Sid Griffin: Million Dollar Bash

Bob Dylan, The Band, and the Basement Tapes

Sid Griffin's Million Dollar Bash, about Dylan and The Band's legendary Basement Tapes sessions in Big Pink, was released in September 2007. Griffin is a US-born musician, musicologist, author and broadcaster, now living in the UK. He is probably best known for his work with alt.country pioneers the Long Ryders in the '80s.

Million Dollar Bash tells the story of the basement tapes, a strange series of recordings made by Bob Dylan when he went on the lam in the summer of 1967. Remarkably, these casual sessions kick-started the entire Americana genre and produced some of the most revered and misunderstood songs in Dylan's catalog. Author and musician Sid Griffin begins the story in 1966, when Dylan first discovered his interest in electric music. Griffin then examines the tapes in detail -- he analyzes the music, discusses how and why it was made, and speculates over who joined Dylan in making it. As he tells the story, Griffin ponders the question that has intrigued Dylan fans for nearly 40 years: why were the tapes so different from the music Dylan had made up to that point? This important book examines a major turning point in music history and inquires into a group of songs that were enormously influential at the time of their creation and that have been prized by musicians and fans ever since. --amazon.com editorial review

Sid Griffin - Million Dollar Bash - 2007 - 320 pages - Jawbone Press - ISBN 978-1906002053