Columbia/Legacy Set to Release Bob Dylan: The 1966 Live Recordings, A Monumental Box Set featuring Every Known Recording from the Artist’s Mythic and Controversial 1966 Tour of the US, UK, Europe and Australia

Bob Dylan: The 1966 Live Recordings–a highly-collectible 36CD box set containing every known recording from the artist’s groundbreaking 1966 concert tours of the US, UK, Europe and Australia–will be released on Friday, November 11 by Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment. The 1966 Live Recordings commemorates, in stunning sonic vérité, the 50th anniversary of the electrifying live performances that would forever change the sound and direction of rock and pop music around the world.

“While doing the archival research for The Cutting Edge 1965-1966: The Bootleg Series Vol. 12, last year’s box set of Dylan’s mid-60s studio sessions, we were continually struck by how great his 1966 live recordings really are,” said Adam Block, President, Legacy Recordings. “The intensity of Bob’s live performances and his fantastic delivery of these songs in concert add another insightful component in understanding and appreciating the musical revolution Bob Dylan ignited some 50 years ago.”

Meticulously researched, curated and restored for this extraordinary collection, Bob Dylan: The 1966 Live Recordings is drawn from three main audio sources: soundboards, CBS Records mobile recordings and audience tapes. With the exception of the Manchester concert (May 17, 1966) released as Bob Dylan Live 1966 – The Bootleg Series Vol. 4 (Columbia/Legacy) in 1998, a pair of songs appearing on the 1985 Biograph compilation and a smattering of others, the overwhelming majority of tracks and performances on Bob Dylan: The 1966 Live Recordings are previously unreleased in any format–official or bootlegged–and are being made available now for the very first time.

All the songs on The 1966 Live Recordings were written by Bob Dylan (vocal, guitar, piano, harmonica) with the sole exception of “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down,” a traditional song arranged by Bob Dylan for concert performance. Dylan is accompanied on these recordings by Robbie Robertson (guitar), Rick Danko (bass, backing vocals), Richard Manuel (piano), Garth Hudson (organ) and Mickey Jones (drums). (Sandy Konikoff plays drums on the White Plains and Pittsburgh shows only.)

Liner notes for Bob Dylan: The 1966 Live RecordingsT have been provided by Clinton Heylin, a consultant on the project and author of JUDAS!: From Forest Hills to the Free Trade Hall: A Historical View of Dylan’s Big Boo, the definitive written account of Dylan’s historic and pivotal 1965-66 world tours.

Each of the individual CDs in Bob Dylan: The 1966 Live Recordings is housed in a custom sleeve featuring stills from color film shot by D.A. Pennebaker, whose footage from Dylan’s 1965 and 1966 tours became the cinéma vérité classics Dont Look Back (1965) and Eat The Document (1966).

Columbia/Legacy will also release ¬¬For decades, Dylan’s performance in Manchester was incorrectly labeled “The Royal Albert Hall Concert.” Now, for the first time, the REAL Royal Albert Hall concert–originally recorded for a live album by CBS Records–is finally being released, mixed by Grammy-winning engineer Chris Shaw. The Real Royal Albert Hall 1966 Concert will be released as a 2CD and 12″ 2LP collection on November 25.

The performances on Bob Dylan: The 1966 Live Recordings put a fiery exclamation point on Dylan’s great mid-sixties creative epoch that produced–in an 18-month span–Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde, the trilogy of album masterpieces which secured Dylan’s reputation as a songwriter and performer of unprecedented depth, power and originality while significantly impacting the course of popular music and culture. These concert recordings from the same period document Dylan’s evolution as an on-stage phenomenon whose transformative vision saw no limits.

Bob Dylan: The 1966 Live Recordings is the ideal concert companion to The Cutting Edge 1965-1966: The Bootleg Series Vol. 12, released on Columbia/Legacy last November.

Pre-order Bob Dylan: The 1966 Live Recordings
Pre-order The Real Royal Albert Hall 1966 Concert

Bob Dylan: The 1966 Live Recordings
Disc 1 – Sydney, April 13, 1966 (Soundboard recorded by TCN 9 TV Australia)
Disc 2 – Sydney, April 13, 1966 (Soundboard recorded by TCN 9 TV Australia)
Disc 3 – Melbourne, April 20, 1966 (Soundboard / unknown broadcast)
Disc 4 – Copenhagen, May 1, 1966 (Soundboard)
Disc 5 – Dublin, May 5, 1966 (Soundboard)
Disc 6 – Dublin, May 5, 1966 (Soundboard)
Disc 7 – Belfast, May 6, 1966 (Soundboard)
Disc 8 – Belfast, May 6, 1966 (Soundboard)
Disc 9 – Bristol, May 10, 1966 (Soundboard / audience)
Disc 10 – Bristol, May 10, 1966 (Soundboard)
Disc 11 – Cardiff, May 11, 1966 (Soundboard)
Disc 12 – Birmingham, May 12, 1966 (Soundboard)
Disc 13 – Birmingham, May 12, 1966 (Soundboard)
Disc 14 – Liverpool, May 14, 1966 (Soundboard)
Disc 15 – Leicester, May 15, 1966 (Soundboard)
Disc 16 – Leicester, May 15, 1966 (Soundboard)
Disc 17 – Sheffield, May 16, 1966 (CBS Records recording)
Disc 18 – Sheffield, May 16, 1966 (Soundboard)
Disc 19 – Manchester, May 17, 1966 (CBS Records recording)
Disc 20 – Manchester, May 17, 1966 (CBS Records recording except Soundcheck / Soundboard)
Disc 21 – Glasgow, May 19, 1966 (Soundboard)
Disc 22 – Edinburgh, May 20, 1966 (Soundboard)
Disc 23 – Edinburgh, May 20, 1966 (Soundboard)
Disc 24 – Newcastle, May 21, 1966 (Soundboard)
Disc 25 – Newcastle, May 21, 1966 (Soundboard)
Disc 26 – Paris, May 24, 1966 (Soundboard)
Disc 27 – Paris, May 24, 1966 (Soundboard)
Disc 28 – London, May 26, 1966 (CBS Records recording)
Disc 29 – London, May 26, 1966 (CBS Records recording)
Disc 30 – London, May 27, 1966 (CBS Records recording)
Disc 31 – London, May 27, 1966 (CBS Records recordings)
Disc 32 – White Plains, NY, February 5, 1966 (Audience tape)
Disc 33 – Pittsburgh, PA, February 6, 1966 (Audience tape)
Disc 34 – Hempstead, NY, February 26, 1966 (Audience tape)
Disc 35 – Melbourne, April 19, 1966 (Audience tape)
Disc 36 – Stockholm, April 29, 1966 (Audience tape)