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Down in the Groove
Studio album by Bob Dylan
Released	May 30, 1988
Recorded	1983-1987
Genre	Rock
Length	36:11
Label	Columbia
Producer(s)	unlisted
Professional reviews
All Music Guide link Rolling Stone link
Bob Dylan chronology
Knocked Out Loaded (1986)	Down in the Groove (1988)	Dylan & The Dead (1989)

Down in the Groove is Bob Dylan's 25th studio album, released in 1988 by Columbia Records.

A highly collaborative effort, it was Dylan's second consecutive album to receive almost unanimous negative reviews. Sales were equally disappointing, reaching only #61 in the US and #32 in the UK.

Contents 1 Recording and Reception 2 The Summer Tour of 1988 3 Down in the Groove Outtake goes on sale on eBay 4 Track listing 5 Outtakes 6 Personnel 7 External Links 8 External Links

"Even by Dylan standards, this album has had a strange, difficult birth," wrote Rolling Stone critic David Fricke. "Its release was delayed for more than half a year, and the track listing was altered at least three times. If the musician credits are any indication, the songs that made the final cut come from half a dozen different recording sessions spread out over six years." Like its predecessor Knocked Out Loaded, Dylan once again used more collaborators than normal.

In a review published in his "Consumer Guide" column, Robert Christgau wrote, "Where Self Portrait was at least weird, splitting the difference between horrible and hilarious, [Dylan is now] forever professional - not a single remake honors or desecrates the original. All he can do to a song is Dylanize it, and thus his Danny Kortchmar band and his Steve Jones-Paul Simonon band are indistinguishable, immersed in that patented and by now meaningless one-take sound." Christgau would later call Down in the Groove a "horrendous product."

Christgau was not alone in his disappointment regarding Dylan's collaborations. In his review for Rolling Stone Magazine, Fricke noted that "a highly anticipated – if somewhat unlikely – collaboration with Full Force, the top Brooklyn hip-hop posse, turned out to be an old Infidels outtake, 'Death Is Not the End,' newly garnished with some tasty but rather superfluous Full Force vocal harmonies."

However, one song, a Grateful Dead collaboration titled "Silvio," had some success as a single, and Dylan would regularly feature it in his subsequent tours. "Silvio" would also be included on 1994's Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume 3.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds covered "Death Is Not The End" in their 1996 album Murder Ballads.

Soon after Down in the Groove's release, Dylan embarked on a summer tour of North America, presumably in support of Down in the Groove. The first show was on June 7th, 1988, at Concord Pavilion in Concord, California, and it was a dramatic shift from previous tours. In recent years, Dylan had relied on larger ensembles, often staffed with high-profile artists like Mick Taylor, Ian McLagan, The Grateful Dead, and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. This time, Dylan organized his concerts around a small, 'garage rock'-type combo, consisting of Dylan, guitarist G.E. Smith (of Saturday Night Live fame), bassist Kenny Aaronson, and drummer Christopher Parker. (There was a notable exception in the early June shows; those concerts featured a second, lead guitarist in Neil Young, whose own career was also in a downturn at the time.)

Song selection also became more adventurous, with setlists from different nights offering little resemblance to one another. The concerts would also alternate between full-band, electric sets and smaller, acoustic sets (with Smith providing Dylan's only accompaniment); it was during the acoustic sets that Dylan incorporated an endless variety of traditional cover songs, a marked departure from previous shows that depended heavily on his own compositions.

The concerts initially received modest attention, but they would soon receive a generous amount of praise. The tour schedule was also surprising for a man of Dylan's age, as Dylan was spending most of his time on the road. Just as one leg of the tour would end, Dylan would schedule another leg soon after, and this would continue for many years to come. As a result, Dylan's shows are now often referred to as the "Never Ending Tour". Though the supporting personnel would undergo a number of changes for years to come, the basic format begun in the summer of 1988 would continue to this day.

