Bob Dylan Basement Tapes

A Musical History is the second box set to anthologize Canadian-American rock group The Band. Released by Capitol Records on September 27, 2005 it features 111 tracks spread over five Compact Discs and one DVD. Roughly spanning the group's journey from 1961 to 1977, from their days behind Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan through the departure of Robbie Robertson and the first disbanding of the group. The set includes highlights from each of the group's first seven studio albums and both major live recordings and nearly forty rare or previously-unreleased performances…

McGuinness Flint's 1971 debut LP was a very of-its-time British roots rock album with a rural feel. While neither blues-rock nor folk-rock, the influence of blues-rock and folk-rock on these easygoing, good-natured rambles was substantial. Particularly evident at times were the influences of Bob Dylan and the Band, and it's no surprise that McGuinness Flint would soon make an album of obscure Dylan covers, including several songs from the Basement Tapes. Despite the formidable talent involved in the group, and the high profiles of other acts in which the members were involved, it's nonetheless apparent that they don't have major musical ideas to express. It's competent, amiable music with a laid-back, back-to-the-land vibe, often falling back on generic bluesy melodies…

Excepting a few years with Mercury at the beginning of their career, Flatt & Scruggs made all of their studio recordings for Columbia. This double-disc set is the most useful survey of their work for the label, spanning 1950 to 1969, and throwing in three unreleased tracks along the way. In addition to the expected sterling bluegrass, it has their occasional commercial breakthroughs ("The Ballad of Jed Clampett," "Petticoat Junction," and the version of "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" that was used as the theme to Bonnie and Clyde). Curiosity seekers will also be impressed by their cover of Bob Dylan's "Down in the Flood," recorded in late 1967, and unreleased by Dylan himself until The Basement Tapes.

McGuinness Flint's 1971 debut LP was a very of-its-time British roots rock album with a rural feel. While neither blues-rock nor folk-rock, the influence of blues-rock and folk-rock on these easygoing, good-natured rambles was substantial…

Stepping away from the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Rhiannon Giddens teams up with producer T-Bone Burnett for her 2015 solo debut, Tomorrow Is My Turn. Giddens previously worked with Burnett on Lost on the River, an album where musicians added new music to lyrics Bob Dylan left behind during The Basement Tapes, and she also appeared in a concert he shepherded for the Coen brothers' folk revival opus Inside Llewyn Davis – two projects steeped in history, as is Tomorrow Is My Turn…