Bob Dylan turned 70 and a lot of books and tributes were published. New books as well as updated editions of almost all the standard biographies appeared. The 24^rd year of The Never Ending Tour continued and swept through three new countries and 14 new cities in The Far East, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and the US with 89 new shows. Same band, same songs, only 5 songs were not played last year. No live debuts, no covers. Still Dylan managed to breath new life in many songs with inspired performances and the shows generally got great reviews.

2 2011 AT A GLANCE

3 THE 2011 CALENDAR

9 January	Joan Baez turns 70!
16 January	It is announced by Crain's New York Business that Bob Dylan has signed a new six-book deal with publishers Simon And Schuster.
13 February	At the 53^rd Grammy Awards in the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Bob Dylan performs Maggie’s Farm backed by Stu Kimball, Donnie Herron, Tony Garnier with Mumford & Sons and the Avett Brothers singing back-up.
25 February	Suze Rotolo dies of lung cancer, aged 67, in Manhattan, New York City, USA.
3 April	A spring tour of the Far East, Australia and New Zealand starts in Taipei, Taiwan. First ever Bob Dylan concert in Taiwan.
6 April	First ever Bob Dylan concert in China in Beijing.
8 April	Show in Shanghai, China.
10 April	First ever Bob Dylan concert in Vietnam takes place in Ho Chi Minh City.
12 April	The album Bob Dylan In Concert - Brandeis University 1963, is released on Columbia Records worldwide. This album was previously only available as a bonus together with the purchase of The Bootleg Series Vol. 9: The Witmark Demos or the 9 CD-box The Original Mono Recordings.
12-13 April	Back to China for two shows in Hong Kong.
15 April	The Far East part of the Spring tour ends wirh a show in Singapore at the Timbre Rock & Roots Festival.
17 April	First stop down under is in Fremantle, Western Australia.
30 April	The Spring tour ends with a show in Auckland, New Zealand.
2 May	The Dylan performace on Studs Terkel’s Wax Museum 26 April 1963, is released in the UK.
13 May	Bob Dylan posts a statement on www.bobdylan.com refuting persistent rumours that he had been subjected to censorship during his recent concerts in China. Full text in Chapter 4 below.
24 May	Bob Dylan turns 70!
16 June	A short festival tour of Europe starts in Cork, Ireland. The setlist features the first live performance of I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine since Dublin, Ireland 26 November 2005.
18 June	A celebration of Irish Music 1990-2011 in Finsbury Park in London, England.
18 June	Clarence Clemons dies.
20 June	A quick departure to Tel-Aviv, Israel. The setlist is a repeat from the London show.
2 July	Last European summer show at the Peace & Love Festival in Borlänge, Sweden.
14 July	A 28-stop summer tour of the US starts in Santa Barbara, California.
27 July	First live performance of Mississippi since Santa Monica, Florida 3 September 2008.
21 August	The summer tours ends in Boston, Massachusetts.
20 September	A new collection of 18 Dylan paintings called The Asia Series is displayed at the Gagosian Gallery in Newy York City. Dylan is later heavily critisized for not crediting the original photograhs that many of the paintings obviously are based upon.
30 September	50 years since Bob Dylan’s first appearance in a recording studio. Dylan joins a Carolyn Hester session playing harmonica.
3 October	The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams with a new Dylan recording A Love That Faded is releases on Dylan’s own record label Egyptian Records. Please refer to section 5.2.
4 October	The album Hawaii Five-O Soundtrack is released. Don’t Ever Take Yourself Away, not previously officialy released, from the Shot Of Love sessions is included.
6 October	The second tour in Europe starts with a show in Dublin, Ireland. This is a joint tour with Mark Knopfler who opened each night with his set.
11 October	The show in Nottingham, England is the first to be played without encores, i.e. no break before Like A Rolling Stone.
14 October	Mark Knopfler joins the band and plays guitar on Beyond Here Lies Nothin' at the show in Bournemouth, England.
21 October	Mark Knopfler again joins the band and plays guitar on the first three songs at the show in Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg. This becomes the standard routine for the rest of the tour, Knopfler plays normally on the first four songs.
21 October	The compilation Pure Dylan, is released by Sony Germany. Please refer to section 5.3.
24 October	The compilation Beyond Here Lies Nothin' is released by Sony UK. Please refer to section 5.4.
4 November	50 years since Bob Dylan’s first concert in his own name at the Carnegie Recital Hall in New York City, New York.
9 November	The 3DVD-set Bridge School Benefit Concerts 25th Anniversary Edition is released, containing Girl From The North Country from the second benefit concert in Oakland, California, 4 December 1988.
20 November	50 years since the first recording session for the debut album Bob Dylan!
21 November	Mark Knopfler sings with Bob Dylan on the last song of the tour, Forever Young, a very emotional moment.
5 December	Radio & TV performances 1961-1965 are released in the UK on the CD Life And Life Only. Please refer to section 5.5.

