"Searching For A Gem" home page

[The Official Rarities Yearly Lists]
The Rarities Header page for each decade now contains links to the other audio pages for that decade.
All clip art images used throughout the site Copyright © TASK FORCE ImageGALLERY by NV Tech

There's no chat facility on this site, but the Searching For A Gem Facebook page on the left allows you to discuss Dylan Official Rarities and International Releases.

The other major "Flying Pig" Bob Dylan projects!

"There are those who worship loneliness, I'm not one of them,
In this age of fibreglass I'm searching for a gem."
Bob Dylan, "Dirge", ©1973/2001 by Ram's Horn Music

A list-in-progress of officially released but elusive recordings of Bob Dylan, compiled by Alan Fraser.

Before contacting me, read this site's Privacy Policy

All the songs listed in the Official Rarities section are cross-referenced by song title in these alphabetical pages.
A-E F-J K-O P-S T-Z

Living In Another Country: International Stereo Releases

Starlight In The East: Bob Dylan’s Unreleased Songs

Bob Dylan at the Movies: An Overview of all Films with Dylan Performances

Other Flying Pig Pages

21 Jul 2021: Press release from Third Man Records: Announcing "Vault Package #49: Bob Dylan - Springtime In New York: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 16 (1980-1985)". In conjunction with Sony/Legacy, Third Man will release this 4xLP collection (pressed at Third Man Pressing in Detroit) full of previously-unreleased outtakes, mixes and more, complete with a 16-page booklet of liner notes and track notations and four uniquely-coloured LPs in their own individual LP sleeves, all housed together in an impressive custom slipcase. The songs on the Third Man Vault package will be the ONLY vinyl release of those 42 songs. There is NO material overlap between the 2xLP version from Sony/Legacy and the 4xLP release from Third Man.
Sign up is open now through July 31 at midnight CST: https://thirdmanstore.com/products/vault-subscription

Thanks to Mike Ward of Badlands and Éamonn Ó Catháin for information.

21 Jul 2021: The Bootleg Series Vol. 16 - Springtime in New York 1980-1985 will be released on 17 Sep 2021 as a 5CD Deluxe Edition and 2CD/2LP Standard Editions. It is now listed in the International Albums section with the 5CD tracklist. Two songs on the 5CD set, Let It Be Me from 1981 and Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground from 1983 were previously released as international 7" single B-sides and are currently listed as rarities. These will be removed from the Rarities List if on the 2CD/2LP Standard Edition. This photo of Bob (reversed) taken by Ken Regan in 1984 was used on an Empire Burlesque 7" single in 1985, see International Singles: Singles & EPs 1984-86.

19 Jul 2021: In my opinion Shadow Kingdom was a triumph, even though it only lasted 50 minutes! Some people have criticised the presentation but Bob's singing was excellent and the band of new musicians played well on very recognisable versions of the songs. The film was directed and edited by Israeli film-maker Alma Har'el, the woman who directed 2012's "Bombay Beach" (in Southern California, not India) with three Dylan songs, see VHS & DVD (Films with Dylan Album Tracks) 2010-19. It is my hope it will be released as an official DVD/Blu-ray/CD some time. Rumour has it that as it mostly featured Bob's early songs there will be two more episodes with songs from different periods. Bring 'em on!

14 Jul 2021: Thanks to Hank Wellman for information that The Bootleg Series Vol. 16 - Springtime in New York 1980-1985 will be released on 17 Sep 2021. This covers a much wider period than just the Infidels sessions previously announced. Although I do not yet have details of formats and track listing, it is also reported to contain acoustic versions of Empire Burlesque songs.

1 Jul 2021: This web-site is no longer frozen. All contributors are invited to send in new items. However, work on my long-standing projects, including a new Dylan discography book, is still very incomplete. I shall therefore still be giving this priority over web-site updates, so please be patient if your contribution does not appear for some time.

23 Jun 2021: Bob Dylan's "Odds And Ends" is a new two-hour film made up of archival interviews, promotional videos, and documentary shorts. It tells the stories of some of the most important moments in the legendary artist's career. Apparently there is no material that will be new to Dylan fans. The video can by bought or rented by Amazon customers in the USA in High or Standard Definition. For more information see here: Bob Dylan Film ‘Odd and Ends’ Being Released Digitally by SME – The Hollywood Reporter.

16 Jun 2021: bobdylan.com have announced Shadow Kingdom, an exclusive online broadcast event that will take place on Sunday 18 Jul 2021 at 2 p.m. PT (10 p.m. British Summer Time). Bob will perform songs from his extensive body of work "in an intimate setting". Tickets are $25 and allow reviewing until 21 Jul 2021.

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There are now over 300 pages on this site - to search for specific entries, try here!

I must offer grateful thanks to Philip Jump and Mike Ward of the award-winning Badlands Record Shop, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, for supporting this web-site and the provision of many Bob Dylan rarities including the very limited 50th Anniversary Collection series.

"International Stereo Releases" is organised by album and split into "Regular Albums" (again with one page per album), "Compilations" and "Stereo Singles (All Formats)". The new "Index of International Releases by Country" will summarise both mono and stereo album and single releases by individual country.

All the pages below contain lists of tracks that aren't on Bob's regular albums. There is no overlap between them, in that each rarity is listed on one page only.

