Dylan Revisited: The Gaslight Tapes (1961-62)

Early bootlegged live performances featuring Dylan originals and folk classics

This is a new series by DylanRevisited based on former Twitter threads, now available here in an easier to read and longer lasting format.

When I revisited Bob Dylan’s 1962 self-titled debut album, I found it to be a surprisingly un-Bob Dylan record. For a better sense of who the singer really was around that time, it’s worth hearing what he was playing live in the Greenwich Village coffee houses around this time.

The Gaslight Tapes – a 1962 recording of two Dylan sets at New York’s famous Gaslight Café – are often considered one of rock music’s first bootlegs.

But before I revisit them, let’s go back even further to September 1961 – two months before Dylan recorded his muddled debut – and hear a short six-song set at the same venue.

The Gaslight Café opened three years earlier and played host to beat poets like Allen Ginsberg, comedians such as Lenny Bruce and Bill Cosby, and musicians, including Jesse Fuller, Odetta, Charlie Mingus, Happy Traum, Rev. Gary Davis and The Greenbriar Boys.