Various Artists: Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued

Dylan treasures brought to life by T Bone Burnett, Costello and co.

By Gavin Martin
( Classic Rock )
published

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Sam Jones’ absorbing documentary contains two strands. Primarily, it focuses on the two-week sessions when Elvis Costello and T Bone Burnett brought together Jim James, Marcus Mumford, Taylor Goldsmith (of Dawes) and the outstanding Rhiannon Giddens to complete song lyrics that Dylan accumulated post-bike crash.

Dylan plays his part in a wry and revealing voiceover that accompanies home movie footage of his time with The Band in Woodstock./o:p

The contemporary and historical stories inform one another, though the musicians’ awe at accessing their source material is refreshingly undercut by Giddens. The neophyte, unfamiliar with the mythic weight of The Basement Tapes, lets her astonishing musicianship course through the emblematic Lost On The River./o:p

Ultimately, Jones’ intimate approach proves most revealing, both about Dylan’s expansive imagination and the intense creative process that went into rescuing the maestro’s cast-offs for contemporary listeners./o:p

Gavin Martin
Gavin Martin

Late NME, Daily Mirror and Classic Rock writer Gavin Martin started writing about music in 1977 when he published his hand-written fanzine Alternative Ulster in Belfast. He moved to London in 1980 to become the NME’s Media Editor and features writer, where he interviewed the Sex Pistols, Joe Strummer, Pete Townshend, U2, Bruce Springsteen, Ian Dury, Killing Joke, Neil Young, REM, Sting, Marvin Gaye, Leonard Cohen, Nina Simone, James Brown, Willie Nelson, Willie Dixon, Madonna and a host of others. He was also published in The Times, Guardian, Independent, Loaded, GQ and Uncut, he had pieces on Michael Jackson, Van Morrison and Frank Sinatra featured in The Faber Book Of Pop and Rock ’N’ Roll Is Here To Stay, and was the Daily Mirror’s regular music critic from 2001. He died in 2022.