Jeff Bridges Narrates a Brief History of Bob Dylan’s and The Band’s Basement Tapes

It’s not hard to guess what Bob Dylan will fans will be putting on their Christ­mas lists this year — either the new hard­cov­er book, The Lyrics: Since 1962, the 14-pound, 960-page book con­tain­ing all the lyrics Dylan wrote, record­ed, and per­formed through­out the years. Or the defin­i­tive edi­tion of The Base­ment Tapes, the new col­lec­tion fea­tur­ing 6‑discs and 138 tracks.

Above, actor Jeff Bridges (you know him as “The Dude” in The Big Lebows­ki) nar­rates the sto­ry behind The Base­ment Tapes, trac­ing Dylan’s jour­ney from Green­wich Vil­lage to the base­ment of “Big Pink,” the unas­sum­ing home in West Sauger­ties, New York where Dylan and The Band record­ed those famous tapes. We don’t need to rehearse the sto­ry. Bridges does a fine job of doing that. Below, you can watch him show off some of his musi­cal tal­ents, play­ing a cov­er of a Dylan song, “Ring Them Bells,” at the El Rey The­atre in LA in April 2013. He’s obvi­ous­ly a fan.

H/T Mike

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bob Dylan and The Grate­ful Dead Rehearse Togeth­er in Sum­mer 1987. Lis­ten to 74 Tracks.

The 1969 Bob Dylan-John­ny Cash Ses­sions: 12 Rare Record­ings

Bob Dylan and George Har­ri­son Play Ten­nis, 1969