatnik poetry that Bob had been playing so far?
This important book looks at a key moment in musical history, and a group of songs that were enormously influential at the time and have been prized by musicians and fans ever since, and includes extensive interviews with Robbie Robertson, Roger McGuinn, Joe Boyd, Chris Hillmann, Manfred Mann, Barry Feinstein, and many others.
Author and broadcaster Sid Griffin is currently ringleader of alt-country heroes The Coal Porters. He is also a solo performer, a freelance writer, a DJ, and a record producer. He first came to public attention fronting Americana pioneers The Long Ryders in the 1980s. An acknowledged expert on the musical career of Gram Parsons, Griffin wrote Gram Parsons - A Music Biography (Sierra 1985) and Fallen Angel, the 2004 BBC TV documentary about Parsons (now available on DVD). Griffin is the author of a series of late-night BBC Radio 2 specials, including Will The Circle Be Unbroken: The Story Of The Carter Family (2006), which was narrated by Dolly Parton. Griffin is a native of Kentucky and a graduate of the University of South Carolina. He lives in Hampstead, north London, with his daughter Esther Mae and his collection of rare guitars.