Blood on the Tracks is probably the most remarkable album of Dylan. It is one of his most prized albums from a musical point of view. But despite this, it is also an album with many changes before it was officially in stores.

Dylan had recorded this album in its entirety in New York and then returned to Minnesota for the winter holidays. There he played the tapes for his brother David who felt that they should not be pressed as they were. The sound was too bleak and bitter. So they decided to recut 5 tracks in Minnesota with local musicians: 'Tangled Up In Blue', 'You’re A Big Girl Now', 'Idiot Wind', 'If You See Her, Say Hello' and 'Lily, Rosemary and The Jack Of Hearts'. They ended up quite different from the New York versions, with both subtle and significant lyrical and musical changes.

The artist name and album title are written in a New Deco font. The image of the front cover is a photograph of Dylan disguised as a painting. Photographer Paul Till snapped the profile shot during a January 1974 concert at Maple Leaf Gardens. He then used a combination of sophisticated dark room development techniques and photographic watercolors to produce the final atomized haze of Dylan.

Critics conclude that this seemingly 'pickled and blind Dylan' of the cover is nothing like the 'clear-sighted and sharp-tongued Dylan' they find in the music.

The first US (and all UK) pressings of the album had a back cover with linar notes by famed New York journalist and author Pete Hamill surrounding a painting by David Oppenheim. Unfortunately these notes were based on and quoted lyrics from the original New York versions of the songs. Columbia records decided to remove the sleeve notes and to replace them by a new larger painting by David Oppenheim. With this change The New York musician credits were also lost.

After this, to the great embarrassment of Columbia, Pete Hamill was awarded a Grammy for his linar notes! The original back cover was then restored, but with white text because the original black text had been almost unreadable.

The Minnesota musicians were never credited! So, here they are:

Billy Peterson - bass,
Bill Berg - drums,
Gregg Inhofer - Keyboards,
Kevin Odegard - guitar,
Chris Weber - 12-string guitar.

Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, artist, and writer. He has been influential in popular music and culture for more than five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when his songs chronicled social unrest, although Dylan repudiated suggestions from journalists that he was a spokesman for his generation.

Nevertheless, early songs such as 'Blowin' in the Wind' and 'The Times They Are a-Changin' became anthems for the American civil rights and anti-war movements. After he left his initial base in the American folk music revival, his six-minute single "Like a Rolling Stone" altered the range of popular music in 1965.

Desire