May 24, 2024      —–     Chart #247

Hello Music Friends,

Welcome to another edition of Chart of the Week. Staying in the 60’s this week with a song that is as fun to play today as it was back then. “I Shall Be Released” is a 1967 song written by Bob Dylan. Dylan recorded two primary versions. The first recording was made in collaboration with the Band during the Basement Tapes sessions in 1967, and released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 in 1991. A remixed version of the 1967 recording was rereleased with a preliminary take on The Bootleg Series Vol. 11: The Basement Tapes Complete in 2014.

The earliest official release of the song was by English musician Boz Burrell under the name Boz, whose version was released as a single on May 3, 1968 on Columbia. The Band recorded their version of the song for their debut album Music from Big Pink, released two months later in July 1968, with Richard Manuel singing lead vocals, and Rick Danko and Levon Helm harmonizing on the chorus. The song was also performed near the end of the Band’s 1976 farewell concert, The Last Waltz, in which all the night’s performers except Muddy Waters, plus Ringo Starr and Ronnie Wood, appeared on the same stage. Additional live recordings by the Band were included on the 1974 concert album Before the Flood and the 2001 expanded CD reissue of Rock of Ages.

The song is influenced by gospel music, combining images of religious redemption with implied literal release from prison. The song describes life behind a wall, hearing a man who “swears he’s not to blame” and is “crying out that he was framed”. While the narrator reflects on “every man who put me here”, and says that “any day now I shall be released”.

The original Bob Dylan recording:  https://youtu.be/E0pkHBVznLA?si=0MRK8d_7l-X56rWQ

Get your gospel on and give this tune a test drive. I think you will find it’s a blast, especially if you have a lot of singers in the room. Enjoy!

Keep Rockin’,

Stan Bradshaw