Search for Records:  

Bob Dylan - The Great White Wonder   

Great White Wonder or GWW was a double album bootleg recording of Bob Dylan, released in July 1969. Some of the tracks came from Dylan's and The Band's legendary Basement Tapes sessions, recorded in the cellar of The Band's upstate New York home, while others were supposedly taped in Minneapolis on December 22, 1961. The recording was never approved by Dylan or his record company. The only identifying mark on the album cover was the text GF 001/2/3/4, and later, after a repressing, gwa 1Aa version 2, leading to the nickname "Great White Wonder". Released by the infant TMQ label ("Trademark of Quality"), created by two Los Angeles-based men, one a military deserter, Ken and Dub, it was compiled from multiple sources. Sides one and three of Great White Wonder were entirely given over to songs from an informal ninety-minute tape that Dylan recorded in the apartment of Bonnie Beecher in Minneapolis in December 1961. Side two was a miscellany of studio outtakes. However, it was seven basement-tape cuts that filled up the end of side two and all of side four that aroused the greatest interest. "The west coast radio stations were first to pick up on Great White Wonder. Five radio stations – KCBS [sic – should be KCSB-FM] in Santa Barbara, KNAC in Long Beach, KRLA in Pasadena and KMET-FM and KPPC-FM in Los Angeles – immediately began playing the album. KRLA was the first. Unconcerned with legal niceties, these LA radio stations were quite willing to fuel demand for both Great White Wonder and the spate of bootlegs that soon followed its metal-stamped heels."

Tracks

  • A1)   Candy Man
  • A2)   Ramblin' Around
  • A3)   Black Cross
  • A4)   Ain't Got No Home
  • A5)   The Death Of Emmett Till
  • A6)   Poor Lazarus
  • B1)   Bob Dylan's New Orleans Rag
  • B2)   If You Gotta Go, Go Now
  • B3)   Only A Hobo
  • B4)   Killing Me Alive
  • B5)   Mighty Quinn
  • B6)   This Wheel's On Fire
  • C1)   Baby Please Don't Go
  • C2)   Fare Thee Well
  • C3)   See That My Grave Is Kept Clean
  • C4)   East Orange, New Jersey
  • C5)   Man Of Constant Sorrow
  • D1)   I Shall Be Released
  • D2)   Open The Door, Richard!
  • D3)   Too Much Of Nothing
  • D4)   Nothing Was Delivered
  • D5)   Tears Of Rage
  • D6)   Living The Blues

Track listing above is from 1970-Jan-01 | US | G.W.W. Records - 40 & 41 Compilation

Vinyl Releases:

Images from Vinyl Releases of The Great White Wonder


Click small images above to see larger versions.

Check out more vinyl records by Bob Dylan