Interesting! Would love to see this stuff one day. Highlands is in many ways my favorite Dylan song, and the vibe of Time Out Of Mind is absolutely unique, it's both roots and strangely modern at once, with all those instruments lost in the mix. Gotta be thankful to every runaway woman that brings you close to that album.
I listened to the third alternate of Mississippi now, and Bob's voice on that is similar to the acclaimed alternate "Can't Wait" indeed. I reckon "Shake Sugaree" would have balanced the great Dirt Road Blues very well...
I googled for the Oxnard sessions and found an article about engineer Mark Howard and his Time out of Mind story. He mentions a live show he mixed for Bob prior to that album, where they worked out a certain manipulated sound that later was used on Time Out Of Mind:
Quote:
Before Time Out of Mind came into play, we had been asked to mix this live show that Dylan had did. It was recorded for the Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, he played The House of Blues, and they wanted to mix the recording for a Japanese release. And that was where a little bit of the sound of Time Out Of Mind began to become apparent.
On those recordings, I’d mixed the whole live show for them, and on the last song I was mixing, Dylan plays harmonica, and he says, “Hey, Mark, d’ya think you can make my harmonica sound electric on this one?” So I said, yeah, sure, and I took the harmonica off the tape and ran it through this little distortion box, and I played it, and he said, “Wow, that’s great.” So we’re mixing away, and, after he stops playing harmonica, he starts singing into the same mic, and Dylan hears his voice going through this little vocal amp, and he gets really excited about it. “Wow! This is great!” And so I had to remix the whole record, putting this little vocal amp on all of his vocals for the whole show. And that sound became the sound of Time Out Of Mind.
http://www.uncut.co.uk/bob-dylan/bob-dy ... -interviewIs this recording known to anybody?
The whole text is a really great read, by the way.
Columbia should install a fee-based online archive for all these wonderful lost tunes.