Blood in the Tracks: The Minnesota Musicians behind Dylan's Masterpiece

(Hardback)

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The story of the Minneapolis musicians who were unexpectedly summoned to re-record half of the songs on Bob Dylan's most acclaimed album

When Bob Dylan recorded Blood on the Tracks in New York in September 1974, it was a great album. But it was not the album now ranked by Rolling Stone as one of the ten best of all time. When somethings not right, its wrong, as Dylan puts it in Youre Going to Make Me Lonesome When You Goand something about that original recording led him to a studio in his native Minnesota to re-record five of the songs on that landmark album, including Idiot Wind and Tangled Up in Blue. Six Minnesota musicians sat in on that two-night recording session at Sound 80, bringing their unique sound to some of Dylans best-known songsonly to have their names left off the album and their contribution unacknowledged for more than forty years. This book tells the story of those two nights in Minneapolis, of the musicians who gave the album so much of its ultimate form and sound, and of their decades-long fight for recognition.

Blood in the Tracks takes readers behind the scenes with these mystery Minnesota musicians: twenty-one-year-old mandolin virtuoso Peter Ostroushko; drummer Bill Berg and bass player Billy Peterson, the house rhythm section at Sound 80; progressive rock keyboardist Gregg Inhofer; guitarist Chris Weber, who owned The Podium guitar shop in Dinkytown; and Kevin Odegard, whose own career as a singer-songwriter had paralleled Dylans until he had to take a job as a railroad brakeman to make ends meet. Through in-depth interviews and assiduous research, Paul Metsa and Rick Shefchik trace the twists of fate that brought these musicians together and set them on different paths in its wake: their musical experiences leading up to the December 1974 recording session, the divergent careers that followed, and the painstaking work it took to finally get the official credit that was their due.

A rare look at the makingor remakingof an all-time-great album, and a long overdue acknowledgment of the musicians who helped make it happen, Blood in the Tracks brings to life a transformative moment in the history of rock and roll, for the first time in its true context and with its complete cast of players.

Reviews

"Beyond the richly detailed account of the Sound 80 sessions, Rick Shefchik and Paul Metsa have crafted a gripping pre-Internet tale of what it took (and still takes) to be a struggling musician. Dylan looms over every page, but for anyone whos ever given themselves up to a life in musicor loved someone who didthe stories told by the Minnesota Six about gigging, practicing, recording, family life, and all the heartaches and triumphs that come along with the chase are equal parts poignant, romantic, sad, funny, and inspiring. An essential slice of Minnesota music history."Jim Walsh, songwriter, journalist, and author of Gold Experience: Following Prince in the 90s

Author Bio

Paul Metsa is a musician and songwriter with twelve original records to his credit, as well as an autobiography, Blue Guitar Highway, also published by University of Minnesota Press. He has played more than five thousand professional gigsincluding at Farm Aid V in Dallas in 1992, the Tribute to Woody Guthrie at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996, and the Million Mom March in Washington, D.C., in 1999and has received seven Minnesota Music Awards. His self-published Alphabet Jazz: Poetry, Prose, Stories, and Songs was released in September of 2022.

Rick Shefchik spent almost thirty years in daily journalism, mostly as a critic, reporter, and columnist for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. He is author of several books, including Everybodys Heard about the Bird: The True Story of 1960s Rock n Roll in Minnesota (Minnesota, 2015).