Bob Dylan's
Officially
Released
Rarities and Obscurities
"Bob Dylan Worldwide -The First
Twenty Years" is the first instalment of what will hopefully be the
definite Dylan discography, published by Christoph Maus/Maus of Music,
Hamburg, Germany
. This was published in advance of Bob's 75th birthday,
in mid-April 2016. Heartfelt thanks to the contributors to this site
who have helped with preparing this book - they are credited for their
contributions. Please buy this book from "Isis" here . Thanks to Sonny Boy
McFitzson for news the book can be bought in Japan from Disk Union here
. Sample pages from the book
are shown here.
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.
8 Feb 2018:
This web-site is no longer labelled as "Not Secure" by Google Chrome
and other browsers, because I have upgraded the site security to Secure
Hosting (HTTPS). However, there has always been little risk because
this web-site is totally passive, and visitors can only view pages,
there is no interaction. It does not use cookies to track your
movements, and does not gather any information from you at all.
23 Jan
2020:
Thanks to Jack from Canada for news that there will be a 2CD
compilation exclusive to Japan that will be released on 25 Mar 2020 in
conjunction with Bob's Spring 2020 Japanese tour. The title is The
Japanese Singles Collection and it will include some rarities. Also
being released on 1 Apr 2020 is a reproduction of the 1965 Japanese
single Subterranean Homesick Blues/She Belongs To Me. This will be
pressed on red vinyl.
15 Jan 2020:
Thanks to
Éamonn Ó Catháin for news that Secret 7" will be releasing a set of
seven limited edition 7" singles in 2020 with original cover artwork.
Bob's contribution will be Blind Willie McTell from The Bootleg Series Vols. 1-3. (This song was
released on a promo CD single in 1991, but as far as I know has never
appeared on a vinyl single.)
Other artists will include Aretha Franklin and Miles Davis. The final
covers have yet to be chosen, and could be by famous or previously
unknown artists. All records will be priced at £70, and will go on sale
on the 31st May 2020 at London’s NOW gallery, in support of Help
Refugees.
For
more information, see
https://thevinylfactory.com/news/secret-7-inch-2020/
There are now over 300
pages on this site - to
search for specific entries, try here!
Bob Dylan's
Official Rarities Pages
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
Honourable Mentions
Honourable Mentions Blowin' In The Wind
covers
Honourable Mentions Video
Questionable Releases
Questionable Releases of Official Dylan
Albums
Questionable Releases of Official Dylan Singles
Questionable Releases Video
Index of International Releases by Country (work in progress)
"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.
Lists
compiled from "Searching For A Gem"
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.
"Mr. D's Apocrypha"
(Columbia releases with tracks that aren't on Bob's regular albums)
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-EF-JK-OP-ST-Z
Viruses
and Spam
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.
Mission
Privacy
Acknowledgements
For this site's mission and
inclusion/exclusion policies, see here.
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.
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 .
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"
. This was published in advance of Bob's 75th birthday,
in mid-April 2016. Heartfelt thanks to the contributors to this site
who have helped with preparing this book - they are credited for their
contributions. Please buy this book from "Isis" here