In February 2007, a reel went up for sale on eBay that contained 4 takes of the 1979 Solomon Burke song "Sidewalk, Fences, and Walls" for 12,500 dollars. The four takes are all finished and of releasable quality. The famous rock producer David Briggs, who also worked on several of Neil Young's albums in the 1970s, supervised the sessions back in 1987, and after the sessions were finished gave them to a friend. The friend sat on them for twenty years, and then decided to put them up for sale to finance a business.

The song was recorded for possible inclusion to "Down on the Groove". All four takes are now circulating in collector circles.

1. "Let's Stick Together" (Harrison) – 3:09
2. "When Did You Leave Heaven?" (Bullock/Whiting) – 2:15
3. "Sally Sue Brown" (Alexander/Montgomery/Stafford) – 2:29
4. "Death Is Not the End" (Dylan) – 5:10
5. "Had a Dream About You, Baby" (Dylan) – 2:53
6. "Ugliest Girl in the World" (Dylan/Hunter) – 3:32
7. "Silvio" (Dylan/Hunter) – 3:05
8. "Ninety Miles an Hour (Down a Dead End Street)" (Blair/Robertson) – 2:56
9. "Shenandoah" (Trad. Arr. Dylan) – 3:38
10. "Rank Strangers to Me" (Brumley) – 2:57

The following songs were recorded during the Down in the Goove sessions but omitted from the final album. Most of the tracks are not circulating, nor is anything really known of them. The tracks without writer credits may or may not be original Dylan compositions. “Sidewalks, Fences, and Walls”, the newest track to make it into collector circles, was formerly known only as “Sidewalks”.

• "Almost Endless Sleep"
• "Branded Man" (Merle Haggard)
• "Bare Foot In"
• "Chain Gang" (Sam Cooke)
• "Darkness Before Dawn" (?)
• "Heaven"
• "If You Need Me" (Robert Bateman/Wilson Pickett/Sonny Sanders)
• "Important Words" (Gene Vincent) (circulating)
• "Just When I Needed You Most" (Randy Vanwarmer) (circulating)
• "Listen To Me" (Buddy Holly/Norman Petty)
• "Making Believe" (Jimmy Work)
• "My Prayer"
• "Pretty Boy Floyd" (Woody Guthrie)
• "Rock 'n Roll Ruby" (Johnny Cash)
• "Sidewalks, Fences, and Walls" (circulating)
• "Shake Your Money"
• "Street People"
• "Sugeree"
• "Tioga Pass"
• "Twist And Shout" (Phil Medley/Bert Russell)
• "Willie And The Hand Jive" (Johnny Otis) (circulating)
• "Wool in Steel"
• "You Can't Judge A Book By The Cover" (Mick Jagger/Keith Richards)

• Michael Baird - Drums
• Peggie Blu - Background Vocals
• Alexandra Brown - Background Vocals
• Eric Clapton - Guitar
• Alan Clarke - Keyboards
• Carolyn Dennis - Background Vocals
• Sly Dunbar - Drums
• Bob Dylan - Guitar, Harmonica, Keyboards, Vocals
• Nathan East - Bass
• Mitchell Froom - Keyboards
• Full Force - Background Vocals
• Jerry Garcia - Vocals
• Willie Green, Jr. - Background Vocals
• Beau Hill - Keyboards
• Randy "The Emperor" Jackson - Bass
• Coke Johnson - Engineer
• Steve Jones - Guitar
• Steve Jordan - Drums
• Danny Kortchmar - Guitar
• Bobby King - Background Vocals
• Clydie King - Background Vocals
• Larry Klein - Bass
• Mike Kloster - Assistant Engineer
• Mark Knopfler - Guitar
• Jeff Musel Assistant - Engineer
• Brent Mydland - Vocals
• Jim Preziosi - Assistant Engineer
• Madelyn Quebec - Keyboards, Background Vocals
• Brian Saucy - Assistant Engineer
• Robbie Shakespeare - Bass
• Stephen Shelton - Drums, Keyboards, Engineer, Mixing
• Paul Simonon - Bass
• Henry Spinetti - Drums
• Bob Weir - Vocals
• Kip Winger - Bass
• Ron Wood - Bass

Down in the Groove Recording Sessions

[Sidewalks story]