Before the Flood is a live album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan and
the Band, released on June 20, 1974 on Asylum Records in the United States and
Island Records in the United Kingdom. It is the seventeenth album by Dylan and
the seventh by The Band, and documents their joint 1974 American tour. It
peaked at number three on the Billboard 200, reached number eight on the popular
album chart in the United Kingdom, and has been certified platinum by the
Recording Industry Association of America.
Content Dylan and his new record label Asylum
had planned professional recordings before the tour began, ten separate
sessions in total: three in New York at Madison Square Garden on January 30 and
31; two in Seattle,Washington, at the Center Coliseum on February 9; two in
Oakland, California, at the Alameda County Coliseum on February 11; and
three in Los Angeles on February 13 and 14. To compile the album, recordings
were taken from the final three shows at the Los Angeles Forum in Inglewood,
California, with only "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" from New York.
The title of the album is thought to derive from the novel Farn Mabul by
Yiddish writer Sholem Asch; Dylan had a personal relationship with Moses Asch,
son of Sholem and founder of Folkways Records, a record label hugely
influential in the folk music revival. Another theory is that the title refers
to the album arriving before the inevitable flood of bootlegs could
saturate the underground market. While Dylan and The Band had recorded
the studio album Planet Waves prior to the tour, few of its songs were
incorporated into the tour's setlist, and none are represented on Before the
Flood. After the double album release, Dylan signed a new contract with
Columbia Records in time for his next studio album, Blood on the Tracks, after
returning label president Goddard Lieberson made a determined campaign to
get Dylan back from Asylum. The Band continued to record on their own for
Capitol Records. Subsequent reissues were on the Columbia
imprint, and on March 31, 2009, a remastered digipak version of Before the
Flood was issued by Legacy Records, Columbia now part of Sony Music
Entertainment. Critical reception
In a contemporary review for Creem magazine, music critic Robert Christgau
felt that the Band followed Dylan in intensifying his old songs for the arena
venue and stated, "Without qualification, this is the craziest and
strongest rock and roll ever recorded. All analogous live albums fall flat." In
a less enthusiastic review, Rolling Stone magazine's Tom Nolan said Dylan's
vocal emphasis and the Band's busy arrangements make for an awkward listen,
although revamped versions of songs such as "It's All Right, Ma", "Like a Rolling
Stone", and "All Along the Watchtower" are successful and sound meaningful.
Before the Flood was voted the sixth best album of 1974 in The Village
Voice '​s annual Pazz & Jop critics poll. Christgau, the poll's creator,
ranked it second on his own list. In a retrospective review, Greg Kot of
the Chicago Tribune called the album "epochal", while AllMusic's Stephen
Thomas Erlewine described it as "one of the best live albums of its time. Ever,
maybe." Greil Marcus commented, "Roaring with resentment and happiness, the music
touched rock and roll at its limits." By contrast, Dylan himself later disparaged
the tour, feeling that it was overblown. "I think I was just playing a role on
that tour, I was playing Bob Dylan and The Band were playing The Band. It was
all sort of mindless. The only thing people talked about was energy this,
energy that. The highest compliments were things like, 'Wow, lotta energy,
man.' It had become absurd." In a retrospective review, Scott Hreha of
PopMatters also felt that each act did not sound collaborative as on The
Basement Tapes and that the album "remains a worthy but inessential item
in Dylan's catalog—and both he and the Band have better live recordings
available, especially the several volumes in Dylan's Bootleg Series."
Track listing Sides one and four are performances by
Bob Dylan backed by The Band; side two and tracks four through six on side
three are by The Band; tracks one through three on side three by Dylan
alone. "Blowin' in the Wind" is a splice of two separate performances. All dates
from Los Angeles except as indicated. All songs written by Bob Dylan, except
where noted. Side one
Side two Side three
Side four Personnel
= Musicians= Bob Dylan – vocals, guitars, harmonica,
piano Robbie Robertson – electric guitar,
backing vocals Garth Hudson – organ, piano, clavinet
Levon Helm – vocals, drums Richard Manuel – vocals, piano, electric
piano, organ, drums Rick Danko – vocals, bass guitar
= Production= Rob Fraboni – recording engineer, mixing
engineer Phil Ramone – recording engineer
Nat Jeffrey – mixing engineer Barry Feinstein – photography, design
Village Recorders – mixing location Kendun Recorders – mastering location
Jeff Rosen, Steve Berkowitz – reissue producers
References External links
Before the Flood at Discogs