Blown Out on the Trail: 20 Years of Unreleased Bob Dylan Recordings

by John Howells

Blown Out on the Trail is the second in a series of books dealing with the unreleased recordings of Bob Dylan. The first edition, Skipping Reels of Rhyme, which was nominated for the 2019 ARSC award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research, dealt with the years 1958 through 1975, often thought of as his peak creative years. This edition deals with the two decades from 1976 to 1996, often thought of as his “lost in the wilderness” years. This book is a guide to the best and most worthwhile of the rare and unreleased recordings from those years.

218 pages, Paperback

Published October 25, 2019

Reviews

[Joe]

Howells was one of the Internet's first Dylan chronicles with his Bringing It All Back Home page, which had odds and ends of fascinating effect. He chronicled Dylan's bootleg tapes, and this book is an offshoot of that effort. I like what's here, but it feels a little thin, particularly in parts where Howells has failed to update his research as to what tapes are available out there. In the absence of many other works on the topic, if you care about live and unreleased Bob Dylan recordings, you'll enjoy it. But I do feel like a little more care would be beneficial, particularly in updating old information. I'm also not entirely of a mind with Howells in regard to the quality or lack thereof of certain tapes, tours, or musicians. Still, if you care about the topic, you'll find plenty to ponder.