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4 TO MY FANS AND FOLLOWERS

Allow me to clarify a couple of things about this so-called China controversy which has been going on for over a year. First of all, we were never denied permission to play in China. This was all drummed up by a Chinese promoter who was trying to get me to come there after playing Japan and Korea. My guess is that the guy printed up tickets and made promises to certain groups without any agreements being made. We had no intention of playing China at that time, and when it didn't happen most likely the promoter had to save face by issuing statements that the Chinese Ministry had refused permission for me to play there to get himself off the hook. If anybody had bothered to check with the Chinese authorities, it would have been clear that the Chinese authorities were unaware of the whole thing.

We did go there this year under a different promoter. According to Mojo magazine the concerts were attended mostly by ex-pats and there were a lot of empty seats. Not true. If anybody wants to check with any of the concert-goers they will see that it was mostly Chinese young people that came. Very few ex-pats if any. The ex-pats were mostly in Hong Kong not Beijing. Out of 13,000 seats we sold about 12,000 of them, and the rest of the tickets were given away to orphanages. The Chinese press did tout me as a sixties icon, however, and posted my picture all over the place with Joan Baez, Che Guevara, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. The concert attendees probably wouldn't have known about any of those people. Regardless, they responded enthusiastically to the songs on my last 4 or 5 records. Ask anyone who was there. They were young and my feeling was that they wouldn't have known my early songs anyway.

As far as censorship goes, the Chinese government had asked for the names of the songs that I would be playing. There's no logical answer to that, so we sent them the set lists from the previous 3 months. If there were any songs, verses or lines censored, nobody ever told me about it and we played all the songs that we intended to play.

Everybody knows by now that there's a gazillion books on me either out or coming out in the near future. So I'm encouraging anybody who's ever met me, heard me or even seen me, to get in on the action and scribble their own book. You never know, somebody might have a great book in them.

5 NEW RELEASES AND RECORDINGS

5.1 Studs Terkel's Wax Museum

The radio performance from 26 April 1963

released in the UK, 2 May 2011 on Left Field

Media LFMCD 504. For details please refer

to the corresponding session page.

5.2 The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams

A new collection of previously unheard songs by the country great recorded by artists such as Bob Dylan, Jack White, Norah Jones and Levon Helm. The set was originally conceived by veteran A&R executive Mary Martin as a Dylan-centric project, but eventually evolved into a multi-artist tribute to the late singer-songwriter. The songs featured were rescued from notebooks left behind in a leather briefcase by Williams after he died in 1953 at the age of 29. The notes contained lyrics and song ideas that were finished by the 13 artists who contributed to the disc.

Tracks:

Alan Jackson	You've Been Lonesome, Too
Bob Dylan	The Love That Faded
Norah Jones	How Many Times Have You Broken My Heart?
Jack White	You Know That I Know
Lucinda Williams	I'm So Happy I Found You
Vince Gill and Rodney Crowell	I Hope You Shed a Million Tears
Patty Loveless	You're Through Fooling Me
Levon Helm	You'll Never Again Be Mine
Holly Williams	Blue Is My Heart
Jakob Dylan	Oh, Mama, Come Home
Sheryl Crow	Angel Mine
Merle Haggard	The Sermon on the Mount

Recording location, date and backing musicians were not known at the time of writing.

Released on Bob Dylan’s label Egyptian Records, 3 October 2011.

