Photographer. Most fans of Bob Dylan and the Band know about the Basement Tapes. But do they know the basement was in Hollywood? Well, OK, not quite: The Basement Tapes, the 1967 Dylan-Band sessions that launched a thousand bootlegs, were cut downstairs at the Band's house "Big Pink" in Woodstock, N.Y. However, when the time came to officially release some of those storied recordings, the basement was re-created in the boiler room of the Hollywood YMCA, at the decidedly unsylvan corner of Schrader and Selma. The 30th anniversary of Reid Miles' shoot for the marvelous cover of the 1975 Columbia Records release will be commemorated with an April 27 2005 concert benefiting the 82-year-old Hollywood Y, to be helmed creatively by producer and tribute-meister Hal Willner. In the summer, a member of the arts committee learned that the "Basement Tapes" cover had been shot at the Y. Among those seen in Miles' photo are Scheele (holding a camera) and his brother, who traveled with the Band in the early '70s and shot many of their shows, including the celebrated 1974 reunion tour with Dylan. Bourgoise, a former film effects technician, says, "It turned out (John) had worked on some films I worked on." She learned that Scheele had some 3,000 pictures of Dylan and the Band, including some taken at Miles' session at the Y. In an e-mail to Bourgoise, Scheele wrote of the shoot, "I assume it was just a spot Reid Miles knew about -- suitable with steam pipes and a little funky." Bourgoise says: "We started talking about doing a digital photo display. ... We needed a place to show these photos and said, 'Let's do a Basement Tapes tribute.' " Hollywood Reporter
