DYLAN’S MID-'60S MASTERPIECES UNLOCKED AT LAST

Here comes the mother lode.

Bob Dylan's The Cutting Edge 1965-1966: The Bootleg Series Vol. 12 is set to hit retail on Nov. 6.

The twelfth volume in the Columbia/ Legacy Dylan Bootleg Series focuses on the legendary studio sessions that resulted in the sequential masterpieces Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde, documenting this game-changing artist’s transition from folk troubadour to rock & roll auteur.

The six-CD Deluxe Edition brings together for the first time many of the most sought-after recordings of the entire Dylan canon, including previously unheard songs, studio outtakes, rehearsal tracks and alternate takes—including the complete "Like a Rolling Stone" session.

The Best of The Cutting Edge 1965-1966: The Bootleg Series Vol.12 is available in two-CD and three vinyl LP configurations.

And obsessive Dylanophiles will be desperate to get their mitts on the 18-disc Collector's Edition, available only on bobdylan.com. This limited-edition pressing (only 5k will be made) contains—as the press release ecstatically proclaims—“every note recorded during the 1965-1966 sessions, every alternate take and alternate lyric…[including] Dylan's original nine mono 45 RPM singles released during the time period, packaged in newly created picture sleeves featuring global images from the era. The limited edition includes rare hotel room recordings from the Savoy Hotel in London (May 4, 1965), the North British Station Hotel in Glasgow (May 13, 1966) and a Denver, Colorado hotel (March 12, 1966), as well as a strip of original film cells from Don't Look Back.”

There’s also an annotated book containing hundreds of rare and never-before-seen photographs and memorabilia and newly penned essays from Bill Flanagan and Sean Wilentz.

Black-and-white photo above © Don Hunstein