The Bootleg Series, Vol. 12: The Cutting Edge 1965-1966

One of the most illuminating facets of The Cutting Edge is what an unequivocal testament it is, both to the layered ingenuity of the session musicians and Dylan’s self-ordained composing pursuits.

he Bootleg Series Vol. 12: The Cutting Edge 1965–1966 is more than just music--it’s cultural history of colossal significance. This collection is a resource that fans and students of Dylan’s work will reference again and again as the years and decades pass and these classic albums are introduced to new generations of music fans.

By breaking down the barriers that separated these three albums, The Cutting Edge shows how for Dylan during this blinding, brilliant peak his music was a living thing, evolving from song to song, take to take, where the quest itself was as transcendent as the final destination.

The 65-66 era of his career occupies rarefied space in the annals of rock; The Cutting Edge somehow demystifies it and makes it seem more impressive all at once. For a guy who once warned us not to look back, Bob Dylan keeps giving us irresistible reasons to do exactly that.

For anyone remotely interested in how great art is made, [the deluxe edition] is the equivalent of an audio master class as Dylan works, reworks and reworks again the song until it sonically captures the energy, defiance, outrage, empathy, celebration and liberation embedded in the lyrics.

To this day, Dylan regards the studio as an artifact-making machine and not a magical chamber freezing definitive versions of his songs. The Bootleg Series has bolstered this opinion before but never presented his creative process so nakedly. For any music fan, this is pure treasure.

The songs on The Cutting Edge are just as brash, bristling and amazing to hear as they were when they were first unleashed half a century ago.

The 6-disc set witnesses the studio process as it unfolded 50 years ago, particularly the CD unfolding the complete session for "Like a Rolling Stone."... Experience history in real time.

The Cutting Edge is music of the present, but not the '60s present, an eternal present; the songs are about observation and they exist in a place where it's always now, in sound and word.

The Cutting Edge allows fans to bear witness to perhaps the most astonishing explosion of language and sound in rock history, a new approach to song being forged before our very ears.

At the very least, listening to The Cutting Edge 1965-1966 should send you scurrying back to the official versions of those three classic Bob Dylan albums. It’s his story, and it’s history, reconsidered one more time.