FEATURE: Dylan revisits pioneering past with 'Albert Hall'

By Dean Goodman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Rock icon Bob Dylan, who won three Grammy Awards in 1998 for his most acclaimed work in two decades, is ending the year by releasing an album documenting perhaps the most infamous concert of his career.

His much-anticipated trip to the archive also has yielded a bonus for fans in New York and Los Angeles, where screenings are scheduled this month for ``Eat the Document,'' a never-broadcast ABC television special from 1966.

The album in question, from the Manchester stop of his European tour of 1966, offers all the excitement of a gladiatorial concert. A reverential crowd turns ugly, and an embittered fan initiates the following dialogue:

FAN: Judas!

DYLAN: I don't believe you. You're a liar!

Why the animosity? Since releasing his first album in 1962, the fresh-faced troubadour had served as the poster boy for the folk community by performing protest tunes about social injustice. Then in 1965, he strapped on an electric guitar, hired a band and released a six-minute rock single ``Like a Rolling Stone.'' The longtime fans felt betrayed.

``It's a bloody disgrace ... He wants shooting,'' an outraged Englishman says on ``Eat the Document,'' an hourlong film documenting Dylan's European trek.

The ``Judas'' exchange has entered Dylan mythology, partly because the recording has been available for years in a high-quality bootleg form. Columbia Records' Legacy imprint will release ``The 'Royal Albert Hall' Concert'' on Oct. 13.

TITLE WRONG FOR A REASON

The title tips its hat to early bootlegs, which incorrectlyascribed the concert to the famed London venue instead of to Manchester's Free Trade Hall.

The double-CD set includes a 56-page booklet of previously unreleased photos and an essay by Tony Glover, a blues musician and Minneapolis contemporary of Dylan's.

The first CD features Dylan, seven days before his 25th birthday, performing acoustic versions of tunes such as ''Visions of Johanna'' and ``Mr. Tambourine Man.''

The second half of the show, featured on the other CD, has Dylan backed by a five-man combo that would eventually become known as The Band. Over booing and slow hand-clapping, he blasts out eight electrified tunes ranging from the never-released ''Tell Me, Momma'' to the concert closer, ``Like a Rolling Stone.''

``We got booed everywhere,'' Mickey Jones, the group's drummer, told Reuters. ``They really did think that Bob Dylan had become a traitor and we were the instrument of his defection, when in reality we thought we were doing something totally new in music.

``Bob Dylan would go out and do the first half, and the audience loved it, but when he would come backstage between sets, he couldn't wait to strap that Telecaster on, and he would prance about the dressing room. He couldn't wait to get out there and play electric. The electric part of the show was where Bob Dylan had the most fun of all. And we all did.''

Jones quit the group after the tour to focus on acting -- he has a recurring role on the ABC sitcom ``Home Improvement'' -- and was replaced by Levon Helm. He remains friendly with Dylan, last seeing him earlier this year backstage at a boxing match; Dylan, now 57, is a boxing enthusiast.

DYLAN NOT LOOKING BACK

The singer himself has nothing to say about the release.

``I would say this is particularly under his radar,'' said a source at Columbia Records, speaking on condition of anonymity.

``Bob doesn't look back. Bob is a touring and recording artist, and what he does is like to make contemporary records and record things. There's a lot of demand for these reissues, and when you have a window of opportunity with nothing else coming out it was time to finally release this.''

The source said Columbia has tentative plans to issue more rare material in 2000, but declined to go into detail. Dylan's most recent release of new material was 1997's ``Time Out of Mind,'' whose Grammy haul included the award for album of the year.

The screening of ``Eat the Document'' is considered a marketing hook. It will run at the Museum of Television and Radio from Oct 8 to Nov. 13 in Los Angeles, and Oct 8 to Nov. 20 in New York. The Columbia source said there would be no general theatrical release or home video version.

The film features tantalizing snippets of concert performances interspersed with unexplained footage from backstage and on the road: Dylan reads his horoscope! Dylan jams with Johnny Cash! Dylan gets teased by John Lennon!

Dylan had hired D.A. Pennebaker, director of the 1965 documentary ``Don't Look Back,'' to help him on the project, but found himself overwhelmed by the task at hand.

``I was really just the cameraman, and my role was much less forceful and directorial than his,'' Pennebaker told Reuters. ''But he wasn't a director either. The whole thing was kinda uncertain from the start.''

Jones, who has his own copy, wishes it could have contained more concert footage and ``goofing around.'' He recalled how everyone went sightseeing and started snickering as the guide explained a historic site: it didn't make the final cut.

ABC also was disappointed, canceling the project in the spring of 1967. It has not been seen theatrically since the early 1970s, when it was screened at New York's Academy of Music and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Reuters/Variety

Index