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5.3 Pure Dylan

A compilation of recordings from Sony Music Germany released to coincide with the Fall tour in Europe, subtitled An Intimate Look at Bob Dylan. The songs were carefully collected and lovingly sequenced by Hanns Peter Bushoff. The tracks selected and the order may look rather random, but listening to the record makes you (once again!) realize the genius of the song-writer and performing artist that is Bob Dylan.

Tracks:

1. Trouble in Mind

2. Girl From the North Country

3. Most of the Time

4. She Belongs To Me

5. Billy 1

6. Shooting Star

7. Sugar Baby

8. You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go

9. Tomorrow Night

10. Every Grain of Sand

11. Percy's Song

12. Born In Time

13. Boots of Spanish Leather

14. This Dream of You

15. Spanish is the Loving Tongue

16. If You See Her, Say Hello

17. Moonshiner

Notes

1. This is the first ever release of the complete version recorded in Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, Sheffield, Alabama, 30 April 1979.

15. This version recorded in Columbia Recording Studios, Studio E in New York City, New York, 2 June 1970 during the 3^rd New Morning recording session is previously available only on, the now out-of-print, Masterpieces compilation.

17. Previously available only on Starbucks exclusive Live at The Gaslight 1962. A live recording from the Gaslight Café in New York City, New York, October 1962.

All other tracks are previously relreased album versions.

Sony Music, 8 86979 88082 5, released in Europe 21 October 2011.

5.4 Beyond Here Lies Nothin'

A compilation of recordings from Sony Music UK released to coincide with the Fall tour in Europe, subtitled The Collection. This is a double CD with previously released album tracks in roughly chronological order. Nothing new here.

Disc: 1

1. The Times They Are A Changin'

2. Blowin' In The Wind

3. Boots Of Spanish Leather

4. It Ain't Me Babe

5. To Ramona

6. Mr. Tambourine Man

7. Subterranean Homesick Blues

8. It's All Over Now Baby Blue

9. Like A Rolling Stone

10. I Want You

11. Just Like A Woman

12. Tombstone Blues

13. Desolation Row

14. All Along The Watchtower

15. One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later)

16. Watching The River Flow

17. I Threw It All Away

Disc: 2

1. Lay, Lady, Lay

2. You Ain't Goin' Nowhere

3. The Man In Me

4. Knockin' On Heaven's Door

5. Tangled Up In Blue

6. Simple Twist Of Fate

7. Hurricane

8. Jokerman

9. Changin' Of The Guards

10. Groom's Still Waiting At The Altar

11. Ring Them Bells

12. Brownsville Girl

13. Po' Boy

14. Thunder On The Mountain

15. Make You Feel My Love

16. Beyond Here Lies Nothin'

Sony Music 8 86979 83862, released 24 October 2011.

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5.5 Life And Life Only

Subtitled Radio & TV, 1961-1965. This disc contains 16 live tracks as follows:

From the12-hour Hootenanny Special “Saturday Of Folk Music” in Riverside Church, New York City, New York, 29 July 1961:

1. Introduction

2. Handsome Molly

3. Omie Wise

4. Po' Lazarus

5. Mean Old Southern Railroad

6. Acne

From Oscar Brand’s Folk Song Festival recorded 29 October 1961 in the WNYC Radio Studio in New York City, New York:

7. Sally Gal

8. The Girl I Left Behind

From Oscar Brand Show recorded March 1963 in the WNBC Radio Studios in New York City, New York:

9. Oscar Brand Intro

10. Girl from the North Country

11. Only a Hobo

From the Steve Allen Show recorded 25 February 1964 in the NBC Studios in Los Angeles, California:

12. Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll

From the Les Crane Show recorded 17 February 1965 in the WABC TV Studios in New York City, New York:

13. Les Crane Introduction

14. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

15. Les Crane Interview

16. It's Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)

Released in the UK, 5 December 2011 on

Left Field Media LFMCD 517.

5.6 New recordings in circulation 2011

5.6.1 Café 47, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 21 April 1963

A new find with three songs: Glory Glory (a duet with Eric von Schmidt), Talking World War III Blues (first knownversion) and an incomplete With God On Our Side.

5.6.2 Forest Hills Tennis Stadium, New York City, New York, 17 August 1963

Two more tracks from this guest appearance at a Joan Baez concert are now circulating:

Only A Pawn In Their Game and A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall.