BOB DYLAN’S SECRET ARCHIVE

By BEN SISARIO

Bob Dylan working in a room above the Cafe Espresso in Woodstock, N.Y., in 1964, left. On the right are items from his archive. CreditDouglas R. Gilbert, left; via the Bob Dylan Archive, right.

TULSA, Okla. — For years, Bob Dylan scholars have whispered about a tiny notebook, seen by only a few, in which the master labored over the lyrics to his classic 1975 album “Blood on the Tracks.” Rolling Stone once called it “the Maltese Falcon of Dylanology” for its promise as an interpretive key.

But that notebook, it turns out, is part of a trinity. Sitting in climate-controlled storage in a museum here are two more “Blood on the Tracks” notebooks — unknown to anyone outside of Mr. Dylan’s closest circle — whose pages of microscopic script reveal even more about how Mr. Dylan wrote some of his most famous songs.

Notebooks containing lyrics from Mr. Dylan’s 1975 album “Blood on the Tracks.”CreditShane Brown for The New York Times

There have long been rumors that Mr. Dylan had stashed away an extensivearchive. It is now revealed that he did keep a private trove of his work, dating back to his earliest days as an artist, including lyrics, correspondence, recordings, films and photographs. That archive of 6,000 pieces has recently been acquired by a group of institutions in Oklahoma for an estimated $15 million to $20 million, and is set to become a resource for academic study.

In a preview of the Bob Dylan Archive by The New York Times, it is clear that

“It’s going to start anew the way people study Dylan,” said Sean Wilentz, the Princeton historian and author of “Bob Dylan in America,” when told about the existence of the archive.

Bought by the George Kaiser Family Foundation — whose namesake is an oil and banking billionaire — and the University of Tulsa, Mr. Dylan’s archives are now being transferred to Oklahoma, the home state of Woody Guthrie, Mr. Dylan’s early idol. After two years of cataloging and digitization, the material will take its place in Tulsa alongside a rare copy of the Declaration of Independence, a cache of Native American art and the papers of Guthrie.

Mr. Dylan said in a statement that he was glad his archives had found a home “and are to be included with the works of Woody Guthrie and especially alongside all the valuable artifacts from the Native American nations.” He added, with typical understatement, “To me it makes a lot of sense, and it’s a great honor.”

With voluminous drafts from every phase of Mr. Dylan’s career, the collection offers a comprehensive look at the working process of a legendarily secretive artist. Dozens of rewrites track the evolution of even minor songs like “Dignity,” which went through more than 40 pages of changes but was still cut from the 1989 album “Oh Mercy.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/06/arts/music/bob-dylans-secret-archive.html?ref=music&_r=0