Contacting Bob Dylan: This is a fan site with no connection to Bob - that means you can't contact him through me! I used to have a postal address for Bob's New York business office that I thought was correct, but I have since been informed by someone who wrote to that address that their mail was returned. I have never had an email address. I can only suggest you contact Bob's publisher Simon & Schuster or use the feedback page at www.bobdylan.com. I also have no means of helping anyone who wants to meet Bob Dylan or obtain his autograph!

Access the yearly pages from here by going to the Official Rarities Yearly Lists. Traveling Wilburys now have their own pages. "VHS & DVD" is now split into multiple pages, including pages for films and TV series with Dylan rarities and pages for films and TV series with Dylan album tracks. "International Mono Releases" now has a page per official album plus pages for compilation albums, mono 7" singles and mono 7" EPs. "International Stereo Releases" is split into "Regular Albums" (again with one page per album), "Compilations" and "Stereo Singles (All Formats)". "Honourable Mentions" are items which don't qualify for these lists, but may be of interest to Dylan collectors. "Questionable Releases" and "Questionable Releases Video" are items sent in by contributors of dubious provenance.

All the songs listed in the Official Rarities section are cross-referenced by song title in these alphabetical pages.
A-E

F-J

K-O

P-S

T-Z

The Searching For A Gem site is always under sustained attack from Spammers, with 13,300 messages once received in one day. These messages are filtered out, and the Spam filters mean that if you do not put "Dylan" in the subject of a message it will be deleted and not reach the Searching For A Gem mailbox. If you have sent a message and not received a reply, please send it again with "Dylan" in the subject.

I obviously have to make this site's email address openly available so it's open to abuse by third parties. Some correspondents use ISPs whose Anti-Spam policies wrongly reject replies from me as Spam. If I can't send a message to you, I'll post a reply on the Updates page. Therefore, if you're expecting a reply from me and haven't received one, please look there.

EDLIS "Gemologist"!

Searching For A Gem is compiled by:

Alan Fraser
Macclesfield, Cheshire, England
For more information on England's Macclesfield, see . There is also a Macclesfield in North Carolina, USA, and two in Australia: one in South Australia (near Adelaide) and one in Victoria (near Melbourne)! All three towns were founded by Cheshire expatriates.

Alan has contributed to the UK magazines "Record Collector", "Q", "Mojo" and "Uncut" as well as to the "Village Voice", Dylan fanzines "Isis" and "The Bridge" and several books on Bob Dylan, and has also appeared on BBC Radio talking about this site. He is the co-author with Christoph Maus of "Bob Dylan Worldwide: The First Twenty Years". Alan is the EDLIS "Gemologist", for the EDLIS Parties and Gatherings Facebook page, go to .

For Alan's science fiction book reviews for the British Science Fiction Association's review magazine "Vector", go here .

Alan Fraser, UK - webmaster
Email: bob-rare@searchingforagem.com

Hans Seegers, Holland - Dylan discographer and collector supreme

The font used for the titles of each page is appropriately called "Jokerman", if you can't see it, download it here:

The original version of "Bob Dylan's Official Rarities" was hosted on Guilio Molfese's "Breadcrumb Sins" site and also appeared in "The Bob Dylan Companion", edited by Carl Benson, Schirmer Books, New York, 1998.

This site is respectfully dedicated to the memory of Larry "Lambchop" Eden, who followed Bob all over the world for many years, and sadly died in 2007. I bought part of his Dylan collection when he was raising money to move to India some years before. He's one of the few fans Bob has ever acknowledged from the stage, saying "This is Lambchop. He's been to more of my shows than I have!". Let's hear it for the Chopper!

Larry Eden in his trademark Rolling Thunder hat, photo by "jackobob"

All the songs listed on this web-site are cross-referenced by song title in these alphabetical pages.
A-E

F-J

K-O

P-S

T-Z

Counter restarted 24 Dec 2015! Please add around 5 million visits since mid-1998.

Official Rarities and Obscurities	Traveling Wilburys	Online Performances (bobdylan.com)	Online Performances (Other)	Interviews with Bob	VHS & DVD
	International Mono Releases	International Stereo Releases	Released Rarities	Index of International Releases by Country (work in progress)
Honourable Mentions	Honourable Mentions (Dylan's Roots)	Honourable Mentions - Blowin' In The Wind Covers	Honourable Mentions - Covers (Misc)	Honourable Mentions Video
	Questionable Releases	Questionable Releases of Official Dylan Albums	Questionable Releases of Official Dylan Singles	Questionable Releases Video

Mission		Privacy		Acknowledgements
	For this site's mission and inclusion/exclusion policies, see here.		Before contacting me, read this site's Privacy Policy.		The list of people who've contributed to the site is now long enough to merit its own Thanks page!
Red Herrings		Traders		Links
	For records that have been wrongly associated with Bob but definitely have no connection with him, see here.		Sorry, for legal and other reasons it is not possible for this site to offer valuations of your Dylan rarities, for details of online Dylan traders, see here.		For other Bob Dylan related sites that may be of interest to Searching For A Gem visitors, see here.

"Searching For A Gem"

Bob Dylan's Officially Released Rarities and Obscurities