There are countless artists rightly celebrated as prolific contributors to music who haven’t released anywhere near eighteen albums — let alone eighteen compilations of rarities, B-sides, and outtakes. With Through The Open Window, Bob Dylan reaches that extraordinary milestone, cementing his reputation not just as a songwriter but as one of the most thoroughly documented artists in history.
Available as a standard 2-CD/4-LP edition and a deluxe 8-CD box set featuring over 100 tracks, this latest instalment of The Bootleg Series traces Dylan’s formative years — from his teenage recordings in Minnesota to the bustling folk clubs of early-’60s New York.
The journey begins with a pair of rare home recordings from the mid-’50s, revealing a young Dylan still searching for a voice but already brimming with curiosity and wit. The story then moves into 1960, capturing informal sessions in Madison, Wisconsin, where Dylan once attended summer camp and first immersed himself in the local folk scene.
By 1961 — the pivotal year he arrived in New York — Dylan’s output becomes more confident and abundant. We hear him performing live at legendary venues like The Gaslight Café and Gerdes Folk City, mingling with figures who would shape the folk revival, including Dave Van Ronk and Jim Kweskin.
Disc Three ushers in 1962, a year of artistic expansion and creative collaboration. Highlights include sessions with calypso icon Harry Belafonte, blues great Big Joe Williams (whose nine-string guitar gave his music a distinctive edge), and the rediscovered 1920s singer Victoria Spivey. Also featured is Dylan’s full July 1962 set at Montreal’s Finjan Club — an intimate, fiery performance that showcases early self-penned songs like “The Death of Emmett Till” and “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues.”
The compilation continues into 1963, charting Dylan’s rapid transformation from local curiosity to generational voice. Collaborations with Joan Baez and performances at the Newport Folk Festival with Pete Seeger and Peter, Paul and Mary capture the energy of the moment the world began to take notice. Lesser-known gems like “All Over You,” recorded with The New World Singers’ Happy Traum and Gil Turner, reveal Dylan’s growing sense of social purpose and storytelling command.
Particularly remarkable is the inclusion of Dylan’s entire October 26, 1963 Carnegie Hall concert. Previously available only in fragments, the full show now appears in context, complete with his spoken introductions to songs like “Masters of War” and “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” — tracks that would soon define his third album, The Times They Are a-Changin’.
Through The Open Window is more than a collection of curios; it’s a vivid document of an artist coming into focus. The recordings — often raw and intimate, dominated by guitar and harmonica — capture the soul, hunger, and spark of a musician absorbing his surroundings and reshaping tradition into something revolutionary.
Crucially, there’s little repetition here: most tracks are previously unreleased, and alternate versions are used sparingly. The result is a fluid, chronological narrative that reveals the astonishing pace of Dylan’s growth — from a teenager fooling around with folk standards to a songwriter on the verge of redefining American music.
By the time the final disc ends, we’ve witnessed a full transformation. What begins with a curious kid in Minnesota closes with an artist standing tall in New York, armed with the songs that would change the world. Through The Open Window doesn’t just fill in the blanks — it lets us hear, almost in real time, the birth of a legend.
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